Omaha Beach

There are actually two models of Omaha Beach on this page. Both of course represent one of the main landing points of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6 1944, during World War II.

The first in 20mm was an early commission for an American customer. The layout is based around the Rapid Fire campaign book of the Normandy landings. The book has a hand drawn plan of the beach and lots of photographs. My customer gave me simple instructions- copy what is in the book.
The layout uses a mix of resin and scratch built pieces. There are a few houses I made that go at the base of the bluffs as well as some of the bunkers were specially made to fit in the hill sides. The pill box protecting one of the draws is a resin piece I painted from Ravensthorp miniatures. The beach obstacles come from Skytrex.

The second project was in 15mm and covers a larger area of the beach than the 20mm project as both tables are 8ftx6ft. This layout involved longer discussions with the customer about exactly how to represent the beach and how much detail to put on. In the end we used a campaign book from a very popular set of rules for inspiration and I think it worked out very well.

The two projects show how we have developed our techniques over the years. The earlier 20mm project is made from boards using our first design- 2x2 foot square high density insulation boards. These were Ok but it was difficult getting good square edges and they were easily damaged. We then developed a much stronger and 'squarer' solution- the boards are the same size but we make a wooden carcass that the insulation board is dropped into making them very difficult to damage and makes the joins between boards very tight. All the terrain boards are now done this way.

The 15mm beach has no houses or fortifications modeled into it which makes it flexible and adjustable. The houses I used in the photos were bought painted from Wargames Inc in Loughborough. The figures are from Battlefront from the collection Battlefront UK I seem to remember.

These last pictures have been supplied by Wargames Illustrated magazine photographed for a photo shoot in 2009.

If you have any questions on any of these projects or they have inspired you to ask about your own commission then please contact David.