DAREDEVIL OF DIEPPE

"Lieutenant Commander Dewey has both of the quintessential heroic qualities- absolutely no sense of personal mortality, and chalk dust for brains."

"If I die on a gyrobike, mate, rest assured I couldn't have possibly died happier."

Battlefield Location: France, 1942 Conditions: Clear Time of Day: Morning British Order of Battle 4 x Commando Gyrobike 4 x Commando Rifle Section 1 x Commando Engineer Section 3 x Commando MVIIIC Cavalier Walker 2 x Commando MV12B Roundhead Walker German Order of Battle 4 x Wehrmacht Rifle Squad 3 x Wehrmacht Machinegun Team 2 x PzKpf IV Aust C "Loki" Walker 2 x PzKpf V Ausf B "Valkurie" Walker 2 x SdKfz 231 (8-Rad) Armored Car

Morale All British units are Veteran. All German units are Veteran. Terrain and Setup Use the map provided to guide the setup of the play area. The German position is a verdant clifftop overlooking a narrow beach (about 1 MU wide along its entire expanse). The beach should be considered sand and the area atop the cliffs should be considered clear terrain. Three dirt roads should bisect the German position, running from the inland edge of the map to the very edge of the cliff. The MU at the heads of these three roads are the only areas through which ground units may move from the beach up onto the cliff, and vice versa. This area is dotted with German structures. The largest, a coastal gun emplacement, has a SDC of 300. The three machinegun nests are makeshift and each have SDC ratings of 50. The observation bunker (marked "Obs" on the map) has a SDC of 150. The German player may place his vehicles anywhere on the map at least 5 MU back from the cliff edge. The three machinegun units are placed in their prepared nests. If the German player wishes, he may put another infantry unit into the observation post. Other infantry units may be placed at will (and dug-in if desired) anywhere at least 2 MU back from the cliff edge. The British player has five infantry units in an LCI, five walkers in an LCW, and four experimental Gyrobikes in an LCX. These may be placed wherever the British player likes, on the water directly adjacent to the beach.

It is August 19, 1942. Five thousand Canadian infantrymen, supported on their flanks by British Commandos and American Rangers, are attacking the fortified port of Dieppe on the English Channel coast. The Dieppe raid is part intelligence operation, part dress rehearsal, and part morale exercise for the hundreds of thousands of Canadian soldiers bivouacked in England without action since 1939.

The Dieppe raid is a combination of old and new techniques, and more than a dozen unusual experiments and brand-new devices are being tested under fire. For example, the Landing Craft Walker (LCW) is specially designed to offload a platoon of walkers on a hostile shore in less than thirty seconds, and the Mk. I Linguabomb is a computator-powered demolition device based on captured German "cockroach" automatons. The Linguabomb's crude sensors are programmed to lead it in the direction of the sound of spoken German (it recognizes thirty common German nouns), scuttling on mechanical feet with a hundred-pound bomb ticking away at its core. Perhaps the most audacious (and certainly the riskiest) new vehicles taking part in the raid are No. 3 Commando's rocket-assisted Gyrobikes, the pride and joy of the infamous Lt. Cmdr. J.J. "Nads" Dewey.

Dewey, a born commando, became obsessed with motorcycles in the early 1930s and gathered a private collection of ten machines before the war. While "testing" his bikes (his preferred method was to drive down hills at top speed and jump fences with the aid of small wooden ramps) he amassed enough broken bones to invalidate himself from combat duties and only managed to keep his army commission thanks to a doting uncle in the Ministry of Defense. In 1938, Dewey observed a test of a prototype "Cavalier" walker and got into a discussion with one of the machine's gyroscope technicians. Dewey became convinced that a motorcycle equipped with advanced shock absorbers and a modified gyroscope could be used to perform stunts that would wreck any conventional bike. All of his spare time for the next three years was devoted to this pet project, and with the aid of several enthusiastic Army mechanics, he finally convinced Combined Operations Command in 1941 that his ideas were worth official consideration.

The results of this consideration were another five broken bones for the experiment-happy Lt. Cmdr. Dewey, and four working models of the Mk. I Gyrobike. Each Gyrobike had dual solid-fuel rocket tubes placed beneath the rider's pedals, to be actuated by foot. When fired, these rockets could accelerate the Gyrobike to nearly one hundred miles per hour on a flat stretch, or launch it into the air for an appreciable distance. Aerodynamic nacelles were added for in-line weapons, and a modified gyroscope at the heart of each bike kept it reasonably balanced and steady when the rockets were in use. In skilled hands, a gyrobike could indeed perform stunts that would destroy lesser machines. Dewey envisioned an entire Gyrobike regiment, leaping from landing craft and vaulting beach defenses with their rockets. Once behind enemy lines, they would be free to roam at great speed, sowing terror and confusion in the enemy rear while the main invasion came in behind them.

Although his overall scheme was deemed grandiose, his small-scale test platoon was merely deemed eccentric, and so it was included in the British order of battle for Dieppe. His Royal Majesty's 1st Experimental Rocketcycle Assault Platoon has been given the task of attacking a coastal gun emplacement at Berneval, several miles northeast of Dieppe. The bikes will be rocket-vaulted over the cliffs from a Landing Craft Experimental (LCX), and the officers of No. 3 Commando will pray to God that they land in one piece.

This scenario is Medium Mission Priority for both sides.

The British objective is to destroy the coastal gun emplacement by delivering at least 300 points of damage to the building. Nothing else matters to them, tactically speaking.

The German objective is to either destroy all the British units on the map (not counting the landing craft, which are irrelevant for combat purposes after their units are delivered) or hold out for fifteen turns of combat. If they can delay the British that long with the gun emplacement still intact, reinforcements will approach and the British will lose the battle.