These ideas are presented to help inspire your creation of missions for your Ashes of Isar game sessions. Some are appropriate for single sessions while others will likely take many play sessions to complete.
Some of these ideas are based on real missions carried out by the S.O.E. and other Allied groups during WW2.
- To eliminate a high ranking Nazi official, fake documents and doctored photographs are planted in or near Headquarters so that the Nazi high command will believe the official is a homosexual and secret lover of Jews. The high command will then take their own steps to remove that official from power.
- Brecourt Manor. Artillery is located somewhere near Brecourt in Normandy, France. It must be located and its precise coordinates transmitted to HQ by encrypted radio transmission. The team must then exfil back to a safe location.
- A material used in the manufacture of high-performance pistons in aircraft needs to be contaminated by the introduction of a rogue powder.
- When flying along on a photo-reconnaissance mission, their plane is shot down and they are captured. They are held in a prison for non-combatants along with others from their SOE organization. The team must escape and transmit coordinates of the camp to HQ, then execute a raid to free the remaining prisoners.
- Working with local resistance fighters, the team must find the body of a deceased drifter, put a military uniform on it, plant fake invasion documents on it, and put the body on the beach as if it washed ashore. The local Nazis must find the body and think the plans are real, to be corroborated by double agents. [OPERATION MINCEMEAT]
- The team must identify the secretary of a high ranking Nazi official and persuade her to either share his travel schedule, or give them access to his office where his schedule is kept. Part 2: the team must identify a time and place soon where he can be assassinated based on his schedule information. They must assassinate the official and escape.
- Various key components must be secretly stolen from radio and radar sites in occupied France, and stored in a secret location. A German radar and electronics specialist must be located and captured, then taken to the assembly place. The specialist/scientist must be convinced to create a radar jamming device from the assembled parts. The device must then be secretly transported to a key radar site where it will be activated, jamming radar immediately prior to a key invasion or bombing mission.
- A group of top Nazi officers must be captured without anyone finding out about it for a minimum period of time. Their uniforms and identity papers will then be used by imposters who will use disguises and their captured uniforms to infiltrate an important meeting. The imposters will smuggle in a bomb that will go off at a specific time, killing a top Nazi, or maybe even Hitler himself.
- A British agent is spying for Germany but his or her identity is unknown. The team must narrow down the list of suspects, then feed each of them slightly different intelligence briefs. Transmissions from German and other intelligence from Berlin will indicate which briefing is being used, thus revealing the spy. [OPERATION CANARY]
- Imposters posing as high ranking Nazi officials pose in photos of them in compromising positions. These photos are discretely given to resistance teams for distribution. This is meant to embarrass and discredit the officials and cause them to be fired (or executed) by Nazi command.
- OPERATION JOSEPHINE B: June 1941 Sneak into a power station near Pessac, France (near Bourdeaux) and plant explosives on 8 power transformers. This power station supplies power to a nearby U-Boat base, Betasom, in Bourdeaux.
- THE GREAT ESCAPE. A group of 300 pilots and airmen are being held captive in a brand new prison camp in the forests of western Bavaria. Your agents must find a way to help them escape en masse.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Special_Operations_Executive_operations for more ideas based on real-life missions of the S.O.E.
