Omaha Beach West

[Bulletpoint]

2 minutes ago, NPye said:

Curved roads, is it that difficult, as they've semi done it with the rail lines. Would really improve mapping. Cheers

I think it would be possible to do curved roads in CM. Just have the scenario designer put down roads as NURBS curves and then have the game engine map those curves to the underlying grid. The player would see a nicely curved road, and the underlying game engine would see the squiggly, jaggy road.

 

[NPye]

Lets get them to do it. LOL We wish?

[Bulletpoint]

1 minute ago, NPye said:

Lets get them to do it. LOL We wish?

I sure wish they'd work a bit on something like that. Of course it's always easier for me to sit on the sidelines and shout suggestions than it is to actually do the work

[Pete Wenman]

 

I did a whole load of stuff some 15 years ago for a potential HASL module - and have dug all the info out and added it to a dropbox a/c. Some of it might be useful here.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rd4rrwh8df89eij/AAA5PZ9NHgZywAEgw1AdbYQza?dl=0

P

[JonS]

That's a pretty great collection of stuff Pete

[Pete Wenman]

@JonS Cheers, although looking at the stuff this morning I sense I had too much time on my hands in those days

 

P

[carcer]

That's funny roads are brought up as that's the current issue I'm working around for phase one of the map by getting basic placement of everything. Almost finished with it though. Once map is completely done I'll put it out there as a master map for everyone to use and then start working on mission. Thanks Pete for the dropbox link, that definitely seems like that was a lot of work you put into it. I don't doubt that there's a lot of useful info in it for what I'm working on. Just finished reading Omaha Beach Field Guide by Brigadier General Shuey. It's neat and somewhat useful although waiting on a french translated book that should give the best account and design of the strongpoints. I was wondering what JonS meant by the beach is shingle, which turns out the reason it's not very evident now is that all the rocks/gravel were used for road construction into Paris. From a historical perspective this whole thing is a mess to research as it seems most of what I read is contradictory. For dog green Shuey makes it sound like no one made a landing adjustment away from the draw and in another account I remember reading was that Rangers or a Flag team waved other landing craft away; signaling that resistance at the draw was too strong. It's also kind of funny how every MG position is a pillbox and every Grenadier rifleman a sniper. I'm curious if the German units had any scopes in their TOE. What I really can't find is an accurate account of how many tanks from the 743rd tank battalion left their LCT's. The Field Guide book makes it sound like only 6 were engaging from the waterline, other accounts put way more or way less. Critical hit has 18 tanks from 6 LCT mk5's on Dog Red turn two (not sure how long a turn is), 16 tanks from 4 LCT mk6's Dog White turn 1, and 8 tanks from 2 LCT mk6's on Dog Green turn 1. LCT causalities offshore already taken into account in the game (maybe not). So now I'm really confused. For the mission my approach was going to be setting up a mostly historical force pool of combat units and then start cutting down ratio wise until the mission is conservative and playable for most computers. Shueys' book gives me a good idea of how to make the mission fun though; instead of focusing too much on the beach I'll focus on cost benefit objectives beyond the beach so the player will have some hard choices to make. With primary objectives centered around the St. Laurent western town approach (wasn't historically taken from the D-3 draw), Vierville, and exiting designated Ranger units west; then tough choices can be questions such: do I concentrate on St. Laurent, Vierville, or both? Take the time to clear the draws to have tank assistance or bypass the draws due to time restraints? Exit designated Ranger squads or use them to hold objectives against counter attack? Take the time to take secondary objectives such as the strong points? and where to concentrate naval support? Hopefully those kinds of questions could make the mission interesting and challenging.

[JonS]

Balkoski is your best bet regarding the number of tanks that actually landed,  when,  and where. Two books - 'beyond the beachhead' and especially 'omaha'

[carcer]

Just looked into the Balkoski stuff- pretty interesting. Turns out the flagging communication away from dog green and onto dog white I was thinking of was done by the 5th rangers in the boats as their commander- Schnieder had enough sense to deviate from the not so intelligent plan of attacking the draws straight on. Confirmed through that Omaha book and also war departments military history http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/100-11/ch3.htm that 24 shermans landed on dog white and green followed by 18 (possible minus of 3) on dog red for a total of 42 tanks in the western section. That's a lot of tank. Seems the issue in most narratives is that the focus is on the DD tanks (32 per battalion), leaving out the water proofed shermans (24 per battalion) and because the 741st lost a majority of their DD's; most presented material makes it sound like there wasn't much tank support. The tanks couldn't see in the morning light to provide good support but that's besides the point.

[Bulletpoint]

10 hours ago, carcer said:

That's funny roads are brought up as that's the current issue I'm working around for phase one of the map by getting basic placement of everything.

We're all struggling with it to make maps realistic looking.. especially when re-creating real places.

There seem to be two "schools" in CM mapmaking: Either you place everything where it was in real life, using the overlay, and then you get zigs in the zaggiest places.. or you choose to interpret the real map and squeeze it into the CM limits, changing the proportions in order to minimise the wriggles. My own Pierrefitte-en-Cinglais is an example of the latter approch, but both have their merits of course.

Anyway, just musing. Didn't mean to go off topic. 

[DesertFox]

Dunno if you are a detail fanatic, but this might help about a thing or two:

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/omaha-beach.69555/

 

[carcer]

On 5/19/2017 at 11:44 AM, DesertFox said:

Dunno if you are a detail fanatic, but this might help about a thing or two:

http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/omaha-beach.69555/

 

Sweet thanks DesertFox that info is freaking awesome. Whoever the author is, especially if they've done the same for other beaches, should put all that together in a book and publish lol seriously.

[carcer]

Update: well that sucked; I had to start back over. Lesson learned: don't resize map hoping that your math for re-scaling will check out to be only a few meters off. Attempt two looks a lot better though and I'm starting to get decent at map making. I've cut it down a bit after figuring out what a better frame was for the western half. There's about a days work left on the thing to be considered 'alpha'ish', so I'll throw on some screens then. If anyone's reading this and you're bored, I found this cool French website-

http://vierville.free.fr/index.htm

http://omahabeach.vierville.free.fr/index.htm

[para]

I am.

[carcer]

Finished phase one; at least to the point all the major place holders are in and I can begin detailing the map and sectors. I went with the non-zigzag map design. Not sure how I feel about it. Might need to mix it up a bit? Also working on a terrain texture pack thing to go along with the map which I've replaced the mud texture with one to represent wet sand hopefully making the beach more interesting. I believe the tide line with sandbars is around the 3/4-1/2 point. All buildings placed have confirmed existence (still more to add and fine tune), but a majority of them along the coast and in Les Moulins will be destroyed.

https://goo.gl/photos/ryafBQisZvt4PMiD6

https://goo.gl/photos/nBRPrcj43f54cbpK6

Curious what thoughts and opinions might be for this tobruk and open top bunker idea. I went with the literal meaning for tobruk: concrete reinforced foxhole.

https://goo.gl/photos/6DyHufsp2xsZV9Lm8

View from the beach:

https://goo.gl/photos/9cCkYB2G3Y6NPpij8

 

comments and suggestions are welcome

[carcer]

Correction; I guess I'm in favor of the zigzag and irregular angles. I'll smooth out parts where it makes sense to on the map.

https://goo.gl/photos/yCxYPByrSxBiiRcL8

Edited June 3, 2017 by carcer

[JonS]

That is a fine-looking map @carcer

[grunt_GI]

51 minutes ago, JonS said:

That is a fine-looking map @carcer

Ditto, dang, that looks awesome.

[DesertFox]

21 hours ago, carcer said:

Correction; I guess I'm in favor of the zigzag and irregular angles. I'll smooth out parts where it makes sense to on the map.

https://goo.gl/photos/yCxYPByrSxBiiRcL8

Looks good. More like the real thing.

Here: http://remonterletemps.ign.fr/telecharger?x=-0.869292&y=49.361606&z=14&layer=GEOGRAPHICALGRIDSYSTEMS.MAPS&demat=DEMAT.PVA$GEOPORTAIL:DEMAT;PHOTOS&missionId=missions.3181183

[Fizou]

Great looking map!

[Bulletpoint]

On 6/2/2017 at 1:39 AM, carcer said:

I went with the non-zigzag map design. Not sure how I feel about it. Might need to mix it up a bit?

Hooray, and yes - it's not either/or. Some map features might be too far from the 45 degree angle restrictions that you have to do a bit of zigzag.

But in many cases, squiggly roads and walls can be eliminated without deviating too much from the real life terrain, and I believe the finished map will look a bit better for every zig that's been sacked.

[carcer]

Thanks for the tips and the website with the aerials; extremely helpful. I've been trying to tackle the Vierville draw recently to get the basic layout down as I figured that area would be the most difficult. It definitely is especially for WN72 and 73 but for the most part have 72 nailed down to a nice abstraction. Probably a mission spoiler but here's where it's at now:

https://goo.gl/photos/jxwDzqyibrFMFqp48

In the center to represent a tank turret that was on-top of the right side bunker I've added a 75mm infantry gun. This position should prove to be pretty nasty as the gun bunkers have enfilade fire across the entire beach.

[Bulletpoint]

2 hours ago, carcer said:

In the center to represent a tank turret that was on-top of the right side bunker I've added a 75mm infantry gun.

Wouldn't it be better to simply add an AT gun bunker?

[JonS]

High velocity vs low velocity. A-tk vs a-pers.

There's no "right" answer,  and his choice is reasonable,  imo.

[rocketman]

I read this article a while ago and at one stage thought of making a scenario for the Ranger's effort at Vierville Draw:

http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/cracking-the-vierville-draw-at-omaha-beach/

I was particularly interested in the action on the westernmost part where they scaled rough cliffs to assault a set of trenches and pillboxes. The article contains some nice photos and map that migh help you in some way shape or form.