Omaha Beach West

[carcer]

Correction; I've decided to stick with the critical hit scenario indefinitely. Should have the test scenario up in a week or so. I believe JonS is correct in breaking up the whole thing in pieces, which translates well with adopting the board games 16 scenarios into CM. Since the scenarios are cross referenced with the same units this could become a campaign. The only exception is that I would leave out the current mission I'm working since a lot of computer's might not be able to handle it; releasing it as a stand instead. In theory this would be the 16 scenarios, a campaign with most of the 16 scenarios so unit casualties carry over, the gigantic mission I'm working on now, and background informational research in a pack. Probably wouldn't be complete without an old school remake of "Ranger Challenge" either.

If this is a hit I may have to break down and go for critical hits 'omaha east' as well. I wish advanced squad leader games weren't so freaking expensive. Are there other squad leader missions that people have transcribed into CM successfully?

Note on research: My initial assumption/theory based on reading material that this battle had flawed attack plans was completely inaccurate. I thought the plan was to attack the draws straight on but this is untrue. The plan was to have a connective front along the entire beach. Even if landing between the draws was a viable option (ocean current/visability), artillery would have just concentrated there any way. I also thought that there was a 600 meter gap in the Germans field of fire for small arms which is also untrue. The majority of WN maps and research leave out enfilade mg positions dug into the side of the hill. Overall it would have royally sucked to be in the first wave.

[carcer]

Omaha West Test Map

Here is a download link to a test map/mission: http://www.mediafire.com/file/549pvytaalvvc48/omaha_test_map.rar

Both huge map and mission which might not be comfortably possible without using the nvidia profile inspector found in this forum: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/96330-some-performance-and-quality-tips-for-nvidia-users/?page=7. Playing turn based wasn't too bad, 40-50 seconds when reinforcements arrived, but the rest was smooth sailing. Recommend a decent rig though.

The test mission shows most of the first wave (A-B-C Co 743rd Armor , C Co 2nd Rangers, A-F-G Co 115th Infantry, and 2 boat teams of the 121st Engineers). No objectives or mission parameters have been made, just a force on force example. Last set of reinforcements land at the 15 minute mark.

Notes

I'm going to work on the map for a while after this and play close combat; maybe someone better at scenario design could jump in. Need to wait for a patch and voice concern as well since the AI behavior with the new upgrade severely depletes the potential for entrenched positions among other things (if there's a deep water tile 100+ meters away the US infantry would make a backwards break for that every-time they were pinned down, "we shall swim back to England"). Love the new infantry spacing and Withdrawal AI plans (sounds useful though I have no idea what it does) at least.

The map is still really really rough with the D1 draw messed up after I did an elevation correction. The boat teams are mostly correct except for same boat arrival times. I've split landing forces in half with the second half landing on the next reinforcement wave. Doesn't seem like the German howitzers are being used and don't know why. Haven't added mines yet either.

743rd- deleted 2 out of the 4 boats from B Co as it seems they were sunk before landing, deleted 1 boat from C Co for the hell of it, and A Co boats get complicated. Seems 1 took on water and 1 lost its engine before going in, 1 hit by artillery, 1 with a damaged ramp having to return later in the day, and another 1 only got off 1 Sherman before being hit with artillery (maybe ?). Some sources say A Co had 6 boats, others 8, so I went with 6 and all the casualties above to give A Co a total of 4 shermans so that life is hard.

[carcer]

Update: I've found a much better way to make missions and force compositions as I re-approach this project. The table top game flames of war seems to work really well for CM conversion, especially for missions set up with multiplayer competition in mind. Their scale seems to be 1cm=1m proportion to give 1200x1800 meter CM maps with a common point system of 1500 for force compositions. This translates to a manageable map with well balanced combat forces. Currently I've gone back to working on a 1200x1800 Les Moulins map with historical'ish force picks. So far the battle is a lot of fun and works way better than my past attempts in terms of balance, play-ability, and hardware ability.

 

Need Help: The one hitch I've run into so far is that the German forces have a 28cm rocket artillery unit set at 50% (for 3 guns total) with an observer team. I haven't been able to get the AI team to use this support at all despite the game showing it's available. Pre-bombardment is out of the question as well since the US forces do not begin arriving until 5min in (integrated a cool randomness concept for 1st wave and follow on forces). It also seems the observer team can call in the rockets on their own position and on German teams around them but not anything farther than 50m or on a TRP. Any ideas?

Edited October 31, 2017 by carcer

[rocketman]

@carcer I was just going to ask how this project was proceeding when I saw this. I'm not sure about the AI arty/rocket thing, but there was a thread about it some time ago that IIRC found things out. Try PM @kohlenklau, I seem to remember he was part of it. I would try littering the beach with TRPs. I know I have seen somewhere, a map with all the preplanned ranged positions on the beaches that the Germans had in advance, so lots of TRPs wouldn't be that ahistorical perhaps. But I don't know how the AI would handle it. Then again, rockets tend to scatter all over the place so it might not matter all that much. Chaos was the order of the day after all.

I took the liberty of having a look at the map in the editor. If you want smoother terrain and more gradual changes in elevations, refrain from setting fixed elevations too close all over the place. Although, it is handy to trace elevation lines if you have a map overlay. But when the map starts to take shape it helps a lot to weed out about 50% of fixed elevations. That's my experience.

Good luck with the continuation of this

[carcer]

@rocketman Thanks for the terrain advice. That's actually really helpful especially as I started on a 1200x1800 dog green map that is too cliffy for game-play. For the new mission style I'm working on the Germans get 1 trp to use wisely to go with flames of war rules. In that game each artillery support unit comes with a spotter and if the unit is considered dug in they get a trp. Hopefully this will be pretty fun for multiplayer because as the Germans you'll have a lot of freedom on where to deploy your forces, but not so much stuff it would be daunting or take forever.

If this turns out well I'll make a document on how to convert flames of war into CM for others to use if interested. Only down side is that I can't post their point system, so the mission designer would have to sign up for scribd or buy directly from that retailer to get the TOE's.

Fixed: I figured out what the rocket artillery issue was. I was trying to use the nebelwerfer41 with 280mm rockets but according to the manual they only have a range of 2200m. With an 1800m map length; it seems the off map rockets are out of range halfway into the map. I guess I'll just switch it over to the 320mm rockets or stay with the neb41 but have it 150mm.

[rocketman]

@carcer I just PM a dropbox link to some documents/scenario files that migh help you in your endevour.

[Bearstronaut]

Any update on this?

[BornGinger]

I think this post has a link to the more or less finished scenario. I also think you need the Market Garden dlc to play it. If you want to play a D-day scenario, you can download the Bloody Omaha. It's fun to play but a bit tough to get your men away from the beach without losing too many of them.

Edited April 2, 2018 by BornGinger

[carcer]

yup in my post for rally the regiments mod is the latest update and does need the market garden dlc. The two maps I'm currently trying to wrap up for that mod is the omaha mission and one for la fiere causeway however to spell.