c3k

The German 916th IR covered the coast from a point north of Isigny to Colleville sur Mer (inclusive). That means that 2/3's of Omaha lay within about 1/3 of the linear beachfront assigned to 916IR. From Colleville sur Mer, which lay along Fox Red and Fox Green's dividing line, the 726th IR had defensive duties. That part was about 1/6 of the 726IR total beachfront coverage. In actuality, the entire Omaha landings were planned in such a way that only the right 1/3 of 916IR would be engaged, if the landing craft had accurately navigated to the beach. As it was, a decent proportion of forces ended up in front of 726IR, as well. At most, that comes up to about a battalion, plus a company, of Germans in direct view of the beach. Add in some strongpoint units, and it still seems well short of the 215 MG42's mentioned. Of the 215 MG42's posited, how many were HMG 42's? (I cannot locate my reference with each strongpoint annotated.) I cannot believe that there were 215 HMG42's overlooking Omaha beach. Part of one regiment, and a very thin sliver of another: those are the forces overlooking the waves. Ken

Of the 215 (212? Two numbers given. I did not add up the individual components) MG42's, how many actually overlooked Omaha?

It's amazing what will shake out of a hedgerow...

^^^ LOL, but you are right: 9mm IS > 7.92mm. Armor Piercing small arms ammo, generally only produced for rifle rounds, can penetrate far more than you'd think. I just got a magazine last night with an article about the new US military's 5.56 round, the M855A1. (It's a "green" round, fer chrissakes. Lead is evil.) From a 14.5" barrel (very short, so low muzzle velocity relative to "regular" sized barrels) it can penetrate 3/8" of hardened steel at 350 meters...50% of the time. Soft steel is cut like butter. The German 7.92mm round had far more mass than the M855A1. It had about 75% of the velocity, but less advanced penetration materials. You'd be amazed at what a steel-cored full rifle round can penetrate.

Ditto the sentiments on wanton vandals.

Thanks for the kind words. I certainly don't compare this one long shot to being held up! Kinda hard to dodge a bullet when the muzzle is pressed to one's temple. My alternative plan had been a 3 car team. Wife and I in 1, Son #1 in car 2 tasked with keeping our exit wedged open and providing overwatch. Son #2 orbiting in car 3 several blocks away to provide reaction force. All appropriately gunned up and in comms. But I didn't want to unnecessarily worry the wife.

Yeah, a bit of fun. The body shop (a great one, btw) with fast turn times, needed 5 weeks to repair the damage and repaint it. That was a bit of a record for them. In a bad way.

It's a far cry from the occasional ricochet, or standing fast and slugging it out. First to see is key to the fight. See "Hardenberger Effect".

Real life has caught up with me, sunk its talons in, and tried to drag me back… Forgive the dilatoriness of my postings, and my replies to Bil, as well as the length of this post. First, an apology to Bil: I had sent a turn to him and patiently awaited the reply. I know that Bil has many irons in several fires, so I did not “pimp” him for his response. It was only after he posted his AAR that I was prompted to examine what I’d done. Yep, I’d posted my turn to him in the wrong dropbox folder. Because the dropbox taskbar graphic only shows the latest file, NOT where it’s posted, I’d thought he was the laggard this whole time. It was me. The egg running down my face will add flavor to the crow I must eat. Bil, I am sorry. Secondly, as to the real life comment, a lot of issues have crested at the same time. Most of my postings have been via a smartphone. I have work, military reserves, and other items all competing for my time and attention in a manner which has kept me from giving the time I should to the game and the beta testing. Several are cresting to a height I’ve never seen, and they are doing it at the same time. Interesting… An example of a MINOR consideration should suffice… I had arrived home at 10 a.m. after an all-night work period, tired, but needing to accomplish some chores. Those done, I then left with my wife to watch Son #2’s lacrosse game. Upon our return, at 10 pm, we saw that Son #1 had taken my wife’s car, an ‘03 Honda Pilot, in outstanding condition. It had all her work materials, etc., in it. I went to sleep at midnight, having not slept for 42 hours. At 0300 Son #1 shook me awake and requested an immediate kitchen conference. This was not a normal occurrence. He informed me, at a carefully calculated distance of just beyond arm’s range, that he had gone to his girlfriend’s house and, upon exiting, had discovered that the car had been stolen. This was not the best news to receive at 0300. I do not make a habit of purchasing disposable vehicles. The good news was that the nearby city police recovered it 3 days later. I had assumed it would be chopped, dumped in a river or lake, sent out of country, or burned. Instead, they had done some Dukes of Hazard jumps, tried to knock a brick building over, drove over a raised manhole (knocking it off the concrete pipe with the impact), then jumped on it and kicked it, breaking all the glass and destroying all the body panels. There was some knife damage to the interior, as well, visible beneath the garbage and food strewn about. It was sitting there, in a field, behind a recreation center, with the evidence tech pulling shoe prints and fingerprints off it when I pulled up. One policeman politely pointed out the crackhouses, the prostitute locale, and the gang “cribs” around the field. My son and I recovered what of my wife’s belongings we could find and I had the vehicle towed to my home for a determination of its fate… My wife wanted to visit the scene on the following day to search for more of her possessions. I agreed and grabbed a handgun. Yes, I have a permit, but don’t always go armed. She gave me a look. You know that look. I ignored it, because she didn’t realize that I was weighing whether or not to add a long gun or two. I chose not to. After arriving at the field early in the afternoon, I slipped the holstered weapon onto my belt and we exited our vehicle. That caused another “look”. She then started searching the edges of the field for any work papers Son #1 and I may have missed. It only took 15 minutes for the neighborhood watch to notice us and take action. That’s when someone fired a handgun towards us from ~400 yards. Now, those of you who are familiar with firearms know that it is pretty easy to determine weapon type and range from the sound. This was definitely on the order of a 9mm. 400 yards is a long way for that round, despite what we see in CM. The firer was either ignorant of his weapon’s ballistic characteristics or was just giving us a friendly warning. The bullet did not come near us. My wife asked, “Was that a shot?” I gave her a look which matched the one she had given me earlier. Sweet when you can give it back. I drew, scanned, and moved laterally to cover. I heartily wished I had brought one of my scoped semi-autos. My movement was not rushed, just purposeful. Having gained the protection of the brick building, and not seeing anyone visible from the location of the shot (near the gang “crib”), I looked behind me to give her further verbal instructions. She had not moved behind the building. She was still looking for papers out in the open. The woman has absolutely no tactical sense. I mean, who wouldn’t know to move behind cover, recognize the tactical hand signals I had been giving, and then scan our route back to our car to ensure we weren’t being flanked? Seriously. She can be very frustrating at times. To make a long post short, we spent another 10 minutes gathering papers, just to make sure everyone knew we weren’t running, then we ran. Okay, it was more of a fast walk. The Honda Pilot? I got it fixed. Mechanically, it is a beast. The damage was confined to sheet metal and glass. The abuse it took for three days and the condition it was in as far as engine, transmission, drivetrain, suspension, and other mechanical parts have made me a life-long believer in Honda engineering. An added bonus is that I don’t get the “look” when I grab a firearm. In fact, I think she’s getting on board with some body armor purchases… Sweet. I offer my apologies for the lateness and shallowness of my recent participation. Ken

It has a steel core and is better at penetrating than the standard round. Indeed, it is "Armor Piercing."

^^^ That was unclear to me. Thanks for the followup.

Every projectile disappears if you get too close with the camera. That may also be part of the issue. My uncle hated mortars. Korean War. He said they would watch them at the top of their arc.

900,000 some odd rounds (by the official count) over 12 hours averages out to 20 bullets per second. That sounds impressive, until you think of how much area they must've been interdicting. I would think it had some suppressive effect, especially if the Germans did not have communication trenches to use for their movement.

Sigh. Wouldn't it be better to tie it into your computer's fan control? Using interference patterns, and fine-grained control algorithms, you could make your computer blow in different directions and strengths. That's immersion! An arrow showing the wind direction (weather vane INTO wind, or point downwind?), and strength (thickness/length) would be my favored solution.

At the risk of feeding a troll, the obvious question arises: do you have information which would prove both assertions? Do you have information which would prove the assertions wrong (if true)? Or, at least, any kind of information which would be able to cast doubt on the in-game armor? FWIW, supposedly late war German armor suffered from brittleness, due to Allied bombing of the specialized quenching facilities needed to create the proper steel characteristics in early-war German armor. As for Soviet armor, this is the first I've heard that BFC has it too strong. I -think- the behind armor spalling of Soviet armor is higher than other nationalities. This is done due to the extremely high Brinell ratings of Soviet armor tested during and after the war. Ken

Yeah, I like it. Usually I just look at my burning vehicles to figure it out. Resorting to the MENU tab and having to figure out the "compass-like-icon" and what that means for the wind is a pita. When I'm standing outside, I can FEEL the wind. (I can feel your pain, but that's another subject... ) I like the idea of a wind indicator, toggled at player preference, to be displayed. Direction and intensity are the important elements of information.

I'll have to check, but I thought the latest coding included area firing into adjacent action spots. This simulates, somewhat, the "swingfiring" that Kauz is looking for. Aimed fire at a specific target does not, as far as I remember, have that trait. It seems that Kauz is looking for "swingfire" when there is "aimed" fire at multiple targets. It would be interesting to set area fire on multiple action spots, similar to linear artillery calls. But that's an old thread... Ken

US Civil War weapons were devastating due to their mass and low velocity. They were too slow to sterilize themselves in flight, as modern rounds do. No jacket, just soft lead, coupled with their velocity caused bones which were hit to just shatter along their whole length. Modern medicine would be hard pressed to save a limb with that type of injury, let alone a thousand in a day. Modern rounds are so fast that the energy transfer to the bone snaps it at the point of impact rather than splintering and shattering it along its whole length. Modern bullets, as bad as they are, produce less catastrophic injuries than older ones. Geneva and Hague agreements.

^^^ What if I set up a unit behind a wall, say, and want them to wait out of sight. If they start removing stones from the wall, soon enough they'll be in the enemy's sight and die. A lot of frustration would/could result from units autonomously changing their cover/concealment status. Having said all that, yeah, there is room for improvement.

Protects against 9mm at 100 yds? Heck, a good pair of canvas pants will do that!

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll drop it in the brain jar.

Last of the replay for that minute... An ugly turn...for my men. But for me? I'm okay with it. This is the ramp up phase of the battle. Most of my of my forces are unengaged and maneuvering. The hammer swings... Next, my orders.

Replay, 58:00 to 57:00, continued...

Replay, turn 58:00 to 57:00... More...

Turn 58:00 to 57:00 orders. (So it takes place at 58:00). Some repetition, but it give a better look at what's going on with my planning. I've found one picket (?), and am maneuvering to keep my plan intact. Blue Company pushes up, Green Platoon will move to the right once they clear the enemy they've stumbled upon.... Replay, next.