Rex J.

Here's one of the sites I was thinking of, the timetable for the 16th RCT (1st Infantry Division) and a description of some of the events. http://www.warchronicle.com/16th_infantry/officialrecords_wwii/invasionfrance_s3.htm

A few destroyers came so close to the beach that their hull's scraped bottom a couple of time, though they never actually ran aground AFAIK. This is from wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach#Naval_support): Naval support The only artillery support for the troops making these tentative advances was from the navy. Finding targets difficult to spot, and in fear of hitting their own troops, the big guns of the battleships and cruisers concentrated fire on the flanks of the Omaha beaches. The destroyers, however, were able to get in closer, and from 08:00 began engaging their own targets. At 09:50, two minutes after the McCook destroyed a 75 mm gun position in WN-74, the destroyers were ordered to get as close in as possible. Some approached within 1000 yards (900 m) several times, scraping bottom and risking running aground.[49] An engineer who had landed in the first wave at Fox Red, watching the Frankford steaming in towards shore, thought she had been badly hit and was being beached. Instead, she turned parallel to the beach and cruised westwards, guns blazing at targets of opportunity. Thinking she would turn back out to sea, the engineer soon saw that she had instead begun backing up, guns still firing. At one point, gunners aboard the Frankford saw an immobilized tank at the water's edge, still firing. Watching the fall of its shot, they followed up with a salvo of their own. In this manner, the tank acted as the ship's fire control party for several minutes. I'd heard elsewhere that 2 RN destroyers engaged targets on Omaha from close range; wiki describes a couple of US destroyers doing that, so I'm not sure if there were more than 2 or what. I have read and heard from several sources that direct fire from the destroyers was probably the main turning point on Omaha. On the other hand I saw a documentary last June focussing on the role of the DD tanks on Omaha, and their conclusion was that the tanks, though few in number and off to a rocky start, played a major role in knocking out German bunkers. I've also read accounts that the soldiers, slowly creeping their way up the bluffs and knocking out bunkers with hand grenades was the main reason for success. Obviously it took a combined effort to overcome the monumental job the infantry was facing. Gamewise, having infantry in the first wave, infantry and tanks in the second, and smaller naval guns arriving later should simulate the overall effect. Also, here are some youtube shots taken from parts of Omaha (in the first one, footage from the beach itself starts at 8:15): I know I've seen some great websites with timetables (and units) of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd waves, but can't find my bookmarks for them at the moment. I'll try and find it and post back when I have time. Good luck with the map, I'd love to see a good beach assault map (PdH being more of a cliff assault and all).

Well, based on this screenshot...

That happened to me too with a bazooka team. So it appears to have been the doctrine for both Germans and Americans in Normandy.

Last night I was playing part 2 of TF Rask. One of my squads was in a one story brick building. When the Germans opened up, the squad took one casualty and the rest of the squad took cover on the ground. In the next twenty seconds another 4 soldiers became casualties as a fair number of German bullets penetrated the brick walls of the house. So I agree that buildings don't seem to offer the cover one would expect.

If you want the crew and passengers to leave the vehicle at the start of the turn and walk to a destination, select the vehicle, press dismount and issue move orders. If you want the passengers to leave the vehicle at the start of the turn and walk, and the vehicle to drive somewhere after the passengers have gone, select the passengers, press dismount, then issue move orders. If you want the passengers to leave the vehicle at the end of the vehicle's movement, issue move orders to both units, don't press dismount. If you want the passengers to leave the vehicle at a waypoint and have the vehicle keep moving after the passengers have dismounted, it can't be done. You'll just have to use pauses to have the vehicle arrive where you want the infantry to dismount as close to the end of the turn as you can.

Brilliant. The map looks Amazing! Great job, can't wait.

First impressions: Blazing fast download - 20 min without any accelerators. Installation was quick Checked the quick battle map folder - 317 of them! Fired it up and started a quick battle. All I can say is I'm even happier than when I started playing the demo last week.

I'm getting a blazing fast 1.21MB/sec (20 min total) without any accelerators so I'm certainly happy. Six more minutes and I'll be even happier. BTW, this isn't to gloat, just to encourage those who are wondering whether it's worth trying to get it tonight.

As an example, there've been times when I've been watching my soldiers and heard the sound of bullets hitting the ground right beside them, but haven't been able to hear the sound of a gun firing. On other occasions I've heard the sound of a gun firing in the distance just before the sound of bullets hitting, but without any sign of a visual contact. If I move the camera (in the second example) I can find the exact location of the gun based on the sound. In the first example, I (the player) can't hear the sound of the gun firing at all because the soldiers on the field couldn't hear it. The same is true of muzzle smoke and dust and other clues that help you the player find enemy units. On the higher skill levels, if the soldiers don't see or hear it, neither do you. But if they hear something – as they often do – it helps them (and you) visually locate the enemy unit (with a "?" contact if nothing else).

Panzer Commander: Now stand aside worthy adversary. Sherman Commander: 'Tis but a scratch! PC: A scratch?! Your Tank's destroyed!! SC: No it isn't. PC: Well what's that then?! (pointing to a smoking M4A3) SC: I've had worse. PC: You liar SC: Come on you Pansy. (or is that Panzer?) ( )

On a similar note, US MG teams quickly use all their rifle grenades if you issue an area fire command at reasonably short distances. Fortunately, rifle squads don't seem to do this but MG teams do.

It was the same in CMSF. If a gun used up all its HE you could no longer call it to fire a smoke mission. It's unfortunate but probably another one of those things that is quite far down the list to change.

Using my CMSF acquired tactical skills really helped my game as well - 4 KIA, 9 wounded in the tutorial mission for me, so well done. I suspect though that other scenarios with better quality troops (i.e. ones that can hit the broad side of a barn at 200m) will start to up the carnage factor a bit.

I'm sure it's just the sleep deprivation. No doubt you've been busy boys. Of course now all of us are going to be sleep deprived too, so by Saturday no one will notice. I have to say I'm even more impressed than I was expecting, and I had pretty high expectations. There's a definite feeling that this game is a big leap forward from Shock Force (and I'm a big Shock Force fan), and it's not just the WWII setting. I guess it's all the little details because there aren't any really obvious examples that I can put my finger on. It's a masterpiece.

WOW. Looks fantastic. Very nice touch . The briefing for the first mission calls "E" company "ECHO". It should be the opposite of "difficult" to remember the phonetic designation for the letter E in WWII, especially if you've ever read or seen Band of Brothers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet#History

Well that is weird. The Worthplaying US mirror (which directs you to gamefront.com) worked for me once - I just installed and tried the demo I DL'd from there and it works – but when I tried it again just to make sure, all I got was the 364MB corrupt file again.

I'm in Canada so maybe that is the case. At any rate mine says 570MB so I'm downloading it. About 45 minutes to go – which is better than the 3 hours Filefactory was going to take. Once it's done I'll give it a go and post whether it works or not.

Yes, dl'ing it now and it says 570MB. Still an hour to go. *EDIT* the 570MB file did work but now the US mirror is linking again to the corrupt 364MB file.

I think the US one is fixed. It's showing 570mb now.

For me it was the opposite. I never really got into the original CM series despite WWII being my favorite subject. Maybe it was just too big a change from hexes for me at the time. Shock Force on the other hand hooked me completely and instantly despite the fact that I had so little interest in the setting that I didn't even try the demo until last summer. Now I'm so impatient for the release of Battle for Normandy that I'm uncharacteristically loitering around the forum and actually posting something.