Higgin's Boats - Beach Landings

[thejetset]

I don't know if this has ever been brought up before.

But has BF ever considered modeling the Higgin's boat?? It would be pretty cool for doing some beach landing scenarios.

[JonS]

I don't think that even CERN could model the bosun on the Higgins Boat properly.

[Frenchy]

I don't think that even CERN could model the boson on the Higgins Boat properly.

Very clever!

[nik mond]

I don't know if this has ever been brought up before. But has BF ever considered modeling the Higgin's boat?? It would be pretty cool for doing some beach landing scenarios.

Oh yes, debated and discussed in detail. I would have liked an Omaha, Juno and Sword scenario linked into campaigns myself. However it was basically stated, perhaps by an insider, the effort required for new models and terrain for a beach scenario could be better applied elsewhere.

[ChrisND]

Oh yes, debated and discussed in detail. I would have liked an Omaha, Juno and Sword scenario linked into campaigns myself. However it was basically stated, perhaps by an insider, the effort required for new models and terrain for a beach scenario could be better applied elsewhere.

It isn't just that. A whole slew of new behaviors and rules have to coded concerning water and amphibious vehicles, as well as how those would then interact with every other element of the game. This is a simulation which has to vastly flexible after all, which entails a lot more than simply scripting one event like most games who cover Omaha Beach do.

All of that effort would go into what is realistically a tiny, tiny portion of the front's fighting. That's effort that could be invested into more broadly applicable features.

[MikeyD]

Several people have done landing scenarios with text that starts something like "Your men have just been dropped off in the surf". And there they are on startup along the pebble beach (ford tiles) wading ashore. At that point modeling the actual boat seems a bit superfluous. I recall doing a Tripoli Lebanon beach landing for CMSF Marines and that game didn't even come with water!

[JonS]

I think I've posted elsewhere, but all the terrain types - including obstacles and fortifications - you need are already in the game. You'll need to apply a bit of creativity to bring them together into a satisfying map, but that's the case with evey map anyway. Plenty of folk have already made rather attractive beach maps, so it definately can be done.

The special assault TOE the US used on D-Day isn't present, but using the specialist teams you can probably come pretty close.

As for the Higgins Bosuns, you can use fords and trucks and/or halftracks to stand in for the boats, reversing them up to the beach from the map edge. You could even add a line of Deep Ford to prevent them driving right up on to the beach, but still allowing the infantry ashore (you'll need to consider how to handle the tanks and Preists coming ashore though ... perhaps given them their own designated lanes of Shallow Ford flanked by full water?). Sure, trucks and halftracks don't exactly look like Higgins', but functionally they're close enough.

The biggest issue I can see is that there's no way (as far as I'm aware) to model the rapidly rising tide, which had quite a marked tactical influence on 6 June.

[nik mond]

Don't forget the outer terrain skirt. You can't have more than one tile for this. So either your beach is land locked by green or you are on a square island.

[thejetset]

Very good idea JonS. Are there any maps that currently do this available??

[JonS]

Don't forget the outer terrain skirt. You can't have more than one tile for this. So either your beach is land locked by green or you are on a square island.

I don't understand what you mean here? :confused:

Edit: do you mean the distant horizon? Meh. Irrelevant. If you really wanted to you could create your own bespoke horizon bmps, complete with open sea to the north and ships dotted about on it, but it has no effect on gameplay.

Or do you mean the endless plain? Again, meh. It has no effect on gameplay, so there's no reason to let it cause you to pull on the handbrake.

[JonS]

Very good idea JonS. Are there any maps that currently do this available??

There was a Ponte du Hoc map floating around, although I'm not sure if it was ever completed and/or released. I believe there's at least one OMAHA map around too.

I haven't looked at them in detail, though, since beach landings aren't really my thing, and I don't know exactly how - or if - they handle water and landings. Scen development is fundamentally a creative activity making use of the tools available to get the result that is desired, so everyone will do things differently. Are there any scens that do it the way I suggested? I doubt it. Bits and pieces, maybe, but probably not the whole kit and kaboodle. But it could be done that way, I think. Or about a zillion other ways

[Broadsword56]

JonS, what would the procedure be for modding and inserting our own bmp files to replace the horizons in the game? Resolutions, image sizes, etc? Best tips and tricks to make it look right?

Also, for those who have made good beach maps: Please share and post some of your hard-learned experience on how to make beaches look their best -- which kinds of terrain tiles for which effects, how to make the elevation work best when there's water, cliffs, dunes, causeways, etc. Also, what are the most detailed D-Day beach maps available online (you know, the ones that show all the WN's and obstacles and zones in their historical spots)?

Personally, I'd probably use a board wargame to determine the landings/paradrops and then use CMBN to play out the first 48 hours or so for troops ashore.

[akd]

I would use water tiles for water and sand tiles for sand.

[Mord]

I did a test map way back and starting the troops as they are wading ashore worked just fine and my imagination took over from there...the actual landing crafts weren't even missed. In my head they were behind my guys burning or turning and heading back towards the ships. The ford tiles worked very nice for this...

Here's a couple links showing what has and can be done with a bit of imagination.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=98539&highlight=beach+landings

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97517&highlight=beach+landings

The opportunity to simulate it in CMBN is way better than in CMBO...and some of the criticism/review that was leveled at the game by a certain guy about the lack of DD Tanks and LSTs making it impossible to simulate June 6th was a complete lie knowingly told. It can be done very nicely. You don't need the Higgins and you can have tanks crawling ashore right along side the men.

Mord.

[JonS]

JonS, what would the procedure be for modding and inserting our own bmp files to replace the horizons in the game? Resolutions, image sizes, etc? Best tips and tricks to make it look right?

Oh heck - I'm totally the wrong guy to ask modding questions. The one time I tried (adding floating cardinal compass points to the horizon BMPs) I totally screwed it up and had to get someone else to rescue me

But ... I'm pretty sure there are four distinct BMPs that combine to create the full 360° horizon. So the northern one might be ocean + ships, the east and west ones probably half ocean and half coastal land, while the sothern one was inland hills. Getting a seamless merge between the elements would be quite the trick, though, especially for me

[Mord]

Actually somebody did/does have a map (or was working on one) where it's all ocean behind the troops as they come to shore...can't remember who did that, though.

And yeah, having some ships and stuff on the horizon with maybe barrage balloons and stuff would look cool

Mord.

[Erwin]

It may be visually appealing in a film-maker sense, but the troops couldn't actually DO much in the boat.

So, it's really about who survives to get to the beach. And that can be simulated way more easily in the set-up by the designer and given replayability by the random destruction of AI arty fire.

[Broadsword56]

The real deal-killer for me wouldn't be lacking the DD tanks or LSTs, it would be the known bug affecting bunkers. The concrete bunkers and emplacements are such an essential part of D-Day -- but troops get stuck in them. Then too, we're missing Tobruks and other characteristic defensive fortification types for the beach defenses.

As someone said in one of the cited threads: "Even with my defenders on a very high cliff with clear views they could not suppress and hold the attackers for long. I'm not sure a decent and challenging historical scenario around Omaha is actually possible at the moment."

[JonS]

Then too, we're missing Tobruks and other characteristic defensive fortification types for the beach defenses.

Only if you take a very narrow view.

As someone said in one of the cited threads: "Even with my defenders on a very high cliff with clear views they could not suppress and hold the attackers for long. I'm not sure a decent and challenging historical scenario around Omaha is actually possible at the moment."

So play around until the get the effect you want. Units in CM are not monolithic, interchangeable blobs. You can fiddle about with quite a few settings in order to get quite different results. Up the experience and motivation of the defenders, and up their ammo. Lower the experience and motivation of the attackers. Lower the attackers fitness. Increase the command bonusses of the defenders, lower them for the attackers. Doing that will make it a LOT harder for the Americans to get off the beach.

And then you can start fiddling about with terrain. Change the defender's terrain - use elevation, ground type, brush, vegetation, buildings, and fortifications in various combinations to get the effect you want.

There's only two things stopping you, here, and the game isn't either of them. The first is not applying your imagination in creative ways. The second is accepting at face value someone else's comments that it can't be done.

[noxnoctum]

Actually somebody did/does have a map (or was working on one) where it's all ocean behind the troops as they come to shore...can't remember who did that, though.

And yeah, having some ships and stuff on the horizon with maybe barrage balloons and stuff would look cool

Mord.

Fredrocker has a beach assault mission in the first mission of his allies campaign.

[Broadsword56]

Only if you take a very narrow view.

So play around until the get the effect you want. Units in CM are not monolithic, interchangeable blobs. You can fiddle about with quite a few settings in order to get quite different results. Up the experience and motivation of the defenders, and up their ammo. Lower the experience and motivation of the attackers. Lower the attackers fitness. Increase the command bonusses of the defenders, lower them for the attackers. Doing that will make it a LOT harder for the Americans to get off the beach.

And then you can start fiddling about with terrain. Change the defender's terrain - use elevation, ground type, brush, vegetation, buildings, and fortifications in various combinations to get the effect you want.

There's only two things stopping you, here, and the game isn't either of them. The first is not applying your imagination in creative ways. The second is accepting at face value someone else's comments that it can't be done.

That's a pep talk and a challenge if I ever heard one! [You'd make a good squad leader...]

[Mord]

Another way to maybe simulate the beach assault and get better results overall, might be to narrow the focus...instead of having a battalion landing shrink the play area...make it more personal...concentrate on a company + with a specific task besides get out of the water and don't die...Like Jon said, there's lots of ways to look at it if imagination is applied...Maybe this particular mission is to get up the beach and blow a path through some Anti tanks obstacles to create an opening for the guys that will arrive later...that kind of thing (think along the lines of the scenes from The Big Red One or SPR). There's lots we can do with objectives remember, that couldn't be done in CMX1...besides capture the flag. And not every scenario in this area has to be on an epic scale.

I whole heartedly believe that very fun and cool scenarios can be created to represent the beach assaults.

Mord.

[YankeeDog]

Another way to maybe simulate the beach assault and get better results overall, might be to narrow the focus...

This. Especially WRT Omaha. On of the essential aspects of the conflict on Omaha beach was a near total breakdown of higher level command on the beach. Units landed off-target, took heavy casualties within minutes of hitting the beach. C2 above the Company level was poor or nonexistent.

IMHO, given CM's unavoidable "Player as God" perspective, giving a player control over a battalion or more of soldiers on a large stretch of Omaha beach is not the most realistic way to represent the combat there on the morning of June 6. Such large scenarios are better reserved for situations where there was at least decent C2 at the battalion level, allowing the battalion to fight as a unit.

Rather, for Omaha from H-Hour to about H +3, a more realistic result is obtained by focusing on the actions of one of the smaller units that actually did manage to maintain some cohesion, and assault the bluffs. Here, you'd be looking at company-sized or smaller engagements along a few hundred meters of beach at most.

One of the tricky aspects of doing smaller beach scenarios like this is that there is no easy way to represent long-range enfilading direct fire coming from more distant MGs and guns (from emplacements further down the beach/bluff). There are ways of dealing with this, though, such as creating a larger map than is required for the attacker's maneuver, and putting stationary defenses such as MG bunkers at more distant points, where the attacker can't easily reach them.

[Medex]

I whole heartedly believe that very fun and cool scenarios can be created to represent the beach assaults.

Mord.

I don't know if BFC will ever come back to Normandy but if they do it would be cool IMHO if they would expand on the beach battles. Add landing craft of various types and different types of fortifications. Include the British funnies as well.

Once they had an engine that could handle that stuff. They could later release a Pacific mod with the American Marines and all the American landing stuff, Japanese fortifications and equipment.

[wombat_of_war]

Several people have done landing scenarios with text that starts something like "Your men have just been dropped off in the surf". And there they are on startup along the pebble beach (ford tiles) wading ashore. At that point modeling the actual boat seems a bit superfluous. I recall doing a Tripoli Lebanon beach landing for CMSF Marines and that game didn't even come with water!

Ha I just finished playing that for the first time and teaching those invading imperialists what for ! ambush IED's for the win great scenario though from both sides.

In regards to higgins boats id be happy with some static models we could place on the waters edge for atmosphere.

Oh a Combat mission:pacific sounds good irronically there tend to be more detailed maps, etc for japanese defences available than for europe ive found. honestly what would it mean? few more tiles, black sand for one and jungle, pacific trees, and bushes, not to mention the OOB for US + allies and japanese forces. oh not to mention a single marine hero character runing around a map with a aircrat cannon on a shoulder strap. ah a girl can dream