Concrete Pill Boxes a wee bit too tough?

[Gyrene]

This has probably come up before, but am I alone in thinking that the concrete pill boxes are too resistant to artillery fire?

As an example of what I mean I recently set up a map with about 12 pill boxes clustered together in the open and 6 or 7 14" Naval spotters hidden in woods directly across from the PB's & fighter bomber support also purchased for the allies.

The result was that after many turns of ridiculously intense artillery bombardment & FB runs only 4 pill boxes were destroyed.

Some of the surviving PB's were in the craters left by the huge 14" shells, but still has effective as before, not a single casualty was had in any of the surviving PB's.

Remember that these are the same 14" shells that will vaporize a large heavy building by just falling close to it.

Needless to say smaller arty will have even more disapointing results.

Like I said in the topic title...Maybe a bit too tough, those pillboxes eh?

Gyrene

[offtaskagain]

Concrete PBs are incredibly difficult to physically demolish. However those 14" kabooms should have more of a psychological effect. The crew should be rendered useless for at least a few minutes after the impact. Bear in mind the walls of PBs are several feet thick.

[Foobar]

seems to me that whether or not the concrete was in tact, the soft cell bipeds inhabiting them would be deaf, unconscious, and probably suffering from a nosebleed here or there. Luckily 14" naval gun vs pillbox emplacement isnt very common for CMBO (maybe 1 month of the campaign?), so it doesnt affect gameplay too much.

[Gyrene]

I agree that 14" guns are (Or should be) very rare in CMBO, but I used them to test just how tough these PB's are.

PW42, the PB's in CM have armor 500mm thick, a far cry from the several feet thick, monster pill boxes of Normandy & the PTO, and a 14" shell (or 8" & 240mm shells) shouldn't have this much trouble knocking them out with a direct hit, or especially with a hit directly in front of the firing slit.

Concussion & blast have zero impact on the humanoids inside the PB's in the game. All were "ready" after 60+ 14" shells landed on on very near them, there were no "!" markers on any of the surviving PB's.

It would be nice to see the effects of concussion modelled in later versions of CM.

Gyrene

[BigZergRat]

I agree with Gyrene.

if PB's were so indestructable then why did they bother to bombard or "soften" them during the assualt on Normandy? I realize the effect then was less than desired but wasnt that due to inacuracy contributablt to bad weather ( ie. rough seas )

I can understand vs most arty but a 14" gun?

just my 2 cents

[Cauldron]

I don't belive the question was aboiut 14 " guns ......

Did anyone bother to read the question?

Yes, they are a wee bit hard, you can kill them by getting behind them and getting a view on the back door and blasting away for a while,, eventually it blows up.

eric

[JasonC]

I think the evidence from the Pacific is that concrete pillboxes do not evaporate even under very heavy HE plastering. Some of them if you throw truly unholy amounts, but nothing like all even then.

First there is the evidence of failure, from Tarawa. Later the evidence of partial success, at Kwajelin and Eniwetok, where they bumped up the fire support an order of magnitude, and managed to cut the losses to 1/4 the Tawara toll. But not to zero, nothing like it.

First, Tarawa -

"The Japanese had hundreds of guns, among them a system of heavy machine guns protected by coconut logs, sand, concrete and

armored plate; 14 coast defense guns, all with underground ammunition storage and fire control systems; 25 37-mm and 75-mm field guns in shelters that were immune to direct hits from all but the largest guns; and an unknown number of anti-aircraft guns.

"Japanese defenders on Betio also had built a system of bomb-proof shelters made of coconut logs braced with angle irons.

The roofs of these shelters were at least 6 feet thick and covered over with sand, logs and corrugated iron. Only heavy-caliber armor-piercing or other delayed-action shells could penetrate them. These shelters were also compartmented, so that the defenders enjoyed protection from grenades and explosives hurled through the openings."

The prep fire included airstrikes from whole carrier wings, a couple of battleships and cruisers, and a dozen-odd destroyers, firing for a couple of hours before the landing. What happened at the beach? Were the defenders all dead in their bunkers?

"The Marines landed Nov. 20, 1943...

"Betio's northwest shore was divided into Red Beach 1, 2 and 3, respectively, from west to east. A 500-yard pier marked the

boundary between Red Beach 2 and Red 3 and extended north into the lagoon just beyond the fringing reef. The short western side

of the island was designated as Green Beach. The Marines hoped to land a three-battalion front on the Red beaches, sweep across the island (a total distance of about 600 yards - a small CM map!), capture the airfield and pin the enemy down on the island's west end.

"...On the left of their beach, at the boundary with Red Beach 2, was a Japanese strong point that raked the Marines coming in on the west side of Red 1 with machine gun

fire. Once landed, the Marines on Red 1 would take 35-50 percent casualties...

"The most violently opposed landing was that of 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines on Red 2. Some of these troops were driven off course by machine gun and anti-boat fire and forced to land on Red 1. The remainder, who reached Red 2, managed to carve out a beachhead only about 50 yards deep."

Follow on waves had to wade in after their 'tracks beached on the reef at low tide.

"The only cover from Japanese machine gunners and riflemen was the pier;

many did not reach it. Many of those who did were separated from their units and chain of command, and were unable to move to

their proper beaches. At this point, the momentum of the assault bogged down...

"By evening, the Marines' situation was tenuous at best. Of about 5,000 men who had gone ashore, 1,500 were either killed or

wounded. Marines held a perimeter about 700 yards wide and 300 yards deep at the base of the pier, and an area about 150 yards

by 500 yards at the northwest tip of the island."

Gee, the defenders weren't all dead. A lesson learned. Two battleships, several cruisers, a dozen destroyers, and 32 consecutive airstrikes in a deliberate, hour-long barrage did not obliterate the bunkers. They didn't even come close. 1500 men fell on the first day because of it (that is 30% of the landing force); another 1800 fell before the island was finally secured.

In the end the bunkers were KOed by flamethrowers, by cans of gasoline poured down their ventilation slits, and by huge engineer demo charges placed in contact with them, or sometimes by physically entering them.

At Kwajelin, Engebi, Eniwetok and Perry (the last three all in the Eniwetok atoll), they decided to use enough firepower to actually do the job, or most of it. How much was that?

The air strikes began two days before the attack. Here is a description of the naval prep fire, which proceeded in methodical stages -

"Action with the enemy commenced at 0700, when the INDIANAPOLIS and the PORTLAND (8" cruisers) begin laying down fire on the main islands flanking the lagoon entrances. The Japanese did not return this fire... To forestall any attempt by the Japs to rake the decks of nearby ships with small arms fire, the combatant ships fired into shore positions with their 40mm AA batteries as they passed close by the entrance islands."

That was just prelims to cover minesweeping operations, to let the big guns get in close. Then they did this -

"Engebi was to be the first island assaulted. Fire upon this island commenced early on the morning of 17 February and continued without interruption until the morning of the following day. The COLORADO (16" BB) and LOUISVILLE (8" CA) were the first to open fire on this island, commencing at 0716. These ships fired at ranges between 4,000 and 14,000 yards. Starting about 1120, the TENNESSEE (14" BB) and PENNSYLVANIA (14" BB) commenced their bombardment and fired until 1900. (That is 8 hours from 24 14" guns, after 24 hours from 8 16" guns and 9 8" guns - ignoring all the 5" secondaries). During the day two air strikes (we are talking hundreds of planes each) were made on Engebi, bombardment from ships being discontinued during the strikes."

Do you think they were satisfied? They landed artillery on nearby islands to add their fire. At one point they sent in two amphib tractors with marines aboard to recon one area. They supported these two little landing craft with the fire of 2 14" battleships and 2 destroyers. On another occasion, some movement was spotted on one of the islands, and on a "target of opportunity" basis, engaged by 2 8" cruisers and 1 destroyer.

This is all the -day before- the attack. At 8:45 the next morning another all-out airstike went in, followed by intense bombardment by every gun the navy had. Then two battalions of marines landed, on this little plastered postage stamp of an island.

They secured the island in 7 hours. They still took 78 KIA, 166 WIA, 7 MIA (missing, on an island you can see across - i.e. dead). 934 Japanese were killed and 16 captured alive. One of the prisoners said that half the defenders were killed or wounded before the landings. (Half. Killed -or wounded-. Meaning half were -fine-).

By now the US had 5 battalions of field artillery on small outlying islands, within range of the ones they meant to attack.

"Five battalions of artillery were placed on Carlson and adjusted the day prior to the landing," Boone explained. "The batteries were so close to each other that some rotating bands (falling off the shells, downrange) would fall in battery areas. Prior to the landing the first fire command to all batteries was 55 rounds at the same elevation. (That is 5000 rounds at one target, folks). The landing area's elevation was reduced at least three feet."

That is, the top three feet of the island were literally blown away. I've read one eyewitness account that put it this way, referring to the dust and smoke during, and the relocation of everything on the surface after, the preliminary bombardment - "it looked as though the entire island had been lifted 20,000 feet in the air, and then dropped."

Eniwetok island (all these are in the atoll, but the island itself) took 4 battalions 3 days, with 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers firing in support after they were ashore. The US lost 34 KIA, 94 WIA, 3 MIA there. The Japanese lost 700 KIA and 25 were made prisoner. It was probably the most thorough job by preliminary HE in the war.

While the ground troops reorganized, the prep for the last island in the atoll, Perry, went on and on. The naval bombardment lasted from the afternoon of the 17th of February until the morning of the 22nd, four and a half days. 3 battleships, 3 cruisers, 7 destroyers, plus artillery on a nearby island fired this continuous barrage, taking turns but somebody always firing. An airstrike - again hundreds of planes - went in just before the landings.

Then two battalions went in. The history records a rate of advance of 250 yards per hour as "rapid", with supporting tanks, artillery, and continued naval gunfire. The Japanese launched a suicidal counterattack during the night, and by 10 AM the next morning it was over. The last island cost the US 57 KIA, 261 WIA, 16 MIA. The Japanese lost 1027 KIA and died literally to the last man.

The added prep fires kept the overall losses in the whole atoll to 1/4 the figure for Tarawa. But they still didn't wipe out the defenders and make US losses "zero". And these were prep fires far more intense than anything you'll ever see in a real CM game, sustained for enourmously longer periods.

Reinforced concrete bunkers are made specifically to protect against HE, and they do it very well. To knock out a solid concrete bunker requires a direct hit by a large caliber shell, and even then the shell has to go through on its own - by kinetic energy. The HE does not do the job unless the shell's own energy puts it inside before going off.

It is more like firing at armored battleships than anything else. Armored battleship turrets, that you usually can't see, but have to count on landing on top of randomly. Hitting a small gun slit is easy by comparison. Concrete bunkers, and deep dugout shelters, are the counter to massive HE. Overloading them with the wrong weapon for the job requires huge expenditures of huge shells to get half-way results.

I hope this is thought provoking.

[JasonC]

"the PB's in CM have armor 500mm thick"

Um, no. They have armor rated as equivalent to 500mm of steel. It takes rather more than 1mm of concrete to give the resistence of 1mm of steel armor. 500mm is 20 inches. So they are rated as though they had 20 inches of steel plate. Battleship torpedo belts at the waterline are that thick. Their turrets -aren't- that thick, and they are meant to withstand battleship shells.

[Gyrene]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>"the PB's in CM have armor 500mm thick"

Um, no. They have armor rated as equivalent to 500mm of steel. It takes rather more than 1mm of concrete to give the resistence of 1mm of steel armor. 500mm is 20 inches. So they are rated as though they had 20 inches of steel plate. Battleship torpedo belts at the waterline are that thick. Their turrets -aren't- that thick, and they are meant to withstand battleship shells. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Jason, excellent reply as usual, I'm starting to think you have some sort of database handy on your computer for all these replies...

A big sticking point with me for a while has been the lack of blast effects to crews in tanks & PB's, there isn't even a morale hit and that can't be considered realistic by any stretch.

I understand that CMBB will have tank morale, which is a step in the right direction.

500mm of steel does put things into perspective but brings another minor complaint to life: Assuming a very unscientific exchange of 6" of concrete for 1" inch of steel it would mean that the Pillboxes in CM would have 10 feet thick walls (Not unheard of in real pill boxes), but in the scale they are represented in CM that would scarcely leave enough room for an 88 & 7 men to crew it...

I assumed that 500mm, meant 500mm of concrete, judging by the size of the PB's in relation to tanks around it and 20" of concrete shouldn't be able to shrug off the heavy stuff like it does.

BTW, another thing to consider when comparing the efficiency of arty at Tarawa was that fact that the coconut log/sand bunkers were actually quite a bit more effective at resisting HE than pure concrete bunkers because of the cushioning effect of the sand used in their construction, add to that the fact that delayed fuses were not used as much (if at all) in the Tarawa pre landing bombardment, as the US planners had no idea how effective the Japanese defenses would be.

If the Tarawa defences were built around pure concrete roofed & floored boxes the bombardment would very likely have been much more effective.

Gyrene

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

...Prior to the landing the first fire command to all batteries was 55 rounds at the same elevation. (That is 5000 rounds at one target, folks)...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

How big were the batterys? I was under the impression that a towed US bty was 4 guns. Therefore, 5 battalions * 3 batterys * 4 guns * 55 rounds = 3300.

If the batterys were 6 guns each (usual for an SP bty, although apparently you would expect two of them to be 'down' with mechanical failures ) then the maths works out: 5*3*6*55=4950. Did the Marines use larger towed batterys?

However, in the overall scheme of things, 1700 odd rounds here or there in a fireplan of this magnitude is trivial, I know, and not the point of the post.

[ 09-06-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[mensch]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gyrene:

Assuming a very unscientific exchange of 6" of concrete for 1" inch of steel it would mean that the Pillboxes in CM would have 10 feet thick walls (Not unheard of in real pill boxes), but in the scale they are represented in CM that would scarcely leave enough room for an 88 & 7 men to crew it...

Gyrene<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gyrene that's what is is a "scale representation of a bunker" like all things I think BTS was limited on time and budget otherwise we would be seeing a totaly different game with "L" formed houses, enclosed central Farm houses, Dragons Teeth, Tank trap pits, Trenches. On the subject of fox holes funny how you see them just round. Again a "scale representation" why are there no I form fox holes or "L" form or "v" form foxholes or better yet small short trench works.

Looking at Bunkers that I saw in normandy they came in every shape and form some even having a blocking wall to protect them from angles which they did not want to be seen from when they fired their weapons.

In the end I think it came down to time, money and resources the 3D artist had and memory for 100's of varriations of terrain that had to be left out. (bummer huh?)

It's to bad one can not make 3D models to import in to CM so one could make say a nice large Church or Catheadral with flying buttresses or that "L" formed house you always wanted. (Like in Myth II) but that is a different engine and well you can't always have your cake and eat it too.

[Jarmo]

To equal 400mm steel plate, a concrete bunker should have a thickness of at least 5-10 meters!!

Yeah, the bunkers at the beaches were very resistant to heavy arty. Maybe coastal fortifications are made to withstand naval bombardment?

The pillboxes were first easily knocked out by 105mm arty, that was (after furious argument) found not quite right. But this can't be right either.

Fortunately you can still easily knock them out with Stuarts or Greyhounds...

[Tero]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jarmo:

Fortunately you can still easily knock them out with Stuarts or Greyhounds...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

... after you have been given their approximate (but quite accurate) positions by the sound contacts they give out.

[ParaBellum]

In recent PBEMs I knocked out 2 75mm pillboxes with no own losses. Just moved 4 of my AFVs into hull-down positions at the same time. A Greyhound quickly scored hits through the firing slit, knocking it out after a minute. In both cases the pillbox didn't even return fire.

I was a bit astonished since it all seemed a bit too easy for me...

To JasonC: great post, thx.

The naval battery at Marcouf, near Utah beach, on June 7th got shelled by several BB's (Nevada, Arkansas, Texas), CAs and DDs.

It took them from 5 AM untill 9 Am, that's 4 hours (!) to knock out the three 21 cm guns.

And the firing slits of these bunkers were about 6m x 8m ...

And the battery wasn't completely destroyed. During the night of 7th/8th they managed to repair one of their 21cm guns and were able to shell Utah beach again the next morning.

Although the guns were out of action, most of the men survived the bombardement and even repelled a US infantry attack during the evening.

Conclusion:

Pillboxes CAN be quite hard to destroy. As in real life. Don't use heavy arty. Use smaller guns with high rate of fire, e.g. 37mm on Stuart and Greyhound.

[Marco Bergman]

WarDepartment Technical Manual TME 30-451 "Handbook on German Military Forces" quotes the standard MINIMUM thickness of Pillboxes and casements as 6 foot 6 in. (section v p5)

Here's a few wall & roof thicknesses:

Type 630 (75mm gun) 6'6"

Type 685 (210mm gun) 11'5" + 2'6" of soil

Type 621 (shelter) 6'6"

Type 636 (Observation post) 6'6"

"Tobruk" 1'2" (no roof)

[Holien]

Interesting debates and if the search engine worked I would point to other debates on this.

Jason's post is very useful and adds weight to the debate.

I would throw my towel in the corner of the strength of the pillbox being about right. They are tough cookies and only really fall to direct assualt or bypassing them.

I have toured Normandy and seen / been in the various designs and even the basic design would stop most Arty landing on it. IMO.

I am sure that I would not be happy being in it during bombardment but I would be glad that I was in it rather than in a slit trench out side. :eek:

As an aside the Germans built bunkers purely for the purpose of protection from the initial barrage, in addition to other bunker types. The men would run into these bunkers (no firing slits, just a concrete box) as the shells started to land (think air raid shelter) and then run back out as the shelling stopped.

The game has had to abstract these into a few designs and for what it does it works fine. Of course it would be great if you could design different designs and use these on a beach landing scenario linked with a trench network etc...

But then I am sure that will happen in the next few years.

[JasonC]

A fine point about battery sizes. I did use a 6 gun per battery figure, but don't know if the Marines had only 4 per. What are 1700 rounds 105mm between friends? LOL.

Also a fine point about the 37mms. The problem with the currently modeling of pillboxes in not that artillery can't knock them out, it is that very small direct fire guns can. Apparently this is a generic "penetration" model, that makes little of no distinction between a 37mm coming through a firing slit of a large (and sometimes compartmented) bunker, and a 75mm or more punching through the side of a tank.

It should be much harder to kill the guys inside a pillbox, or get a "knocked out" result. A round through the wall is not going to break important working parts, unlike the case of a tank. Bunkers don't have important working parts, except the occupants. They ought to do something like - if round gets in (slit or penetration), then it "attacks" the crew with a blast rating (perhaps boosted somewhat - say double - for the confined space).

Another pet peeve of mine is that log bunkers (and to a lesser extent, even the pillboxes) are too easy to spot. It is also silly that log bunkers can be KOed by 81mm mortar rounds; the whole point of overhead cover is backwards as they are now. Men in a foxhole are more likely to live through an 81mm barrage than a log bunker is, in CM today. Not in the real world.

Another sound point was the one about cushioning. Some sand or dirt in a layer - something compressible to act as a shock absorber - does make bunkers more resistent to very heavy HE. The Japanese had that in their construction; so did some of the French forts of WW I, which held up better against the heavy Krupp super-artillery pieces than Belgian all-concrete (above ground) forts.

I also wouldn't underestimate the usefulness of building them low to the ground, or flush with it, or buried under a layer of earth, rather than sticking out upright, 10 feet in the air. The latter gives big HE shells much more area to direct blast against and in directions more likely to lead to breakage (across rather than down).

As for the thicknesses, perhaps there should be heavy bunkers and medium bunkers, as well as the log ones as lights. The medium bunkers could have the protection of about 300mm of steel, corresponding to concrete walls about 6 feet thick - which seems to have been the standard. The heavy ones could by like the current variety, 500mm or battleship thickness. Then presumably the naval artillery will KO the medium ones but only get occasional kills against the heavy ones.

To prevent the log ones from being KOed by every mortar round, give them the equivalent of 100mm armor. Then ordinary bazookas would be marginal except against the firing slits, and tank HE would be shrugged off unless it went "in", likewise. Log bunkers are not piles of sticks to hide behind, which is about how useless they are in CM today - they have 2 feet of wood between walls of sandbags inside and out, and often 2 feet of earth on top of them too.

One man's suggestions...

[Jarmo]

6 feet thick walls, huh? Then the graphical representation is wayyy off.

But anyway. If I remember ot correctly from my infantry days, concrete has about 20 times less resistance than steel.

A 1cm steel plate stops a bullet, 20 cm of concrete stops a bullet. Point blank.

From there we can estimate that 6 feet of concrete equals about 10 cm of steel. Far from 400 mm.

Or the other way around, for a resistance equaling 400mm's of armor steel, you need 8 meters of concrete.

Are we talking Hitler's bunker here?

The Maginot line?

[Wolfe]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JasonC:

As for the thicknesses, perhaps there should be heavy bunkers and medium bunkers, as well as the log ones as lights.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It certainly would be nice to have a larger variety of thickness types: Two or three different concrete types and a couple of log types would fill things out nicely. But in addition to varying thicknesses, smaller types of emplacements that are vulnerable when hit directly, but harder to hit in the first place would be nice. Any nearby HE hits would rattle them more than the larger bunkers, but it would still take a direct hit to take them out (except when receiving large caliber HE). Hmmm. Maybe the improved foxholes in CM2 are able to do this already?

Having both large and small bunkers would allow more complex bunker building and you wouldn't need to have the same bunker of every conceivable shape. Just get creative in how you arrange them.

Also, the ability to dig them in would be helpful, even into slopes and cliffs could provide a lot of variety. You currently can't do either of these things (dig in or place them on a slope).

BTW, currently bunkers placed on sloped ground sit on the ground like an AFV (i.e. they're not level to the horizon); I'd prefer to see the bunkers sit level like infantry does (or even have the option for both level and non-level placements).

- Chris

[Wolfe]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>JasonC wrote:

Another pet peeve of mine is that log bunkers (and to a lesser extent, even the pillboxes) are too easy to spot.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Charles or Steve said in one of the interviews that there will be camoflaged version of bunkers that are more difficult to spot in CM2.

- Chris

[Triumvir]

I don't suppose that anyone likes the simple idea that 500mm is designed to simulate the impossibility of destroying a bunker with any weapon in the CMBO scope, eh? Abstraction, etc. Powerful concept, that.

I like what BTS did with CMBO and code reuse, but like always code reuse can lead to strange results -- just look at the ADF's kangaroos in their chopper pilot simulator.

[Radar]

Now doesn't steel reinforcement actually add to the structure of concrete?

[Andrew H.]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Triumvir:

I don't suppose that anyone likes the simple idea that 500mm is designed to simulate the impossibility of destroying a bunker with any weapon in the CMBO scope, eh? Abstraction, etc. Powerful concept, that.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is exactly right. Pillboxes weren't, historically, taken out by tanks blasting through their concrete walls, nor were they taken out by minor artillery fire. They were either taken out by infantry assault or by direct fire through the firing slits. CM gets this absolutely right.

Jason's point about spotting difficulties is well taken; I'm glad CM will fix that. WRT compartmentalization of pillboxes, IIRC, Steve once said that these pillboxes represented relatively small simple concrete pillboxes, and not the elaborate fortresses used in Normandy or in some parts of the West Wall.

[Soddball]

For those in the UK, a worthwhile visit if you get the chance is Seven Sisters country park, in East Sussex. The park has lots of concrete pillboxes facing the channel, some of which are dug into the chalk hills, others buried in the ground. When the weather's good it's a nice day out (wildlife park, plants, flowers, etc) but fun for the grogs too

Those pillboxes IIRC were quite light versions, with walls a couple of feet thick and had slits a few inches high (so they would presumably have been MG only). They could still have made an invading army miserable though.

[Kingfish]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ParaBellum:

The naval battery at Marcouf, near Utah beach, on June 7th got shelled by several BB's (Nevada, Arkansas, Texas), CAs and DDs.

It took them from 5 AM untill 9 Am, that's 4 hours (!) to knock out the three 21 cm guns.

And the firing slits of these bunkers were about 6m x 8m ...

And the battery wasn't completely destroyed. During the night of 7th/8th they managed to repair one of their 21cm guns and were able to shell Utah beach again the next morning.

Although the guns were out of action, most of the men survived the bombardement and even repelled a US infantry attack during the evening.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I bet a Finn armed with a wrist rocket would have shut that place down in 20 minutes flat.