WW2- or CM Normandy - reality or revision?

[Taki]

It is true that the US didn't run up against many of the "fun" things until after the conclusion of the Normandy campaign. ....

Steve

The mighty 88 is absolutly fun. Not to the US Troops for sure. ^^

[rune]

*ahem* End of June? June 12th, June 13 17th SS pzgndr fought the 506th at Caretan. The battle of the bloody gulch was going badly for the Americans til CCA of 2nd Armor arrived to help the outgunned paratroops.

Rune

[salwon]

Can we be certain that the FJ will be in the first release? Certainly they had more of an impact in US areas than SS units.

[Flanker15]

With the timeline starting in June: will it start at the airborne drop, the amphibious landing or right after the amphibious landing?

I though Battle of the Buldge was a good scenario for 2 players, the terrain layout ment that it wasn't a total slaughter for the Germans. Good ambush and LOS practice.

Some important things I was wondering about WW2 CMx2 are:

Will we have proper aircraft modling, planes swooping in, AA fire, crashes?

Proper routing, retreating units?

Bridges?

[Gromit]

Yeah, I am looking forward to fighting with my favorite Fallschirmjaeger units once again!

Oh, by the way; I found a cheap book at Barnes and Noble by James Lucas called "Storming Eagles: German Airborne Forces in WWII" that is a great read for any of you who like the FJ. The account of the forming of the force and their first major assault on Eben Emael in Belgium is fascinating. They used some truly groundbreaking methods and gallantry to take the place by storm.

Thanks for the tidbit about the Porsche turret by the way Steve... now get back to work!!

[panzermartin]

I would too like to see Flaks back. Or at least AA mgs from tanks, vehicles trying to defend theirselves. Ranges should be closer than in CMSF, it would not be that unrealistic I think. 3d planes might be too much to ask though. I'm pretty certain bridges will be in.

[Flanker15]

I'd go for the shadow system from Cmx1 if 3d models were immpossible.

[JoMac]

Please ! No 1 to 1 Infantry representation on the field; I prefer how CMx1 handles that now. However, a different way of combat other then just fire-points may be in order. like in CMx1, I still like to see Company up to Battalion size engagements.

Joe

[Dietrich]

SS Divisions werent seen until the last weeks of Normandy for the US and even then, were very rare.

Isn't CM:Normandy (or whatever it's called) going to include Commonwealth units? And didn't 12. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Hitlerjugend" counterattack the Canadians on D-Day+1?

What I'm curious about is how the game will handle simulating the troops of German 'fortress' divisions and/or Ost battalions vis-a-vis 'standard' Germany infantry as well as Fallschirmjäger and Waffen-SS troops.

[snake_eye]

Sorry to deceive you guys, the TIGER was surely an extraordinary tank but not the best the German had during the conflict. Ok, it had the 88mm high velocity gun, but it was slow traversing and gulped gazoline at a huge rate, besides its tracks necessited a constant care. However It bulleyed almost every time from longer distance, than its adversaries and the poor SHERMAN (the most frequent track on the field) had been nicknamed RONSON from a pub of the English lighter proclaming "it lights right away", so did the SHERMAN.The troop commander usually had after a short period the first tank, going in the trail and replaced by the second and so on, since it was nerve raking for the tankers to be in front. Twenty years later, I met a tank driver and he still did not understood how, hehad managed to get out of it unhurt.

That brings us to the PANTHER. If you have had a chance to see one closely outside as well as inside, you will know, why I say that it is the best design that had been made in WWII for a tank. Mechanically it is amazing and the German engineers looked closely to the sloping armour of the T-34 and produced a ratio of weight/power fantastic.

To come to the game WW2 to come, I hope will see it in action on the road near SAINTENY (Normandy) on the axis CARENTAN - PERIERS when an SS Panzer abteilung inflicted huge casualties to the opposing assaulting US SHERMANS. Leaving near that place and going to CARENTAN on that road this afternoon, I was as a matter of fact thinking of it. My father working as an S2 officer in the Engineer corp of the 3rd Army at the time, provided me in my teen with a lot of what you call "Intelligence" since he was running a "circus" to the troops in the area and informing them on German materials, booby traps .......

The hedgerows fighting makes Normandy scenario in CMSF fit for an Hollywood movie, since it does not represent the intensity of what could be found in the real action there (it is however a good scenario, besides the title). The battles of POOH and or the Milk Run with all the ATGM will look if considering the cost to pay for the advance, more likely like the Normandy battle. The ATGM being replaced by Panzerfaust and ambushed PAK (50mm and more frequently found 75mm -again a Russian adaptation from the Russian 76.2mm), Stug MK III and IV, MK IV, MK V (Panther), some rare Jagpanther and more often engaged on the English Normandy battlefied the Tiger (Pz mk VI) and on one occasion the King Tigers near CAEN.

On the hedgerow battlefield the fightings where at rather shorts distances and the concealment was optimal for thye German defenders.

Ok that is not appealing to some of you and you prefer a huge TIGER, that I can understand, but for christsake don't make Normandy look like it had been made in Hollywood, too many roads lengths around UTAH Beach have a name on a post just to remind you that they gave their life for their country and their adversaries did the same. For them we should stick to reality and not make it "Tiger", when it should be Panther or some other track. If they are SS, so they are. They took a beating at the exit of CARENTAN when they came from Periers and where not even able to help the FJ for the planned counter attack. My father was there and they thought at the time that the German were going to get through. They did not, because the SS tanks and abteilung backed up (being scared to move more than they had done and afraid to be cut off. As a result the FJ had to pull back.

That's why, since I have been taught these stories and learned more throught books, I have found that what seems unvulnerable and enlighted by "Propaganda" doesn't reflect reality despite being SS, Tigers.......................

Just a final word to point again what I am saying.

The FJ in Eben Emael made a superb feat at the time. I have visited the place. But you omit to mention that all the field of fire where turned toward the river and the bridge coming from holland and part of Germany on the right (awaiting a conventional ground assault). They came by gliders, right on top of the fort. The fact that the leader of the assault did not reach the objective did not prevent them to neutralize with shaped charges the guns and they were just a few, less than a 100 men if I recall it right.

However, in CRETA the surviving officers and troopers were utterly decimated with their comrades in the drops around MALEME and HERAKLION. They finally won, with the help of coming mountain troops, but it was a Phyrrus victory. The losses were appaling (men and JU-52 transport aircraft) They were never since, engaged by air again, besides commando sort of action and some drops on the Russian front and later in the Ardennes in '44 (decimated again)

However they did a tremendous fighting in CASSINO (Italy) and Normandy as ground troops. That's all folks

[Flanker15]

Ahhhhhh wall of text!!!!!

Ohhhh and most of the guys here already know that stuff anyway. We know the Tiger isn't all that but it's still a special tank for people.

[salwon]

With the timeline starting in June: will it start at the airborne drop, the amphibious landing or right after the amphibious landing?

I think the idea is to have everything up to the winter battles be modeled - that is, if the US were involved, and there was no snow, you can do it. I've been taking this to mean that you can fight on June 6th, just not see your troops landing (and really, all the interesting stuff happened off the beaches anyway). Airborne "drops" are possible to simulate in CMSF with reinforcements, no reason to think that'll change.

Some important things I was wondering about WW2 CMx2 are:

Will we have proper aircraft modling, planes swooping in, AA fire, crashes?

Aircraft modelling seems highly unlikely, but AA is much more on the "scale" of a WWII battle than in SF, so I imagine there will be some work done there. I don't recall anything official though.

Proper routing, retreating units?

I think Steve has said it'll work as it does now (meaning, no ) A shame too, protecting POWs is a good job for tankless crews!

Bridges?

Since full water modelling is a selling point, bridges seem likely.

Please ! No 1 to 1 Infantry representation on the field; I prefer how CMx1 handles that now.

You could always just buy CMx1 again...

[JonS]

*ahem* End of June? June 12th - June 13th 17th SS PzGrndr fought the 506th PIR at Caretan.

Several days prior to that the 17th SS Div Recce Bn (Aufkla-whatever Abt) was in the line south of OMAHA.

[flamingknives]

As an observation, I find it much harder to send my pixeltruppen to their doom when they are represented 1:1. When they were abstracted I was much more indifferent to their plight.

[CogNative]

Proper aircraft modeling, planes (not just shadows) swooping in, AA fire, crashes would be superb. Hope this makes the included feature list. I would buy a "Proper aircraft modeling" module if it did not.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Isn't CM:Normandy (or whatever it's called) going to include Commonwealth units?

No, Commonwealth units will be included in the first module. We'll probably get appropriate German goodies with it as well.

[Battlefront.com]

Some quick comments, though you guys have to understand that I've got to keep some stuff vague for now since we never want to say something is "in" until we are sure there are no last minute hiccups. Things that I can say for sure are in:

1. Bridges. They go hand in hand with water, which is also in.

2. Air to ground, ground to air. This means we will have flak guns and what not. No 3D aircraft. It's too much work to make it look good (i.e. flight paths). So we're planning on the CMx1 shadow system.

3. By the time all the Modules for the first game are out, pretty much everything up until the change of seasons (i.e. Fall) should be present. That does me, however, that some things won't be available right out of the box. Subsequent Modules will focus on one major theme, but we are planning on being flexible as to what else we include. You will definitely not have all US units in the first game, just a BIG chunk of them.

4. CMx2 is 1:1 now and forever. The game system isn't even capable of doing abstract representations like CMx1 for the most part, especially not soldiers.

Steve

[snake_eye]

Some quick comments, though you guys have to understand that I've got to keep some stuff vague .......Steve

that's correct with me and I am sure to like the comings addons like I did since I discovered CM1 at its release.

To come back to the upcoming, just 2 questions about the Normandy Battlefield :

- Are you considering to introduce ramming for tanks (it happened frequently in Normandy)and is it feasible to calculate it and have a graphic representation for it

that's the way, near Vimont close to Caen, on the 13th july '44, the 1st Royal Tiger (in europe) was immobilized, then destroyed by a 75mmm Sherman from the 2nd Armd Irish Guards. The crew evacuated and in the urgency of their escape reported later having destroyed a Panther !

- How the increasing details, that should go along hamlets, suburbs, towns, and industrial areas as well as the environment of trees hedgerows, river and or stream, ponds, swampy area ........are being envisaged and aren't they be RAM killer affecting the graphic card, bringing the game to a slow motion and absence of some resolution starting with trenches appearing at the last moment. It happens nowadays in huge Marines Battles with a good graphic card and RAM.

Just to kidd you a bit more, what about cows. For sure they were mostly seen at the time, with their legs up. But afforded some protection in the field swept by MG !!!!!

[bodkin]

One thing we have to remember is that many more tigers were reported to be engaged by Allied tank crews than actually existed in the Normandy theatre (Tiger Phobia).

In CMx1 there was an option to label your scenario as historical or fictional, maybe this can be brought back into the CMx2 WW2 games. I'm not going to fire up the editor to check but as I remember it there is no such choice to make at the moment.

[Sergei]

In CMx1 there was an option to label your scenario as historical or fictional, maybe this can be brought back into the CMx2 WW2 games. I'm not going to fire up the editor to check but as I remember it there is no such choice to make at the moment.

I don't think there was such option in CMx1. Such info could be (and often was) included in the scenario description, but that's a different thing.

This same can be done in CMx2, but CMSF of course is hypothetical by nature.

[Sergei]

- Are you considering to introduce ramming for tanks (it happened frequently in Normandy)and is it feasible to calculate it and have a graphic representation for it

that's the way, near Vimont close to Caen, on the 13th july '44, the 1st Royal Tiger (in europe) was immobilized, then destroyed by a 75mmm Sherman from the 2nd Armd Irish Guards. The crew evacuated and in the urgency of their escape reported later having destroyed a Panther !

I wouldn't call one case of ramming frequent.

[snake_eye]

I wouldn't call one case of ramming frequent.

That one with the Royal Tiger was exceptional. It was however very frequent on the battlefield in Normandy and elsewhere

[Sergei]

Just how many documented cases are there? I can't find more than that one with Google. I do however find sites claiming tank ramming as a myth.

[snake_eye]

Just how many documented cases are there? I can't find more than that one with Google. I do however find sites claiming tank ramming as a myth.

you'll find facts in some tankers reports throught books lecture.It happen probably in WWI, but I don't have personal recollection and more frequently in WWII. I remind reading about B1 French heavy tank in june 1940, unable to use their main gun( which limited traverse was like the latter sturmgeschutz III & IV) ramming deliberatly German czeck design 35T panzer or other tracks.

All tankers were doing so at close range, when nothing else could be done. The ramming crews were pretty well shock but had a chance to get alive from it.

[Other Means]

As an observation, I find it much harder to send my pixeltruppen to their doom when they are represented 1:1. When they were abstracted I was much more indifferent to their plight.

Definitely. I feel a distinct pang when one of my guys goes down. Thinking back on the attacks I did in CM1 where I took a short cut between two clumps of trees even though there was an MG covering because I'd "only" lose 2 - 3 men but save 2 minutes. Don't think I'd be able to do that now.