Oldguy |
Posted on 11/30/-1 @ 12:00 AM
For those of you who like big tough fights, this is a pretty good one, gang! If you fancy yourself a scenario designer, take a look at THE MAPS (intro and terrain), THEY ARE MAGNIFICENT. The author has beautifully and accurately recreated the Cherbourg Peninsula, where he actually lives, and Utah and Omaha beaches - that part of the Normandy coast of France where the American forces landed on The Longest Day (D-Day, the 6th of June, 1944). On his behalf, apologies to the Brits, Canadians, Free French, Poles and others who landed at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches farther East - there just wasn't room on the map. Check out the way the water depth changes as you approach the beaches, and admire the shell craters, beach obstacles, sand cliffs/seawalls, hand-drawn farms, orchards and the beginnings of bocage country. Note the use of flooded land (which actually happened in June '44) and cliffs to separate the action on one beach from that on the other beach. As you might guess from the scenario's title, the author's native language is French, so the story and instructions sound a little awkward. No history is provided, probably because it was too hard to write one in English, but the scenario doesn't suffer because of this, IMHO, since most everyone knows a lot of it anyhow. If not, read Cornelius Ryan's book, or see Saving Private Ryan - an Oscar candidate movie this year. You shouldn't need more motivation than to know the basics of what WWII was about, nor more instruction than this: Your mission is to destroy a single enemy - the Allemands' (Germans') 356th Division, who defend this portion ofder Fuerher's "Atlantic Wall." The Allemands have forts and artillery on the beach, and nicely mixed and placed mobile reserves inland - perhaps a bit more than was actually available to them on that crucial day which is now so long ago, and definitely a little too hard to kill or immobilize for game technical reasons. At your disposal on the South coast of England you have a medium-sized navy, landing craft, and assault forces. Shore bombardment with your navy, a landing at each beach in turn, and some tough house-to-house and hand-to-hand will carry the day if done with the right mix of prudence, audacity and tenacity. You will be able to provide some land-based fire from the first beach you take in support of your assault on the other one, but not much. "Bloody Omaha" lives up to it's name (although there is one little maneuver you can use which will make it easier than it first appears), and the Cherbourg peninsula behind Utah takes forever, just as it did in 1944. I finally prevailed after 4.5 hours, leaving standing only one house in Cherbourg - the one I thought the author's grandparents might have lived in. This was pretty charitable of me, as I really thought the author ought to have started me out with a bigger navy, and that he gave the Allemands too much coast artillery and too many mobile reserves. As the Combined Chiefs of Staff said (more or less) in their 1944 order to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, "...enter the continent of Europe, and aim your efforts at destruction of the (Allemand) war machine..." Again, if you like hard, long fights (I don't, btw) download this! Have fun!! If you like great maps, just take a peek at those. If you're an American, feel good about how one young Frenchman feels about your grandfather. |