Forgotten Hope Public Forum
Announcements => Developer Blogs => Topic started by: Ts4EVER on 01-04-2014, 18:04:08
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Omaha defenses explained
Ever since the film Saving Private Ryan, the image of soldiers approaching a heavily fortified beach in landing craft is etched into popular culture. Every WW2 video game usually includes some version of that famous sequence. The cold steel obstacles and towering concrete bunkers serve as a handy visual metaphor for struggle against overwhelming odds.
However, while SPR is certainly a fine movie, its depiction of the Omaha Beach defenses is also marred by several inaccuracies. Forgotten Hope 2 has always prided itself in providing a more historical experience than the average mainstream game and so our version of the defenses around Dog Green and Charlie sectors are close to 100% accurate. Let's look at them, shall we?
(http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/screenshotsfh2/news/omaha/omaha_mini.jpg)
It is tempting to think of the Atlantikwall as some kind of impenetrable fortress, consisting of continuous lines of trenches and bunkers. In reality, the Germans had neither the manpower nor the ressources to build or man such a line. Instead, they build a series of Widerstandsneste (eng: strongpoints, lit: nests of resistance), small clusters of fortifications concentrated around important weak points in the line.
One such point was at the village of Vierville-Sur-Mer. As you can see on the map, a road cuts through the coastal cliffs here, leading inland. If the Allies wanted to move supplies from the beach, they would have to control this road, which was designated D-1 Draw by the Americans. The Germans defended it with three WNs: WN70, WN71 and WN72. You can see the three flags on the minimap.
WN71 was the center of this arrangement and also contained the main bunker:
(http://i.imgur.com/KGuPVewl.png)
Right away you will notice that this doesn't quite look like the huge SPR MG bunkers. The reason for this is simple: If you sight a bunker to aim out into the sea, it is vulnerable to the heavy artillery typically carried by warships. Its lines of sight are also limited to what's directly in front of it. This bunker is instead sighted to aim down the length of the road, as well as the beach. This means a wieder field of fire and exposed flanks of any tank attempting to drive up the beach. You may also notice that it is separated from the beach by a big concrete wall. This is a so called "defilade wall" and designed to protect the 8.8cm Pak43/41 inside against naval artillery. Since this gun is not yet available in FH2, we will use a 7.5cm Pak40 as a placeholder.
(http://i.imgur.com/zah1inWl.png)
The various bunkers in all strongpoints are connected by trenches, allowing German infantry to change position without sacrificing protection. You can also see another nice detail: The Germans tried to camouflage their bunker as a restaurant with a deck in front of it. Of course, the initial bombardement destroyed this flimsy construction and only left the bunker intact.
Still, the back of the bunker is somewhat of a blind zone, which is why the Germans constructed their defenses in a way that let the different bunkers cover each others blind zones.
(http://i.imgur.com/TROPWXNl.png)
In SPR, the main goal of the heroes is to reach the shingle or beachwall in the opening sequence. Once there, they are in relative safety, since the machine guns can not shoot low enough. As you can see, that safety is a mere illusion in reality. The bunker above is a so called Doppelschartenbunker (eng: double embrasure bunker) and is build directly into the seawall. It also doesn't shoot out into the sea, but houses a 5cm gun that enfilades the shingle on both sides, securing it against tank attack.
(http://i.imgur.com/rhHjV3nl.png)
To defend the back of the bunker, the Germans installed the turret of an obsolete French H39 Hotchkiss tank on this bunker as well. Note how a defilade wall protects it against naval strike. Ingame Germans will be able to enter it through a steel door down in the bunker. It can be taken out by direct fire like any tank or by placing explosives against the bunker door.
WN71 is flanked by additional strong points up on the cliffs on both sides of the draw. Their main objective is barricading the road leading inland. For this purpose, two machinegun bunkers are build into the cliffs on both sides of the road, creating a deadly crossfire.
(http://i.imgur.com/s2wEa7Ll.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/K18qATAl.png)
These positions are connected to their troop bunkers by extensive trench systems that also include mortar positions and camouflaged machine gun nests build into the bluff.
(http://i.imgur.com/dhZz7B6l.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/3k1xnI6l.png)
These MGs are aimed directly at the water line, but they are vulnerable to artillery fire and have big blind zones under them. Once the Americans have gained a foothold on the beach, the German defenders will only be able to spawn in the WNs on top of the cliffs, making it harder to keep the bunkers manned and operational. On top of that, almost all German MGs are emplaced in bunkers or nests, so they lack mobile firepower and have to rely on machine pistols and the occasional automatic rifle to defend their trenches against the attackers.
(http://i.imgur.com/tINZALYl.png)
The Americans will have to fight their way up the hills using several small footpaths leading into the defensive system. Once inside, grenades and automatic weapons will hopefully win the day for them.
The last position we will look at is this 5cm anti tank gun bunker in WN72.
(http://i.imgur.com/LAZcauLl.png)
This illustrates the principle of defense quite perfectly. The gun is protected against fire from the sea and covers the blind spots of the WN71 bunkers. At the same time it is in turn covered by the tank turret. American players will have to learn how to unravel these carefully laid out defenses if they want to succeed on this map.
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Nicely done Ts4EVER.
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Great job Ts4EVER! ;)
Looks like the Allies will need some real teamwork to get off the beach, but at the same time the Germans will have to make sure to keep their bunkers manned with troops and guns repaired in order to keep the Allies from pushing them out!
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Looks very well planned and realistic! Great job.
Oh, and I wonder if there is the rest of that French tank, or even more? ;) ;D
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Time for Tankbuster and his smoke grenades to shine.
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Thanks Ts4Ever, I am sure we are all going to get excited for this upcoming release.
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Can't wait to get in the thick of it 8)
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Great, thank you! This will be great fun and a different kind of challenge for each team and therefore going to be really interesting. Looks like there is a lot of detail and research behind this to achieve historical accuracy, which is what I especially like.
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Oh, and I wonder if there is the rest of that French tank, or even more? ;) ;D
Would be cool if they did. They've already got the turret and the tracks. Would be fun to have some rockets on it and blast away at the enemy with my little sneaky tank.
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Well done Ts4EVER.
Is there ammo & mortar on the beach for the Allies?
8)
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Well done! This map looks awesome and I can already feel being on the PAK shooting HE-Shells on the beach :P
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Well done Ts4EVER.
Is there ammo & mortar on the beach for the Allies?
8)
in the beach landing phase the Americans get:
16 landing ships (I think) with 2 MMGs each
2 pickup mortars
2 pickup snipers
2 pickup M1919MMG
1 pickup flamethrower
1 cruiser ship with 4 127mm guns
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Why would you need ammo for a pickup mortar? If you are the one who deployed it, all you need to do is exit and redeploy - bam, full ammo. (Of course, the trick is not to get killed - might be a bit more difficult on Omaha than PHL...)
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Why would you need ammo for a pickup mortar? If you are the one who deployed it, all you need to do is exit and redeploy - bam, full ammo. (Of course, the trick is not to get killed - might be a bit more difficult on Omaha than PHL...)
Now that's a trick I've never heard of. Not surprising, rarely pick up a mortar. Might do it some more in the future
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Btw, I realised that the Omaha Beach minimap shows the beach at north while in reality it is at southwest.
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That's usually the case with FH2 beachmaps, gives the impression of the attackers "climbing up" the map.
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You mean, it's a classic mistake to not think about north? :p
(I did the same with "overlord" for PR :p, and many realize their mistake when it's too far in development already, hehe ;))
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Hehe. No it's actually the same on Port en Bessin (which was supposed to be a beachmap until somebody looked into it). Attackers on beachmaps always fight up.
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Well Pointe du Hoc seems more correct.
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Well Pointe du Hoc seems more correct.
I think it was stated somewhere that PdH was laid out before the mappers learned that 'attacking-up' the beach gives the player a better feel.
Btw- another awesome devblog TS. I learned a lot about the defense and a lot about how badass this map is gonna be 8)
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Well Pointe du Hoc seems more correct.
I think it was stated somewhere that PdH was laid out before the mappers learned that 'attacking-up' the beach gives the player a better feel.
Btw- another awesome devblog TS. I learned a lot about the defense and a lot about how badass this map is gonna be 8)
funny, to me, attacking down feels more like "fighting inland" :) oh well it's just a map ;)
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I would have liked it more if the map was placed like it is in real life, as I like realism but I guess it's too late to change now.
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There is not true north and south in fh2 land. Some devs a firm believers that the poles will soon switch place and everything will be fine.
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Also, you can set the map to rotate if I recall correctly.
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North and south are reversed on PHL and
633 Squadron Operation Hyacinth too (LRDG most likely came in from the east, and the airfield was north of the town in any case). Never mind that the Germans start on the western bank in Meuse River 1944 and try to advance to the eastern bank (unless it's reversed too) :p
Brest is on the other hand about 90 degrees lopsided (north is on the right, as sea should be roughly in the south), as is Fall of Tobruk (again, sea is roughly south of the town centre, but this time north is on the left) - curiously enough, Siege of Tobruk is not.
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About the use of bangalores; I'm assuming the barbed wire can only be blown at certain spots (like the wall on Gold Beach) to open up new avenues for the Americans not get bottle-necked? Any word on how we know which sections of barbed wire can be blown and which ones can't? Or is that for us to figure out ;)
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You can blow up all barbed wire on the seawall.
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There is not true north and south in fh2 land. Some devs a firm believers that the poles will soon switch place and everything will be fine.
Geographic north and south are not magnetic north and south, in fact, geographic north corresponds roughly (1000 km away) from the magnetic south pole (generally called the magnetic north pole to avoid confusion).
Still, if the orientation of the minimap is the best thing people can come up with to complain about, you should consider your update pretty successful.
Now, the position of the Sun on the other hand should be in the correct place, as it is the only way you can determine actual north. Whether the north points to the top of your screen is totally irrelevant. It's like holding a map upside down and saying the map is wrong - the map is fine. So, judging from the minimap, the shadows are pointing to the right, which means the Sun is rising on the left side. Since this is early morning and the Sun rises in the east, the sea is in the north, which is correct.
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Don't listen to this sorcerer of 'truth'!
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There is not true north and south in fh2 land. Some devs a firm believers that the poles will soon switch place and everything will be fine.
Geographic north and south are not magnetic north and south, in fact, geographic north corresponds roughly (1000 km away) from the magnetic south pole (generally called the magnetic north pole to avoid confusion).
Still, if the orientation of the minimap is the best thing people can come up with to complain about, you should consider your update pretty successful.
Now, the position of the Sun on the other hand should be in the correct place, as it is the only way you can determine actual north. Whether the north points to the top of your screen is totally irrelevant. It's like holding a map upside down and saying the map is wrong - the map is fine. So, judging from the minimap, the shadows are pointing to the right, which means the Sun is rising on the left side. Since this is early morning and the Sun rises in the east, the sea is in the north, which is correct.
But the compass under minimap will show sth different, right?
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Can we have one ammo pickup kit for americans?
not really for the ammo package...but for the M1917 Enfield <3
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Lol, get ready to see every single fixed position bein used by Germans if i show up on this map as an German with m'a squad... (impenetrable defense!)
(...) or get ready for lungh cancer with the smoke than americans will use if i get myself to allied side ;D
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Actually the more I think about it, I think this map may be fairly easy for the usa after a few rounds...
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We will see, Charlie Sector wasn't that easy in FH1 and there are easy ways to tweak the map in german favour after the release ;)
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Actually the more I think about it, I think this map may be fairly easy for the usa after a few rounds...
Interesting :)
Obviously we can't tell anything until we play it, but imo the Germans have the upperhand. The americans get smoke and arty to deal with some of the open MGs on the bluffs. But that's still a looooong beach they have to cross, and then hold 3 flags at once before the sector locks (right?). Not an easy task.
I'm more curious as to how the tickets will work after the WNs on the draw are capped... do the Americans keep bleeding until they cap out the Germans? keep bleeding until they grab a foothold in the town? (i'm sure that's all stuff the beta testers are still hammering out tho ;))
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There was a similar map in FHT. Huge sea invasion Brits vs Germans. Cant remember the name, maybe RandoOm or Surfbird can. Now its all hard as balls all the way until the Allied capture the first flag. Then once they get a foothold and manage to establish a perimeter they fight flag by flag to victory.
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The only reason I say it will get easier is due to the german positons being static. Think about maps that have alot of static objects, once the attacking team knows where everything is they learn how to either A. takw it out or B. avoid it. Now granted I have not seen or played the map, Im just making a hunch based off prior knowledge.
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True. From the looks of it there's a good portion of those static positions that are covered from arty tho. So thats good 8)
Honestly I think static positions have the biggest problems on maps with planes. Like on Cobra, you can forget about trying to man anything at the watermill as a german. I barely get time to load a round before hellfire starts raining down on me. :P
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Allies will bleed until they capture all flags. Normal sector push setup.
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Allies will bleed until they capture all flags. Normal sector push setup.
So it must be really easy to reach the bitch...
or MAYBE there will be an hell of an ticket number on this map! :D
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No the first three flags are really hard. After that, the Americans have the upper hand with 2 tanks and naval artillery...
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So it must be really easy to reach the bitch...
No, usually that's quite hard, actually ;)
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So it must be really easy to reach the bitch...
No, usually that's quite hard, actually ;)
depends on your wallet
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On your wallet maybe :P
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Great Devblog and good work on the map Ts,
can't wait to play this beauty on a full server. Balancing will indeed be the most interesting aspect. Just watching down the cliff and looking onto the beach you get a really good sense of the scale and how damn long that beach really is ingame, expecialy when you see players running over it. So it will be anything, but for sure not easy.
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Plus the balancing will change as players learn to play the map.
Remember when Hurtgen forest was new, the allies capping germeter and winning was superrare. Now it can easily go either way.
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Now I realised that all these bunkers are already in mapping files, so I wonder why nobody noticed that they're related to Omaha Beach :P
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they are there for few years now and they were noticed many times in the past
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So nobody think for what reason they were created? ???
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AFAIK early version of Omaha was made a long time ago but then, this project was abandoned and community was told about it being scrapped or something when someone found these bunkers in the files, until the official update about it every Omaha dream was crushed even if map went back into development after 2.45 release.
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Ok, thanks for explanation.
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Not all of these bunkers are in the mapping files. I'm pretty sure the 88mm pak bunker isn't, for example.
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If you mean this one:
(http://i.imgur.com/LAZcauLl.png)
- it's already there!
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No, the big one down in wn71. Or the double embrasure bunker with the turret, for that matter.
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I think the big one from WN71 is in the files becaues I've seen it a long time ago before map went back into the beta build (but it could be there in my beta modding build anyway) not sure about the double embrasure bunker but if it's there it's obviously without the turret (but with empty opening).
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There's a ton of things in the files relating to scrapped ideas or ideas that are (possibly) in the works.
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This WN71 and double sided bunker are also there!
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Will we see a Omaha Walthrough video?
Also, can the Croc's flame reach the bunkers from the beach?
There are 2 Croc's on the beach right?
8)
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Crocodiles? On my Omaha? It's more unlikely than you think (as they were on Gold, Juno & Sword). Only Sherman DD's were available for tonk support.
EDIT 2: Murrikans were offered the use of any of the Hobart's Funnies, but they refused all except DD. Lesson learned, they accepted Croc support after the landings, especially in Battle of Brest (hint, hint).
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Churchill Crocodiles were not used in the city of Brest, they used them to storm fortifications around the city.
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Looks fantastic! Thank you very much Ts4EVER.
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A video of my Omaha experience yesterday ... it was bloody and the US lost like aways -- but at least we took a couple of beach points before defeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDPf3Jwf668
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Hi!
As some of you might have seen, there recently was a video by the HistoryBuffs channel exploring the historical accuracy of Saving Private Ryan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1aGH6NbbyE
I thought it fell a bit short in places so I made another one based on our Omaha Beach map.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp875ATM0ZE
Enjoy and please share as well ;)
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Another dev stream. Nice :-)
You should put in some low volume immersive ww2 background music
Lag or gfx freeze appear in recording ex. 15.08-15.16. Something is bottle necking your system
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Yeah I know, the problem is these only appear on the recording, not ingame. Any idea?
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Yeah I know, the problem is these only appear on the recording, not ingame. Any idea?
I record with tempfolder "Tempoary files location" on a 1gb ramdisk with shadowplay
https://www.softperfect.com/products/ramdisk/
"Save location" on normal hdd
Even when using my fast samsung 950 ssd as temp + save folder. I get freeze/stutter on recording. hmm
I dont have good experience with anyting else than nvidia shadowplay.
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But recording onto an ssd would improve things, potentially?
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But recording onto an ssd would improve things, potentially?
Yup. Faster read/write times AFAIK also gives you lower hdd respons time as on ssd.
Making a ramdisk will give you a hdd with super fast read/write times + low respons time
If you use a temp folder. You could try putting it on another drive than the save disk drive
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Yeah will try that, thanks.
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I'd be down for more of these videos. :D great work.
Maybe you can slowly go through all of the maps mentioned here
http://fhpubforum.warumdarum.de/index.php?topic=16099.0 (http://fhpubforum.warumdarum.de/index.php?topic=16099.0)
and even some of the future East Front Maps coming up ;)
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I commented, and other people should comment too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxn-zDOtooE
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Even better: Upvote the comments mentioning FH2.
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Even better: Upvote the comments mentioning FH2.
I only found four so far.
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Even better: Upvote the comments mentioning FH2.
I only found four so far.
Upvote them all the same. Also post TS's video in the comments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp875ATM0ZE