In early September of 1944, General Courtney Hodge’s U.S. First
Army was poised to begin offensive operations agains the much
vaunted German “West Wall”, known to the Allies as the “Siegfried Line”.
This belt of bunkers, ditches, tank traps and mines, almost 400 miles
in length constituted Germany’s last line of defense against an
Allied penetration along the German border.
However, the Allied forces had advanced so far and so rapidly in
the months following the D-Day invasion that a supply crisis
stopped them in their tracks.
Gasoline, ammunition, rations and equipment all necessary to maintain
an army in the field were all in critically short supply.
The supplies were in abundance back in the depots in Normandy,
but getting them to the front lines in sufficient amounts was
proving impossible.
The famed “Red Ball Express” solved a great deal of this problem.
As well, recently repaired railyards and hundreds of miles
of tracks were coming back online slowly and formed an important
part of the logistical chain.
In this fictitious battle, a railyard garrisoned by a battalion
of U.S. infantry comes under attack by a German kampfgruppe intent
on its destruction.
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Playable as a PBEM -only-.
AI plan -not- implemented.
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The map is quite large in size, being 2160 by 2160 meters,
as are the force compositions. The initial deployment phase
will more than likely entail an hour or more.
The German player is encouraged to assign sectors/objectives
by battalion during the initial phases of the battle in order
to keep from being overwhelmed by the large number of units.
The terrain consists of gently rolling hills throughout with
light to moderate areas of vegetation. Use both to your advantage.
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Bear in mind that you are able to save a game
in mid-turn. ie: you can assign orders to one battalion,
save the game, and resume it later to finish that turn up.
This is not a battle for the faint of heart. It will require
a LOT of time and thought on the part of the players. However,
that effort will be amply rewarded with the fun and exhilaration
to be gained by watching so many units fight it out on a map
of this size.
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Here are the basic loading/saving times you can expect to
encounter:
“Loading” : 2-3 minutes
“Computing Real-time Action” : 30-45 seconds
“Save”: 15-25 seconds
These numbers are based on a relatively high end rig.
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.50GHz
RAM: 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 800MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z87M-PLUS
Graphics: 2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770
Oddball-CAF/Grunt-15th MEU
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