hey
this isnt really a gaming question but its about WW2 so i thought id ask anyway
why are iron crosses on the beach, i assume nazi’s didnt put them there for cover, then what? did allied planes drop them off, it just seems to me that without them allies would have no cover and get their arses kicked
The crosses are actually there to rip the bottom off of landing boats. One of the reasons the allies landed at low tide, were so that as many obstacles as possible could be exposed.
FINALLY, a thread about defensive obstacles! Huzzah!
We did a load of research on beach defences, hardly any of which made it into the game.
I highly recommend Hitler’s Atlantic Wall by Anthony Saunders, Sutton Books, ISBN 0 7509 25442, which achieves the near-mythical feat of making cement:sand:gravel ratios fascinating.
The “Hedgehogs” , made of welded lengths of train track or construction girder, were primarily anti-tank obstacles. There were several patterns of obstacle designed to stop or dissuade landing craft, notably the wooden ramps made from an angled telegraph pole. These are often thought to point towards the sea to rip into advancing hulls, but were actually supposed to point up the beach, forming an inclined ramp to tip over flat-bottomed landing craft.
The movie “Saving Private Ryan” had a bunch of these in the Omaha beach sequence but according to the Saving Private Ryan Online Encyclopedia (http://www.sproe.com/w/woodenramps.html): “The production team on Saving Private Ryan mistakenly placed most of the wooden ramps facing towards the sea instead of towards the beach. Although such a placement would probably have had some kind of negative effect on incoming forces, this was not historically accurate and did not represent how the Germans deployed the wooden ramps. A few of the ramps are placed accurately, however, as can be seen in the scenes depicting the dead Sean Ryan on Omaha Beach and the later D-Day +3 scenes, which show a long shot of the beach with ramps facing in both directions. Some sources indicate that the ramps were all placed in the wrong direction initially, and that as many as possible were switched once the error was discovered.”
Oh, and the steel beams of the Hedgehogs were later cut up, sharpened and welded to the front of Allied tanks as hedge-ripping attachments. As the Allies advanced from the D-Day beach-head into Normandy they had to fight their way through countryside called bocage - thick earth banks topped with metres-thick hedgerows every hundred metres or so which made perfect defensive barriers for the German defenders, slowed the Allied advance to a crawl and caused heavy casualties. Allied tanks couldn’t push through bocage without some sort of massive sharpened ram so they improvised them out of the now-useless beach defences. So the anti-tank Hedghog obstacles were made into on-to-tank anti-Hedge-obstacle rippers.
There. I’ve been waiting to brandish these factoids for YEARS!
The axis were anticipating a high tide landing and they were there to rip holes in the bottom of the landing craft, but as we all know it was a low tide invasion. There was a good documentary on National Geographic on the anniversary of D-Day Last year.
In his entheusiasm, Bongoboy forgot to mention that they were originally called “Czech Hedgehogs”, and the design meant that they would still be effective if they where blown over by a nearby explosion (assuming the explosion didn’t rip it apart).
Additionally, he forgot to mention that a lot, if not all, of the log ramps had mines attached to them.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_wall
About those mines: apparently, the allies thought the defenders had developed a special “atlantic wall-mine” (so I’ve read somewhere). The allies wanted to find out if it was true, before D-day. They deployed a small force via the sea, who had just one mission: to investigate and if possible steal one of these new mines. They accomplished their risky mission. However, there were no new mines - just old types of mines.
This discussion can go on forever… 
The allies also misjudged the number of axis coast artillery guns (they thought there were many more).
“It will be the longest day”
More info http://www.navyseals.com/community/navyseals/history_wwii.cfm
plus info on Belgian Gates.
You wouldn’t believe how hard I tried to get Belgian Gates into the game.
It was eventually pointed out to me that people would just think we’d left half a bed on the beach.
Some good pics here:
http://www.atlantikwall.net/components_obstacles.htm
And some info with links here:
http://www.normandiememoire.com/NM60Anglais/2_histo1/histo1_p3_02_gb.htm
And general layout here:
http://www.britannica.com/normandy/cap/onormay226j4_O.html?ref=news0604nmview
Belgian gates 
yup, we had those everywhere back in '40. Especially throughout the KW-line, also known as the Dyle-line.
I would love to start a “Fortress Eben-Emael” topic overhere, but I think that would be a bit offtopic, so I’ll not do it (unless too many people want to :D)
Im sure RtCW map Omaha Beach had a couple of mine laden Belgian gates on it.
“edit” They were more like the Nutcrackers
Steel anti-tank barriers, made by the belgian army in order to make a defence for our country. After 1940, the German replicated these and used them for instance at their Atlantikwall
Hmm. Belgian gates and Czech hedgehogs didn’t stop the German army, what made them think they’d do any good against the Allies? lol
Simply compare belgian equipment with german. There is a difference if only some infantry is hiding in a bunker behind the defenses or infantry with some 88-gun, mg42, tanks, artillery …
