Some N 44 questions

[Volcano Man]

Wow, you paint quite the gloomy picture for the Allies. I don't exactly see it that way, having played the Allies myself. You are forgetting a couple of important factors here:

1) The Allies have TONS of effective air strikes, and these are available nearly constantly from start to finish, while the Germans have nearly nothing.

2) The Allies have an massive abundance of artillery (and naval) support, where the Germans do not. Rocket artillery is nice, as you mentioned, but it isn't a huge advantage given their other gun shortages.

3) Also, have you played it lately? You mention attrition, but in the latest version the Allies use the new replacements feature (and recovery), whereas the Germans only get 1% recovery. This is to deal with the whole, quality vs. quantity attritional aspect of course.

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My comment about the Allies steam rolling the invasion beaches in the standard game is not a detriment to the Allies, rather, it is a true problem with the standard campaign IMO. I must of played the original campaign at least eight times over the years (both sides), and the point is that the Allies can surge forward and plant themselves. The Germans then have no hope of opposing the defensive position as the Allies start reinforcing themselves (sure they might meet with some success in local counter attacks), but the point is that the Allies end up weeks ahead of the historical schedule, which only serves to accelerate the inevitable Allied victory. The Germans need to be able to contest the initial beaches and areas immediately behind them in the first days, otherwise they loose too much ground to make a difference. In the Omaha sector it was especially bad, because the US could get off the beach and push beyond it on the first day, and the Germans didn't have enough in the area to effectively hold beyond that, especially since the non-bocage terrain was so weak in the standard game. This all added up to the disappointing realization that the Germans stood a better chance there if they just immediately fled south to the bocage, giving up about 20 km of territory in order to seek cover from relentless allied airstrikes on units located in the (virtual) open terrain. The Alt scenarios have striven to make the villages and farm fields (and all non-clear terrain in general) very defensive terrain types (and slower terrain types for that matter) to discourage this a-historical chain of events.

In any case, that isn't saying that N44_Alt doesn't have flaws as well, but in my view it is the lesser of two evils. ;) To each his own...