Spot the Mistake in the target map- an AHF challenge

[Sheldrake]

I am preparing a map showing the German defences on the British invasion sector and the Second Army fireplan. I fear I am going bonkers and missed either a target or an effect.

Here are a list of German dispositions (from various sources) and fireplan targets. (from the Second Army Fireplan May 1944)

German defences and fireplan BHritish beaches.pdf

(216.58 KiB) Downloaded 80 times

Here is the map, based on an chart projected from grid references.

dday fireplan map.pdf

(386.87 KiB) Downloaded 84 times

What have I missed or got wrong?

Are the German defenders correctly located and identified? Which would anyone dispute?

Have I missed any of the fireplan targets?

[JonS2]

That's a nice piece of work, Guns, but the map is so deficient of detail that it's frankly impossible to say whether you missed anything or if everything is in the correct location.

[Carl Schwamberger]

That's a nice piece of work, Guns, but the map is so deficient of detail that it's frankly impossible to say whether you missed anything or if everything is in the correct location.

Agree there. I could spend a hour picking over both documents, but dont have that hour to spare & am unsure if that effort would assist you.

The note about air attack in the lower right corner amused me. That is the item about the day bombers flying west to east, or parallel to the coast. For a similar bomber attack on OMAHA Beach I've seen endless repetitions of the reasons why it was impractical for bombers to a attack route parallel to the coast. Yet here they are...

[JonS2]

I noticed that to Of course, the same thing happened (twice!) before Cobra ... and Totalise ... and Tractable ...

[Sheldrake]

That's a nice piece of work, Guns, but the map is so deficient of detail that it's frankly impossible to say whether you missed anything or if everything is in the correct location.

The map was generated as a scatter chart from the Eastings and Northings of the WW2 Lambert Grid co-ordinates of the German positions and fire-plan.

Re the heavy bombing. I looked at the D Day aerial photographs and I was impressed by the relative accuracy of the heavy day bombers, albeit 1000m inland. The 8th AF didn't usually bomb that early nor try to bomb discrete targets through cloud by groups. Yet the Mont Fluery battery and the targets south of Juno beach were well hit. Even the unfortunate British paras bombed by mistake were about 1000m S of the Franceville strongpoint.

The bombing effort on 5-6th June was around 10 kt of HE.

[JonS2]

The map was generated as a scatter chart from the Eastings and Northings of the WW2 Lambert Grid co-ordinates of the German ...

I dont doubt the process you used. What I mean is that the final product is so sparse in term of map detail that I wouldn't be able to tell if something was missing or misplaced (ie, if the process failed for some reason), which is - I think? - what you were asking people to check for in the first post.

[Sheldrake]

The map was generated as a scatter chart from the Eastings and Northings of the WW2 Lambert Grid co-ordinates of the German ...

I dont doubt the process you used. What I mean is that the final product is so sparse in term of map detail that I wouldn't be able to tell if something was missing or misplaced (ie, if the process failed for some reason), which is - I think? - what you were asking people to check for in the first post.

Sorry I wasn't very clear. In addition to the map, I posted the list of defensive positions used to generate the map. This is where the denizens of AHF might bring their detailed knowledge to bear.

The map needs to fit onto one page in a book, which limited the level of detail. I want to show the targets for the D Day fireplan and the modest proportion of the defences that had been identified before D Day. There is a myth that the allies had every defensive position on detailed maps thanks to aerial reconnaissance, Ultra and the Resistance. The reality is that the allies only found half of the German positions. Allied progress inland would depend on their ability to identify and bring firepower to bear on hitherto un-located enemy.