Campanha Da Normandia

As 1944 began, the Allies and the Germans were preparing for what would be the most important battle of World War II: the invasion of the European continent across the English Channel. On the German side, it was essential that the invasion be repelled, allowing part of the 60 divisions from Western Europe to be moved to the Eastern Front, where their presence was very necessary. Furthermore, with the Allies in Western Europe, the great German nightmare was coming true: a war on two fronts. To repel the invasion, the Germans had several infantry divisions (some of which even included former Russian and Polish prisoners of war), paratroopers and armored vehicles (“panzers”). In addition, they had coastal fortifications. On the Allied side, dozens of well-trained and equipped divisions, many of them veterans of the war in the Mediterranean, were preparing for the confrontation. The Allied air forces completely dominated the skies and hammered German communications and concentrations. The seas were under Allied control. With the invasion, the Allies hoped to reach Germany by the shortest route (through France), thus ending the war as quickly as possible. On “D-Day”, as June 6, 1944 would go down in history, 9 reinforced divisions breached the “Atlantic Wall”. The German reaction was not long in coming: reserves were quickly moved to Normandy, but were eventually delayed by air attacks, the destruction of bridges and sabotage by the French resistance. The ensuing fighting was hard, slow and costly. The terrain of Normandy, an agrarian region with many hedgerows (“bocages”), marshes and woods, as well as some elevations (quotas), was particularly suited to defense. But the German army was gradually worn down until, on 25/07/44, the front broke in the region of Coutances, with the allies advancing to Avranches and from there spreading across France, virtually annihilating the German armies in the West. The war would take almost a year to end, but the Normandy campaign was, in fact, the beginning of the end. Try to recreate the story and have fun.