After seeing a piece on the Military channel on Marines and beach landings and thinking back to the Movie Saving Private Ryan and what a slaughter it was on that beach I ask myself.

Why didn't they mount .50 cal's on at least a few of the landiing craft to put suppresive fire on the German machine gun positions? Or, better yet, have a few dedicated landing craft mounted with several mounted .50 cal's on the flanks to really put fire on them? I have read that it was really a shooting gallery and one German gunner (MG-42 I believe)expended 10's of thousands of rounds killing hundreds of American GI's, if this guy had some heavy suppresive fire on him would'nt things have been different?

The next question is. Did they soften the beaches a day or two before hand? If not why not? I would think carpet bombimg those beach heads would be a no brainer.

Hmmm, ever seen a landing craft from WWII? OK, no imagine trying to return fire from one running full bore at the beach. You need to realise that this was an ocean they were attacking from, not a lake where the water is all smooth. I seriously doubt that they couldn't have hit anything with a fifty cal from a landing craft.

And yes, they did perform a Naval barrage along with bombing missions. Have you ever seen the bunkers that the Germans had in place there? The fortifications were immense and near impregnable. Naval gunfire and bombs did not prenetrate.

Now that you brought it up with the comments about the gunfire those troops were under, imagine the courage it took for each of those guys to even move forward. In my book those guys truely were the worlds greatest generation. Everytime I see those films, my respect and awe grows for them.

Well, this was recently discovered (it was so well hidden...):

Crumpled map solves mystery of German gun behind D-Day massacre

Last updated at 17:03pm on 4th January 2008

A baffling mystery of the D-Day landings was solved by an amateur historian - after he found a crumpled map at a fair in Stockport.

Experts have long disputed the location of the main Nazi gun battery which caused carnage on Omaha Beach, in terrible scenes which were recreated for the Hollywood film Saving Private Ryan.

The Germans had built a decoy gun emplacement overlooking the area while the location of the real guns which blasted the beach, where 2,000 men lost their lives, remained unclear.

More here--
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1948337/posts

And the German defenses were insane. Built to withstand any bombardment. Many of the landing craft landed in the wrong place, right into the teeth of positions they were trying to avoid. And the gunners (what gunners were on the landing craft) had to aim up cliffs, while defenders had to aim down....there's a reason we seek the high ground.

Here's a snippet:
Bound at either end by rocky cliffs, the Omaha Beach crescent presented a gently sloping tidal area averaging 300 yards (275 m) between low and highwater marks. Above the tide line was a bank of shingle 8 feet (2.4 m) high and up to 15 yards (14 m) wide in some places. At the western end the shingle bank rested against a stone (further east becoming wood) constructed sea wall which ranged from 4–12 feet (1.5–4 m) in height. For the remaining two thirds of the beach after the seawall ended the shingle lay against a low sand embankment. Behind the sand embankment and sea wall lay a level shelf of sand, narrow at either end and extending up to 200 yards (180 m) inland in the center. Steep escarpments or bluffs then rose 100–170 feet (30–50 m), dominating the whole beach and cut into by small wooded valleys or draws at five points along the beach, codenamed west to east D-1, D-3, E-1, E-3 and F-1.[1]

The German defensive preparations and the lack of any defense in depth indicated that their plan was to stop the invasion at the beaches.[2] Four lines of obstacles were constructed in the water. The first, a non-contiguous line with a small gap in the middle of Dog White sector and a larger gap across the whole of Easy Red sector, was 270 yards (250 m) out from the highwater line and consisted of 200 Belgian Gates with mines lashed to the uprights. Some 32 yards (30 m) behind these was a continuous line of logs driven into the sand pointing seaward, every third one capped with an anti-tank mine. Another 32 yards (30 m) shoreward of this line was a continuous line of 450 ramps sloping towards the shore, also with mines attached and designed to force flat-bottomed landing craft to ride up and either flip or detonate the mine. The final line of obstacles was a continuous line of hedgehogs 165 yards (150 m) from the shoreline.[3] The area between the shingle bank and the bluffs was both wired and mined, and mines were also scattered on the bluff slopes.

MUCH more on the Omaha Beach here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach

I have talked to people who landed at Normandy in the initial waves. They seemed so ordinary – I am not sure I would have gotten on the landing craft without a good shove.

It has also been my honor to talk to people who made combat jumps. They overwhelming comment from them was that they were never dropped where they were suppose to be. That would have involved kicking and screaming to get me to jump. Most of them seemed to be small men in stature and build but tough as nails.

The deception that the Allies used to hide the landing location from the Germans did require them to soften up more than one location.

It was the individual soldier who made the landings successful.

Bump-- Typhoon, here was the latest WWII links I posted.

wow... this is intense just reading... I'm with harryP allthough it may have taken a punch across my face to snap me back into reality instead of just a punch... I agree with whoever on these forums said (the soldiers of WWII were truly best generation)... especially with the lack of technology within the medical field that we have today

Yes, I've known a few of them (and still do) who are missing pieces.

Hello all, film Private Ryan never happened. It is a totally invented story by Spielberg:::? And movies are always overdone or nobody will watch them. What did happen was D-day. I recommend to all the film 'The longest day' and the book same name,if you haven't seen/read it already. That movie is well researched and matches the facts very closely. The book is a historical document but tense from beginning to end. I believe it is the best war film ever made. It puts Private Ryan into a shadow with sheer authenticity.

Mastertanker, we all know Pvt. Ryan was fake but a damn good movie. But who is to say that something like that did not happen, Those soldiers were good at what they did and they did some great brave things. You must remember that all wars are different, ie: tactics, equipment and least of all the type of soldiers that generation producted.