Close Combat 2 mod - Operation Market Garden




Overview of the Battle

By September 1944, the Second World War had almost reached a conclusion. The Allied armies had rapidly pushed the disorganized Germans almost completely out of France and Belgium, and it was here that the front line stood, several miles short of the Dutch border.

This rapid advance had caused the Allies crippling supply problems and, despite their best efforts, all the armies did not have the resources to keep advancing at their present pace. Given the view that the Germans were almost on the point of collapse,it was agreed that a single army should be given priority of the supplies to enact a plan that would deal the final blow and win the war before the end of 1944. This honour fell to Field Marshal Montgomery and his 2nd British Army.

Montgomery proposed a highly ambitious plan to fly three Divisions of glider and parachute troops [35,000 men] and land them in various parts of Holland to capture no less than five key bridges. British tanks would simultaneously break through the front line and link up with the Airborne Divisions one by one to properly securing these bridges.Once they were all taken, there would then be no further river obstacles between the British and Germany, and a quick conclusion to the war would surely follow. The plan, the largest airborne assault in the history of warfare, was codenamed Operation Market Garden. D-Day was set for Sunday, 17th September.

Two of the Airborne Divisions selected to capture the bridges were American. The 101st were to take two bridges around Eindhoven, while the 82nd would take a further two at Nijmegen. It was estimated that they would be relieved by British ground troops after only a matter of hours, and one or two days respectively. The final bridge at Arnhem, the ultimate goal of Market Garden, was entrusted to General Roy Urquhart and his 1st British Airborne Division with the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade under command. Urquhart and his 10,000 men were to be dropped 60 miles into enemy territory, and it would be 3 days before British tanks reinforced them.

Overwhelming though this colossal assault was, it was also equally flawed. Airborne troops are only lightly armed and their survival depends upon taking the enemy by surprise and reaching objectives before they have time to react with heavy weapons. However, so cocksure were the Allies in their view that the Germans were already beaten, numerous grave errors were made which doomed Operation Market Garden to failure before a shot had been fired.

21st Independent Parachute Company


At the time of its formation in June 1942, at Larkhill Barracks overlooking Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, the 21st Independent Parachute Company was a body like no other in the airborne forces of any nation. The concept of pathfinders had been pioneered by Major John Lander who, with the blessing of the then Major-General Browning, set about raising a company of hand picked volunteers drawn from the Parachute Regiment and, initially, men who had applied to undergo training for the Glider Pilot Regiment but had been turned away due to the overwhelming demand. The role of the pathfinder was to arrive at the drop zones half an hour in advance of the main body of airborne troops in order to set up beacons to pin-point the dropping area for the advancing aircraft, to clear any obstacles from the zone that would impede the gliders, and also to lightly secure the immediate area from enemy interference. As such its men had to be of the very highest standard, physically and psychologically, yet this pedigree was by no means assured after Lander had selected them, for thereafter they had to undergo rigorous tests to prove that they were up to the task. The two week course was designed to separate the unworthy and to harden and prepare those who would go the distance. The tests ran from six in the morning until six at night, and included a 10 mile march in full battle kit to be accomplished in two hours, and a taxing obstacle course to be completed under machine-gun fire, with tough psychological tests immediately imposed at the end of such exercises. There was no second chance and any kind of failure saw the candidate immediately returned to their former unit, however those who were accepted felt that to have passed such intense scrutiny made them rather special, and as a consequence there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie within the Company.

The Company was fiercely independent by nature as well as in name, and in the main, largely thanks to Wilson being a close friend of Browning since their days at Eton, they were allowed to set their own program. Aircraft were in short supply for training purposes and so it was common for parachute drops to be improvised by driving men out onto Salisbury Plain in trucks, and upon 'jumping' they would get their bearings to be sure that they were in the right place, and then they were timed as to how long it took them to set up their equipment and then secure the zone. The beacon the pathfinders used was the Eureka radio marker, a remarkably accurate system used in conjunction with the Rebecca system in the aircraft. There was an instance of a Eureka set undergoing repair in a Signals hut and it had accidentally been left switched on, and before long a stick of  parachutists came crashing down onto the roof. Up until this time the method of deploying all of the paratrooper's heavier equipment, the Eureka sets in the case of the Independent Company, was to drop a container from the aircraft's bomb bay, however this was a most awkward and unsatisfactory technique of delivery. Major Lander personally experimented with a number of devices until he finally invented the kitbag, strapped to the parachutist's leg, which could carry 60 lbs of equipment and also made for a smoother descent and landing.

The Company's performance at Arnhem had been exceptional, and its men were rewarded with a Distinguished Conduct Medal, two Military Crosses, five Military Medals, a Dutch Bronze Lion, and Major Wilson was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. An extraordinary feat considering the size of this unit. Writing to Wilson, Lt-General Browning said: 'I have heard on every side how outstandingly your Company has done. To have earned this special praise from such gallant a body can only mean one thing - that your unit is unsurpassed by any other in the world. Please tell your chaps what a terrific reputation they have earned.'



The Game

'Close Combat A Bridge Too Far' [abbreviated CC2, ABTF, CC2-ABTF] was the second game of the Close Combat-series created by Atomic and presented by Microsoft to the Mac-community. It was also the last game of this series for the MacOS. The game was released in 1997 on a hybrid-CD, running on PCs and under the MacOS 7.5 up to 9.2.2 / 10.2 as well.

The Mod

With 'Close Combat 2 - Operation Market Garden' Mod [abbreviated CC2-OMG] I tried to bring a small contribution to CC Comunity and in particular to CC 2 funs. So i wanted to make this mod as realistically as possible and to reflect more accurate the historical events [but i have taken some liberties having in mind that is still a game]. That meant a lot of research into the units involved in battle and representing them in game, types of  weapons used by both sides, changing in some units.One of the unites, the 21st Independent Parachute Company, was represented in this mod by introduction of the 'Pathfinders', a small unit which replaced the British AB half-team with increased Quality of team to 5 [same as British AB Recon]. For a complet list of changes you could check the readme file. Also the files you need to play the mod are now available for download [.pln type]. The current version of the Mod is Operation Market-Garden 1.0.

Warning

These files, when installed, will change some of the units and operations in Close Combat 2. If you want to keep the original files, you can copy them to a temporary directory. Or you can always copy them back from the CC2 CD-rom.

Instructions for installing

1. You need a full install of 'Close Combat A Bridge Too Far' and Microsoft's 2.0b patch in order to be able to use this mod.
2. Unzip omg.zip to a temporary directory. This will result in a number of new files. The name of each zip file indicates where the files need to end up when extracted.
3. Copy the files resulted in directories as it is written in install file.



Legal disclaimer

These files are not supported or authorized by Atomic Games, Microsoft or anybody else. Close Combat, Close Combat 2 and Close Combat 3 are Reg. products of: Atomic Games Software Studios and Microsoft Software Inc. - all rights reserved.

Use these files at your own risk. The developer is not responsible for any damage or problems that occur as a result of using these files.
This web page is dedicated to a computer game, and is not in any sense militaristic or fascist.
The files are free for download, copying, and distribution, but may not be sold.
Many thanks to the production team at Atomic for giving us this great game.

Links

Close Combat sites

Mafi's Close Combat 2
Close Combat Series
Fire Fox CC
Close Combat Now
CC Junkie
CC 2 maps
The Vlissingen CC2 maps
G o D's Close Combat 2 Links
Musstang's CC2 downloads

Close Combat Classic
Major T's Footlocker
T.House CC2

WW II sites

The Pegasus Archive
Airborne Assault
Remember September '44
Operation Market-Garden in de Provincies Brabant en Gerdenland
Market Garden
Arnhem Bridge
World War II Vehicles
Romanian Armed Forces in the Second World War

Non  CC/WW II sites

Timişoara

This site is maintained by sample
posted on 24.12.2004, last update on 03.04.2014