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why the germans didnt stop the allies at the beaches ? was the luftwaffe finished by that time ?

im trying to understand why the D Day landings went so well and how the allied gain so much territory in the beggining of the campaign .

Firstly its worth noting that the allies did not take much territory initially - the beachhead was as narrow as 8 miles at points until the breakout 6 weeks later though they did take the contentin peninsula by cutting off its base during those weeks. As other posters mentioned they did it with overwhelming force - they had air supremacy and also the coast allowed massive fire support from the fleet including 15 inch guns whilst the fighting was within 15 miles or so of the coast.

The beach defences were never going to hold a large force of this nature for long - the Germans had had to fortify hundreds of miles due to the uncertain nature of the attack point. The plan was always to use German mobile forces to push off any attack but it had to happen within 24-48 hours before too much forces got ashore.

As German buckeye mentioned the German panzer divisions were spread out and came very late to the attack for a number of reasons. Operation mincemeat using a double agent convinced the Germans that Normandy was a diversion for the real attack at Calais - The divisions there remained in place for weeks waiting for this. On the day nearby units were late moving as only Hitler could give permission for them to move and he was in bed till midday and his staff refused to wake him. The bad weather that almost cancelled the operation also meant that the Germans thought it wouldnt happen then - Rommel had gone home to Germany for his wifes birthday. The only German panzer division (at Caen that did respond) set off late in the day firstly went the wrong side of the river Orne (until they discovered that commandos held the Pegasus bridge - drove back through Caen but when they did attack they broke through the coast splitting the beach head. However they panicked and withdrew.

After that it was too late.

So essentially massive and thorough preparation in both forces but also intelligence and deception combined with poor German command structure and some strokes of luck on the day made it happen the way it did. Plus of course that the Germans army and airforce and infrastructure as a whole had been depleted bythe Soviets and allied bombing and unlike the allies they had neither the manpower of the industrial capacity to replace the losses

i5 760 2.8ghz oc to 3.8, factory oc 970 8gb ram

Everything max except aa to medium. 1200x 1920

Runs fine around 50-60fps mostly 60 dropping to high 40's when things get really messy

It also ran fine on my 570 but with low aa and textures turned down a notch

Also, another question: Should I go for a fresh pio and keep the existing one 'on the line' when teching for T2. Asking specifically in the USF 1v1 context.

One important thing to remember is the extended sight your pios have which spots for your mg's. Not an expert on 1v1's so couldnt say whetehr you can afford two in early game but I almost always build 2 because they are so useful

This is what i do - Buld 2mg42,1 pio.Tech.222 car,3 pzgren,1 pak ,tech ,2 stug/panzer 4.Stall for tiger.Spam mines.Works well in 2 vs 2 due to capping power not being needed.
However against british emplacement strategy you will find it struggles.
T1 is really waste of space due to grenadiers being just awful.They have no scalability past midgame.Panzegrenadiers if used iwth mg42 can do better,atleast until vet allied lmg blob.Even pzgren can't stop that.

This would be very vulnerable to an M3 / carrier start until the 222 appears unless their micro is poor enough to let you use the old 1 mg covering the other to destroy them. Also vulnerable to US smoke n flank.

Of course it does depend if your teammate supports well but I often find you combine forces and then realise you have no map.

Did the army train you to be boorish and rude or were you already like this?