There was one post about this previously and I wished to build on that.
Firstly here is a link for anyone unfamiliar with the battle.
Basically it was a small force of American GIs and tankers fighting alongside Austrian former Wehrmacht, lead by an Austrian SS officer. They were defending Castle Itter, a mountaintop castle which had housed important French POWs like former prime ministers and celebrities from German SS determined to wipe them out. Some of the Frenchmen also fought with whatever weapons they could find.
**There are two ways this event could work. **
Either players are the defenders and fight AI SS soldiers. (this is what the other post suggested)
OR
Players are randomly distributed amongst the defenders or SS attackers. I would argue within the Allies players get one American tanker squad, one Austrian squad, one GI squad and one French civilian squad. (so the standard F2P 3 infantry squads and one tank)
The Americans in the real battle I believe had 3 tanks but 1 got disabled along the way. The attackers had 88cm Flak guns (no tanks). That would be interesting to use. They also had panzerfausts so yeah while they wouldnt both have tanks it would be fun moving 88s around and using them along with standard infantry anti tank weapons.
This would be a great profile icon. Major Josef Sepp Gangl was the SS commander who agreed to fight alongside the Americans. He took a bullet to save former French prime minister Paul Reynaud and is remembered as a hero of the Austrian Resistance.
I think French tennis star Jean Borotra could be a fun and interesting gold order reward soldier. During the battle he was a remarkably fast runner so was able to evade the SS fire (they were so surprised someone was running from the castle they stopped firing) and went and directed the American reinforcements. He asked for an American military uniform to fight so he could either wear civilian clothes or a standard GI uniform.
I believe he did fight during the battle so I would suggest he have the class of rifleman but have an automatic running perk that is especially fast and has long endurance.
Lieut. John C. “Jack” Lee, Jr. He could be a gold order tanker reward or a profile icon.
For the biggest reward I would suggest an Austrian resistance squad. The Austrian resistance assisted during the battle but is remembered for being one of the most important resistance movements in the Second World War.
This is because the Austrian resistance, such as the group led by Catholic priest Heinrich Maier, was responsible for providing the Allies with information on the production sites of the V1 and V2 rockets, plans of the Tiger tank, factories of BF 109s and Me 163 Komets. Their information assisted Allied efforts like Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra (both necessary for the success of Operation Overlord)
Maier’s group was also one of the earliest to report what was happening to Jewish people at Auschwitz and other camps.
Austrian resistance would be a guerilla squad on the Allied side wearing civilian clothes and using German weapons. They would wear Austrian red white red striped armbands and Austrian flag marked helmets but Im open to discussion about how to distinguish them from Axis soldiers/guerilla squads.
Austrian resistance helmet.
my new summer home lol