...they did. Operation Neptune. For forty-five minutes to an hour before the landings began, American, British, Canadian, French and other allied warships bombarded the landing zones. They acted in concert (theoretically) with bombers from the Eighth Air Force, which had been pounding all of Normandy since the previous night. There were 7 Battle Ships, 2 Monitors, 23 Cruisers, 2 Gun Boats, and 74 Destroyers involved. The battleships Arkansas and Texas lead the bombardment on Omaha Beach, while the Nevada contingent focused on Utah beach along with the Tuscaloosa, the Quincy, and HMS Erebus. On the eastern side, the famous HMS Mauritius and Scylla were present, along with Belfast, Arethusa, Argonaut, Ajax, and many others. Here is a cool map showing the allied naval deployment. Navy records indicate that the Nevada fired over 300 14-inch shells and nearly 3,000 5-inch shells. Similar efforts were carried out on the British flank as well. Only one hour was allotted to the bombardment, as the allied commanders did not want to give the defenders more time than that to organize themselves. It was later determined that the bombardment was largely ineffective, due to the heavily fortified positions overlooking the beaches and due also to the fact that many of the shells fell well beyond the immediate area of the beaches.