Pillboxes

[Hilts]

What's the best way of infantry taking out a wooden pillbox? I sneaked up behind one with three guys carrying two demo charges but was unable to throw one in, like in the old days. I ordered it to land as close as I could but of course it had no effect. Then to make things worse the three guys charged after it, out into the open presumably as if they had made a breach in a wall/hedge. Somehow they managed to dive back into cover unharmed, under a hail of bullets from the four occupants of the pillbox!

[Michael Emrys]

What's the best way of infantry taking out a wooden pillbox?

SP 155 should work nicely.

Since we don't have any of those, an SP 105 AKA Priest or better yet Sherman assault gun should do the trick.

As for infantry, I'll leave that to the folks who have some experience with it.

Michael

[von Kleist]

What's the best way of infantry taking out a wooden pillbox? I sneaked up behind one with three guys carrying two demo charges but was unable to throw one in, like in the old days. I ordered it to land as close as I could but of course it had no effect. Then to make things worse the three guys charged after it, out into the open presumably as if they had made a breach in a wall/hedge. Somehow they managed to dive back into cover unharmed, under a hail of bullets from the four occupants of the pillbox!

Demo charges will work most of the time. I played Point du Hoc the other day and ordered a breach time to demo charge an occupied bunker from the back. I watched as the breach time tossed a demo charge at the bunker. The Tac AI of the breach time, observed that the first charge had no effect, so then tossed a second charge, which did the trick. This all in the same turn. When you plot the blast waypoint, be sure your team is behind the bunker, and place the waypoint just behind the bunker, so if it doesn't work, your guys will not run into fire. Just be sure you place the waypoint in the direction of the bunker, not through it.

Bazooka rounds work great against bunkers, 1-2 zook rounds should do it.

Also if you can manage to gain the bunker's rear, your guys will automatically lob grenades into it. Be careful, as usually this requires several grenades and you can run out very quickly.

[akd]

Demo charges will work most of the time. I played Point du Hoc the other day and ordered a breach time to demo charge an occupied bunker from the back. I watched as the breach time tossed a demo charge at the bunker. The Tac AI of the breach time, observed that the first charge had no effect, so then tossed a second charge, which did the trick. This all in the same turn. When you plot the blast waypoint, be sure your team is behind the bunker, and place the waypoint just behind the bunker, so if it doesn't work, your guys will not run into fire. Just be sure you place the waypoint in the direction of the bunker, not through it.

There is no need to plot blast orders. If you move a team with demo charges next to an active enemy bunker or vehicle, they will use the charges and grenades against it.

[von Kleist]

There is no need to plot blast orders. If you move a team with demo charges next to an active enemy bunker or vehicle, they will use the charges and grenades against it.

I think you're right, just like in CMx1. I don't know why I didn't think of that.

[Hilts]

There is no need to plot blast orders. If you move a team with demo charges next to an active enemy bunker or vehicle, they will use the charges and grenades against it.

My guys didn't but then I may have been more to the side than the rear. Anyway it's good to know that demo charges are still effective against pillboxes. Cheers.

[ClarkWGriswold]

I did several tests using various types of artillery and have found that 60mm mortars work the best (against wooden bunkers, not concrete). Not only have I found them to work well in my testing, but in my latest PBEM game my wooden bunker was taken out by ONE 60mm mortar shell being direct fired. The very first shot that was fired was a direct hit, killing everyone inside.

The larger artillery works too, but since it's not as pinpoint precise as the 60mm stuff it takes more shells and luck. Even large naval guns have a hard time taking these out because the shells often fall too far away to do damage (though they do pin/panic the guys inside).

[Statisoris]

I did several tests using various types of artillery and have found that 60mm mortars work the best (against wooden bunkers, not concrete). Not only have I found them to work well in my testing, but in my latest PBEM game my wooden bunker was taken out by ONE 60mm mortar shell being direct fired. The very first shot that was fired was a direct hit, killing everyone inside.

The larger artillery works too, but since it's not as pinpoint precise as the 60mm stuff it takes more shells and luck. Even large naval guns have a hard time taking these out because the shells often fall too far away to do damage (though they do pin/panic the guys inside).

I think it is strange that a WWII 60mm mortar shell can penetrate a wood log bunker when even modern US M224 60mm shells cannot penetrate most rooftops even with delay fuse in real life. Maybe the shell went through a gap in the logs :-/

[Michael Emrys]

I think it is strange that a WWII 60mm mortar shell can penetrate a wood log bunker when even modern US M224 60mm shells cannot penetrate most rooftops even with delay fuse in real life. Maybe the shell went through a gap in the logs :-/

Yeah. I expect this is one that just slipped through the testing.

Michael

[Rayak47]

Interesting, I've had them survive multiple 81 hits, even a couple 4.2 and never got close to kill with the 60's, as I would have expected. Lucky shot? I hate to risk the engineers, at least in campaigns, and tend to go with bazooka's on the bunkers, at least until flamethrowers come out!

[stikkypixie]

What's the best way of infantry taking out a wooden pillbox? I sneaked up behind one with three guys carrying two demo charges but was unable to throw one in, like in the old days. I ordered it to land as close as I could but of course it had no effect. Then to make things worse the three guys charged after it, out into the open presumably as if they had made a breach in a wall/hedge. Somehow they managed to dive back into cover unharmed, under a hail of bullets from the four occupants of the pillbox!

I've had success just by keeping firing machine guns at them. This takes a lot of time though.

[ClarkWGriswold]

Interesting, I've had them survive multiple 81 hits, even a couple 4.2 and never got close to kill with the 60's, as I would have expected. Lucky shot?

While this particular instance certainly WAS a lucky shot (combined with the fact that 60mm mortars in direct fire seem to be more accurate than rifle marksmen), it wasn't a fluke. I did a few tests placing multiple bunkers on a flat field and pounding them with various flavors of artillery. 60mm mortars almost always took the bunker out in the least amount of time (especially when doing direct fire). While 81s and 105s are falling 50 meters away, the 60s often drop directly on the roof of the bunker, or at least within 20 meters of it. It appears that a 10m miss by a 60mm round (or, better yet, a direct hit) is much more likely to kill than a 50m miss but a much larger round.

I also found that you often get a better chance of a kill by having a mortar round land in front of the bunker instead of on it. Several times I saw near misses by an 81mm take out the bunker as long as the miss was directly in front. I'm assuming they're taking into account shrapnel from a near-front miss flying through the firing slit.

[Erwin]

Not sure I understand. I thought bunkers would be immune from small caliber arty like 60mm and even 81mm.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Exactly, otherwise what's the point of constructing bunkers if pissy little light mortars can take then out more reliably than any other form of artillery? In reality it would have been a complete waste of time constructing them if this was in any way a realistic outcome.

Regards

KR

[Hilts]

Well, in the particular scenario I was playing, I had neither armour, artillery or mortars and the guy carrying the bazooka was shot within LOS of the bunker, which would have made trying to pick it up, suicidal. I did some tests and managed to lob a demo charge in the back in one and in another, a grenade. Both had the same effect i.e the bunker was destroyed (or rather abandoned) because in both cases none of the four occupants were killed. They just ran out the back! Wouldn't you have expected a demo charge or even a grenade going off in such a confined space to have killed or wounded the whole lot of them?

[Michael Emrys]

Wouldn't you have expected a demo charge or even a grenade going off in such a confined space to have killed or wounded the whole lot of them?

Yeah, if it had gone off inside. You say that you threw them at the back of the bunker, which makes me suspicious that both exploded outside the walls. This might have shocked and demoralized the occupants—hence their abandoning the bunkers—but would not necessarily have caused wounding.

Michael

[ClarkWGriswold]

Not sure I understand. I thought bunkers would be immune from small caliber arty like 60mm and even 81mm.

That's what I thought too, and is the reason I placed heavy reliance upon a wooden bunker to defend my left flank in my last game. But, like I said, it was taken out with the very first 60mm round that hit (a direct impact on the roof). I've got the turn file still, and I'm making a movie of the match, so you'll be able to see it within the next couple of weeks once I finish putting it all together.

Edit: Oh, and not only did the bunker get killed by a single 60 mm round, but the frickin' MG inside NEVER EVEN FIRED! Not even when given specific target and area target orders. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

[YankeeDog]

Not sure I understand. I thought bunkers would be immune from small caliber arty like 60mm and even 81mm.

Not immune. If the soldiers inside can fire out, then shrapnel can potentially get in. But generally firing slits are designed to make it difficult for shrapnel to get into the bunker, so it should only be the occasional lucky detonation just in front of the firing slit that actually causes a casualty inside the bunker by sending shrapnel through the embrasure.

As for top penetrations, well made log bunkers should definitely be able to shrug off direct top hits from 60mm mortars. A properly made log bunker should have at least 2 courses of log on the roof, cross-laid, with earth on top and inbetween as well. The explosive of a 60mm mortar shell about the same as a hand grenade, and AFAIK the 60mm mortar only had a quick fuse (i.e., no delay setting to improve penetration).

U.S. 81mm mortars are a little different because there *was* a special heavy 81mm mortar bomb with a delay fuse specifically designed to be more effective against buildings and fortifications. This heavy mortar shell had a substantially shorter range than the the standard 81mm HE shell. The standard U.S. 81mm shell of the period had only a quick fuse and so would have been a very poor penetrator. I have no idea if and how any of these ammo differences are modeled in CMBN, though.

Overall, it does sound like this is something that might bear closer examination; if 60mm rounds are consistently taking out log bunkers with only a few rounds, then something is definitely not right.

[Hilts]

Yeah, if it had gone off inside. You say that you threw them at the back of the bunker, which makes me suspicious that both exploded outside the walls. This might have shocked and demoralized the occupants—hence their abandoning the bunkers—but would not necessarily have caused wounding.

Michael

Hmmm, you might have a point. I can't remember. I had assumed the explosives had gone inside. I'm not sure that the occupants (if they heard an explosion going off to the rear of the bunker) would necessarily decide to run out the back door! In any case I shot all four of them as they ran out.