newbie: hot to kill a pillbox/bunker?

[csmba]

some basic help here....

infantry doesn't even seem to try and shoot at them, bazoka, even if I manage to bring them to 100m do nothing but wasting ammo on them. once I had a tank and he can kill a bunker, but not a pillbox it seems.

I bet flames can do a nice job, but who can ever bring them to 45m???

are there any simple way? some kind of engineers can do something? HELP!!! csmba@yahoo.com_NO_SPAM

[Gen. Sosaboski]

Arty will do the trick sometimes, but it has to be heavy, and a lucky shot.

Other than that, your best bet is to get your infantry in cover and try to flank the thing. Engineers are best for this, since they have satchel charges, but zooks can also work. The best is getting them from the rear. Flamers are good, but very vulnerable.

Wooden bunkers are much easier to take out than pillboxes, besides, they only have a single MG. Sometimes, a 37mm gun or light mortar will even do the trick. Concrete will give you problems, so try heavy arty or flanking and getting in the rear with infantry (preferably w/ satchel charges), zooks, or flamethrowers.

If there is no cover (not even embankments to hide behind), then smoke the hell out of your approach to block LOS. MG Pillboxes have three MG42s and they will tear your boys to shreds. The 75s and 88s will do the same.

Tanks may work with lucky shots, best bet being the 105 Sherman or the AVRE (very short range though).

Overall, it is tough work for the engineers.

[ZOR58]

I've only played 3 games so far that had concrete bunkers but each time the bunker has been taken out by direct fire from my tanks hitting a firing slit.

Use smoke to get close then let the tanks fire away for a couple of turns until it is knocked out.

[easytarget]

i've mostly smoked them and moved armor behind them to blow them up

[Falcon988]

Well all I had to do was take a German platoon up and we flanked the bunker just fine. A squad was behind it -very- close, targetted it, and soon there was a "HIT" message and the thing was knocked out. We had to withdraw afterwards thanks to MG's but the point is that bunker busting works

[ December 31, 2002, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: Falcon988 ]

[easytarget]

spoiler for All or Nothing****

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good to hear - i ran into not one but two of them in All or Nothing - both proved rather difficult to take out because they had been well placed - ultimately i took both out with tanks

it was interesting because they both are pretty much the first things you run into of any consequence in that scernario

as usual if you're not moving the infantry up scouting ahead first you'll lost a tank or two before you sort it out

[ December 31, 2002, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: easytarget ]

[Webs]

Spoiler also

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I had no problem with them. They're only MG nests. The tanks wipe them out eventually.

[Shades]

In a recent PBEM quickbattle, I had loads of bazooka teams and MG squads and had to get past a pesky 75mm pillbox with little armor(already commited elsewhere or put out of action). I was able to get zooks targeted on it and the mg's from close woods/trees and just had them let go at it from about 75 yards away and ran up an infantry squad next to it. The zooks did not have any luck but the squad kept lobbing grenades and took it out after about five grenades. Maybe the crew inside broke, not sure if that can happen. Forgot to ask my opponent

[Dave H]

This is from CMBB, but it shouldn't be much different from CMBO. In a recent PBEM quick battle, my opponent had 13 Panzer III J (short), with a 50 mm L/42 main gun. His closest tank was just over 1,000 meters from my pillbox. I counted 80 shots fired at the pillbox in the first minute (some of his tanks were not within LOS). There were about 20 hits, and 7 "firing slit penetrations". So, at the range of over a kilometer, almost 10 percent of his HE shots with muzzle velocity of 550 meters/second found the firing slit. Needless to say, the pillbox only lasted about 45 seconds. It was no more than an expensive target, and has pretty much soured me on spending the money for a pillbox in the future.

[CombinedArms]

It's worth doing a search on the word "pillbox" since there have been some excellent and extensive discussions on this subject in the past.

In short, though, if it's a MG pillbox, it's safe and effective to attack it with tanks. Stuarts and Greyhounds with their rapidfire 37mm do an efficient job, but Shermans and Cromwells work fine too.

Don't attack 75mm PBs with tanks unless you want to lose them (exception--Jumbos and heavy Churchills, which can be extremely effective killers of the 75mm PBs). The trick is to use smoke on the approach and get behind them (or adjacent to them) with infantry (or get a tank around back and blast in the door.) Zooks have a rough time killing them frontally. You've got to get in pretty close. Better attack with zooks from behind if possible.

It's hopeless to attack 88mm PB's with tanks. Gotta get behind 'em with infantry. Use cover where possible, and where not, use smoke, smoke and more smoke.

Any player worth his salt will provide flank protection for an ATG- PB, so your practical task is to kill off the flank protection, then get in behind the PB and kill it.