Use of infantry weapons to knock down walls (and why not just climb over?)

[Zenomorph]

(I think I've avoided any major spoilers here.) I'm playing my first MG battle - "A man can die but once" (just against the AI to get the hang of it). I know good walls make good neighbors but, man, there's a LOT of them in this scenario. I made my first mistake when I told my troops to enter the houses across the street from what the scenario briefing told me would be an occupied school. I thought my troops would just climb over the walls behind the houses. But being polite Nazi boys they dutifully went around to enter thru the front door. The Brits - being uncharacteristically not big on courtesy - promptly blasted them. So I replayed the turn (like I said, just getting the hang of things) and tried targeting a portion of the walls with my infantry - assuming they'd use panzerfausts, grenades etc. While my guys squeezed off lots of bullets, they apparently didn't use anything heavier. Finally I had to resort to wasting rounds from bigger guns. Any tips on how to breach these walls? And it seems like my troops should just be able to climb over them. The same goes for entering thru windows. Thanks!

[Fizou]

Zenomorph,

Units will only go over low walls. For high walls you will need demolition charges to go through/blast your way through with the blast move order (usually only allocated to engineers, airborne, and special breach teams). Tanks and guns are also able to shoot holes through high walls but I dont think I have ever seen fausts/bazooka etc take out high walls.

[db_zero]

demo charges is your friend. Now you know why engineers were so highly prized in general and especially when fighting in built up areas.

[Childress]

I'm not jimmying over high walls in a hot zone. The exposure alone, however brief, would be hair raising. Same with jumping out of windows.

[db_zero]

Hopping over high walls with combat gear and a rifle is a good way to injure and ankle or knee. Not a good thing.

There are methods that are practiced today to allow a group of soldiers buddy assist one another over a wall. It goes without saying a smaller, lighter grunt is easier to get over than someone build like an offensive lineman. I can't imagine they didn't know or practice this in WW2, but unfortunately its not modeled here, but is something that should be considered.

It would also be nice if you could drive a jeep up to a high wall and have soldiers hop on the hood to get a peek over or even shoot, but once again that's not modeled and not sure they are going to put resources into it.

Now I remember from SimCity4 the little icon you used that would display the area under your city so you could lay water pipes. That would be awesome for the Stalingrad module to simulate the battles in the sewer system...hint, hint.

[agusto]

Now I remember from SimCity4 the little icon you used that would display the area under your city so you could lay water pipes. That would be awesome for the Stalingrad module to simulate the battles in the sewer system...hint, hint.

And subway tunnels in CM: Black Sea.

[MikeyD]

I recall someone on the CMSF forum was talking about his experience with urban combat training. He described his instructor saying (wildly paraphrasing here) "Today I will teach you the proper technique for entering and exiting through a window. I want to see you NEVER do this in combat!" Apparently the increased incidents of accidentally shooting yourself or the guy giving you a leg-up, nevermind the enemy shooting you, is great enough to relegate this to an 'emergency' procedure only.

[db_zero]

Its bad enough having to go through a door-oftentimes referred to as the fatal funnel. You really have to practice with people you know and trust for some time to get really good at it.

Windows are another problem altogether. Probably best to use ropes and assault from above-but that once again takes a lot of training and practice. Simply climbing through a window is an open invitation to get shot. This is where grenades come in play as you toss them in to kill, wound and stun the occupants. The blast and concussion affect is magnified in an enclosed space. I don't really see this simulated in CM-I may be wrong. Once again it may be something for the designers to consider for future CM and SF modules to have some sort of way (command) to explicitly be able to grenade a building before entering.

While I haven't tried it or know if its possible-but I don't see why not is to have infantry use demo charges to blow a hole in a building and enter that way.

My impression right or wrong is most of the urban combat in WW2 was "on the job" training. They didn't train for it like they do these days when it's a given you'll be fighting in urban areas. Back in the WW2 days most of the population was still rural. These days the trend is towards urbanization.

[Zenomorph]

I'm not jimmying over high walls in a hot zone. The exposure alone, however brief, would be hair raising. Same with jumping out of windows.

Combat is generally hair raising. Beats waving hello to the enemy across the street as you tip-toe thru the front door. But to your point, I'd thought of that and had the troops covered from the second-story windows of the adjoining houses - woohoo do I think of everything....NOT. To no avail of course. And I hate wasting precious HE rounds for such a task.

But my question really is whether or not the pratice of using heavier weapons to break thru walls using heavy infantry weapons is simply not modeled in the game for programming reasons or am I missing something gameplay-wise in order to bring it off. Sounds like the former. This game is so brilliant that I'd be surprised if the capability didn't exist. I was thinking perhaps it's not modeled bc it simply wasn't done but then I remembered an account of troops using grenades to break thru interior walls of adjoining bldgs in order to advance down a block w/out needing to go outside.

[db_zero]

Combat is generally hair raising. Beats waving hello to the enemy across the street as you tip-toe thru the front door. But to your point, I'd thought of that and had the troops covered from the second-story windows of the adjoining houses - woohoo do I think of everything....NOT. To no avail of course. And I hate wasting precious HE rounds for such a task.

But my question really is whether or not the pratice of using heavier weapons to break thru walls using heavy infantry weapons is simply not modeled in the game for programming reasons or am I missing something gameplay-wise in order to bring it off. Sounds like the former. This game is so brilliant that I'd be surprised if the capability didn't exist. I was thinking perhaps it's not modeled bc it simply wasn't done but then I remembered an account of troops using grenades to break thru interior walls of adjoining bldgs in order to advance down a block w/out needing to go outside.

Going to need one the WW2 weapons experts to chime in as well as the programmers. Bazookas/PF and Shreicks are HEAT weapons. I have no idea if the high speed jet produced by these sort of weapons will blow a large enough hole in a wall for a grunt to get through or just a tiny hole that is often produce when they hit a tank.

They may have also been non-HEAT rounds for Bazookas and Shriecks that may have been able to punch man size holes into walls. There is also the issue of what the wall was made of and construction technique used to build it. A brick wall has different properties than a stone or concrete wall. I also don't know if the use or rebar was a common practice in the time period, but if it was it would have a huge effect.

[Childress]

I'd thought of that and had the troops covered from the second-story windows of the adjoining houses -

Adjoining buildings sharing a wall with windows.... An architectural convention with which I'm unfamiliar.

I remembered an account of troops using grenades to break thru interior walls of adjoining bldgs in order to advance down a block w/out needing to go outside.

Grenades? With the resultant shrapnel? In a closed space? Sounds suicidal.

If I recall correctly the first use of infantry weapons to blast through interior walls was by Canadians using Piats during the Battle of Ortona in '43. The capability was always there but they were first to employ this application. Unless it was Stalingrad.... Grogs?

[Vet 0369]

While I haven't tried it or know if its possible-but I don't see why not is to have infantry use demo charges to blow a hole in a building

I think I did that in one of the CMBN campaigns that I'm playing (Devil's Descent). I think I blew a mouse hole in a building and assaulted through it.

[Vet 0369]

Of course, in the "Old Corps" Marines, we just kicked down the wall and the occupying enemy simply died of fright:D

[Michael Emrys]

While I haven't tried it or know if its possible-but I don't see why not is to have infantry use demo charges to blow a hole in a building and enter that way.

It certainly is possible: I've done it and so have many other players.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Of course, in the "Old Corps" Marines, we just kicked down the wall and the occupying enemy simply died of fright:D

Given the appearance of the average Marine, that's not surprising.

Michael

[Erwin]

Re sewer movement in East Front, IIRC CMBB had that... your unit(s) entered a heavy building and you issued the sewer movement order to another heavy building and there was probabilty they would get there, or someplace else, or never be seen again.

[Ultradave]

Personally, I was in the field artillery. We had the best way to enter buildings. Turn it to rubble first.

And of course being FA meant not having to worry much about vaulting walls. :-)

[Offshoot]

You can take walls down with bazookas but it isn't very efficient because of the way targeting works, i.e., you can't tell the bazooka to hit the wall, just to fire near it. You might get lucky or you might burn all your ammo and have a barn door mocking you. From a quick test (not in MG), it also seems like you need to be outside a certain minimum distance for the bazookas to be fired - purely anecdotal though.

[Zenomorph]

My impression right or wrong is most of the urban combat in WW2 was "on the job" training. They didn't train for it like they do these days when it's a given you'll be fighting in urban areas.

Did you ever read that account - in Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" I think - of the officer who orders a newbie Lt to "take that house down at the end of the street" or some such. Whereupon the Lt promptly jogs down the middle of the street, knocks on the door and asks the grizzled Wermacht Sgt who answers if he and his men will kindly turn the house over to him. The commander is standing there watching like WTF!!! But it worked. It worked so well that the Sgt sends one of his men to round up all his guys in the rest of the village and once everyone has gathered around the Sgt becomes so exasperated with the Lt (who apparently doesn't know what the hell to do) that the Sgt basically starts ordering his men to stand here and the US men to stand there so that he can finally officially surrender. Talk about on the job training.

Hey Battlefront! How about modeling THAT behavior!

[Zenomorph]

But clearly there are lots of folks here more expert on the game than me and so I wanted to ask everyone what you do in this situation. I'm surprised I haven't run into it before but I guess those clusters of high walls, especially ones surrounding every backyard, are a bit on the rare side. I'm guessing that others have found a method to avoid assaulting a bldg from way down the street when there's a whole row of unoccupied buildings directly across the street from it. Is it just bring in the big guns?

And hey! Didn't Sean Connery in "A Bridge Too Far" climb walls and crash thru windows?? So there, that settles it!

[LongLeftFlank]

Allowing troops to climb walls, defenestrate, and mousehole windowless walls has been argued back and forth for many years. The consensus is that for a tactical game where the focus is on tactical maneuver of units, not superheroic individuals (unlike shooters), it's better to have a touch too much restriction/canalization of movement than too little. The former (i.e. status quo) encourages use of broadly real world / historical unit tactics to isolate, enter and clear building compounds; the latter would be abused almost nonstop by gamey bastiges and you'd have CM:NinjaTroopers.

[Michael Emrys]

I think that I am basically with Ultradave on this one. First demand surrender of the town. If that is not complied with in a reasonable amount of time, nuke the place and bypass the glowing ashes. Hey, that is just a modern version of what Genghis Khan did, and if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for me.

Michael

[Blackcat]

Did you ever read that account - in Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" I think - of the officer who orders a newbie Lt to "take that house down at the end of the street" or some such. Whereupon the Lt promptly jogs down the middle of the street, knocks on the door and asks the grizzled Wermacht Sgt who answers if he and his men will kindly turn the house over to him. The commander is standing there watching like WTF!!! But it worked. It worked so well that the Sgt sends one of his men to round up all his guys in the rest of the village and once everyone has gathered around the Sgt becomes so exasperated with the Lt (who apparently doesn't know what the hell to do) that the Sgt basically starts ordering his men to stand here and the US men to stand there so that he can finally officially surrender. Talk about on the job training.

Hey Battlefront! How about modeling THAT behavior!

Zenomorph, yes it was in Citizen Soldiers and it was a farm house and the other Germans were in MG positions etc. that the "assaulting" troops had no idea were there in the surrounding country side. If memory serves that was also the occasion when the surrendering troops started to relieve their captors of their watches, wallets etc. and it was that chaos the prompted the German Sergeant to take control and get the surrender done properly.

Sometimes its hard to work out how we won.

[womble]

...I wanted to ask everyone what you do in this situation. I'm surprised I haven't run into it before but I guess those clusters of high walls, especially ones surrounding every backyard, are a bit on the rare side. I'm guessing that others have found a method to avoid assaulting a bldg from way down the street when there's a whole row of unoccupied buildings directly across the street from it. Is it just bring in the big guns?

It would depend, a lot, on what kind of buildings were each side of the street. Most of the high-walled backyard arrays that I've seen have had at least a nod to practicality, with gaps to allow access from places other than the house they're at the back of, so you can get into the yard. You might not be able to get into the next yard over without demo charges, but you can make a start. If you've got heavy buildings on your side of the street, you might be able to Slow your troops into them from the back and start getting suppression on troops in light buildings facing them. If there are heavy buildings across the street, you'd better drop some smoke in the street to allow enough of your troops to get into place to be able to gain fire superiority when the smoke clears.

Crossing streets in the face of enemy fire, or even infiltrating the opposite side of a street in the same conditions is a recipe for getting shredded. Better to find another route that allows you to attain fire superiority before you move.

[c3k]

I like LLF's comment. The rest comes down to mapmaking. If the designer puts a gap, or destroyed wall section, or low section, or gate, into the wall, that would allow entry. I understand that vaulting over 8-9 foot walls isn't hard to do. Doing it without knowing what's waiting on the other side, and being the first man to drop down into the courtyard with slung weapon (or calling for your buddy to toss it over to you!) does not sound too practical.

Driving a vehicle up and standing on the hood? Sure, but now the TC or machinegunner can see over the wall (depending on elevations). Also, why not just nudge that vehicle forward a bit and knock it down? (Hmmm, I forget if we can do that with tall walls.)

Ken