5-inch naval guns defeat VS bunker (and town house)

[Jaeger Jonzo]

I'm surprised some are reporting concrete bunkers being ko'd easily. In a current pbem battle I have battered a conc bunker with direct 75 & 95mm tank fire as well as numerous US airborne LMG's and a bazooka team at close range (100-200m) and the bunker is still operable. In fact another German squad took over occupancy after I withdrew a little as I assume the previous occupants were whittled away by slit penetrations. I thought the 95mm CS Cromwell would make short work of it!

[Erwin]

As a corollary to the above, I found that 105mm+ is surprisingly good at destroying AFV's.

In the Nijmegen campaign, I find that I learned to use Brit arty to kill the majority of enemy tanks quite easily. They usually die within the first 30 secs and certainly in one WEGO turn of firing - (generally 4 tubes at max rate but short time).

So, while it seems that HE is surprisingly ineffective vs anything in a foxhole, HE "feels" too effective vs armor. If HE was this effective in RL, that would be the weapon of choice vs armor.

[Bulletpoint]

Did it use to be possible for the naval artillery to destroy the bunkers in this map? Before the patches? Anyone remember? I discovered the game a bit late, so never played it as it was back then...

[Rambler]

I think this mission is actually supposed and designed to be impossible, merely to illustrate the difficulty of D-day. After the inevitable defeat in this mission, the campaign continues to another, likely winnable one (haven't tried it out yet).

I haven't played this particular campaign, but iirc it came about way before the 2.0 upgrade. The 2.0 upgrade drastically overhauled machine guns to where they were much more lethal and suppressive compared to the 1.0 version of the game. If there are a lot of machine guns you're dealing with on the map, that may be a large contributing factor to making it unwinnable. MGs in 1.0 weren't that hard to deal with, in all honesty.

[womble]

I've just done a test of a destroyer battery firing its entire allotment of shells at a TRP'ed point targetted bunker. 40 direct hits at least. I didn't examine each one to see if it was actually two shells flying adjacent, though I did see that happen twice without forensic examination. No discernible damage to the bunker. It would seem that from the plunging fire of the destroyer as modelled in-game, a bunker is immune. I didn't have anyone in the bunker, so the test says nothing whatsoever about casualties to the inhabitants.

Nor do I make any comment about the plausibility of this outcome.

One thing that I did notice was that there were no craters for "near misses" in front of the bunker, relative to the direction from which the fire was coming. I'd expect such a shadow to the "rear" of the structure, but not in front.

[Fizou]

I haven't played this particular campaign, but iirc it came about way before the 2.0 upgrade. The 2.0 upgrade drastically overhauled machine guns to where they were much more lethal and suppressive compared to the 1.0 version of the game. If there are a lot of machine guns you're dealing with on the map, that may be a large contributing factor to making it unwinnable. MGs in 1.0 weren't that hard to deal with, in all honesty.

I have played it, and yes, it was released before 2.0. Before 2.0 it was possible to win and I did so on my first try, bloody good fun too. After 2.0 I imagine it much more difficult with the change in MG code.

MGs feel much more realistic with the new code

[Bulletpoint]

I've just done a test of a destroyer battery firing its entire allotment of shells at a TRP'ed point targetted bunker. 40 direct hits at least. I didn't examine each one to see if it was actually two shells flying adjacent, though I did see that happen twice without forensic examination. No discernible damage to the bunker. It would seem that from the plunging fire of the destroyer as modelled in-game, a bunker is immune. I didn't have anyone in the bunker, so the test says nothing whatsoever about casualties to the inhabitants.

Nor do I make any comment about the plausibility of this outcome.

Well, good to know it's not just in my game that the bunkers are immune. From my testing I know that the inhabitans are immue as well.

I wonder where the proper battleship support is - maybe busy somewhere else, though from what I read about D-day, most of the heavy naval guns were employed at both flanks of the landing zone, rather in the middle, trying to avoid friendly fire.

[YankeeDog]

Well, good to know it's not just in my game that the bunkers are immune. From my testing I know that the inhabitans are immue as well.

I wonder where the proper battleship support is - maybe busy somewhere else, though from what I read about D-day, most of the heavy naval guns were employed at both flanks of the landing zone, rather in the middle, trying to avoid friendly fire.

Correct; BBs did not target anywhere close to the landing beaches once the landing craft started their run-in to avoid FF. The danger radius of a 12"+ shell is *huge*. So they were not used against the defenses on the bluff immediately overlooking Omaha.

One thing to bear in mind is that communications between units on the beach and the fire support ships was largely nonexistent for the morning of June 6; virtually all the radios in the first wave had been lost. And by the time shore-ship comms had been re-estabished in the early afternoon, infantry had achieved the top of the bluff and the worst of the crisis had passed.

So during the critical morning hours of June 6, what naval fire support there was came from ships that fired on targets based on their own observation and initiative. The BBs and Cruisers were too far out to see exactly what was going on on the beach and were understandably reluctant to put large shells close to where friendlies were supposed to be. Therefore, they concentrated their on the flanks of the landing zone.

This is why the fire from the DDs Frankford and McCook was so important -- they got in close enough (~800m from the shoreline, literally scraping their keels on the bottom) that they were able to spot German positions on the bluffs on their own, and direct their main battery fire accordingly.

[womble]

So to simulate the DDs' fire, you'd be looking at stacking 9 Priests (closest DF HE available to the US so far, I think), and a dozen each .50cal and 20mm cannon at 800m from the shore, in a formation with some quality troops equipped with binos, and having some "honour" rules about how they get used (only at spotted or suspected targets they can see; only in pairs, for the heavy stuff at least).

[YankeeDog]

The later war Yeah... a brace of 105mm howitzer chassis is about as close as you can get to a 5" DD battery firing direct in the game right now. It's not perfect, but I guess you could say that 9 x 105mm approximates 4-5 5" naval guns, which is what the Frankford and McCook had in their main batteries. Both were Gleaves class, a pre-war design that had less armament than the wartime construction Fletcher and Sumner classes; most Gleaves were originally built with just 20mm and .50 cal. as secondary gun armament. However, many Gleaves class were later upgraded with one or more 40mm mounts. A online check shows at least the McCook definitely got 40mms at some point, but I'm not sure if this was before or after June 6, 1944.

Regardless, I doubt the lighter stuff was used much in support at Omaha as the mounts for these weapons really weren't really designed for accurate ship-to-shore fire; they were really more spray-and-pray close range AA defense weapons. But possibly; the accounts I have read are not this specific.

[Lethaface]

Coincidentally I tried this mission (1st from blue and grey campaign) last weekend. While I managed to take out a bunker with a direct tank shell the 12.7cm naval guns didn't knock m out. Although they obliterated all enemy forces in the trenches, didn't check for bunker personnel casualties.

The Omaha mission seems rather unwinnable indeed, after losing about a battalion worth of men without any real progress I called it a day. No point in waiting 30min or more just to throw another battalion in the meat grinder

It was a fun mission though, especially seeing those 5" naval guns getting revenge for their fallen comrades!

In general I have had no real problems taking out bunkers in CMx2. Direct large caliber (tank) fire or close up infantry from the sides work very good. Even sustained MG fire will kill the inhabitants over time, after which the status of the bunker will changed to KO even though it is fine itself. IIRC it is not possible to reman bunkers in CMx2.

I have never before tried to take out a bunker with artillery, for the simple reason that it is a bunker

[RockinHarry]

Obviously my testing with pillbox vulnerabilities were pre 2.0. Can´t recreate anything I did encounter with an older test mission now in 2.12, so everything appears to be in order now, at least with regard to mortar and Arty.

[womble]

So, has anyone else seen small arms fire take out (Destroy, not kill/drive out the occupants) a bunker?

[Lethaface]

Small arms i.e. max caliber .45? Sure seen some bazooka's take out a bunker, but a bazooka ain't a small arm in my opinion.

[womble]

Small arms i.e. max caliber .45? Sure seen some bazooka's take out a bunker, but a bazooka ain't a small arm in my opinion.

Yes. Small arms. At the time of collapse, just .30-06 I think, and those from a good 2-300m away. There had been a bazooka hit earlier, and a couple of near misses with probably-81mm-mortars (could have been 75mm pack howitzer), but given that direct hits with 5" guns don't kill... There was certainly nothing direct-firing HE of any calibre at the thing when it "died". No demo teams got anywhere near it, since there were several other teams overwatching the bunker from various angles; closest anyone got was 100m or so, and there were no explosions near it at the time either.