Engineers in battle

[The_Capt]

I just read the responses to the post by a jr member on reinforced rifle company's and..OK I am beginning to despair. After all of those fine posts about armour, arty blah blah.

Let us not forget the mighty SAPPER! Any reinforced company who will most likely be employed in an independent role (based on all the hardware you boys have slapped on this thing) and won't be doing anything if they can't get from A to B or knock out hard points a close range.

CM modeling of minefields and obstacles (though better than most war games) is "reaching to be average". An inf squad does not stroll through a minefield with a few casualties, it gets severely f#%^ed up particularly if they smack a bounding mine. Same goes for tanks(70% cas estimate for high density). The use of minefields and AT obstacles was prevelant in WWII and the Germans had it down to an art, hell they invented half the stuff we do today.

For all that, we do have the engineer who can "clear" minefields and so should be included into any "reinforced" company. I would also like to see flail tanks but hey maybe in CM2.

Finally, I will end my tirade with word of motivation for scenario designers out there. Put trees on the roads to simulate abatis, put AT ditches in with steep slopes and max use of minefields (a standard AT minefield is 400m deep and about 1 km wide with at least an AP row!), rubble buildings to block streets and build your bridges blown. CM as it is right now is a 2/3rds solution (dont get me wrong I love it) but if you want realism, crank up the GREEN SLIME!!!

[Guest Germanboy]

Good points alround - the UK infantry BN had an organic engineer platoon, while the US did not, I believe.

Does anyone have the TO&E for Commonwealth and US Engineer Coys? For some reason I believe at least the US would look different than three platoons and six flamethrowers

------------------

Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-04-2000).]

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

Good points alround - the UK infantry BN had an organic engineer platoon, while the US did not, I believe.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Plenty of Corps engineer assets though for attachment. I believe that they were attached like TD and tank battalions. So some would have been semi-permanent, some non-existant, some briefly associated, etc.

-dale

[IPA]

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Generally the standard British Infantry Division had the equivalent of 1 Engineer Battalion.

The Engineers did not form part of a standard TO & E at a Company or Platoon level, but were allocated at a battalion or brigade level as the battle situation dictated.

Alternatively the Divisional Engineer component was sometimes in the form of 3 independent companies, each being permanently or semi-permanently attached to a brigade in the Division (again as the situation/plan dictated). Therefore, for the purpose of a "standard" CM "British" Infantry Battalion (for non-historical battles) one platoon of engineers per battalion sounds about right.

As far as the standard org for a Engineer platoon goes, AFAIK there was no standard, there were many combinations. For example an Engineer platoon/troop may have comprised 4 sections and no flamethrower.

IPA