Bunker knocked out too easily?

[Sven]

In my latest game I moved an infantryman close to a German concrete bunker, hoping that he would throw a satchel charge at the bunker. To my surprise he instead threw a handgrenade from the side, which landed on the roof and exploded.  Nothing seemed to happen and nobody inside the bunker got hurt or died.  However, 10 seconds later the crew came out and the bunker was "knocked out".

Isn't that a little odd?

[Vacillator]

As for the crew I assume they were 'rattled' and decided to escape (into the line of fire perhaps so might not be the best decision).  Not sure about the bunker being knocked out, haven't really played with bunkers yet.  Can they usually be re-crewed or are they knocked when abandoned?

Edited October 16, 2020 by Vacilllator

[Sven]

I don't know. I've never really had bunkers that much. I don't know if there's an "in-between" status called "abandoned", but the game says "knocked out".

[Erwin]

Yes they can be "abandoned".  IIRC to get points one still has to destroy it.

Edited October 16, 2020 by Erwin

[Bulletpoint]

When you see them throw hand grenades at bunkers and vehicles, it's an abstraction to represent running up and throwing grenades through vision slits etc. You can knock out even the heaviest tanks this way.

The real problem with bunkers is that they are way too easy to destroy by direct fire. It takes only 3-4 shots of 75mm HE shells to knock out even a concrete bunker. In reality, many special weapons were invented to knock out bunkers, but in the game, they are not needed.

[SgtHatred]

I've had bunkers survive direct hits with AVRE rounds.

 

 

and I've had AT bunkers knocked out by a rifle grenade fired uphill from 200m away. They can be pretty random.

[akd]

The game basically treats bunkers as stationary vehicles, so the same set of rules regarding KOs apply.

[Sulman]

That's interesting, in CMBN I had the opposite problem; I had a squad standing right outside the one of those wooden bunkers (not uncommon in Bocageland, you can walk right up to them from the flanks) and they couldn't kill it. I had to bring up a PIAT guy to knock it out. You should really be able to send infantry into them but they're locked down tighter than a duck's arse.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I wonder if it would be possible for the game designers to allow us to increase the 'Toughness' of bunkers using Soft Factors on the bunker itself? 

Presumably all the basic mechanisms are in place, it would just require some means of adapting them to effect a bunker?

@Battlefront.com @IanL Could this be done? 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Sgt.Squarehead

[slysniper]

I am sure I can easily design a battle where you will not think bunkers are too weak. You will complain they are to hard. It all comes down to who has the fire power advantage and position advantage.

But go on, explain what a bunker should be able to defend against.

[A Canadian Cat]

On 12/2/2020 at 10:33 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Presumably all the basic mechanisms are in place,

?? No idea how you figure that. Currently there are what two kinds of bunker. There is currently no variation in the strengths of bunkers other than the two types.

On 12/2/2020 at 10:33 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

it would just require some means of adapting them to effect a bunker?

@Battlefront.com @IanL Could this be done? 

I guess but I highly doubt that Steve would want to use any of the current soft factors to mean something completely different when used on a bunker. I am sure changing the game to support additional bunker strengths would be possible but again I would guess that is not something that would bubble up very high in the priority. My experience of sometimes finding bunkers a royal pain and other times wondering why I was worried has way more to do with what @slysniper points out above.

Note: I don't speak for Steve, I'm just giving my opinion based on a little insider insight but nothing else.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Just seemed like a potential way of beefing them up.

[Bulletpoint]

On 12/3/2020 at 1:17 PM, slysniper said:

But go on, explain what a bunker should be able to defend against.

There was someone posting a US test video where they fired various WW2 weapons against concrete pillboxes. Even a "naked" bunker without the protective soil around it took something like 70 x 75mm AP shells to penetrate. In CM, it takes something like 2-3 x 75mm HE.

The wartime video made it seem like bunkers were extremely vulnerable, but if you read the small print on the bottom of the screen, you'd realise that they didn't show all the shots hitting - they just cut to showing the destroyed bunker. And that's without the soil around it.

So my personal opinion is that bunkers should at least be made much tougher than they are currently. And that you should generally need specialised weapons to take them out.

[slysniper]

Has anyone ran any test that shows some real averages for the game.

When you say 2 or 3 shots of 75MM to take out the bunker.

What range, what type of bunker, what angle.

 

I agree, I have seen the bunkers destroyed too quickly at times.

But then gain, I have fired plenty of rounds at bunkers before and not phased them.

So, without some data as to what we really have going on, its hard to weigh if its off or how much it is off.

 

I know I have wasted all my ammo on a modern tank on a bunker in CMSF AND NOT GET A KILL. 

So that would not be a good one time event to weigh what is going on either.

 

And even the example of seeing the real thing affected.

70 rounds at what range.

and a round does not have to penetrate to be a killing round, At some point concrete fragments would become a issue in and of themselves.

And in truth HE is the round of choice trying to place it through the slot.

 

Now I just want to make it clear, I do think Bunkers are too soft in the game, but I have never felt it a issue to take the time to want to try and determine what it is or what is appropriate to what we think it should be.

 

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Same applies to the wartime tests, what type of bunker are we talking.....There's a hell of a difference between a pillbox and a PAK-bunker built into a hill!

[Bulletpoint]

18 hours ago, slysniper said:

Has anyone ran any test that shows some real averages for the game.

When you say 2 or 3 shots of 75MM to take out the bunker.

What range, what type of bunker, what angle.

I've done some unofficial tests a while ago. Here are the results from memory.

Range about 600m

Concrete MG bunker (CMFB)

Hitting from the front.

About 3-4 HE on average to kill all occupants. Approximately the same as a modular building.

 

I'm no expert on history, but it seems to me if bunkers had been that easy to knock out in the real war, nations would not have invested so much in flamethrowers and other bunker-busting weapons.

Also, there's the gameplay argument that it leaves bunkers redundant and non-viable. If they are made of cardboard, why bother buying them in a quick battle.

I think everything in the roster should have some purpose.Currently you could buy a light tank for the same cost as the bunker, and you'd get double the machineguns, better accuracy, and even a little main gun.

[slysniper]

good points. And if that is true that it matches the building results. It is pretty clear that its not modelled correctly.

Pretty much, most concrete bunkers were built and designed to take on the weapons that they knew they were defending against.

So common sense would dictate, it would work better than any normal wall construction. no matter what.

So that is a good example that its not balanced to other items within the game.

but its still not even close to understanding  what is going on and if its a issue in all or some of the games families.

 

 

[Lethaface]

A while back in a PBEM I used M-10 TDs (76mm) against a concrete pillbox (I think with MG-42). At first I shot out the occupants after just a couple of shots, bunker survived though. Not much later it was recrewed, after which I took it under fire again, but this time the 76mm didn't seem to give much effect. As the M10s only have a limited supply of HE, after a while I had a flamethrower take care of business. So I don't know if it was just chance or if there was something else going on.

[slysniper]

It seems its worth looking into, but it always comes down to doing some game test to get enough of a sound picture to know what the results are within the game. Showing what the variables within the game does. 

Not on the top of my list for sure, but it seems to warrant some testing and seeing if the bunkers can be made tougher by putting in a request on some shown facts.

But I agree, that I have seen the results vary a lot for bunkers. So not sure what testing will come up with. 

[RockinHarry]

For me the pillbox = static vehicle modeling doesn´t work at all. One the reasons I abondoned half a dozen missions dealing with the Siegfried Line campaign (incl. some hurtgen forest stuff). In RL pillboxes were used by both opponents unless they were deliberately demolished, thus leaving just a pile of rubble. And by using I mean they made good artillery shelters, not actual combat positions most the times. Defenses were outside usually.

Using normal (stone) buildings as substitute only works to a limited extend. The main problem seems that pillboxes need to "belong" to one or the other opponent and can not be neutral data base wise. So a new concept needs to be introduced in any case. Something like purchasing a pillbox that is then "converted" to a (particularly hardened and shaped) building type at mission start? This one would be a normal building map object that can be "used" by both opponents. The game engine then can assign owner purchase cost silently as sort of terrain objective (occupy), rewarded to last occupying player. Something in that direction maybe. Your opinions?

[Bulletpoint]

I have a CMFB save showing a Sherman firing a 75mm HE against a concrete MG bunker and hitting it frontally, penetrating the bunker's concrete. Not hitting the vision slit. Penetrating the concrete at the thickest point.

I'd be fine with a lucky shot into the slit taking out a bunker, but penetrating the concrete just shouldn't happen.

[RockinHarry]

17 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I have a CMFB save showing a Sherman firing a 75mm HE against a concrete MG bunker and hitting it frontally, penetrating the bunker's concrete. Not hitting the vision slit. Penetrating the concrete at the thickest point.

I'd be fine with a lucky shot into the slit taking out a bunker, but penetrating the concrete just shouldn't happen.

bits of sound like the issue I reported with mortar rounds sometimes penetrating concrete type pillboxes at any angles. Always hard to tell where a shell penetrates anyway. Similar to buildings it´s not a WYSIWYG affair. Hit or penetration areas can (and most likely are) much larger than actual geometry (windows, fire slits) suggest. I´d found some meta data in MDR files very likely related to that, but it´s too much work and time consuming to investigate any further. At least not by trial and error methods. I´d still vote for a different approach when it comes to more realistic pillbox types. If not in current game engine then at least in next one.

[slysniper]

23 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

This one would be a normal building map object that can be "used" by both opponents. The game engine then can assign owner purchase cost silently as sort of terrain objective (occupy), rewarded to last occupying player. Something in that direction maybe. Your opinions?

Actually, that is a excellent point. I have always hated how they work in general. With the one side only able to access, and if cleared, never being able to reoccupy.

They appear to be programed as a none moving armor unit in some ways, but it makes more sense if they were programmed with buildings.

But likely the code was not designed to work with purchasing buildings, but as you say. Maybe the next game engine.

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by slysniper

[Anonymous_Jonze]

A while back I booted up a quick battle in Fortress Italy. I was the Americans defending a ridge from a battalion of light Italian tanks. That's like over 100 of these little guys. I only had one concrete bunker with one 57mm at gun in it and the rest were various infantry platoons. That bunker took punishment all day until the tanks got within 150 meters and finally finished off the crew. The gun managed to take out half the battalion by itself. 

I've also seen bunkers set up in a beautiful position not kill anyone. Many times their occupants just become panicked/suppressed and become sitting ducks. Seems to be a toss up but bunkers don't faze me as a much as other defenses. 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Anonymous_Jonze

[Bulletpoint]

On 12/16/2020 at 10:36 PM, Anonymous_Jonze said:

A while back I booted up a quick battle in Fortress Italy. I was the Americans defending a ridge from a battalion of light Italian tanks. That's like over 100 of these little guys. I only had one concrete bunker with one 57mm at gun in it and the rest were various infantry platoons. That bunker took punishment all day

Well what are those little tanks armed with... 37mm? I don't have CMFI