Can Bridges be distroyed?

[Greg Scurlock]

If so can they be distroyed by artilery or by engineers with explosives only? Also do craters left in bridges and roads ( paved and unpaved ) cause them to become impassable or at least disrupt movement for some vehicles? I ask because in a scenario I played I had to take a bridge to assure the enemy reinforcements could not cross it later and come in to the rear of my main force. Not thinking the bridge could be blown up, I left a platoon and a tank behind to guard the bridge. I would think that seeing a bridge blow up and seeing the results would be neet.

[Guest ACTOR]

Greg, Bridges can be blown up with arty and rockets. I have seen it happen, and then watched my poor troops stuck on the other side get slaughtered.

I don't know if you can destroy a bridge with a satchel charge or charges...haven't tried it.

[Formerly Babra]

I don't think you can order troops to demo a bridge with satchel charges, but should a charge go off on one, I'm sure it would add to the cumulative damage to the structure. The bridges behave like other structures in every respect it seems.

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It's a mother-beautiful bridge and it's gonna be THERE.

[Red Dog]

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

I don't know if you can destroy a bridge with a satchel charge or charges...haven't tried it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've tried, can't get the engineers to use their charges. I've tried ordering them to fire on the bridge at close range (10m and and then 5m when that didn't work)and all they do is fire their rifles at it once. No satchel charges...

I know this has been brought up before, but I for one would like to see engineers be able to demo bridges. I realize that you need to put the charges in the stress points to properly destroy a bridge, but you should be able to at least damage the bridge enough to make it impassable to vehicles with a satchel charge or two.

You can destroy anything with enough explosives even if they aren't placed properly. Not sure exactly what satchel charges in CM represent, but I assume it's about 25-30 lbs of TNT. Sure that's not going to do much if you just throw it on top of a bridge, but if you put one or two under the bridge against one of the stress points (even if you don't place the charge properly for maximum effect) it would at least weaken the bridge.

Even if they just made it so that engineers could only destroy wooden bridges I'd be happy.

[Aszurom]

So, this brings to me the question... What ARE engineers for?

Do you clear minefields with them? Dig foxholes? Gee, I wish they could un-bog tanks!

[guachi]

Engineers can clear minefields as described on pages 43 and 92 of the manual.

Jason

[Wayne]

I think BTS will say that setting explosives to blow bridges is beyond the scale of the game, however, I would like to see charges that can be set during operations and as part of the set-up for scenarios. Playing U.S. Engineers facing Jochen Peiper's panzers would be nice.

Wayne.

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Blessed be the Lord my strength who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.

[Jarmo]

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

So, this brings to me the question... What ARE engineers for?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They use those neat charges to blow up bunkers and tanks.

Under 30 meters they are deadly against pretty much everything.

[KiwiJoe]

Blowing up pillboxs is a good use for them.

[Silencer]

I used tanks with good HE to blow up bridges,

works fine

S.

[IntelWeenie]

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

I think BTS will say that setting explosives to blow bridges is beyond the scale of the game, however, I would like to see charges that can be set during operations and as part of the set-up for scenarios. Playing U.S. Engineers facing Jochen Peiper's panzers would be nice.

Wayne.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There are several important questions to be answered first before including bridge demo:

How would it be detonated? How hard to code it so it can only be placed on a bridge? Could enemy units "cut the wires"? (etc., etc.)

I think this is why they aren't in the game.

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"Belly to belly and everything's better" - Russian proverb

[Mannheim Tanker]

Here's an idea for designing a scenario where you want engineers to blow a bridge: When building the map, set a minefield (or several) on the bridge. Engineers will throw a satchel charge into a minefield on their own if you move them close enough to it (and let them sit there a turn or 2). Not sure if this will detroy the bridge - but it's worth a try. Could make for a cool scenario.

On a side note: I've had engineers throw charges at tanks before and annhilate them so I guess they're good for something!

[aka_tom_w]

I could be wrong here but I am designing a scenario right now and last night try to place mines on a bridge, in the set up, maybe I did not do it right, but anti tank mines and antipersonal mines cannot be placed on a brige, maybe daisy chain mines can, that one I'm not sure of.

I would say that the best and easiest way to blow a bridge is to use a tank with HE or Arty or mortars, The Tank with HE seems to be the quickest and most effective.

-tom w

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mannheim Tanker:

Here's an idea for designing a scenario where you want engineers to blow a bridge: When building the map, set a minefield (or several) on the bridge. Engineers will throw a satchel charge into a minefield on their own if you move them close enough to it (and let them sit there a turn or 2). Not sure if this will detroy the bridge - but it's worth a try. Could make for a cool scenario.

On a side note: I've had engineers throw charges at tanks before and annhilate them so I guess they're good for something!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Mannheim Tanker]

"I could be wrong here but I am designing a scenario right now and last night try to place mines on a bridge, in the set up, maybe I did not do it right, but anti tank mines and antipersonal mines cannot beplaced on a brige, maybe daisy chain mines can, that one I'm not sure of."

You're probably right, as I haven't tried this yet. It would be a great add-on, though, if you could order engineers to demolish structures. Eg. when retreating, you could take out that bridge or maybe a tall building that would serve as a good observation platform to enemy spotters.

[Fred]

but has it happened historically, that in the scope of a single 1 hr engagement engineers blew houses, bridges etc. to leave a "scorched earth" environment for the enemy??

I think within CM's time scale and focus on tactical firefights this could not be accomplished (it took a long time to wire a bridge for detonation).

Fred

[Mannheim Tanker]

I guess that I was assuming in this user-created scenario that the bridge was already wired to be blown. All the engineers had to do was fire off the plunger. From personal experience, I can testify that it only takes a few minutes to wire and destroy a SMALL structure The Bridge at Remagen is another story entirely...

[paullus]

Anyone ever blown a bridge with enemy units on it? Would love to see a bridge go with tanks on it...

[Hakko Ichiu]

Why not design a scenario where the side that has to blow the bridge has an elite spotter for a really big gun locked in a pit with no LOS anywhere. He also has a TRP locked to the center of the bridge. The spotter can call fire to the TRP and only the TRP with any hope of success. It would take some experimentation to figure out the amount of ammo he would need to blow the bridge, but the effect would not be dissimilar to blowing a big bridge w/HE charges.

BTW, just watched The Bridge at Remagen last night. Great flick.

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Ethan

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Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe

[Darwin]

If I remember correctly BTS stance was that bridges required a bit of work, time, and a lot of HE(more than a few satchel charges) to destoy. Beyond the scope of CM.

[Hakko Ichiu]

I devised a little test scenario to see if the Arty spotter in a hole could be used to blow a bridge. After a lot of fiddling I found out a few things:

-- High bridges are tough. I had two elite 240mm spotters with max ammo fire their entire barrage at a TRP on a High bridge with zero effect. Lots of nice explosions though.

-- You can't put TRPs on water. I had to put a little island in the middle of the river, run the bridge over it, and put the TRP on the island.

-- Bridges contain high amounts of Vitamin D and are extremely difficult to hit with rickets.

-- Wooden bridges are pretty vulnerable to high calibre HE.

This led to my proto-Remagen scenario:

Allies -- 4 Jeep MGs

Axis -- 1 Elite Arty Spotter (various calibres)with 1 salvo. One TRP.

The Jeeps start at one end of the map, at the terminus of a dirt road, while the spotter is on a high bluff at the other end of the map. In between is a wide river. Crossing the river is a double wooden bridge. In the middle of the bridge is the German TRP.

The spotter has one chance to destroy the bridge before the jeeps race over it. Time to target for the arty is always 27 seconds, which gives the Germans the chance to fire their salvo shortly before the jeeps arrive.

I ran this little encounter several times with each of the following arty calibres: 150mm, 210mm, 240mm.

Results were:

150mm -- Destroyed 0 Partial Destruction 0 Unscathed 5

210mm -- Destroyed 0 Partial 4 Unscathed 1

240mm -- Destroyed 7 Partial 1 Unscathed 2

2 x 210mm -- Destroyed 9 Partial 1 Unscathed 0

So, one could do a bridge demolition scenario by giving the Germans the necessary arty assets with 1 salvo. Then they have a percentage chance to blow the bridge, and they can wait for the Allies to get on the bridge or not. The scenario designer can fine tune this by putting the arty as a reinforcement.

I may try to put together a Remagen scenario on this basis -- using the movie rather than what actually happened as my basis.

Any takers?

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Ethan

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Das also war des Pudels Kern! -- Goethe

[This message has been edited by Hakko Ichiu (edited 07-26-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Hakko Ichiu (edited 07-26-2000).]

[DrBrydon]

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

If I remember correctly BTS stance was that bridges required a bit of work, time, and a lot of HE(more than a few satchel charges) to destoy. Beyond the scope of CM.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think Wayne's point about Engineers in the Battle of the Bulge is a good one. As I recall that was a single company that blew a number of bridges. Now, they may have carried more explosives than "normal" (what would an Engineer Batt. have as standard stores?), but it certainly happened, and as a simulation shouldn't we be able to portray that?

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Will

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"The truly great thing is not to lose your nerve." --Unknown.