Guest Pillar Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Went out to a forest and "attempted" (Stress on "ATTEMPTED") to dig a decent foxhole. I just wanted to get an idea how hard it was and how long it took. Well, I got down about 3-4 feet and decided to stop. It was getting real hard to get the dirt out of the deep hole, and it wasn't big enough for me to get in and dig from there. Wow, it's a lot of work though. It took about half an hour to get what I got done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudee Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Wow, I must say you're more ambitious than I was today. I ended up watching competitive ballroom dancing on the television for a full hour cause I was too darn lazy to get up of the coutch and get the remote, which was sitting on top of the television stand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mirage2k Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 I'm actually ashamed to admit that I tried digging one too, just a few months ago. I think I stopped a bit before you did, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OberGrupenStompinFeuhrer! Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 LOL! I admire your intiative! Perhaps if there was an artillery barrage working it's way towards you, the digging might go a bit faster. But I think it's a good point. There have been requests for "digging in" functionality in the game. Seems by the time the troops dug in, the battle would be over! Ober ------------------ "Them Yankees couldn't hit the broa..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mirage2k Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 My major problem was with rocks. Basically 2/3 of what you hit once you get below a foot or so are rocks. It doesn't make for very easy digging. -Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coolguy101 Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 well i accomplished digging a foxhole. 2 man foxhole too. it worked out well for its purpose. i didnt dig it recently though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy 4 Eyes Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 a little off the subject but I had a gas furnace put in at my house and found out that a spot under my crawl space was not deep enough. I headed under the house and laid on my belly just able to squeeze into this particular spot. I had a small shovel and laid on my belly digging a trench for the trunk line (10 feet long and 20 inches deep) I started at about 10 inches deep. I had to pull the dirt out bucket by bucket. Needless to say I was sore the next morning. My point is (did I have one).. is that what I envisioned was my days in the Marines and CM missions to keep my mind off the spiders (not a big fan of those scary freaks of nature). I was definetly "hull down as I lay in the trench. Its scary how much CM can be incorporated into every day life. [This message has been edited by Jimmy 4 Eyes (edited 07-03-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertanker Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Pillar, did you use an entrenching tool? I've dug parts of ditches with one, because it was a handy size to work around pipes and such, but not the whole job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pillar Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 I used an ordinary shovel. It was a bit too long (the pole part) so I ran into problems when I got deep. That's mainly why I had to stop. I'd carved in pretty good but the excess dirt needed to be taken out, and the hole was too small to really bend over and hand them out, and the shovel pole too long to use like an entrenching tool. It was a good experience though. Actually, I covered up the hole and I may go back to it if I'm really bored. Interestingly enough I didn't run into any rocks. The first foot was tough due to roots. Then the dirt was dark and heavy (I assume wet too). After about 3 feet, the dirt became a lighter color and I dug a little bit more before stopping to read my book. Having just done it though, I think it would have been a feasable thing to attempt even in battle conditions. Especially if the enemy is still on the approach and isn't shooting at you yet. I've read accounts where an arty barrage comes in and infantryment started digging that point (see "Seven Roads to Hell", it was through a frozen layer too!). [This message has been edited by Pillar (edited 07-03-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Three or four feet seems pretty deep for what I think of as a "foxhole". I always thought those were just deep enough to give you cover if you were lying in the bottom, say a couple of feet. I'd say you had gone beyond foxhole and ventured into the realm of entrenchment, especially if you had loaded the dirt from the hole into sandbags and stacked them into a parapet. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Echo Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 What do the neibors think about you digging "shallow graves" out in the woods? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcusm Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 I did my fair share of foxholes in the army . Pretty dull time. Btw I was in the supply troops with responsibility of candy so I was pretty popular. Marcus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 A group my high school classmates, for their AP history final, built a 20-foot stretch of WWI trench, complete with sandbags and a machine gun position. I don't know if they used heavy equipment or not, but I do know that it took ~8 of them all semester (admittedly not nonstop work) to complete it. Watching the tape of the process, I very much appreciate how hard it would be for one person to dig a person-sized foxhole. DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IntelWeenie Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 In my experience, the type of dirt you dig in makes ALL the difference when digging a foxhole or "fighting position" in modern, politcally correct parlence ("foxhole" was deemed by the Army to be degrading to females! ) Strangely, the hardest place I ever tried to dig a foxhole was in SAND! I discovered that the sand in Saudi Arabia (Iraqi sand isn't so bad) only goes down about a foot or two, then turns into something more like a solid sheet of rock. Only way I could get through it was with a pick! Oh, and artillery fire is a great motivator for digging! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 I managed to go through my army time having to dig only one foxhole, but that was definitely enough: the ground was frozen 20 cm deep and I had really poor shovel that broke midway through the ice. Our squad broke three shovels that day and bended one crowbar while clearing the tent place from ice. There were five of us preparing the tent position and it took over hour to do it. Later we were shown how a mine could be used to make proper tent base in one second. In my next forest trip we didn't bother to clear the office tent from ice (however, we did clear the sleeping tents, we were not completely insane) and as a result we had to bail out over 100 liters of water that night and the stove almost fell over. About the time needed to do field fortifications. I was on a vacation last week going through pretty much every military museum in 100 km range and came upon a statistic that it took 30 men-days of work to prepare a field-fortified artillery forward observation position with with 80% of the time going to wooden supports. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannheim Tanker Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Yep - tough work. IIRC, they are supposed to be armpit deep, with one corner lower than the other to act as a grenade sump. We had to dig a few while I was in the army - it REALLY made me appreciate being in armor! It took a few hours to build a proper foxhole (complete with overhead cover for protection against arty). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muzzlehead Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Well when I was a little Marine... we use to bitch that we never took time to actually build local dfense systems (I was arty). We were afraid that we would not be skilled enough to actually deploy local defense in combat. Then I went to the Persian Gulf and during the Ground War we advanced ahead of the infantry to batter the front (I was 198 howizters). About 10 min into the barrage we noticed a decent size tank battle going oninfront of us. Then the word came we might get overrun. Well in response .... I dug a slit trench about 2 foot wide and 4foot deep in about 5min. And the ground was hard and rocky. My point fear and adrenalin makes you a digging moe'fo. Intelwennie puts perfectly "Oh, and artillery fire is a great motivator for digging!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Heheh.. cool topic. I agree that digging in in the summer can be physically hard but CM has winter scenarios too. It would take a little while to dig-in in the winter time too but it's managable. This could be an option for prepared defenses. For winter scenarios it would take about 10-15 turns for an MG posistion to dig-in (somewhat at least), is it worth it??? I don't know actually, could be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 Intelwennie puts perfectly "Oh, and artillery fire is a great motivator for digging!" In the early days of the Continuation War Finnish troops had to advance long marches in hot (for Finland) Summer weather. As a result, many soldiers threw away a lot of things they didn't wan't to carry and thought they wouldn't need. For most soldiers, the first thing to go was the gas mask and the field shovel went next. However, after they had encountered Soviet artillery, they usually chose something else to throw away. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 For winter scenarios it would take about 10-15 turns for an MG posistion to dig-in (somewhat at least), is it worth it??? I don't know actually, could be. You forget that the ground may be frozen in winter. I would like to see a man who digs a MG position in ten minutes in a frozen ground. During Winter War, the Finnish experience was that it was wery difficult to do any field fortifications without using explosives to break the frozen ground. Simple pits in snow are easy to make but they provide only concealment and no cover. However, I admit that I don't have any idea on how deep the soil freezes in France. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zamo Posted July 3, 2000 Share Posted July 3, 2000 None of you guys have suggested a "hasty" fighting position. Sometimes a unit moving fast or under surprise attack might quickly prepare a spontanious dug-in position, really not more than belly deep. Dig about a 6" to 1' slit for your body and pile all the dirt and rocks in front of you. Not the best defense, but any dirt around you is better than none at all. Total time to dig-in? about one to two minutes (esp. with "incentives - Rat-tat-tat, BOOM!) My 2 cents Zamo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted July 4, 2000 Share Posted July 4, 2000 Although, as you state, it was done, hiding behind a pile of rocks was not the best of ideas due to splinters. Instant mini-shrapnel. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penubly Posted July 4, 2000 Share Posted July 4, 2000 Makes you kind of admire the guys who would fight/march/etc all day and then dig a new foxhole every night. ------------------ Always with the negative waves, Moriarty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted July 4, 2000 Share Posted July 4, 2000 Tommi: I think you're wrong. I've been in the army myself and all our troops were equipped with a shovel for just those situations. Sometimes you didn't even need 10-15 minutes to improve your defensive position (winter that is). Usually when we dug-in at maneuvers each company had a day to dig-in (summer time). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
windstarz Posted July 4, 2000 Share Posted July 4, 2000 Lots of times soldiers looked to use foxholes that had already been dug and abandoned. Not always practical but I bet there were plenty in WW2. I was gonna dig a foxhole after reading this but then I thought should I a) dig a foxhole or play Combat Mission? It was a real tough decision but I forced myself to take the easy one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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