Pillboxes too fragile???

[Oddball_E8]

Would anyone like to do a test to see if the pillboxes have been made less durable by the new patch?

the reason i ask is cause i played a homemade scenario today with 8 pillboxes (4 75mm and 4 MG) versus 1 american inf bat and 5 shermans (75mm) and 2 priests... the results: after turn 2 all the pillboxes were knocked out. The average range was about 600 meters.

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Wof, wof, wof, wof... Thats my other dog imitation.

[retarded_keydet]

I noticed when I was playing the breaching the west wall operation the pillboxes seemed a lot less potent than before.

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There was a long silence of rememberance for the dead, to which I added these names:

Ernst Neubach, Lensen, Wiener, Wesreidau, Prinz, Solma, Hoth, Olensheim, Sperlovski, Smellens, Dunde, Kellerman, Freivitch, Ballers, Frosch, Woortenbeck, Siemenlies...

I refuse to add Paula to that list, and I shall never forget the names of Hals, or Lindberg, or Pferham, or Wollers. Their memory lves within me.

There is another man, whom I must forget. He was called Guy Sajer.

[Oddball_E8]

Could it have something to do with the new accuracy of tank gunners at short/medium ranges??? cos a lot of those pillboxes were taken out by vision slit hits.

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Wof, wof, wof, wof... Thats my other dog imitation.

[Wilhammer]

I think the real problem is that the pillbox is treated as a vehicle and inherets some certain weaknesees of that classification.

I think the reason that BTS did this is of the need for it to have weak spots.

However, it raises 2 big issues;

1, Pillboxes do not block LOS. I used to hide behind them until very early on I found this to not be true.

2, Pillboxes die quickly from range.

Would it of been better to model them as very strong buildings, say 4 times as strong as a heavy building for concrete ones?

Probably not. The game system does not allow placing guns in buildings. Buildings do not have weak spots, per se, so aiming for the "vision slit" or rear door would be meaningless.

In reality, the concrete ones are rather like immobile thick skinned vehicles. In reality, the American, at least, method for taking out pillboxes was to blast the vision slit while manuevering in to take it from the rear. The front hits rarely took out the gun, bit it did prevent the crew from firing it usually. Also, the crew would be distracted by all the flying concrete chips and the reverbs.

While treated as a vehicle, the crew is not prone to leaving.

If it was treated as a very heavy building, the crew would panic and leave, and then we have the thread "Do bunkers get abandoned too quickly?".

But, the game abstracts the crew abandonment of the firing ports and slips with weapons kills, which seems too harsh.

What we need is guys cowering in the bunkers and liable to recover and reman the guns.

Right now, the safest method to take out a bunker is to sit back and take pot shots at it, preferrably on the move. The law of averages catches up and the box goes boom.

If we had "cowering" crews, then the only way to be sure of a kill would be to get in with a combined arms team and take it out just like it was done in the real war.

1, Suppress, remove the supporting positions.

2, Blast the slits with mortar and gun fire.

3, Manuever around the rear

4, Flame, bazooka, demo or blast the rear of it from close range.

According to Doubler, it took one tank (or often a heavy MG was all that was needed along with a mortar for stripping off camouflage), a squad or two with bazookas, a flamethrower, and an enginner team and 30 minutes to take out the average bunker.

[Dr. Brian]

Funny, I thought they were weak BEFORE the new patch. I haven't used any of the beta patches yet, but I think these pill boxes are indeed weak.

Like you, all it takes is maybe 3-4 rounds to blow a wooden PB, and 4-6 for a concrete PB.

Not much for the guys inside to day, but take the death slugs up the wazoo.

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Doc

God Bless Chesty Puller, Wherever He Is!

[This message has been edited by Dr. Brian (edited 12-31-2000).]

[Major Tom]

Try keeping a tank armed with a 75mm Gun immoblie, and you will see how few shots it takes to knock it out. The best way to use bunkers is to limit the LOS, so that if a vehicle/squad enters its range of fire it gets nailed from medium-short range. Basically, bunkers are like a HMG or AT Guns that aren't quite easily knocked out by Mortor fire. In history, whenever a bunker was encountered it didn't take much to knock it out. Tanks were Bunker's worst nightmares.