CM2 and Blowing up bridges. May be an idea...

[Xavier]

Hi,

On one side, we have people who would like to be able to destroy bridges with demo charges. Yeah, it would be funn :cool:

On the other side, BTS say that it isn't realistic at all. 30-45 min isn't enough to prepare the charges to destroy a bridge or a building. That's sade but right.

But may be (just excuse me if this topic was discussed before ) we could have a special TRP with a special assigned FO to modelize the charges placed before the game starts.

The TRP would be for only ONE 'big boom' wich will always explose ON (not near)the TRP

but only if the special FO (max 100 meters away from the TRP) has a clear los to hit and did have not move since the set up phase.

Pretty cool no?

[Barrold]

If doable, I kind of like this idea.

The variables that might go into the delay time before the charge went off could make for some interesting scenarios and/or operations.

BDH

[-Havermeyer-]

Ba da Bing! Just what I wanted (kinda)-- the scenario designer places a "wired" bridge, and then with the engineer sod nearby, blows it (right in peipers face).

Nice.

Now the on-the fly bridge blowing is nice too with well place TRPs. I can't recall ever encountering a bridge in a QB, though.

[John Kelly]

I like the concept of a scenario or operation beginning with charges already planted. The code would have to be written in such a fashion that the charges would explode on a designated turn (to be determined by the designer). Then, as a designer selects terrain features such as houses, trenches, rubble etc., exploding bridges would also be selected and placed along with the detonation turn. Something to ponder, nicht wahr?

[Panzer Leader]

You know, it wouldn't have to be just bridges either. It could be bought (or placed) like any unit, and could be "Placed" in the set-up phase and called something like "Explosives." That way you could place it on a bridge, in a building, anywhere, then give it either a timed explosion (like on turn 8, or 3 turns after activation) or else, when a certain pre-selected unit comes within a predetermined range.

Wow, imagine the new scenarios! A covert operation to blow up a building. A surprise for attackers when they finally enter town. The bridge. Oh man, it would be great.

"The Explosives Unit" A definitte must-add.

[Xavier]

shameless bump

[aka_tom_w]

Ka-BOOM!

This sounds like a heck of alot of FUN!

HEY! They know we all loving blowing stuff up, why not sort of try to facilitate the wishes of the latent destromaniacs among us here and provide us with some form of BIG preset explosion or the one BIG boom TRP, whatever.

This is a GREAT idea I hope is it not too late to see it in CM2.

I can think of ALL kinds of fun things to booby trap and blow up, NOT just bridges.

It should be a BIG explosion and they should be somewhat expensive and you have to buy them at the begining and of course they would only be a available to the defender, and perhaps only if the defender buys AT least a platoon of engineers if we are trying to model setting up explosive charges.

GREAT Idea!

-tom w

[ 06-14-2001: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Cos]

Think of it you place them in rubble in a town. Let the Tiger I roll over it and then bomb on the infantry walking behind the tank, then a few well placed sticky bombs and knock out the Tiger I and create a 60 ton roadblock in the town.

Love to see that in a CM movie

[The_Capt]

Uh guys,

All cool ideas but then again so are dragons carrying 75 AT guns and dwarves with MG42s who can tunnel and pop up behind the enemy..pretty much fantasy.

First of Bridge Demolition by Arty is really silly. You would waste a hell of a lot of ammo trying to hit the thing and then you probably wouldn't knock the bridge out when you did (except for a rickety wooden bridge but you could try driving over it first).

What you are trying to describe is called a "Reserve Demolition", where a strategic bridge is prepared for demolitions and then blown on order (normally when all of our guys are back across..I did say NORMALLY). A force is normally placed on the bridge to protect the fine Engineers who wire and maintain the demolitions on the bridge. The "Demolition Guard", is responsible to traffic and hold the bridge until Monty orders it blown.

Now all other bridge demolitions are called "Preliminary Demolitions". These targets are wired and blown immediately and happen long before the bad guys show up..why? Cause the Engineers really don't like being around bridges the enemy is shooting..it tends to lead to heavy bleeding and letters home. So they are blown up long before CM level combat gets involved.

As to sneaky demolitions being conducted in the face of the enemy...well while good for Holywood not so good for reality. You see a demolition is a soft and sensitive thing. Stuff like shelling and gunfire tends to cut det cord and move explosives, and in really bad situations cause the explosives to go off early. Not a good idea and a really good waste of everybody's time.

Now I know some grog out there will sight the Battle of Turkey Waddle Ridge when Col Fritzy Blackheart blew a cliff face down on LCol Stoopid Rooskie and won the day but keep in mind that it was fairly uncommon and is not recommended practice. I think it would be very hard to model in the game as well.

Now a Reserve Demolition Defense would be interesting but again very hard to model.

[Xavier]

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

Not a good idea and a really good waste of everybody's time.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

oups sorry, excuse me sir, I'll shut up the next time, sorry. But,(if I may...) there wad a lot of battle with "pre-placed demo charges". If this stuff is VERY expensive, so it should be very rare.

Sorry again

[The_Capt]

To clarify,

I didn't mean the question on this forum was a waste of everybody's time. I meant placing charges and waiting for the enemy to run thru them in some sort of command detonated orgy, was a waste of effort when it could be applied elsewhere. Explosives were and are very cheap, it is more a question of dependability. A crater group for instance has a lot of det leads and stuff hanging around, so it is generally best to blow it and then shell or shoot the tank when it runs into it. Not try and keep the demolition alive long enough to catch the tank in the group as it goes up.

Sorry if I sound snarky but the lack of engineer knowledge out there really gets to me. I mean we know how fast the turret an the Panther was but when we talk obstacles it is either ignored or simply glossed over...yes I am bitter.

Anyway what was proposed above simply does not happen at the level CM is portraying or simply doesn't happen at all.

[Panzer Leader]

So, wait a minute, Cap', what you're saying is that the war wasn't fought by small teams of commandos sneaking through enemy lines every night?

I admit it is a little fanciful, but it would still be neat. Sort of the same philosophy as the Claymore mines in Vietnam. Surely they sat ambushes with explosives, didn't they?

And think of street fighting in Stalingrad. I would guess there were many ambushes, covert operations, and "Seek and Destroy" missions in that hell-hole. In fact I have read a few accounts.

However, you are definitely right in saying it is extraordinary, and out of the scope of the game. I am just saying it sounds fun and DOESN'T HAVE TO BE out of the scope of the game, that's all.

[argie]

Capt, I agree with you that the lack of knowledge on engineering is alarmant

But, I think is usual to add some BIG explosives to obstacles from time to time to act as booby-traps.

That is, you could find some use for that 250kgs air bomb that you scrapped from the recently abandoned Luftwaffe airfield

I don't think that is very usual, and I don't have a clue if such devices were used in WWII, but using all that do BANG in defensive positions was (and is) common practice for Engineer units.

[The_Capt]

Hey guys,

This is all great creative thinking but I think it will be a lot of effort for very little usage. I think these things happened too but very rarely. And very hard to model as well. I mean I guess you could do a spec ops unit capable of such tricks but I am not sure how much extra work that would entail.

The air bomb is a good example: How do you arm or fuse it, how much explosives are reuired to "high order" the bomb versus just blow it apart, who is going to do all this, if you are going to rig it how are you going to protect it? All good questions which can be answered but definitely weren't by most units who fought the war. I think you would really go down the road of modeling everything if you did this; for example rubbling, vehicle deadhead roadblocks, boobytraps, triggering lands slides, pulling bridges down with winches. I mean the list gets really long and the effort to model it will get very high. For something very few grogs, goons or freaks will use.

[Spiny Mouse]

I was a combat engineer platoon leader in West Germany from 1986 to 1988. I don't know how US defensive combat engineer doctrine of the '80s compares to defensive engineer doctrine of the nations involved in CM in '44 and '45, but it can't have been too different. Anyone out there want to comment on that?

We planned for and practiced emplacing many explosive obstacles. These were primarily blown bridges and road craters. The intent was rarely for us engineers to pull the fuse igniters. We practiced something called an "obstacle handoff" in which we rigged the charges and then turned them over to an infantry or armor unit to set off. This involved giving their leader clear and specific instructions on how and when to blow the obstacle. Then we left the area to set up more obstacles further in the rear.

The folks manning the obstacle were not supposed to pull the fuse igniters until the last retreating friendlies had passed the future obstacle. The intent was never to use the obstacle as a big landmine, hoping to blow an enemy tank 100 meters into the air. The obstacle was far too important as an obstacle to risk it in such a stunt. Explosives are fragile. If you wait that long to blow them, you are probably under fire yourself. All it takes is a small mortar round to ruin the hours of work you put into the demolition system, making it impossible to blow. This could compromise an obstacle that the whole brigade might be depending on.

The authority to actually blow them to create the obstacle could be at the division level or higher.

As for rigging odd foreign explosives for field expedient demolitions... In 1991, I was involved in using a number of Iraqi Styx and Silkworm missile warheads (500 kg each) to demolish a certain bunker complex. Most such warheads or bombs have fuse wells build right into them. All you need to do is place a regularly primed block of C4 in the well. This pretty much guarantees a big kaboom.

I think explosive obstacles do have a place in CM. But they would have to be modeled very carefully so that grogs can employ them in a doctrinally sound manner. That TRP idea might be the start of something good. Still, it would be pretty cool to see your enemy's tank spinning end over end on its way back to earth from 100 meters in the air.

[Xavier]

OK, I understand that this kind of stuff may be quite rare... But, I remember reading lots of such exemple of explosive utilisation (sorry, I actually don't have any reference ). By instance: by the german against a huge soviet bunker in early 1941 or by the polish jews during the warsaw's ghetto uprising...

I don't say 'BTS fix or do somefink ! ' but may be this is in CM scope and my will was just to give a little idea to simulate this feature in an easy way.

I think it 'could' be in CM scope but I'm not an expert

[Panzer Leader]

Just last night I read in "Panzer Commander" by Hans Von Luck (great read, BTW!) about a late night assault on a bunker in the West Wall. They blew the bunker open and after a fierce fight in the dark captured 107 Americans.

What the hell kind of bunker has 107 soldiers in it?!?! Thing musta been huge.

Anyway, I think the versatility of the CM engine allows for many different types of battles, and small unit sneak attacks are just one variation.

Imagine a battle where you have one platoon, maybe a mortar and bazooka, and your orders are to blow up a certain building and take out a tiger. That would be fun! It would also increase single-player fun.

[-Havermeyer-]

Yeah, Luck's book is great!

Also, a quick scan of the 291st Eng Bt during the Bulge gives some indication of how a fluid situation creates odd predicaments. Bridges were blown at the last second (and not blown because the wiring/fuses were rattled) in the face of the attackers lead elements. This seemingly happened any number of times, as the Germans tried to find ways to break out.

I don't see it used very often either, but if a bridge could be bought in a "heavy damaged" state and blown under command-- It would be fun.

[Battlefront.com]

The_Capt wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>This is all great creative thinking but I think it will be a lot of effort for very little usage. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gotta agree with you there. Something like Xavier described does sound cool, but only if it were found in one scenario in about 20,000 Meaning, this sort of thing happened only a handful of times in the whole war, so if we put it into the game it should (in theory) only be used a couple of times. But the reality is that it would become a rather common thing, and that would detract from the seriousness of Combat Mission as a portrayal of the war was really fought. Although CM is certainly not perfect in this regard, purposefully putting in a feature that will surely be used all out of proportion to reality is just a bad idea.

Now... if it were 10 minutes worth of coding... sure, we could put it in just like we put in rare tanks for example. Those who want a more realistic game would play with Rarity on and this feature would never show up affordably. Play with it off and it would be expensive, but still possible (provided there was a bridge in the scenario!).

But this is not a feature that can be easily added, and therefore our precious time would be ill spent putting in such a feature since it would mean several other far more common features would have to be left out. And probably a large percenatge of players (the Rarity users) would never use it at all.

I guess you all know where we stand on this issue now

Steve

PS. Xavier, the kinds of examples you listed above are not within CM's scope as we define it because they are not "frontline" combat as such. The bunker and Warsaw fighting events were specialist battles much like the fighting around Metz in 1944. So while definitely within CM's scale they are not within CM's scope. Generally the two are the same, but in these cases CM was not designed for this sort of thing.

[ 06-15-2001: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[Panzer Leader]

Well, I guess that sums it up then.

Hey, Steve, good point about the differences between scale and scope. It still sounds fun though! But seriously, I would MUCH rather you were spending your time getting that campaign game and those Cassock cavalry in, so you are definitely right!

[Jaldaen]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Leader:

Imagine a battle where you have one platoon, maybe a mortar and bazooka, and your orders are to blow up a certain building and take out a tiger. That would be fun! It would also increase single-player fun.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Panzer Leader, I might have a scenario that you'd enjoy playing (It's a take the bridge scenario-my first one) just reply here if you'd like to take a look at it

[Barrold]

Well I guess that is the answer to that. We must be watching too many war movies.

[Xavier]

ok, thank you for your repply Steve

and 'un grand bravo' again for BTS!

[Spook]

Kind of "resurrecting" this topic a bit, but back last November, I had proposed one method on how to simulate a bridge demolition. For those interested, this is related again below.

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

In a separate topic thread, Madmatt explained how he was able to destroy "Land bridge" tiles with spotted 14-inch naval gun fire, with a target registration point (TRP) to help give a tight shelling pattern, when someone posted earlier that land bridges seemed completely impervious to shellfire. It got me wondering: could this be used to model a "bridge demolition"?

So, rolling up the sleeves, it was off to the scenario editor. I created three bridges first---a "tall bridge", a lower "hard" bridge, and wooden bridge.

And to get the maximum HE punch onto any of these bridges, I used 14-inch gun spotters as Matt did, and each bridge had a TRP on it. NOW TAKE NOTE---I was able to place these ONLY where there was a ground tile under the bridge. You can NOT place TRP's onto bridge tiles over water.

I then set for three 14-inch spotters to dump onto one bridge at its TRP, with three more dropping shells onto the other low bridge. The lower-level bridges went up pretty quickly in the first shelling (which was done with CM 1.05, BTW).

The taller bridge, however, proved a MUCH tougher customer. Even though all six 14-inch spotters dumped shells onto it instead of three, it still took two turns of shelling to drop at least one span. (This was repeated about five or six times.)

Of course, for simulating Germans to have a "bridge demo" option, the Germans don't get the luxury of 14-inch naval gun spotters. Their largest gun calibers are 170/210/240mm. So I decided to set up a new scenario with German spotters. The bridges were as before.

The settings were:

-six 170mm spotters with 60 rounds each

-six 210mm spotters with 40 rounds each

-six 240mm spotters with 40 rounds each

(all of regular experience)

The results:

The 170mm's fired all of their rounds (360 total, of which I don't know how many hit) and weren't able to destroy even one tall bridge tile. Neither could the 210mm's, after firing their 240 total rounds. The 240mm shells DID destroy a tile or two, but at an average of 25-30 shells per spotter, or about 150-180 rounds total.

But to the lower bridges, either the low wooden bridge or the low concrete bridge had sections destroyed after only one turn of shelling by the 170mm's AND with all six spotters firing. With only three 170mm spotters firing, the wooden bridge still lost a section, but the hard bridge held out for another turn.

So 170mm's CAN destroy the "low" bridges more easily than for the tall bridge, although if trying to simulate a "bridge demo", I would recommend at least six spotter units and/or larger-caliber guns, in combination with a TRP. For the Germans, time delay was about 45 seconds for the first fire on this TRP, while the Allies' time delay for the 14-inch guns were 25 seconds.

Some other added guidelines:

1) TRP's can only be set on non-water tiles, bridge or otherwise. So without ground tiles set "in" the river, you'll have to set a TRP either at one end of the bridge or the other. (And anyone close to that spot will likely be killed quickly if a 14-inch gun is used for the shelling!)

2) If you want some "delay" built into allowing the spotter to drop shells onto the bridge, create the spotters as later-turn reinforcements. And set reinforcement points in LOS of the bridge when you want the spotter to "activate".

3) Naval 14-inch guns are available only to the Allies, and only during the "Normandy" (June-July '44) timeframe. So you'll have to set to this time period in the scenario parameters to get the 14-inch guns. Or for either side, you can try using greater numbers of heavy land-based artillery spotters. But by & large, trying to set up a "bridge demo" of a tall bridge will probably not work in CM.

4) For multiplayer, make sure the side with the "demo" capability has it explained in the scenario notes that he's allowed certain "demo" spotters to be used ONLY against the bridge. And to limit possible further abuse, limit the number of rounds per spotter. The 14-inch spotter fires in salvos of four shells, so perhaps give each spotter only four rounds in that case or others.

5) And, of course, don't expect the AI to know what to do in single-player, if it is the side with the "bridge demo" need. Only a human player can pull this off.

[Xavier]

In fact you can place TRP on a bridge over water tile. This is the procedure:

1/ When doing the map, place a normal ground

tile where you want later to have a brige instead.

2/ Place the TRP

3/ Change the open tile for a bridge one. It's done

I known this method but it's not perfect because even with a elite spotter, shells fall often far away from the bridge. I'have made a little scenario with this one.

I also try russellmz tip (using mines) and it is far better http://www.battlefront.com/cgi-bin/bbs/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=019741