Bringing down a building...almost

[Orange]

Here's a little trick that I've used a few times. Fire at an enemy occupied building with HE causing major damage. You'll almost always see the enemy running away as they don't want the building falling on their heads. You stop firing at the building before it falls down. Move on to other things but keep that building in mind. I've had the enemy reoccupy damaged buildings at which point I bring it down with a couple of shots. In one PBEM I had an enemy move an entire platoon into the damaged large 2-story building at which point I leveled it with two shots. Two of the squads and the platoon HQ were wiped out, the third squad routed with heavy casualties.

The key is you don't want to do this to a building you need to occupy as the enemy can reverse the favor.

I've sometimes damaged unoccupied buildings that I wanted to deny access to using the same logic as above. These are buildings that I expect the enemy to take for their strategic advantage but may be outside of my control.

[xerxes]

Which is why you should always rubblize any building with ** damage if you want to use it. Even single * buildings are dangerous.

[Slappy]

I would actually suggest that this sort of damage management is marginally gamey. It takes undue advantage of the 'all or nothing' model of building damage which is a poor representation of reality. I agree that it can be useful (particularly v. the AI which abandons or crews buildings much more predictably than humans), but I would consider it bad form if done obviously and repeatedly.

[Redwolf]

An experienced opponent will not move substancial forces into damaged buildings - except to detract your HE shooter while is some other wacky stuff elsewhere. The area target you set to bring down a building is a very strong priority, so whatever else he does, except direct assault on the HE shooter will have the HE shooter not engage that unit.

[Some_God]

How do you pick what kind of round you could shoot?

[AC]

Area fire is always HE, unless you're out of it.

[Colonel J Lee]

I leveled a building the other day with just a few shots from a Stug 42 assault gun (105mm HE rounds). I was shocked to see the thing completely detonate with two enemy squads in it. The explosion literally lasted about 5 seconds! Have you guys seen that before?! It was as if a powder keg was stored in there (or 2!).

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Colonel J Lee:

I leveled a building the other day with just a few shots from a Stug 42 assault gun (105mm HE rounds). I was shocked to see the thing completely detonate with two enemy squads in it. The explosion literally lasted about 5 seconds! Have you guys seen that before?! It was as if a powder keg was stored in there (or 2!).

Yes.

Play "If only". It depicts Stalingrad with a plt of Brummbär and a Sturmtiger. Just for effect, I fired one 38cm rocket and checked the result. Pretty good!

4 150mm guns will bring down a large heavy building before the inhabitants can leave.

Just like 3 StuH42.

Or a huge amount of 75mm guns.

Or the Soviet alternatives - IS 2/3, SU122+, etc.

Gruß

Joachim

[RSColonel_131st]

3rd Battle of Kharkov is an interesting operation where you get 4 Grille Self-Propelled sIGs and lots of buildings to waste.

Though I didn't "damage-manage" it in this detail, I just flattened the outskirts of the city on one end while entering the other side. 56 Infantry kills, and most of these squads I never really saw...