Adjacent heavy buildings

[mrpwase]

I've noticed during a few battles I've made that infantry cannot move from one adjacent heavy building to the other without exiting the building they are in and then entering the other building. This may just be realism at work, but surely there should be doors between the buildings, or at least an (unmodelled) alley between them...? In its current state, I feel that CM can't properly simulate urban battles. Can anyone verify that this is just my computer/game? Please?

[xerxes]

Often houses were built with a shared wall, no alley no door. The standard technique was to create a hole in the wall (mousehole) so infantry could pass. Mouseholes aren't modelled in CM, they will be in the engine rewrite. Just the way it is.

[mrpwase]

Ok, thanks. I guess I'll have to use light buildings instead.

[xerxes]

If you're making a map you can use alternating large buildings and two story light buildings to make a row of buildings passable.

[tar]

Someone else posted an interesting technique to solve this problem. I pass it along without having tested it myself:

Place a squad right next to the wall and then split it. Sometimes one of the split halves will appear on the other side of the wall. Voilà, a mousehole.

If you are lucky you can even rejoin the squad and end up with all of it on the other side.

[Joachim]

If it is CMBB, you can use Factories to simulate mouseholes. Alternate heavy bldgs and factory tiles. For double rows of buildings use a checkerboard pattern (white=facotry, black = hvy bldg). Even better would be blocks with yards instead of 2 rows.

(h=hvy bldg, f=factory, o=open ground, trees, road in woods, whatever you like)

hfhfhfhfhf

fooooooooh

hfhfhfhfhf

of

fhfhfhfhfh

hfhfhfhfhf

In CMAK you could use the following pattern

hlhhhhh

hoooool

hlhhhhh

(l= light bldg)

Or use rubble for the corner houses that have no door to the backyard.

I have a great map from Theike (probably available at CMMODS, forgot the name) - a large city in medium woods. The effect of those factory tiles was great as my infantry forces were pretty mobile yet concealed while holding the city.

Suggest you look at some city maps from other designers to get some ideas.

Gruß

Joachim

[GJK]

Originally posted by tar:

Someone else posted an interesting technique to solve this problem. I pass it along without having tested it myself:

Place a squad right next to the wall and then split it. Sometimes one of the split halves will appear on the other side of the wall. Voilà, a mousehole.

If you are lucky you can even rejoin the squad and end up with all of it on the other side.

This is interesting! I was just experimenting with it....it does work, but it's not very "predictable". I can't accurately tell which way the squad will split. Usually, it's forward and to off to the left of the initially selected squad, but not always if a wall is in front of them. Sometimes they would split behind the originally selected squad and thus not pass through the wall. Sometimes they would though. Still worth a shot if you want to try a mouseholing your way through.

[Slappy]

Quantum Tunneling in CM. Fascinating.

[General Bolt]

Originally posted by xerxes:

...The standard technique was to create a hole in the wall (mousehole) so infantry could pass. Mouseholes aren't modelled in CM, they will be in the engine rewrite....

This is great!! Will the mouseholes always be present or will they be blasted thru in the a game?

[willbell]

A common technique that seems to have solved this problem, and is not modeled in CM, was to use a bazooka in the attic where only wood separated the buildings.

I have read accounts of urban fighting on the western front that discuss getting through adjoining walls, a common building practice in Europe back then. The walls were stone, so blasting through could be a time consuming with unpredictable results (think about it).

The attic technique was arrived at my trial and error, but eventually became a standard practice. This is my understanding at least.

[Kobal2]

That is, if there is an attic in the first place

But I'll agree with you there, if I am to blow up a wall while I'm *inside* the building, I'll do it on the top floor - less stuff to fall on my head if everything goes banana shaped

[willbell]

Nearly all of them had attics. Flat roofs were not very common since they leaked easily.

[Joachim]

Wooden walls in attics? At least German fire insurance dates back very long, where everybody had to pay who owned a bldg. As a result you got "Brandmauern" or "firewalls" between bldgs - mandatory! These were made of stone, usually reached higher than the rooftiles (thus visibly separated houses) and were constructed that no flammable material of two houses were close to each other.

Having wooden walls in attics would spread fire too fast.

Dunno about other countries.

Gruß

Joachim

[Joachim]

Addendum:

The "Brandmauer" was not built as a supportive wall, I guess. So additional walls were necessary to bear the weight of the upper stories... no weight, no additional walls. Getting through the Brandmauer in the attic is just one wall where below you will face 3.

[willbell]

The brandmauer thing is interesting, but beyond my scope of knowledge. I only know what I've picked up in my reading. The reference to attic movement could very well have referred to a certain locality not in Germany, and/or, maybe a bazooka could penetrate a single stone wall, I just assumed they were referring to wood. In fact, if the brandmauer were in fact just for fire protection it might have been a very light stone wall. climb up in an attic Joachim and find out would ya.

[Joachim]

Don't need to climb up. Those attic from 1894 I remember has stone walls. If they tear down one bldg you often see the exposed "brandmauer". Its just bricks. You don't even need explosives to tear that down. A big hammer will do.

Gruß

Joachim

[Frenchy]

Engineers were sometimes attached to squads during city fights and were used to blast holes through walls. Found this out interviewing several engineers for my 270th Engineer book. Made for slow going but safer than going out and in of buildings to get to the adjacent building.

[willbell]

A Zook would be quick and handy then.

Well, there you go. I understand a heck of a lot more now than when I joined this thread.

Now if only they would model this in CM. Seems way more practical than sewer movement.

[Carl Puppchen]

I don't know about the split squad technique. Sounds a bit "gamey". For practical purposes you can move your guys right to the edge of the building and then give a quick "run" order to the street and into the corner of the next hex. You can move from there. One of the desert maps that came w/CMAK (I think) had a town and how they got around this was to put a courtyard in the middle of lots of the buildings. This way you could walk through the interior of the buildings w/out being exposed to enemy fire. Sometimes it isn't obvious whether you will be blocked or not if you move the move "arrow" along the edge you can see if it is blocked or not.

I didn't realize that this is only a problem w/heavy buildings - you can cross between squares on big wooden buildings? If so, I wish I'd known that a long time ago

Not to sound too gamey but for practical purposes how this is settled with my usual opponent is the "rubblin" tactic of pre-emptorily leveling buildings known to hold infantry.

Best of luck!

[mrpwase]

Wow, I didn't know this thread was going to have so many posts...thanks for all your help. I was being too whiny in the first place - I was just thinking of buildings as cover rather than offices or houses - of course they don't have doors between them.

However, it would be nice to see mouseholes - and also some way to join building tiles together to make one big building (i.e. a mansion). Maybe in the rewrite.

Thanks for all your help.

[junk2drive]

one big building, in cmbb there are factories, in cmak we got sandbags instead.

[Vossiewulf]

Long delay here Willbell, but my first thought on hearing the bazooka thing is that I would think it would be pretty danged exciting to shoot a bazooka inside a closed attic. At the very least, if the place had any windows left, it sure wouldn't after. Yikes. All in all I'll take the satchel charge and a long fuse, thank you;)