WOODEN MG Bunkers, too HARD to kill?

[Juardis]

Reading the Pillbox thread, the consensus is that concrete pillboxes are too easy to kill.

I'm playing a operation with multiple wooden MG bunkers. 3 turns of 50mm Pz-III hits have not phased one bunker. Multiple rear hits plus a backdoor penetration (I hate when that happens ) from another 50mm Pz-III on another bunker and THAT bunker is still alive. I'm now targetting the first bunker with 150mm SIG IB. Kill probability? rare!!!!!

Now either I'm nuts or wooden MG bunkers are ridiculously hard to kill. I mean 3 turns of 50mm hits should topple a wooden bunker. A 150mm shell, even if it doesn't destroy the bunker, should KO the crew from the concussion. Yet in CMBB wooden bunkers are impervious to all sorts of tank fire it seems.

Anybody KO one with a tank? If so, how?

[ May 22, 2003, 11:45 PM: Message edited by: Juardis ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Juardis:

Anybody KO one with a tank? If so, how?

I believe one of the best bunker killers are the likes of auto-cannon armed AFV's like Pz II's & 20mm armed armoured cars and halftracks. Doesn't really make sense does it.

Regards

Jim R.

[Warmaker]

Stuff like rapid firing 20mm cannons should easily dispatch them but I'll agree that wooden bunkers are a bit too tough.

In a simple QB in '44 I was playing the Germans which had Brummbars for an assault on what later turned out to be veteran Russian troops. The Pz.Grenadiers took fire from a Russian wooden MG bunker and hunkered down until a Brummbar arrived. It took FIVE direct hits from the Brummbar's 150mm gun at roughly 400m to knock it out!

[Steve McClaire]

I think it depends on what wooden bunkers are supposed to represent. Despite the graphic, I always assumed a wooden bunker was supposed to represent a heavily reinforced fighting positions -- i.e. you dig a hole for your machinegun position, then roof over the hole with logs and earth, leaving just the firing slit to the front and a place to crawl out in back.

Concrete bunkers could be representing something much bigger, with a much larger (and more obvious) firing slit.

Then again, the wooden bunker could be a little plywood house, just like it looks.

[Bertram]

The best way to kill wooden bunkers is firing from the front, with a high rate of fire weapon (20 mm auto cannon). Takes usually just one or 2 turns to take them out. This seems too easy. The same goes for the concrete ones, but when they have an AT-gun inside your 20mmm cannon is in some danger.

Killing bunkers from the side of the rear is something different. For the side you need real heavy stuff. And from the rear it seems more difficult to hit the door then the firing slit from the front. You also need some fairly heavy stuff (like 76 mm HE) or some soldiers with grenades.

I don't know if this last is unrealistic. Most bunkers would have digged in with an earth cover from the sides, and the door was usually below ground level as wel, or at least covered by an earth wall or zig-zag entrance. It would be difficult to target.

Bertram

[Bone_Vulture]

It would seem that the best aim results in a firing slit penetration, which will KO a bunker almost immediately. Small caliber autocannons that have a both high ROF and base accuracy (for firing salvos) "zero in" on the bunker most easily, and thus gain firing slit penetrations fast.

[Mies]

I was going to say the same thing as "Steve McClaire". If you don't think of a wooden bunker as a concrete one, but more like branches thrown together with mud and whatever else is within reach, it's easier to accept that a 150mm hit doesn't knock it out.

Mies

[Juardis]

Then wooden MG bunkers have got to be the best fortification for the money.

4 turns of 50mm fire, 1 turn of 150mm HE, a couple of slit penetration, bunker still lives.

2 turns of 50mm fire from the rear, multiple back door penetrations, some partial penetrions, bunker still lives.

I'm either the unluckiest SOB alive or the these things are broken. Either way, I have no desire to play this game anymore. Not saying I won't play, just that I don't have the desire.

[securityguard]

wooden bunkers are INSANE. my friend I play with always buys at least one and they will completey ruin your day if you don't get to them fast. My t-70 couldnt do jack to it - I had to send in my t-34 after about 3 turns of t-70 fire.

mortars wont even phase it.

[xerxes]

I'm just finishing a battle in which I was faced with a wooden mg bunker. The bunker absorbed 20+ 75mm HE hits and just wouldn't die (20 out of 100+ HE rounds!). I had to finally close assault it with infantry. Ruined my attack timetable totally.

I thought my experience was an outlier, now, I'm thinking it might be the expected durability (which would make wooden mg bunkers rather effective).

[tools4fools]

Originally posted by Juardis:

Then wooden MG bunkers have got to be the best fortification for the money.

4 turns of 50mm fire, 1 turn of 150mm HE, a couple of slit penetration, bunker still lives.

2 turns of 50mm fire from the rear, multiple back door penetrations, some partial penetrions, bunker still lives.

I'm either the unluckiest SOB alive or the these things are broken. Either way, I have no desire to play this game anymore. Not saying I won't play, just that I don't have the desire.

I think you are the unluckiest SOB alive

Just ran a test with 10 woodden MG bunkers being shot at by 150mm Brumbärs. Each pair seperated by rows of trees, distance 330 meters. Run the test 3 time meaning 30 shootouts.

Result:

30 dead MG bunkers with LESS than 30 hits.

Usually all 10 bunkers were destroyed within max. of 70 seconds.

Yes, kill probabilities given were "rare" and each hit on the bunker was a "hit, no serious damage", but each time the bunker was "knocked out" (not "abandoned") immediately. It even took less than 30 hits to destroy the 30 bunkers as there were about 4 near misses which still knocked out the bunkers.

There was only one firing split penetration which knocked out the bunker as well.

looks like you had a real bad day out there on the battlefield!

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Mies:

If you don't think of a wooden bunker as a concrete one, but more like branches thrown together with mud and whatever else is within reach, it's easier to accept that a 150mm hit doesn't knock it out.

I guess someone should have tried making heavy assault tanks out of sticks and mud thrown together. Impervious.

...thinking about it, seems like the Japanese did.

Anyway, the way I see a bunker, is a dug in and reinforced defense position. Frontal silhouette would be as slight as possible. It would be designed so that the non-shooting sides would be covered by ground, so flanks would need to be shot until the dirt was blown away. Wooden bunkers don't really have any kinds of doors, there's just some kind of exit - unless someone has bothered to go to a civilian village and carry a door to the defense positions just for that purpose. If the enemy gets to the rear, they'll just need to throw some grenades in. Or then they can climb onto top and drop the grenades in through the front. Total top penetrations would require some good calibres, mere 81mm mortars won't do a thing if there's a layer of logs and then a thick layer of sand.

But it has to be remembered that even non-fatal hits might cause that kind of bunker serious structural damage, like cause some log to snap and let dirt flow to front of the firing slit, blocking the view. And I really, REALLY, wouldn't like to be inside a bloody bunker if a tank was approaching it, because if the thing collapsed, I'd probably be crushed by tons of logs and dirt. And if enemy infantry managed to flank the position, I'd grab my personal sidearm and get the hell out of there before I see hand grenades raining in.

[Juardis]

Again, if that's what a wooden bunker is supposed to represent, then it does a fine job of emulating it. And they are SERIOUSLY underpriced if that is true.

[JasonC]

Just park any buttoned tank in their front aspect - not side or rear - at 500m or less, and leave it there for a minute or three. The wooden bunker will die, and you will lose nothing. At longer range firing slit penetrations become more rare, making the kill still possible but less efficient in ammo terms.

Since it can't hurt a tank, it is usually safe to get close and use fewer shots - though other weapons may keep you from closing to point blank. Indirect fire or infantry fire at them is completely wasted. Any direct fire gun firing from cover will also do the job, with small calibers not even being spotted in return.

You are being fooled by randomness and an outlier of coin flips that went one way. Set up a test with 10 wooden bunkers and run it several times, and you will see that killing them without loss using any tank or gun is a routine matter taking a few minutes. (Was in 102 anyway, I haven't tested 103 recently). Also, larger calibers will give fewer non fatal penetrations, while with smaller ones you won't mind the ammo burn.

Infantry with demos or FTs or heavy AT items will also do it from the rear at close range. That only arises when they are placed in spots with narrow LOS arcs that tanks cannot get to for one reason or another. Then the same terrain that narrows their arc either lets infantry get close, or lets you ignore the thing entirely.

If attackers have *no* tanks, and in addition the bunker is set up in a spot with no LOS from starting or easily reached gun locations, then it can be effective. At least until a gun is manhandled into LOS - assuming attackers know they need direct fire gun support, and therefore if they have no tanks they must take at least a couple towed guns.

[Matt May]

I wonder if the designers got the stats for the concrete and wooden bunkers switched?

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

You are being fooled by randomness and an outlier of coin flips that went one way.

Well, quite.

My complaint would be that wooden bunkers (DZOTs, if you prefer) are too easy to kill, by quite a long way, and vastly too easy to spot.

As things stand, an MG in a trench is much more effective than a wooden MG bunker, apart from its much smaller ammo supply -- which hardly matters, because if the attacker has any direct-fire guns of 20mm or larger, the bunker dies long before expending its ammo.

One of the reasons I think FTs are largely useless in CM is that the kind of target they were intended to deal with -- bunkers -- are far too easy to kill with other weapons. In real life, any reasonably robust field-work that doesn't leave obvious covered approaches is only going to be reduced after an elaborately-prepared assault, probably involving smoke and engineers.

All the best,

John.

[Matt May]

As things stand, an MG in a trench is much more effective than a wooden MG bunker, [/QB]

Yes, I have done experiments comparing the survivability of guns in trenches vs. pillboxes and there is no doubt that the trench is far more survivable for the gun - just backwards of what one would expect.

[dieseltaylor]

I wonder if the survivability of guns in trenches as compared to pillboxes is a reflection on the limited amount of plunging fire that you see in games?

I have had MG's in trenches suppressed by multiple enemy firing small arms but never whilst in a bunker .... is this the difference?

What experiments did you carry out Matt?

[melb_will]

I'm just guessing here. Aren't bunkers in CMx1 stationary vechiles with respect to the game code. Does death clock apply? Could the bunker be dead and not showing it?

Will

[GAGA Extrem]

Iirc, deathclock applies to bunkers.

Wooden MG bunkers can be killed easily by small gun fire like 20mm FlaK or even a Panzerbüchse...

They can stand for a few turns, but i believe they are rather useless, since they have only 1 MG, you can even assault them...

...versus ai ^^

[Bigduke6]

Gotta agree with Mr. Salt and Mr. JasonC here. The typical wooden bunker will withstand two slit penetrations of 75mm or larger, but I have never seen more than that.

The problem with using a 50mm is that it doesn't always hurt the bunker even when it gets a slit penetration - quite as a 7mm to 50mm AP round frequently fails to do real damage when it penetrates an armored vehicle.

Rapid fire cannon are the appoved solution for wooden bunkers as their accuracy and high rate of fire obtain lots of firing slit penetrations. Sure some of the penetrations do nothing, but after a couple of turns of hammering you are

more than likely to get the requisite two or so effective slit penetrations.

Something 75mm or greater doesn't have to worry much about effects once it penetrates - two penetrations and the bunker is as good as dead, almost always.

But 37mm to 50mm falls between those two stools, being too small to always cause effective slit penetrations, and too large to rapid fire.

This replicates RL to a certain extent, it seems to me, as I imagine the CM wooden bunker to be an MG dug in with overhead cover, camoflaged, and with a prepped range table. I would expect an autocannon to be able to overcome something like that by pouring shells all around the hole, so as to get a few of them to go in and hurt the crew.

Likewise I would expect a big round to do a number on a DOZT like that with blast: on target and the average MG in a prepared position can't stand a direct hit from a medium artillery shell, never mind a flat-trajectory one come in from the front or the side.

But that's just me rationalizing. In any case, I think MGs are priced about right but are a little too easy for armored vehicles to do away with. It seems to me in a RL war it would take five not two minutes for a tank to smash your average MG in a covered hole. But then things happen in CM a good deal faster than RL war, over all, so why should MG bunkers KO any differently?

Originally posted by John D Salt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by JasonC:

[snips]

You are being fooled by randomness and an outlier of coin flips that went one way.

Well, quite.

My complaint would be that wooden bunkers (DZOTs, if you prefer) are too easy to kill, by quite a long way, and vastly too easy to spot.

As things stand, an MG in a trench is much more effective than a wooden MG bunker, apart from its much smaller ammo supply -- which hardly matters, because if the attacker has any direct-fire guns of 20mm or larger, the bunker dies long before expending its ammo.

One of the reasons I think FTs are largely useless in CM is that the kind of target they were intended to deal with -- bunkers -- are far too easy to kill with other weapons. In real life, any reasonably robust field-work that doesn't leave obvious covered approaches is only going to be reduced after an elaborately-prepared assault, probably involving smoke and engineers.

All the best,

John. </font>

[Renaud]

All true, unless you have no guns. Then you have to get creative with the infantry assault, engineers, FT's, smoke, etc. (wish engineers had smoke grenades, at least)

Fortifications are an afterthought in CM. That being the case, they work OK. At least we have something. More than CMx2, i'd like to see all the CMx1's brought up to CMAK spec and re-released, along with reworked and expanded fortifications systems including communications trenches, real bunkers (ie you can have units enter/exit them as they are underground), fortified buildings, and of course the existing bunkers, which behave like pillboxes rather than concealed bunkers or fieldworks.

While i'm dreaming, think i'll buy a lotto ticket.

edit: Oh, one way to make a bunker, even wooden one, hard as heck to kill with direct fire cannon, is to face it where enemy guns can't get LOS on the front. Can be a rare situation. I did this in ROWV Across Moltke Bridge as russians, vs Steve McClaire (damn good player btw, he won minor victor as germans)...put my concrete bunker on my side of bridge, facing at right angles. Took forever to get a tank in position to hit the front, it withstood all hits from side. Meanwhile I mowed down the infantry.

[ October 28, 2005, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Renaud ]

[Matt May]

What experiments did you carry out Matt? [/QB]

I set up a QB with guns in pillboxes and in trenches and shot at them with various things. The 20mm autocannons seemed deadliest to the pillboxes, but I didn't record any statistics. Usually the pillbox was supressed with the first slit penetration and died soon thereafter. HQ's commanding guns in trenches had a big effect, too. Odd that HQ's don't also have effects on bunkers & pillboxes (even at reduced range due to communication problems). I can't figure out why Battlefront didn't make bunkers & pillboxes empty and let the player fill them with whatever, but knowing what I know, I won't bother with pillboxes. I far prefer the way these forts are handled in Advanced Squad Leader.

[Abbott]

Originally posted by Juardis:

Reading the Pillbox thread, the consensus is that concrete pillboxes are too easy to kill.

I agree. Both concrete and wooden have seemed to easy to KO since CMBO. I never use either one of them.

[imported_KG_ThorsHammer]

I think some people are mistaking FOW with difficulty to knock out. It's hard to tell what effects fire has done to a bunker, especially with FOW set to extreme. The bunker is a dug-in position fortifed with dirt and logs, making it hard to see what your shots are doing. You may have knocked the bunker out after the first shot, but it takes the crew a while to get out, making you think it is difficult to knock out.