WOODEN MG Bunkers, too HARD to kill?

[Aco4bn187inf]

I saw a documentary about Operation Anaconda in which an apparently crude log and earth Taliban MG bunker survived a cannon run by a US jet fighter! A good argument for the (at least potential) toughness of these kind of positions. Certainly harder to kill than a tank, in some ways.

[Andrew H.]

I think that in infantry-only battles, bunkers are pretty realistic and quite tough enough. Wooden bunkers weren't designed to withstand concerted attacks by tanks, or by AA fire; they were designed to protect infantry from other infantry and arty.

The fact that most CM QBs unrealistically include lots of tanks and other vehicles suggests that bunkers were less effective than they were IRL, simply because they are facing units they didn't have to face that often IRL.

[Holien]

I have just killed one side on with a grenade, I was expecting to have to be behind it, but side on was fine..

In a recent game I had one and the mulitple Russian AT rifles got hits but did no damage.

I would think an AT rifle would be accurate enough to get a hit on the burst of bright light (fire) when the gun is fired. Just putting a few rounds into that circle is bound to hit a crew memeber?

H

[Grach]

In the Australian Army the .55" Boys ATR got a new lease of life against the Japanese as a log emplacement & wooden bunker buster during the latter part of WW2.

It's effectiveness in this role apparently more than compensated for it's weight and clumsiness in jungle fighting.

Go figure.

Just some trivia.

[Holien]

I think the model in the game makes it too hard to knock out with a AT rifle.

They were quite significant slugs and just one round into the burst signature of the HMG is going to hurt something.

Also I am guessing the .55 slug could tear through wooden walls quite easily?

H

[SuomiStug]

In a Finnish game, the L-39 is also an ok wooden bunker buster. It was used as such during the war, ater it becme a bit more useless against T-34's and so on. Using two shooting at angles to the front usualy results in abandonment.

[JasonC]

Holien is on crack. It is ridiculously easy to kill log bunkers with ATRs in CM. It is in fact one of the clearest examples of the pitfalls of modeling bunkers as "vehicles", which CM evidentally does.

Log bunkers are not designed to keep out the rain, and are not an overturned packing crate. They are designed to keep out artillery fire up to 105mm caliber. Typical construction is a wall of logs up to a foot thick, sometimes "cross-hatched" in two layers, then a layer of sandbags, then up to 2 feet of dirt. In military terms the point is "overhead cover".

They were not primarily meant to withstand infantry fire, that is a side benefit. Trenches without overhead cover already withstand infantry fire quite well. What a log bunker adds is protection from mortars and especially typical div arty shellfire.

In CM, ATRs and especially light flak (with their monster accuracy, itself meant to reflect ROF and at least one round hitting something) kill them with "firing slit penetrations". Often with nobody actually hit, but the "crew" "bailing out".

Well, why would it be easy to get them to do that with a 14.5mm ATR round or a 20mm Flak round, but impossible with a 7.62mm rifle or MG round? Does anybody think the firing slit has 8mm of armor across it? Does anybody think it is harder to hit an opening with lots and lots of machinegun bullets, than with one in four 20mm Flak rounds?

If the "firing slit" is supposedly so easy to hit, MG fire would hit it, too. And suppress the men inside. If MG fire just hitting the slit region is not wounding or killing the men inside, why would an ATR round get them to bail, just because it "broke the plane of the goalline"?

The reality is, CM choose to model bunkers as vehicles rather than a form of cover (like trenches say) for ease of modeling, to use the existing direct fire routines, and access their existing ability to model full penetrations. In that context, a "firing slit" has to be modeled as a spot of "weaker armor" on a "tank". But MGs use the infantry fire routines.

A 50 cal MG fires bullets larger than some of the ATRs in the game - e.g. the German 7.92mm. But the ATR will kill log bunkers with "firing slit penetrations", while the 50 cal can empty its ammo load at one without any effect. This is just a gap in the modeling. It is silly to look for reasons for it, it is mistake created by trying to approximate the nature of bunkers using a model meant for vehicles.

Similarly, bailing with no-one hit and never remanning, is a result of treating them as "vehicles". When a light AT round penetrates a tank or HT, it might or might not hit anybody. But it is also likely to break functional pieces of the vehicle. The crew may abandon it as unserviceable. Bunkers do not have moving parts like this. If the round hits someone inside, it would cause a casualty and maybe suppression, but not induce "bailout". And if it didn't physically hit somebody, it would have no effect. (Low chances of "gun damage" might also be modeled, to be sure).

Bunkers are also mismodeled as to their stealth, because they are treated as vehicles. An MG firing from a log bunker in woods will be spotted at 1000 yards. The same MG from a trench in any kind of cover (even much less) will give only a sound contact down to 200. Even in a trench in the open, often only sound down to 300-400. Having a roof makes them vastly easier to spot. There is no realism in that, it is just the vehicle approximation again. You are better off putting an HMG in a trench to get a robust MG nest. (The only real downside is mortars can hurt you. But ATRs can't).

Bunkers are mostly broken in CM. If the attacker has few tanks and no light flak, or they are set up in reverse slope type positions that most such weapons won't be able to see when infantry engages, they can be effective in game terms. But this restricts them to quite unhistorical roles. For the historically common MG in a prepared position, use an HMG in a trench.

[JasonC]

For those who think it is a packing crate, put an HMG in a small Russian hut. Shoot at it with ATRs. Can you get the crew to abandon the HMG and the house with a "window penetration"? Heck, shoot at them with a 20mm Flak and see how much ammo and how long it takes to silence the MG. You might pin it for a few minutes in a hut, that is all.

[Paul AU]

Any direct fire gun firing from cover will also do the job, with small calibers not even being spotted in return.

ATRs, even. If you've got nothing else, AT Rifles will do it, given time, even from a distance. (I saw from a recent game).

(Did Russian ATRs really carry that much ammo?)

EDIT: Oops... I'm a bit behind the thread, it seems).

[ November 19, 2005, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: Paul AU ]