Knocking out wooden MG bunkers

[Green Hornet]

I'm trying to take out a wooden MG bunker. Lots of open ground, very few trees and I have no armor. I do, however have 155mm artillery.

I did a search on the forum and found a few threads on this. Seems the best advice is to lay down tons of smoke and then rush with a platoon full of split squads. I'm concerned becase my troops would have a lot of open ground to cover.

Do all you veterans players agree this is the best approach or are there better tactics for accomplishing this?

[Guest Mike]

Yeah - move outside its arc of fire!!

Using 155mm arty is a bit of a waste, but if that's all you have then yes, use it (that's why most ppl buy a 81mm morter obs or 2 - for the smoke!)

The other thing you can do is just rush it - if you're really in a hurry.

It can only engage 1 target at a time.

But then again it might have supports!!.......

[Olle Petersson]

What I did successfully in a scenario was to load a platoon of infantry in halftracks.

Then ordered the halftracks to move at full speed up to just behind the bunker, MGs blazing at the bunker.

The infantry was to disembark just behind the bunker.

Worked like charm...

Cheers

Olle

[Holien]

A solitary MG Wooden bunker un supported is not worth worrying about.

The MG will maybe supress one unit but if you send a platoon rushing towards it you should be able to overcome it quickly.

This is a problem in the current game and fixed in the new release.

However, if the bunker is supported by a platoon hidden nearby, then the above tactic will ensure that your men are mown down.

If it is supported then the Arty on nearby cover will aid your endeavour.

I would send a 1/2 squad forward 1st to see what is there.

All of this is really dependant on the actual terrain and what you are up against.

Regards

H

[Silvio Manuel]

Bazookas can take 'em out, too.

[YankeeDog]

If you lay down smoke around the bunker and your opponent has a platoon of infantry hiding nearby, your charging half squads are going to get butchered. You say the ground is pretty open, though, so maybe there's not much in the way of hiding places near the bunker.

155mm Arty will certainly knock out a bunker with a direct hit, but to my mind this is rather inefficient - it may take several salvos before you score a direct hit on the bunker. 12-16 150mm shells for one MG bunker is not a great trade, in my mind. OTOH, if he does have an infantry platoon protecting the bunker, then this is a very good Arty target - you can hit the platoon and the bunker with the same barrage. I wouldn't use the 155mm for smoke unless you absolutely have to - it's too good an infantry killer to use that way. Either way, I would use big gun arty on an MG bunker (assuming I can't catch any other units in the same barrage) only if it were very important to my battle plan to take out the bunker and I had no other option.

In my experience, there are a number of good ways to take out MG bunkers. The best is DF HE from an AFV, but you have mentioned that you have no armor, so that is not an option.

The first question I would ask is whether you really need to take out the bunker, or whether you can just bypass it.

If you do have to take it out, then the best way is to try to flank it. Look for a mostly covered route that allows you to get around and to the side or even better behind the bunker. Bazookas can take out MG bunkers from any angle (though for obvious reasons, doing so from the front is unwise). If you have a Flamethrower, he can also take the bunker out easily if you can get him close enough. Any infantry unit can take a bunker out from the rear - it may take a while, but sooner or later a grenade will find it's mark.

Be aware that a good opponent is likely to anticipate your attempts to flank the bunker and lay ambushes for you along likely approach routes.

If there just isn't enough cover to flank the bunker without getting shredded, if you have them I would try using your on-board mortars to smoke the bunker before using your 155mm Arty. On-board mortars' shells are small and don't produce all that much smoke, but they lay it very accurately. Two or three 2" or 60mm mortars should be able to drop enough shells right in front of the bunker to blind it for a turn or so, which should give you enough time to rush your infantry forward and flank the bunker. Once again, though, an enemy infanty platoon waiting in ambush near the bunker will really ruin your day.

In summary, I'd be more worried about what else he's got lurking in the vicinity of the bunker than the bunker itself, and I'd only use large-bore arty if I had no other option. I would not split my squads into teams - the only benefit to doing the would be if you were not going to smoke the bunker at all, in which case you'd want to present as many targets as possible. If you're going to smoke it, though, in theory the bunker is going to be temporarily blind, and all splitting your squads in to teams is going to to is make them more fragile and vulnerable to ambush.

Cheers,

YD

[Green Hornet]

Great stuff everyone. Thanks.

Now I've got some ideas on determining how important it really is to take out the bunker based on my situation. Plus, some good alternate tactics should I decide to try to knock it out

[GRUMLIN]

Right then, lets make it tougher. I am facing three wodden Mg bunkers, loads of open ground, and only on board mortars (6 teams in total). No AV, no arty. Fair numbers of infantry. 2 bazooka but no H/T.

can i knock out the bunkers with the mortars?

G

p.s. this really is an ongoing PBEM I have. The scenario designer was smoking crack

[xerxes]

Sounds like an interesting problem Grum. Is there any covered approach that avoids 2 of the bunkers? That would allow your onboards to smoke the bunker with LOS and let you close. I doubt you'll be able to take out the bunkers with the mortars. 6 onboard mortars is quite a HE force and you really want to use them against enemy infantry in trees.

6 onboards carry a good amount of smoke. If there was no other way you could smoke all three bunkers and run past them and close assault.

Going around them, if possible, is almost always best. Going right at them you really have to worry about the platoon he might have in support to mow your guys down in the open. It's those platoons that your mortars can suppress and break.

[YankeeDog]

I have to agree with Xerxes. In general, with stationary defensive emplacements, it's better to bypass them if you can, and that's doubly true in your situation because you don't really have the tools to deal with them easily.

If you can't bypass all of them (which is probably unlikely unless your opponent setup really poorly) I'd pick the one or two that I really need to take out and concentrate on them. If you do need to take out two, I'd try to hit them one at a time. That way you can concentrate your forces and firepower.

It depends on what kind of smoke shell load you got with your mortars, and also what type of mortars you have (you didn't mention whether you were working with 2", 60mm, 3", or 81mm on-board mortars), but in my experience it takes 2-3 on-board mortars to reliably blind an MG bunker. You may be able to economise on your smoke usage a bit by thinking about which part of the bunker's firing arc you need to blind, and targeting your mortars accordingly (no need to blind the left side of the bunker if you're going to flank it on the right). Even with economical usage, you probably have enough smoke to blind only 2 bunkers, and not for very long - even 81mm smoke doesn't last for more than a turn or two. Keep in mind you may need to smoke two bunkers simultaneously in order to flank one of them without undue losses - if the bunkers are well set up, their fire arcs will protect each other. Usually, once you've taken out one bunker in a defensive line, there's a gap, and you can flank or bypass the others through the gap.

I've never seen an on-board mortar shell take out an MG bunker, and I doubt they can. In fact, the only kind of Arty round I've seen take out an MG bunker is a 155mm shell on a direct hit. I'm sure higher calibers can do it (240mm and up might even be able to do it with a near miss), but I don't know where the cut-off point is. I also don't think that CM models that fact that wooden MG bunkers' roofs would degrade under repeated hits by HE shells - IRL, each shell would tear a chunk out of the wood logs. Even if CM does model this though, it would take a lot of 2" or 60mm shells to eat through the kind of heavy logs bunkers were usually made out of, especially since I think a well-prepared bunker also usually layered earth on top of the logs.

I suppose that (again, IRL), a lucky shot with a mortar shell (or any HE sell, for that matter) that landed right in front of the firing slit might throw shrapnel into the bunker and cause casalties to the crew inside, but I've never seen this happen in CM. If CM does model this, it's a pretty rare occurence.

As Xerxes mentioned, the HE your mortar teams are carrying will be very useful in supressing any enemy infantry near the bunkers. Even if they're just 2" mortars, 6 tubes will definitely keep a platoon's heads down for a turn or two. When you pick the Bunker you need to take out, definitely get at least some of those mortars in a good overwatch position where they can drop HE on likely enemy infanty positions.

Interesting tactical pickle you're in.

Cheers,

YD

[GRUMLIN]

well, just to keep you updated i've since found two more mgs hidden in light buildings to further lay down the law. attacked both light buildings with mortar he, and the mgs have run away - i think cos clever nme withdrew em. have found a dip in the ground i can use to crawl up with 3 platoons, and have smoked los from two bunkers for the hundred yard dash from my startline to that ditch. the third bunker doesnt have los. I'll keep you posted how badly the dash goes; the turn has just been emailed....

G

[xerxes]

Sounds like you have it well in hand. 100m is a quick dash, once you're beyond the bunkers that are helpless.

Just cross your fingers that you aren't sprinting through a minefield!