Bridges

[James Crowley]

There are bridges in CMBN and I am wondering what potential effect they might have on vehicle behaviour and movement.

Take two tanks, ordered to move to a bridge which has space only for one to cross, and then to advance across it. One tank is a little way ahead of the other one at the beginning of the manouever.

The first tank to cross is hit by AT halfway over the bridge, is KO'd and stops dead. The second tank has just started to cross the bridge.

In CMX1, the second tank would have continued and pushed the KO'd tank either off the bridge, to the side, or would continued pushing it forward until it was able to squeeze past.

What is the situation with the new engine and CMBN in particular?

[GhostRider3/3]

My other question with bridges as well is this....... Can we blow them UP!!! By engineers, or by Direct Fire, and Indirect Fire?

thanks for any enlightment.

[SD Smack]

So I'm going to go way out on a limb here but, CMx1 we could blow them up and CMSF has deforming terrain and the buildings and walls are destroyable, so I'm going to say yes we can.

Steve-o

[gunnersman]

Here is a thread from two years ago before the CMBN forum was active. This will say alot.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=86171&highlight=Blowing+Bridges

In short...don't get your hopes up.

Edited: Meant for GhostRider 3/3 (Should have quoted)

[Elmar Bijlsma]

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?p=1157120

If I recall correctly this was our first proper bone? How little we have learned about bridges since.

*edit*

Found the blogpost Steve linked to in the thread above:

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1466&Itemid=404

[scottie]

Here is a thread from two years ago before the CMBN forum was active. This will say alot.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=86171&highlight=Blowing+Bridges

In short...don't get your hopes up.

Edited: Meant for GhostRider 3/3 (Should have quoted)

Just looking at that thread link and spotted the following by Steve re CMBN:

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09-18-2009, 08:30 PM

Battlefront.com

Administrator

Join Date: Feb 1999

Posts: 13,532

As for release we've decided we're not going to rush things to get it out by Christmas as originally planned. We would rather enjoy the Holidays Our goal, however, is to have it mostly done before taking some time off at the end of the year. That is still our plan and we're still thinking it is possible. We'll know much better in a month.

Steve

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So when Steve says BF wont rush things he wasnt joking was he (09/18/09 post to 05/01/11 ish actual release date). So glad it took me until Sept 2010 to find out about CMBN , that would have been torture. Better its not rushed i know.

[Battlefront.com]

There are bridges in CMBN and I am wondering what potential effect they might have on vehicle behaviour and movement.

Take two tanks, ordered to move to a bridge which has space only for one to cross, and then to advance across it. One tank is a little way ahead of the other one at the beginning of the manouever.

The first tank to cross is hit by AT halfway over the bridge, is KO'd and stops dead. The second tank has just started to cross the bridge.

In CMX1, the second tank would have continued and pushed the KO'd tank either off the bridge, to the side, or would continued pushing it forward until it was able to squeeze past.

What is the situation with the new engine and CMBN in particular?

Depends on the bridge, as there are both 1 and 2 lane types. If you lose a vehicle on a 1 lane type... you're screwed.

Steve

[James Crowley]

OK, thanks Steve.

So no vehicle pushing. Not sure how realistic pushing would be, in any event, although might have been viable in some cases.

Presumably infantry can still squeeze by, even on a single track bridge?

[Peregrine]

The pathfinding behaviour of vehicles in CMSF in tight spots seems to be much better than CMBB/CMAK.

But typically the sort of situation where a tank may unexpectedly block a single path is the sort of situation that the TAC AI has the most trouble dealing with sensibly. Don't expect it to be as rational as a human would when presented with that sort of situation.

[SD Smack]

I would say that pathfinding in CMSF does has some issues. One of my biggest complaints is that when vehicles are stopped on a road (or where ever) by a vehicle infront of them instead of pausing for 5 seconds they attempt to move around the vehicle. Sometimes they do pause then start up again but that only seems to happen when my guys are not in a kill zone!

Steve-o

[Michael Emrys]

So no vehicle pushing. Not sure how realistic pushing would be, in any event, although might have been viable in some cases.

Seems reasonable, although probably not worth arguing about. A tank might well try to push a lighter vehicle out of the way, but not another tank. Too much risk of damaging your own tank. Tanks did carry cables and towing gear and could in some cases pull each other out of the way, but in the case of a bridge under fire that seems extremely doubtful. In any event, this should not be something that the Tac AI would undertake automatically without a specific order from a superior commander (the player).

BTW, such pushing of heavier vehicles that I am aware of was done either by bulldozers or dozer tanks.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

We had big discussions about vehicle pushing back in the CMx1 days and again with CM:SF and now with CM:BN. The general consensus is that pushing is pretty much out of the question. Tanks driving over something like a Kübel or Jeep, quite possible. But even that has some issues and risks, though likely not enough to prevent someone from doing it successfully.

What generally would happen, in real life, is the area would be made as secure as possible. Someone would hop into the blocking vehicle (presuming it wasn't on fire!) and get the vehicle into neutral. Another vehicle, of equal or greater weight, would hook onto it via a tow cable (if they wanted to move it backwards) or nudge up to it (if they wanted it to move forward). The guy inside the busted vehicle might stay in and try to help steer, but that could very well be impractical so it's not a sure thing.

If the blockage was heavier, or in some other way causing more traction (can't get out of neutral for example), then two or more vehicles would be needed to push or pull. There's a famous picture from the Eastern Front of three halftracks (8 ton IIRC) linked together to haul one Tiger around. Doable, but dangerous.

In any case, the functioning vehicle/s would slowly move the broken vehicle in one direction or the other. The trickier the situation, the more time and greater chance of failure.

So looking at all of the above we are, for now, just going to sit back and see how big a deal this really is in game terms and if we need to do something about it. If we do, then we'll try and come up with something more realistic than CMx1's method because that was too unrealistic.

Steve

[GhostRider3/3]

So Basically if you have a Bridge wich could be blocked a scenerio could be pretty much over before it got started if lets say the defense shot out a Tank on the bridge.

I would hope that in designing scenerios with Bridge crossings that Engineers are available to have boats possible or in some way create a crude bridge. I know the Soviets were masters of sinking some T-34's and throwing some logs over them. I guess the design of the Scenerios need alot of consideration when dealing with lets say... 1 Bridge crossing and preventing the enemy from crossing.

[akd]

So Basically if you have a Bridge wich could be blocked a scenerio could be pretty much over before it got started if lets say the defense shot out a Tank on the bridge.

One reason why it is not good idea to secure a crossing with vehicles.

[panzermartin]

I'd hate that to turn into gamey blocking tactics with vehicles.

[ChrisND]

I'd hate that to turn into gamey blocking tactics with vehicles.

There's a simple fix for that - never play with that person again.

[SD Smack]

I don't see that as neccessarily gamey. As long as all the bridges along a river aren't blocked I can see it used as a way to "influence" your crossing point. And if you happen to be crossing and your vehicle gets hit on the bridge that may be the point at which to retire and come up with another scheme of manouver.

But that is just my opinion!

Steve-o

[Wengart]

In CM:SF when playing as Red against blue I've often used technicals to block off routes of approach and force my opponents into areas favorable to me.

Really its a usefulness thing, I wouldn't block a road with a T-55 but a technical with a PKM or just a truck used as ad-hoc transport probably won't do much or last long. So using it as a blocking unit (quite literally) is a much better use for it

Also vehicles don't actually seem to be the size that is shown visually, for engagements they are of course, but there seems to be some allowance of clipping so even a single path bridge could be passable for two vehicles. Although it wouldn't be fast and force the vehicle to expose all kinds of odd angles to the enemy.

[Michael Emrys]

One reason why it is not good idea to secure a crossing with vehicles.

Just so. Standard procedure was to make the initial crossing with infantry, sometimes abetted by engineers. If you had any armed vehicles, they supported the crossing by fire from the near bank and did not cross until the crossing point could no longer be brought under enemy direct fire. There were exceptions to this rule—in warfare there are always exceptions—but that is the way it was generally done.

Michael

[Rocky Balboa]

One reason why it is not good idea to secure a crossing with vehicles.

Agreed, I would always use infantry to secure the crossing first, but I think the problem might arise from your opponent parking a vehicle on the bridge thus denying your vehicles access.

For now this is just something that scenario designers will need to watch out for and build in measures to keep this from occurring.

[Wicky]

Difficult as a player could simply order a crew to dismount their vehicle in an inconvenient position...

[MikeyD]

Difficult as a player could simply order a crew to dismount their vehicle in an inconvenient position...

That sounds like a valid tactic. Very nasty from gameplay perspective I'll admit, but valid none the less. I recall during the U.S. advance towards Baghdad an Abrams crossed a bridge into a town and immediately dropped into a disguised water-filled hole up to the turret ring! Imagine if we had been allowed that tactic in CMSF!

[Rocky Balboa]

That sounds like a valid tactic. Very nasty from gameplay perspective I'll admit, but valid none the less. I recall during the U.S. advance towards Baghdad an Abrams crossed a bridge into a town and immediately dropped into a disguised water-filled hole up to the turret ring! Imagine if we had been allowed that tactic in CMSF!

I agree and blocking/destroying bridges was fairly common practice at the strategic level because these types of things took time to prepare. I doubt seriously if the Iraqis built that tank trap under US observation.

At the tactical level this wasn't the case and If a scenario is designed around a player capturing a limited number of crossing points across a river, his opponent can end the game quickly by simply blocking the bridge.

[GhostRider3/3]

I could have sworn in CMBB or CMAK the ability to have engineers remove mines and Blow Bridges. Will the same be possible with CM Normady? I think anyone who designes scenerios etc, for example "Pegasus Bridge" with British Para will make the scenerio challenging but yet realistic, with realistic Varibles and Victory parameters. I mean if they did not take Pegasus what did that mean... tactical setback or strategic setback? I guess its up to the designers? But having linked campaign or scenerios is something I have always looked for.

[Sequoia]

I'm wondering, say, when we get to the Market-Garden Module the campaigns might have special bridges in them of the Arhem and Nijmegen bridges that would not be available normally in the terrain editor but the maps would be available for further scenarios. Am I making sense?