Church not like a fortress?

[Paul]

I was playing a very excellent campaign by Field Marshal Blucher and there was this considerably large church with a large cemetery around it. Now, I have seen some churches in Europe and so in my mind's eye I was picturing these thick stone walls and narrow windows and so said to myself that this is going to be a tough nut to crack. But, it turned out to be a piece of cake. With just small arms fire I was able to inflict quite a few casualties and quickly take the church. When the role was reversed my crack guys were also dying easily. Are churches treated just like any other buildings? Cemetery was nothing special either.

[PLM2]

It seems to me like theres a lot of problems with cover. Trenches seem to offer very little cover at all too. The only thing really useful seem to be walls and hedgerows.

[Wiggum]

At least buildings offer nearly no cover at close ranges, like the guys inside always standing at windows and exposing themselfes.

[scottie]

I was playing a very excellent campaign by Field Marshal Blucher ...

wow what a campaign , finished it last night , starting again tonight

[LordCalvert]

I was playing a very excellent campaign by Field Marshal Blucher and there was this considerably large church with a large cemetery around it. Now, I have seen some churches in Europe and so in my mind's eye I was picturing these thick stone walls and narrow windows and so said to myself that this is going to be a tough nut to crack. But, it turned out to be a piece of cake. With just small arms fire I was able to inflict quite a few casualties and quickly take the church. When the role was reversed my crack guys were also dying easily. Are churches treated just like any other buildings? Cemetery was nothing special either.

Yes, I think at least at ground level the stone walls of old churches in europe can be at least one meter thick, if not more.

[runessonn1]

Yes, I think at least at ground level the stone walls of old churches in europe can be at least one meter thick, if not more.[/QUO

Måste skratta åt Användarnamnet, bolagets mest sålda sprit haha.

Sorry

[Salkin]

In CMBO the churches could take alot of led while keeping it's occupants fairly safe.

[Polo]

By the way, I have a problem with buildings IN GENERAL in CMBN. Hedges are fortresses, but house aren't.

You should not be mistaken: in Normandy (and most other parts of Europe I know, except maybe in Northern Europe), nearly ALL buildings were (and still are) either stone, bricks or concrete (not sure but I don't think there are so much bricks in Normandy). And I say ALL. So unit hidden in houses should be virtually invulnerable to all but the bigger caliber small arms and MGs. That is not at all the case.

[PanzerMike]

By the way, I have a problem with buildings IN GENERAL in CMBN. Hedges are fortresses, but house aren't.

You should not be mistaken: in Normandy (and most other parts of Europe I know, except maybe in Northern Europe), nearly ALL buildings were (and still are) either stone or concrete. And I say ALL. So unit hidden in houses should be virtually invulnerable to all but the bigger caliber small arms and MGs. That is not at all the case.

Houses in Normandy are indeed quite sturdy with thick walls. Mostly built out of stone. Small arms fire should not do much damage to such buildings. Perhaps Ma Deuce, but not smaller calibres.

[Wego McPbem]

With buildings it seems like units on upper floors get torn up more than on the ground floor. Might just be because they're easier to target up there though.

[Nijmegen]

European buildings are indeed more sturdy than US ones (in general) thanks to a major reliance on bricks and mortar, or stone. Churches in particular are solid buildings - that's why so many of them have lasted so long, even ones that are no longer used since the middle ages are standing in part or whole (for the stonework at least.)

A church's weak spots are the glass and the doors, and not even all churches have the 'big' stained glass windows behind the alter you might think would be the easiest route in.

I think other posters are correct that buildings seem to display more cover characteristics of wooden construction than concrete and stone.

As for tactics on holding and taking buildings, well that's a whole other discussion. WP flares aren't modelled in game are they? ;-)

[Baneman]

Agree, in a current PBEM, about 200m away from a building I occupy, my opponent has a depleted squad in the open - they have twice put a full squad to flight from that building !

I certainly expected a certain amount of cover from being in the building, but it does not seem to be the case

[Polo]

In fact, some buildings appear much better for cover. Anybody has stats or tips about that?

Is it possible the upper floors are really less protected for some reason?

Polo

[LordCalvert]

Haha, japp. Jag jobbade på bolaget för länge sen. Det kunde hända tt en och annan Lord Calvert slank ner i strupen!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Måste skratta åt Användarnamnet, bolagets mest sålda sprit haha.

Sorry

Spreek jij ook Nederlands? Nee? Doe dan even Engels lullen!

[Smeel]

Sorry, no it's Swedish.

(Kul att det verkar hänga en del svenskar här!)

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Yeah, I had noticed it was Swedish.

Though to understand its meaning it required Google translate, which is not my favourite method of following a thread.

[gunnersman]

The thing about any building is the windows the occupants shoot out of are going to be the same windows soldiers are aiming at and shooting into from the outside. That is the downside of using buildings as cover. Windows are bullet magnets / funnels. Of course if prepared properly before hand any building can be a fortress. There is a link around here somewhere to a video of post WW2 German/NATO(?) soldiers prepping a building for defense from an attack. Interesting.

[Greup]

Måste skratta åt Användarnamnet, bolagets mest sålda sprit haha.

Sorry

I think the better place for comments in local language about puns regarding a member's nick is in private messages - if at all.

Most of us should probably be happy that our native German members doesn't dwelve into shouting out loud in German while making fun of all pseudo-Germanic nicks present among us forum users.

Now, what about 5+ feet wide stone church walls and lack of cover?

[Childress]

Maybe a new task for the create a Scout team command? Hide the bulk of the squad except for the two guys spotting.

[antonyo]

The buildings, at the moment offer very little protection. It would be necessary to improve this aspect of the game.

[Blackcat]

From my limited experience of the game so far I tend to agree with the idea that something is not correct in the protection from fire and cover from view that buildings provide.

There was a thread the other day in which a poster, I am sorry I can't remember who had a team hidden inside a house which was immediately spotted by a buttoned Sherman when it drove nearby. I have recently had a similar experience.

As for protection from fire, my troops seem to knock down defenders very easily even with small arms from 200 metres away. Given that any defender firing out of a window would surely have most of his body behind a wall, this doesn't seem right.

However, having tried to raise an issue already I am aware of the time and energy it takes just to get BF to notice that there is a possibility that there just might be a problem with their modelling. If anyone wants to take this one on, I wish them luck.

[Polo]

What was the issue, Blackcat ?

Polo

[Rex J.]

Last night I was playing part 2 of TF Rask. One of my squads was in a one story brick building. When the Germans opened up, the squad took one casualty and the rest of the squad took cover on the ground. In the next twenty seconds another 4 soldiers became casualties as a fair number of German bullets penetrated the brick walls of the house. So I agree that buildings don't seem to offer the cover one would expect.

[YankeeDog]

To be fair, Brick walls generally are not capable of stopping full rifle caliber rounds (German 7.92mm or American .30-'06), which is most of what is flying around the CMBN battlefield. Both of these rounds will penetrate a two course brick wall easily, at range.

Heavy stone walls, like the lower part of your typical Norman church, would be another matter.

I haven't played in very many situations involving really heavy stone buildings like churches, so I can't speak to that, but based on subjective experience thus far with buildings of more typical construction, cover provided by buildings does seem to be a bit weak. I wonder if the game is correctly modeling the additional cover provided by interior walls & objects in the building.

Because most exterior walls actually can be penetrated by small arms fire, soldiers are generally trained to NOT fight from positions right up next to exterior walls, but rather to fight from further within the building, and try to get an additional barrier (interior wall, overturned table, whatever) between themselves and the exterior wall.

So, while it's not necessarily incorrect for CMBN to model small arms fire as penetrating into buildings fairly easily, soldiers inside buildings *should* be getting some sort of abstract cover bonus to reflect additional cover inside the building. It's been confirmed by BFC that the game uses this kind of abstract cover bonus for trenches, foxholes, and certain types of terrain, so I bet it does for buildings as well. But it may be that the building cover bonus needs to be bumped up a bit.

If I can, I'll try to do some tests after the holiday weekend -- I'll be away from my computer for a few days starting tomorrow...