Ability to Entrench for WWII

[Peter Palchinsky]

Hubert, Bill, were trenches ever tested for the 1939 scenario? Historically they made a difference on Eastern Front for both sides, so seems like they'd be worth experimenting with. Thanks for 1.03!

[Syagrius]

They made a real difference in a few occasions only, the most obvious one is at Kursk; even there, retrenchments made a difference because the OKW had been foolish enough to make a two pronged frontal attack against this well prepared defensive position with no effect of suprise and disgressing all the fundamentals of the Blitzkrieg tactic. An attrition battle and trench warfare was the last thing the Germans could afford; the "back hand" blow that Manstein wanted near Karkov could have been successful but never at Kursk.

[patrat618]

the effects of trenches were limited in ww2 compared to ww1. mainly because in ww2 you had tactical radios that advancing troops could use to call for arty support to deal with entrenched strongpoints.

[aesopo]

it should be an optional feature at least.

[ev]

it should be an optional feature at least.

My first reaction is to agree. But I want to play a full SOE before giving a definitive answer.

[SeaMonkey]

So what's the Engineering function for building fortifications? Redundancy!

[wlape3]

the effects of trenches were limited in ww2 compared to ww1. mainly because in ww2 you had tactical radios that advancing troops could use to call for arty support to deal with entrenched strongpoints.

Which the Russians were always short of. One of the big contributions of lend lease was telephone wire which was used as the primary means of battlefield communication.:eek:

[patrat618]

the usa also sent them a few million radio tubes.

[ev]

So what's the Engineering function for building fortifications? Redundancy!

Are fortifications exactly the same as trenches?

My understanding was that engineers were building heavy concrete forts, not just trenches; something like the Atlantic Wall's concrete bunkers.

Heavy concrete structures need special engineer units to build them. Trenches can be dug by front-line units.

[Catacol Highlander]

I'm with seamonkey here. Engineers perform the role allowing entrenchment in the open up to level 4. If units can entrench independently then engineers become redundant.

Artillery of course is very good at wiping this entrenchment out, even with the reduced ammo capacity of 2. I am still unsure as to whether this makes artillery too strong still.

[Catacol Highlander]

Are fortifications exactly the same as trenches?

My understanding was that engineers were building heavy concrete forts, not just trenches; something like the Atlantic Wall's concrete bunkers.

Heavy concrete structures need special engineer units to build them. Trenches can be dug by front-line units.

Agreed - but I am not sure how the distinction can be easily demonstrated in SC without doing some complex maths on entrenchment and detrenchment values.

[Bill101]

Units do benefit from Entrenchment in the WWII campaign, but no trench graphic is used to represent this. The benefit of Entrenchment isn't as much as in WWI games, unlike the Fortifications built by Engineers which are fairly comparable to WWI trench systems.

You'll see that units gain a level of Entrenchment at the start of their turn in this WWII campaign, up until they've reached the maximum for the terrain or resource type.

[Kommandant]

Historically it's inaccurate, during WW2 trench warfare was limited to individual, or short extended trench, if you take a look in the battle of Bastogne in 1945, the Americans did great use of individual trenches. In kusk, the use of this type of warfare was limited to short extended trench, not to extremely long lines of trench, used in WW1.

[Sharkman]

It might be interesting to allow real fort construction durring the war along the lines of the Maginot line or the Atlantic wall, historicaly it was possible to build such extreme fortifications, very expensive of course but possible. They were not easy to destroy, the Germans avoided a head on attack on the Maginot line and the D-Day landing was certainly no piece of cake. The mechanics of this game seem to favor entrenching deep inland instead of on the coast, which I think takes away some of the historical feeling.

[xwormwood]

It might be interesting to allow real fort construction durring the war along the lines of the Maginot line or the Atlantic wall, historicaly it was possible to build such extreme fortifications, very expensive of course but possible. They were not easy to destroy, the Germans avoided a head on attack on the Maginot line and the D-Day landing was certainly no piece of cake. The mechanics of this game seem to favor entrenching deep inland instead of on the coast, which I think takes away some of the historical feeling.

The entrenchments the engineers are building are "real fort constructions".

Place a unit on them and you will have exactly what you are asking for (and make the on a coastal tile as vulnerable as their historical counterparts: bombardements from air and sea left not much alive on D-Day).

I would favour a mine tech, just like the anti-air tech.

If every tile would be able to receive the improvement once a) the first level of the tech has been researched and money would had been spend to buy the improvement for this tile, than we would be able to build mine fields / fortifications where ever we would like or want them.

Land mines would have to be vulnerable to air, land and artillery attacks / shore bombardements, sea mines should randomly suffer from bad weather (just like ships suffer from them) and should be lost once an enemy destroyer entered an adjacent tile with the order to clear adjacent tiles from mines.

If 1 mined tile adjacent, it could need one turn to clear it, if more mined tiles are adjacent, it could take longer to clear them.

Mines could be placed adjacent to your own shores or from DDs, Subs and CAs with the order to place mines. Placing mines could hurt the supply of the naval units.

Naval mines could randomly hit friendly units but much more likely hit enemy units.

Land mines could be handled just the same: have a special units or engineer near by and order it to clear mines or to deploy mines.

If you entered an enemy held tile with mines in it you should suffer a little damage and you should have to stop your movement. Next turn the mines in this tile should have been cleared because you had to stop there.

Well, of course these are just some thoughts what i would like have.

[Peter Palchinsky]

Bill, how about allowing soviet units to research entrenchments (level 1 only)? I think a case could be made for this unique soviet ability in addition to the regular terrain benefits. If the Germans fail to commit mech/armor forces in a certain sector, then their infantry or allied forces should find it tough going against soviet infantry. This might reflect the historically high demand for mobile forces throughout the eastern front. Anyway, unlike engineer fortifications, the entrenchment graphic would only last only if a unit occupied it just like in TGW.

[Bill101]

I must admit that in my experience the forts the Soviet engineers can construct are already enough of a pain to my Operation Barbarossa, especially when backed up by artillery, that I would hesitate to increase the USSR's defensive abilities.

However, this may say more about my Axis strategies and the skill of my opponents than it does about the value of Soviet forts!

[Peter Palchinsky]

I understand, but when you're on the receiving end and the AI axis infantry is overrunning Soviet armies and corps like they were nothing, it just gets a bit frustrating not getting more bang for the buck. However, what if engineers could work faster if next to a city tile...say, half the time?

[Hubert Cater]

Hi Peter,

This is something you could partially customize for your campaigns against the AI using the Editor.

Once you open the campaign, if you go to Campaign->Edit Country Data and then select the USSR from the Country List you can then edit the 'Fortress Build Delay' to a lower value from the current 40 days.

Hope this helps,

Hubert

[Peter Palchinsky]

Thx, Hubert, I'll try it out. I also assume I can just as easily switch on the entrenchment research option for any country I want, but was wondering if this was ever tested and proved too much fortifying for WWII standards. Regardless, I'll play around with it too.

[ev]

The entrenchments the engineers are building are "real fort constructions".

Place a unit on them and you will have exactly what you are asking for (and make the on a coastal tile as vulnerable as their historical counterparts: bombardements from air and sea left not much alive on D-Day).

I beg to disagree with the premise that "bombardments from air and sea left not much alive on D-Day."

Thousands of allied soldiers died on the beaches of Normandy in the hands of German soldiers that had survived these bombardments.

The air and sea bombardment reduced the combat effectiveness of the defense force. It also made it much harder for the Germans to move in reinforcements and mount a counter attack. But many German soldiers manning the beach defenses survived the bombardment, put up a tough fight. ...tough enough to cost the live of thousands of allied soldiers.

[ev]

Artillery of course is very good at wiping this entrenchment out, even with the reduced ammo capacity of 2. I am still unsure as to whether this makes artillery too strong still.

I think artillery shoul reduce readiness but not reduce entrenchment. Tanks should be the great reducers of entrenchment.

The tank was invented to break WWI trenches. Artillery alone could not effectively do that. From Verdun to Bastogne, from Normandy to Saipan, the world wars are full of example of entrenched infantry surviving brutal bombardments and putting a terribly deadly fight.

[Syagrius]

I beg to disagree with the premise that "bombardments from air and sea left not much alive on D-Day."

Thousands of allied soldiers died on the beaches of Normandy in the hands of German soldiers that had survived these bombardments.

The air and sea bombardment reduced the combat effectiveness of the defense force. It also made it much harder for the Germans to move in reinforcements and mount a counter attack. But many German soldiers manning the beach defenses survived the bombardment, put up a tough fight. ...tough enough to cost the live of thousands of allied soldiers.

In fact, casualities on the beaches were negligible; the worst beach being Omaha and even there they were far from the 50% casualities expected by Allied Command. Utah was a cakewalk and Sword, Juno and Sword almost the same. Casualities began to go up when the OKW and Hitler realized that was the main landing (and not Calais) and the Allies began to go inland, especially in the bocage. The Atlantic Wall was a big failure. The slaughter on the beaches is a myth, in part created by movies and bad tv shows by the way. Any serious historian is aware that D-Day was not a bloody battle, especially compared with some battles on the Eastern Front or a number of landings in the Pacific.

[xwormwood]

I beg to disagree with the premise that "bombardments from air and sea left not much alive on D-Day."

Thousands of allied soldiers died on the beaches of Normandy in the hands of German soldiers that had survived these bombardments.

The air and sea bombardment reduced the combat effectiveness of the defense force. It also made it much harder for the Germans to move in reinforcements and mount a counter attack. But many German soldiers manning the beach defenses survived the bombardment, put up a tough fight. ...tough enough to cost the live of thousands of allied soldiers.

As far i know only very few german soldiers were responsible for those thousands of dead allied soldiers. They were lucky enough that the bombardements before the invasion missed their positions.

But feel free to correct me if i remember incorrctly.

[ev]

Allow me to respond to Syagrius and Xwormwood together.

It is true that casulaties on the beach did not reach the 50% rate feared. Still, thousands of men did die on those beaches.

It is also true that only a few German soldiers were responsible for those thousands of dead allied soldiers. Still, it is in the nature of wwii warfare that a few die hard defenders could cause such a deadly toll on an attacker. The important point is that enough defenders survived to claim a terrible toll on the attackers.

Finally, it is very true that the allies fared a lot better in some landing sites while a lot worse in other landing sites. In fact, most of the losses occured in a couple of sites (beaches), while the other the landings in the other sites (beaches) went remarkably well.

However, a very important factor accounting for the very different losses experienced in the different landing areas was whether or not armor made it to the beach. The worse losses occured in beaches where the supporting tanks sank during the landings. The most succesfull landings (i.e. less cassualties) took place where the best armored support was available. And, in fact, the very most successfull landings occured where the allies used armor specifically designed (custom made) to support the Normandy landings.

My point is not that beaches were unassailable. My point is that air and artillery bombardments alone cannot take a possition. No matter how massive a bombardment you can muster, if the defender is well fortified, the chances are that enough defenders will survive to inflict severe casualties on an infantry based attack. Armor helped greatly, particularly because wwii anti-tank guns were easy to spot and to hit with artillery. But even armor was bound to take losses.

In SOE, a large air and artillery bombardment can desintegrate a defending unit. It just vanishes from the map. This extreme I find unrealistic. After a unit is hit by a large bombardment, the unit should hit very low readiness levels, making it much easier for a ground unit to attack it. But, the unit should not be destroyed, it should not disappear, in the absence of an attack by tank or infantry units.

If a attacker does not follow up the initial bombardment with a ground attack, the defending unit should survive.

Of course, an exception should be made when the defending unit is an air unit. It should be possible to destroy an air unit via artillery and air attack.

But, a well entrehched infantry defender should not be fully obliterated by bombardment alone.

How to implement this in SOE? (1) Increase the readiness effect artillery and TAC have on defending targets. (2) Eliminate the detrenchment effect of artillery and TAC. (3) Reduce the soft-attack for artillery and TAC (even at higher tech levels).

And, possibly, (4) increase the detrenchment effect caused by attacking tanks and special forces.