Engineers, Bridges and Suicde....illogical

[HirooOnoda]

I also like Rick's plan.

[Marquo]

It is frustrating to see a bridging engineer die at the banks. This brings up another point: should bridging engineers, so dedicated to maintaining the bridge, have any ZOC while the bridge is deployed? They are either a combat unit or bridging; perhaps not both simultaneously.

I think that an Emergency Bridge abandonment command is a good idea. However, the bridge (especially a pontoon) should remain intact, and the same algorithim for building it or destroying it should then apply, but in the reverse sequence.

If an Axis bridging unit flees at the sight of approaching T34s, why can't the T34s not be able to use the abandoned bridge for at least a few turns, and if a Soviet bridging unit arrives in time, it should have the option of maintaining the abandoned bridge (using the reverse of the emergency bridge abandonment function).

In this sequence the engineer would disrupt with high fatigue, but not break so it could then function as a moreorless cohesive combat unit.


Marquo

[Glenn Saunders]

... should bridging engineers, so dedicated to maintaining the bridge, have any ZOC while the bridge is deployed?

There is no way I could justify asking John for such an exception.

I think that an Emergency Bridge abandonment command is a good idea. However, the bridge (especially a pontoon) should remain intact,

The whole premise of the unit breakng is to remove the bridge and in fact there is NOTHING in the existing game code that could keep the bridge intact without the Engineer present. So the Eng abandoning the would be deemed to damging the bridge to the point of disabling it. If the other side wants a bridge there then they would have to build one by bring up one of their own bridge engineers.

Glenn

[Volcano Man]

We have to remember that any suggestion must follow the KISS principle or the chances that it will be implemented will be highly unlikely.

[FLG]

If an Axis bridging unit flees at the sight of approaching T34s, why can't the T34s not be able to use the abandoned bridge for at least a few turns, and if a Soviet bridging unit arrives in time, it should have the option of maintaining the abandoned bridge (using the reverse of the emergency bridge abandonment function).

I don't agree here.It is one thing for bridging engineers to be pushed off a bridge but another to just completely abandon it at the sight of the enemy. At the very least they would attempt to make it in-operable before they left. Even an engineer can work out that if they left the bridge intact the T34's would just cross it and chase them down like dogs they are.


P.s. I had better say that, yes, I am an engineer.

[Mike Abberton]

It's seems likely that an engineer unit would have enough explosives on hand to disable any bridge they built relatively quickly.

So the engineers breaking and the bridge being lost seems to work well as a simpler fix to the issue without implementing special engineer coding or flagging.

[Glenn Saunders]

So the engineers breaking and the bridge being lost seems to work well as a simpler fix to the issue without implementing special engineer coding or flagging.

Well, as Volcano more eloquently put it, a simplier change has a much higher chance of being accepted than anything which involves flagging or tracking info with a BTL\BTE file.

So at this point we have:

- a menu
- owning player can opt for it in his turn
- *might* be usable if the unit is disrupted (will have to see what John says here as most menus require Undisrupted status)
- will cause the unit to BREAK
- will cause the Eng Bridge to disappear as the unit breaks.
- will cause BF although John will decide if it is Max BF or something between 100 and 300.
- will allow the same Eng to rebuild a bridge later, but first it must
I) recover from Broke to Disrupted
II) recover from Disrupted to undisrupted or Normal
III) is dependent upon Unit Morale so it will likely have to recover a bunch of BF first.

I still haven't run this idea by John yet and am hoping to hear from "Elxaime" before asking for it. I guess I've been burnt before getting something changed only to find out the solution was not acceptable to one of the parties involved in complainig about the issue. So forgive me for wanting to be sure that most of the parties in the discussion agree with the idea first. But it looks like we might have something here.

Glenn

[Huib Versloot]

Nice to see this discussion and brainstorming leading to a possible improvement of the game. Well done.

[Glenn Saunders]

Nice to see this discussion and brainstorming leading to a possible improvement of the game. Well done.

And on that note, I've submitted the idea and now we'll see if we can make it happen.

Glenn

[Adam Parker]

I've got a few questions regarding this issue if people could help me out, because I'm trying to see the pros and cons of the proposed change:

1. By voluntarily sending a unit into "Broken" status a player loses control of that unit's movement and also the situational control of that unit's LOS/ZOC. Therefore, in terms of now knowing what the enemy has at the river and being able to target arty which requires a spotting unit to the enemy, won't the player now be putting himself at a disadvantage? Is by-product of saving a bridging unit intended?

2. If a player subsequently moves combat units up to prevent the enemy's own bridging attempt and/or to gain intel on the enemy forces in the now vacated vicinity, why doesn't the player simply reinforce his bridging site earlier and assist in the protection of his bridging assets whilst bridges are dismantled? Isn't that what the current rules intend ie: the inherent risk of putting a bridging unit on the front line/rear-guard?

3. It takes time to dismantle a bridge and have a bridging unit move away to attempt re-bridging on a later turn. By allowing these units to artificially break and therefore - with luck - regain fatigue and normal status so to operate afresh - isn't this entire delay equivalent in the first place, to the possibility of losing these units at the rivers edge (ie: destruction in this case, actually implying not the loss of the unit in physcial terms but the rendering inoperable of the unit in logisitcal terms for the remainder of the scenario)? IOW why the need for a new rule?

4. Lastly, won't this voluntary breaking ability put the human at an advantage vs the AI? Will the AI know that it possesses this option too?

These are just some of my thoughts but personally, I see the employment of bridging assets as a risk with great reward coupled with the frustrating possibilities of failure - failure to build/failure to survive contact with the enemy.

Can't we simply change the bridge building/deployment PDT rate in scenarios where a bridging unit is to represent a rear-guard for a particular side?

(For chrome if a new rule feature is possible, then make the durability of such bridges less than perfect - ie: such bridges may collapse at any time causing loss to a crossing unit, representing the less than perfect concentration/time available to rear-guard bridging units to maintain their assets in optimal condition! That's what I'd call chrome :) )

Cheers lads,
Adam.