Attacking a Full Bridge Hex by Air

[Glenn Saunders]

Well I can tell you that the LGBs that the USN used to attack bridges in Viet Nam in '72 only needed one plane and one bomb during the Linebacker II strikes.

Now imagine 36 Su-24s, each with 8 x 1000 lb LGBs.

I'm sorry, those bridges are toast.

Well, - one sortie = one brdige, then this makes it really easy then. Simply destroy the key brdiges before the game starts and maybe remove or make one Air Sortie per Bridge hex unavailable for a turn.

No change needed to the game engine for that. That won't be perfect but it would fix most of the situations - wouldn't it. Does make you wonder why the West German Government would waste time on having things pre-wired and I recall seeing photos somebody post here on theblitz showing manhole covers where the bridges were pre-wired - a bit of a waste is one plane and one bomb was all it would take!

...but I won't do this in the main game because I don't think it is that easy myself - but that is just me.

Glenn

[HirooOnoda]

Well I can tell you that the LGBs that the USN used to attack bridges in Viet Nam in '72 only needed one plane and one bomb during the Linebacker II strikes.

Now imagine 36 Su-24s, each with 8 x 1000 lb LGBs.

I'm sorry, those bridges are toast.

Well, - one sortie = one brdige, then this makes it really easy then. Simply destroy the key brdiges before the game starts and maybe remove or make one Air Sortie per Bridge hex unavailable for a turn.

Glenn

Call it silly, but it would then give a rational for all those SAM units the WP had yet failed to show up on the map.

What is silly is to think that units like the Su-24 would be used to hit front-line troops given that they were deep strike fighters like the F-111. Bridges would be a top target for Su-24s. It is unrealistic to think that all those NATO troops would have a free-ride to the front over all those pretty rivers in Germany and Holland.

It would make the engineers more important in the game also. Right now they usually get used as front-line troops.

[Glenn Saunders]

What is silly is to think that units like the Su-24 would be used to hit front-line troops given that they were deep strike fighters like the F-111. Bridges would be a top target for Su-24s.

In D85 we made a number of fixes and improvement to the OOB. As a result, the only Su-24s in the game OOB - that is under the ground Theater Commander, are three Air Recon Units made up of "Su-24MR Fencer".

In any case - I'm be the first to admit the game has lots of holes in it from the Air Point of view, because it is a ground game and that isn't going to change - certainly not because of a thread discussing the merits of Air Missions on Bridges.

At this point it is still undecided if devising rules for this would add to the game or just create more funny situations.

Glenn

[JonS1]

Yes - and there is a great example where the Brits and French tried to knock out a German held Bridge in 1940 and not only were not successful, but they lost a hell of a lot of a/c doing so.

As I pointed out in the other thread, that was a function of the overall air situation and in particular the concentration of AA the Germans had around that bridge. It was not a function of a fundamental inability of a/c to drop bridges.

Selection of key points to be protected (HQs, supplies, tpt routes incl bridges, etc) is - IMO - very much a commanders dilemma. You can't protect everything, so figure out what's really important and protect that. Which is exactly what the Germans did at Sedan. Similarly, another commander's dilemma is figuring out what targets need to be attacked, and concentrating on those. Which, again, is exactly what the British and French did at Sedan, but the Germans did it better. In that instance.

Furthermore, and as I also said in the other thread (and has been referred to here independently by OJW) the USAAF got to the point where they could reasonably reliably drop Seine bridges with an eight (8) a/c strike. But, as a counter point, heavy bombers were hopeless for bridge destruction, taking hundreds of missions and thousands of bombs to achieve the same level of destruction.

Well I can tell you that the LGBs that the USN used to attack bridges in Viet Nam in '72 only needed one plane and one bomb during the Linebacker II strikes.

Well ... that's not really true, it is it?

On April 27 [1972], 12 Phantoms of the 8th Tactical fighter wing, ...attacked the Thanh Hoa bridge. 8 of their number carried laser-guided bombs. The raid was carried out without hitch, and when the dust of the explosions had cleared, it became apparent that the bridge had been dislodged from its western abutment, dropping one half into the river. To complete its destruction, a second attack was scheduled for the 13 of May. This time 14 Phantoms were engaged, with LGBs of up to 2,000 lb (910 kg) aimed at the central pillar supporting the bridge. Once again the attack was successful and the "Dragon's jaw" was rendered completely unusable. The US command, however, was not satisfied, and ordered a final attack on the 6th of October. This time US Navy A-4s successfully delivered six 2,000 lb (910 kg) LGBs on the target. After this, the Thanh Hoa bridge was considered permanently destroyed and removed from the target list.

Link. Making stuff up isn't a real effective way of getting your point across.

Note, incidentally, that the Thanh Hoa bridge was hit and disabled repeatedly between 1965 and 1972, although each time - up till Oct 1972 - it was repaired. Something to think about is just what "destroyed" means in the context of a scenario or campaign that spans, at most, up to about 10 weeks (thinking N'44 Grand Campaigns here).

[Glenn Saunders]

Guys:

Also consider, after all the discussion about the literature and what it really says. After a rule is designed, with logic that can work, then someone has to step back and consider what someone might be able to do with the rule, which we might not have intended.

This smart guy I know once said that if he invented a pencil, someone would sharpen it, and then shove it up his nose and then say "what a dumb pencil, I can shove it up my nose."

Nobody ever though people would use AT Guns for bump recon until that happened in N44. And then there was using RHQs to build secondary defense lines of IPs in Bulge.

So after all the good logic, we still have to consider what someone can do with that logic and use that to show just how illogical the game is based on ther own view of the facts.

... so understand it is a balancng act to get it right and turn changes into positive new features and not just make work exercises for Tillers time, that create more odd situations that have to be addressed.

Glenn

[JonS1]

In that vein, here is a solution that can be implemented now (i.e., it requires nothing from HPS):

1) Open the scen, campaign, whatever, in the scen editor identify all the bridges you consider could be feasibly damaged within the time and space constraints of the scenario. As an example, you might select all full hex bridges, or all full hex and all heavy bridges over rivers/canals.
2) Destroy all those bridges in the editor, taking a count of how many you just killed.
3) Open up the OoB editor, and create a number of bridging engineer units, with zero (0) movement, zero (0) hard and soft attack, some AA value (maybe? See later), low strength (say, 20 or 30 guys. More for heavy robust bridges, less for flimsy bridges), and a reasonable defence value. Depending on how the scen starts you'll need to create some for the blue side and some for the red side (ie, in N44 they'd all be German. In FG85 you'd have a mix of NATO and WP).*
4) Go back to the scen editor, and place one of these new 'engineer' units at the site of each previously destroyed bridge.
5) Set the 'engineer' to have a bridge spanning the gap of the previously destroyed bridge.

Et voilà. You now have bridges that can be attacked by air units (and artillery, etc, of course). These bridges can be 'damaged' without falling down, and 'repaired, and the units you've created to do so don't really affect the balance of forces since they can't move or fire.

The downside is that you can now never capture an enemy bridge in a coup-de-main style action.

Also, to complete the picture, you'll probably want to edit the OoB to add in a bunch of missing air units (although ... if you do that you'll also want to reduce the PDT interdiction value) and AA units (if you do a full AA OrBat you probably won't want to give the bridges any inherent AA value in step3 above). Those two steps will probably take the longest to complete.

Regards
Jon

* To make this really funky, you could make use of a unit type not otherwise used in the scenario (eg, ski troops in N44, or bicycle troops in FG85), then edit the 2DSymbolsLg.bmp file so that the unit shows an icon for a bridge, and edit the unit portrait with a nice photo of a representative bridge.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

One other thing to think about is this......The game has it's share of abstracts and bridges, IMO, are no exception. Having said that, I'll explain using Neu Ulm as an example because I was staioned there 80-82. I don't know if the game shows it, but there is a river that runs thru the town. In Germany, the buildings are built quite close to each other, so hitting bridges in towns won't be that easy, even with laser guided bombs. The a/c is moving very fast and with the closeness of the buildings, that unless you are flying upward, you will lose your mark on the bridge due to the buildings.

Another abstract part is the game would show one bridge across the river, where in real life there are several bridges crossing the river in the same hexside with the buildings close up on most of them. That's just in Neu Ulm, pretty small compared to the likes of Franfurt, Munich etc.

[Tbird3]

I generally have to agree with Glenn, unless there is a design decision to increase the significance of air capabilities in the game I don't think there is much reason to be surprised or attempt to explain some of the unique results of the game. I mentioned in another post about and old Avalon Hill game called TAC AIR. Same level of play as in HPS and very robust Air Model. I thought is was a very cool game. I would hope that HPS may look at trying to increase the air capabililities in their operational level games at some point in the future.

Tbird3

[JonS1]

I'll explain using Neu Ulm as an example because I was staioned there 80-82. ... the buildings are built quite close to each other, so hitting bridges in towns won't be that easy, even with laser guided bombs. ... Another abstract part is the game would show one bridge across the river, where in real life there are several bridges crossing the river in the same hexside with the buildings close up on most of them. That's just in Neu Ulm, pretty small compared to the likes of Franfurt, Munich etc.

OJW, that's all reasonably easy to cope with conceptually using the procedure above. For hard-to-hit bridges; up the defence value. For multiple bridges; up the strength count. Or use higher or lower morale. Or some combination of the three, according to specific circumstances. Of course, figuring out what values to use would rely on local knowledge and/or research, but what doesn't?

... an old Avalon Hill game called TAC AIR. Same level of play as in HPS and very robust Air Model.

No! Really? A game called TAC AIR with a robust air model? ;)

[alaric99x]

...using Neu Ulm as an example because I was staioned there 80-82. I don't know if the game shows it, but there is a river that runs thru the town. In Germany, the buildings are built quite close to each other, so hitting bridges in towns won't be that easy, even with laser guided bombs.

That river is the Donau (Danube). Nice old town on the western border of Bavaria, Neu Ulm also has one of the ten largest cathedrals in the world.