Military Engineering in PzC

[Dog Soldier]

I think you win the prize for longest ever post.

I have some questions to clarify your ideas.

as if his engineers had put up a curtain around the hex with a 'do not disturb' sign on display. I strongly believe that players should have visibility on the likely duration of any engineering project once the work is initiated.

How would you make this information available to both sides? I would assume the enemy would be watching the bridge engineers progress also. Would you have to make rules for when there is a covering force across the river and when there is not? What is one side of the river has a height advantage and can see the bridge progress regardless of the covering force presence. Would the engineers use flood lights at night or would they work by moon light? Would there be a moon at the time of the scenario?

3) The same sort of 'dice luck' and opacity applies to rubble clearing, mine laying and entrenching based on each side's digging-in percentage. These highly variable outcomes stand in stark contrast to other engineering operations such as mine clearing and river crossings. Barring disruption, any engineer unit at any morale level will clear a level 3 minefield in six hours, every time. Why is mine clearing so predictable that it only fails due to enemy intervention, while mine laying is so unpredictable that its rarely (if ever) employed?

I seriously doubt a senior commander in the role of the player had such detailed information about each company in the army.

4) Many of the tactical options available to historical commanders are not represented, for example:
(a) Repairing damaged bridges (vice erecting new ones that require permanent 'maintenance' crews).

How would you determine which bridges could be repaired and which could not? Some were steel and concrete monsters. Where would get the materials even if you could repair a bridge in less than a month? I use a month because I rarely see highway construction in peace time take less time when a bridge is involved. How steep are the banks? How fast is the current? Is the river low or high at the time of the scenario? From the pictures I have seen of military bridges built during a battle, the effect of traffic, currents debris crashing into the bridge, it seems very reasonable that an engineer units stays to maintain the bridge.

© Allowing a bridge engineer to abandon a constructed bridge if they have an urgent mission elsewhere or are facing annihilation.

This has already been added in the recent round of patches.

(g) Clearing lanes through obstacles/minefields (vice clearing the entire hex); an experienced infantry unit could perform this function for itself without engineers (albeit with more difficulty). Lane clearing should be much easier than actually removing a minefield; I would suggest that what currently happens in PzC games (i.e., a 40 man, E morale engineer platoon clearing a 3 level minefield in six hours) actually represents clearing lanes and marking the minefield, not clearing the entire minefield. Most of the mines are still there; if the friendly units leave the area and all those little MINEN! signs disappear then the minefield is once again a lethal hazard to movement.

From my reading of the designer notes in the games in this series, that is exactly why engineers can "clear" a minefield as they do under the rules now. They do not go out to find every mine in the hex.

A final example from an actual game. OJW and I are on day 4 of the main campaign in B45 (01a_Konrad; the 395 turn monster). I have five engineer companies from my panzer divisions 'maintaining' bridges across a small river that constituted the line of departure for the Axis offensive to relieve Budapest. I only need to maintain two of the bridges; the other engineers are urgently needed elsewhere. So three of the engineer companies have been engaged in bridge ops for the past four days (game time) trying to release themselves so they can catch up with IVSS Pz Korps and get back in the fight. So far no luck. Historically these bridges were built in a very short period of time - the Konrad offensive begins with a surprise night assault across the bridges. But the engineers who built them are unable to disassemble them; they've been chained to the bridges for four days now while the fighting has moved 20-30 klicks to the west. I'm no closer to removing the bridges than when I started and have no idea when it may happen; meanwhile three tactically valuable units are simply removed from my plans until an essentially random event frees them. I understand that elements of uncertainty and lack of control belong in war games, but the above situation goes much too far in that direction imho.

Dang river ice floating downstream is so unpredictable. The damage must have caused your engineers to go look for replacement parts. :rolleyes:

Well that is all the ones I have time to address for now. As commanders, we have far more information in the games than the actual commanders ever did. Uncertainty makes these games fun! It causes you to plan contingencies, adapt to quickly changing conditions and anticipate some things just do not work as planned.

Dog Soldier