Bridges and bridges

[Dog Soldier]

Bidermann,
The reason, I think, is in games like the campaign scenarios of F40. The Germans have to cross many rivers and streams where the bridges are destroyed. They have engineers of all morale levels from A down to D. As the army advances deeper into Allied territory, I can see where the Axis player would want to free some higher quality engineers from maintaining bridges in the rear to use them in the forward areas where their higher morale makes a difference.

The rear areas and supply routes can be handled by the lower morale engineers since these areas are fairly safe from attack.

I have tried to get engineers to build a second bridge in the same hex side, but it can not be done. Glenn's reasoning makes sense from a programming angle.

A hand off of the maintenance mechanism sounds reasonable because I would think that the enginners of say a panzer division would be called up to rejoin their parent organization while the rear area army or army group level engineers would take over the rear with the gear.
The question of quality might be suspect at this point. Does the D morale levle engineer have the necessary support in supply and equipment to maintain a bridge built by an A morale engineer unit? Since all engineer bridges are heavy bridges, does the replacement of a bridge mechanism suffice to simulate the change over period where the bridge is not available to traffic due to the lower level engineer unit having to get it's house in order. I have never read about such operations or know anyone with military expertise to comment on if this an issue or not.

Dog Soldier