Bridge Rules Ideas

[Dog Soldier]

#1 Bridges are map items in the program and not counters that can be attacked. That is the short answer to both of these two points. Changing them to counters would be a huge rewrite of the PzC game engine. There is an exception for engineers assaulting a bridge to destroy it. I do not think it is easy to extend that to air units. I could be wrong though about what is easy to program and what is not.

This has been discussed several times in the past. The conclusion is that in the scope of the campaigns simulated by the game titles, there is no record of a single bridge destroyed by air attack during the battle. Especially a bridge destruction that impacted the historical outcome for one side or the other.
While some people have pointed out that bridges were damaged from the air in interdiction raids (Remagen on the Rhine by the Allies) when these bridges were far behind the actual front lines, that is not within the scope of the operational games.
Another example is the huge effort by the western Allies in 1940 to destroy the German engineer bridges from the air (something you can do in PzC) at Sedan. After two days of intense raids by Allied bombers, the bridges were not even hit once to the loss of many brave Allied air crews. Manstein even recalls in his memoirs about standing on the bridge at Sedan during an Allied air raid. His aids could not persuade him to get off the bridge. That is how he viewed the risk. He was quite correct.

A final note. Bridges, especially along a primary re-supply route would have inherent AA needed to represent the owning force's commitment to its defense. This would then become a problem as players would want to adjust the designers level of defense. All bridges defended equally? Some better than others? The micro management evokes the phrase "the juice is not worth the squeeze".

#2 This idea is nice in that there is too much information given a commander without the need to recon the ground. I think the answer to why all bridges can be seen as good or blown is tied to the answer above about bridges being map items and not counters like mines which disappear when out of LOS. Could your troops be a few km off when they reach the river and not find the bridge until next turn? Sure that could happen historically. So could units not necessarily be in the exact location you sent them to or be the actual strength you think they are. I guess all this FOW is a judgment call by JT when enough is enough. I would like to see more FOW. Then there is the business consideration that players (customers) will complain that the FOW which makes things unreliable as in real combat, is just a bug.
Who wants that kind of headache?

Dog Soldier