Is assaulting Bunkers too hard ?

[panzerde]

Unlike others, I've yet to play a beach landing scenario. There are other aspects of the Normandy campaign that I'm not as familiar with and haven't played as much as I've played the landings in other games, so I'm playing more of the later scenarios. I'm coming away with a very different impression of the game, or at least the bunker aspect than I think others are.

I've played for many hours now (been taking vacation) and entirely scenarios like Le Mensil, Cristot, Operation Martlet, Hill 192, Villiers Le Sec, and Carpiquet. Nearly all of these have some sort of defensive positions in them, and most are manned by SS or FMJ units. Now, I'm a long time Panzer Campaigns player, and my natural inclination is to roll up on these positions, blast them with artillery, expect them to disrupt fairly quickly and then assault. I tried that and drew back a bloody stump.

After doing some reading, both here and other places and asking a few questions of David about the game and a lot of practice, I've come to understand that taking a fortified position is very possible, can be done with reasonable losses, and requires good timing and a combined arms approach. In fact, the more I learned to implement the sort of tactics that were actually used and started really using terrain to my advantage, the better luck I've had. I'm finding the entire thing to be very realistic as I compare it to actual narratives of these battles.

If you think artillery isn't effective, try Carpiquet against a human opponent, or just give Operation Martlet a try, even against the AI. I've seen a single artillery strike against a platoon take out ten men with one shot, and then six the next, and I've seen that more than once. Troops in the open can get murdered by artillery. I just played Notre Dame and took out a unit of limbered infantry guns with two field artillery salvos. It isn't great against bunkers, but against lesser fortifications and units moving in the open it is pretty effective.

The Panzer Battles games are not forgiving games, and often not easy games. I do think they model WWII combat at this scale better than pretty much anything I've played including Campaign Series, my previous favorite grand tactical WW2 game.