Operation Bluecoat (no OJW)

[Ricky B]

When it comes to non-combat related mechanics, the way bridging works will have a big impact on this scenario.

Though I can understand the theory behind the assault and vehicle/gun/aircraft system even if I feel the results in-game are not what they should be, the way bridging works puzzles me both in theory and in its practical application.

Some engineer units can build bridges. They can't technically repair bridges, they just build a new bridge over the old one. The first problem is that they have to stay in place to maintain their bridge for the rest of the game. If you move them away, to prevent the destruction of the unit for example, they can never build a bridge again.

Though this might make some sense in a scenario lasting a day, the feature is ported from PzC where a campaign game can last months, where it is very strange that a bridging engineer unit can never recover its bridging equipment, in a system where there are no limits (in terms of there being a certain finite pool) for something like replacements.

This is the only wargame I've played where bridging engineer assets are restricted in that manner. As a side generally has only a handful of bridging engineer units, blowing up several bridges across major rivers is likely to stop an advance all by itself. There is literally nothing the attacker can do after his bridging assets are “used up” by maintaining bridges elsewhere.
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ComradeP, I have a question about the part you said where an engineer that moves away, it is unable to build a bridge again. In PzB context, I don't believe this applies at all, and even in PzC context is not really correct, from what I recall.

In PzB, an engineer with a bridge may go through bridge ops to take its bridge down, move to another location, and build another bridge. I just tested it and there is no issue. I don't believe there is a command in PzB to abandon a bridge in one turn - if it is there, I don't see it available in the menu and the User Manual doesn't state how to do it, although it does have what I think is a bad reference regarding abandoning bridges.

In PzC, which is from memory going back for awhile, if a bridge engineer takes down its bridge, it works exactly as above. If it does abandon its bridge so it can run away, I believe it can get its bridge back by starting a turn with its HQ. I will set up a test of that to verify.

Just wanted to put this out there, and I could easily be missing something for either game series but it is what I can tell right now.

Rick