Discussion thread for possible new bunker creation rule.

[Aaron]

Ive been talking to Mark about the subject and while i agree to them possibly being built in most areas during WWII we both have a problem with having them in the MC series, it even came up about trenches in the MC series. Most of us have been in the military but how many have actually used a trench line in modern times, today its fire and move from Improved Positions, if you stayed in one spot to long you were dead, trench or no trench. We even thought about removing trenches but of course we cant all we can do ir reduce the modifier but i think Mark had the right words for it so im just going to paste up what he wrote. My opinion in the end is it might be ok for WWII but in the modern era i wouldnt add bunkers to MC.

Aaron

Been thinking on Trenches and Cover for a while. If your'e on a wooded hill in a Trench incoming fire is reduced by 80% ( -10 for elevation, -30 for wood and - 40 for Trench) this is just way to extreme.

If you wanted to be radical I would eliminate Trenches all together.

Would they exist in modern warfare in Europe in the WWII sense.........I doubt it.
Would anybody have the time to construct a full blown Trench system.........I doubt it.
The whole ethos of NATO defence was Fire and Move, if you sat in the same position for too long a friendly Sov BM21 Btn would kindly remove your grid square from the map !
NATO would construct prepared fire positions (which in game terms would be Improved Positions) Fire, then move back to the next position. These positions would often just be a quick scrape with a Dozer blade for Afv's...................not a Trench as it is mean't to be in the game with a 40% reduction in all incoming fire including Artillery !
Can you see the Sovs getting out of their BMP's getting their spades out and starting to dig a Trench......................or for that matter a Warrior, Bradley or Marder Btn....I doubt it.

It would eliminate some of the static "Trench Warfare" that occurs. I know as the NATO Player that if I dig in a B Class unit in a wood for instance I'm almost immune from damage. I just sit tight soak up all incoming and blat away with not a care in the world. Absolutely no thought of Fire and Move....................not really realistic me thinks.

Most of my WWIII training was done in Norway. Slightly different due to the impassability of large parts of the Country and the minor Road Network. But the ethos was the same.........we were taught to Hit and Run.....................never liked the word Run as Commandos never Run except into a fight or the Bar ! If we stayed still we would get Mullah'd......so we would make small "Improved Positions" Hit the enemy then move on to another pre-recced position. I did a small stint with 7 Amd Bde in their Int Cell for an Excercise in Northern Germany.....................and they operated exactly the same except they were all mechanised.

Im waffling on a bit now but the defence values of terrain and the positions you can build definately needs reducing.


Mark

[Mr Grumpy]

I think the popular IDEA is they would be Built as a "Bunker" in a TRENCH hex and the BUnker can be upgraded to "BUNKER".

Yes, that seems to be the consensus here.....

FWIW, so far at least Pillboxes and PILLBOXES have not been part of the discussion and I figured that point should be mentioned for all interested parties

Glenn

I think everyone is excepting that concrete structures are outside the scope of these games. :)

[Glenn Saunders]

Ive been talking to Mark about the subject and while i agree to them possibly being built in most areas during WWII we both have a problem with having them in the MC series, ....

Good points Mark and Aaron.

It is possible that this Bunker Building could be PzC only and not MC. Not everything is the same in both games but it is certainly easier to make the change once and have it impact both games I think.

But I am OK if Bunkers Building is PzC if that is teh consensus.

[Xaver]

Yes, i understand it, trenche is the soft bunker but i refer to an improve trenche with small bonus like extra -5% (or -10% in protection but with a malus in fire power because arent true bunkers and usually dont have a good terrain study to provide kill fields), the idea is add the option to improve trenches to bunkers (the normal bunkers in PzC) but using "materials" you can add a limit if materials (like mines in MC) and you can improve trenches and/or fixed bunkers to BUNKERS with engineers (even construction units with a bonus) and when you dont have material you can improve trenches to "soft" bunkers (or you can reserve materials).

When somebody says trenche i think in a single system of trenches not permanent not in positions like you can see in Band of Brothers in the assault of the battery, wooden walls, under floor command post arent something that infantry can do in few hours.

[Volcano Man]

I just don't see why bunker building would be allowed in 1939-1945 (PzC), but not Modern War 1946+ (MC). It just doesn't make sense. If anything, bunker building would be easier in modern warfare. While it is certainly true that modern warfare is mobile and you generally wouldn't stick around very long in once place, that does not mean that a bunker would never be built, it just means that units would not generally be around in the same place long enough to do it in the time that it takes to do it (in the game), given how violent and mobile everything is.

In the time spent in the army I built many a bunker myself in the field, and that was from being in a line unit (not a combat engineer unit). Bunkers are very abundant in modern warfare and they actually are the holy grail of infantry positions. As I mentioned in the previous post, the MODERN US Army has a saying "when you stop, constantly improve your position". Does that mean that once you dig a fighting position, which eventually turns into something resembling a "TRENCH", you then stop fortifying? No, certainly not, you would continue to dig in until your position became like a Vietcong tunnel system with a network of bunkers all with overhead cover and interlocking fields of fire if had enough time to do so. FM 7-7 (which we can call the "Infantry Handbook" / "Infantry Bible") goes into detail on how to construct positions with overhead cover. I would post images here if didn't have so much to do on other things.

*edit*, actually this link might work:



...this is a typical "stage 4" infantry fortified position from the FM 7-8. Logs are used for overhead cover for protection against soft attacks (in our terms), stage 5 and beyond involve improving the position even more, putting more dirt and sandbags around it, camouflaging it better, and so on. Stage 1 is essentially a foxhole, stage 2-3 are what resembles a trench.

Needless to say, I would think that any rule on bunker building should be common across ALL series that use the common engine. Anyone remember the miles and miles of bunkers along the Iraq / Kuwait border in Desert Storm '91? I would argue that the ROK/US would build plenty of bunkers in the mountains of Korea '85 (in the east) as they fell back to defensive lines and settled in. Also the NKPA should be able to fortify their gains when they run out of steam, in preparation for the great allied counter offensive when the US units arrive. Anyone remember the Pusan Perimeter in 1950? There were plenty of bunkers constructed in that area, and the first Korean war does fall into Modern Campaigns time frame.

Also, in a discussion yesterday, I mentioned something that is probably worth mentioning here:

What we have to also remember is that the act of building a bunker/BUNKER is not all good. Consider that a bunker/BUNKER provides absolutely no protection to vehicles, so it means that you can't simply create a bunker and pile a bunch of units in a hex / objective and have it be impossible to eliminate. Vehicles would have to go to other hexes where there are no bunkers if they want protection (from IP / TRENCH counters), thus causing them to disperse. This is unlike TRENCH hexes which would be used most often in a case where you want to hold an objective and if anything, bunker/BUNKER hexes would actually be more vulnerable than they would be in PzC because MC series generally has vehicles and artillery that have much higher hard attack values which could devastate the occupants inside. This provides two reasons why a user would not want to build a bunker, but it should not be an ability that is totally denied if it is added to PzC.

My opinion and purpose of this post is that if it is something that is NOT desired in MC, then it should NOT be included in PzC either, because it makes no logical sense why a more modern game would not include the same basic ability, especially when it is more justified to put it in a modern game to begin with. That said, I just don't see why it could not be in both PzC and MC.

But all of this a good reason why it should be built around a PDT on/off 1-0 "switch" value, since it would be the best choice for implementation in both series to allow full control to the scenario designer to determine what he wants to happen, and how he wants the experience to "feel". The perfect example right here, maybe tazaaron doesn't want his campaign to have bunker building -- that is fine, others might want bunker building, some campaigns might be good with it and some not. A PDT on/off value would be a fail safe switch where it can never go wrong (turn it off if you don't want it, turn it on if you do).

Oh well, that is all I have to say... ;)

[James Ward]

This is unlike TRENCH hexes which would be used most often in a case where you want to hold an objective and if anything, bunker/BUNKER hexes would actually be more vulnerable than they would be in PzC because MC series generally has vehicles and artillery that have much higher hard attack values which could devastate the occupants inside. This provides two reasons why a user would not want to build a bunker, but it should not be an ability that is totally denied if it is added to PzC.

Good point. Some infantry units have 2 hex hard attack ranges and only 1 hex soft attack range so a bunker would allow them to attack soft targets from a distance.

[Aaron]

I just don't see why bunker building would be allowed in 1939-1945 (PzC), but not Modern War 1946+ (MC). It just doesn't make sense. If anything, bunker building would be easier in modern warfare. While it is certainly true that modern warfare is mobile and you generally wouldn't stick around very long in once place, that does not mean that a bunker would never be built, it just means that units would not generally be around in the same place long enough to do it in the time that it takes to do it (in the game), given how violent and mobile everything is.

Let me rephrase this, i see an entrenchment in MC as a bunker. I think there should be an IP and then a bunker but no entrenchment, trenches would not have been built in modern times. The only one i witnesses was built by engineers and took them all day, the only bunker i ever built with my AG took us 2 days. Getting off the path here a little but in MC Inf/tank units should only be allowed to build IPs and then a bunker after a delay like you have with laying mines. There should be no trenches unless you want some engineers to be able to do it, i say dont add bunkers b/c i would hate to have a 3rd modifier on top of the other 2. Hope im making sense :)

All in all i believe regular units should only be able to build IPs (fighting positions) and yes bunkers (fighting positions with overhead cover) along as it takes a good 12-36 hours. If you want entrenchments in the game, engineers should be the only units to build these because these would constitute a trench system with bunkers.

Aaron

edit: o i was wrong we did dig plenty of slit trenches to squat over

[Volcano Man]

Let me rephrase this, i see an entrenchment in MC as a bunker. I think there should be an IP and then a bunker but no entrenchment, trenches would not have been built in modern times. The only one i witnesses was built by engineers and took them all day, the only bunker i ever built with my AG took us 2 days. Getting off the path here a little but in MC Inf/tank units should only be allowed to build IPs and then a bunker after a delay like you have with laying mines. There should be no trenches unless you want some engineers to be able to do it, i say dont add bunkers b/c i would hate to have a 3rd modifier on top of the other 2. Hope im making sense :)

All in all i believe regular units should only be able to build IPs (fighting positions) and yes bunkers (fighting positions with overhead cover) along as it takes a good 12-36 hours. If you want entrenchments in the game, engineers should be the only units to build these because these would constitute a trench system with bunkers.

Yes, I see where you are coming from, but we must remember that "trench / TRENCH" is just an arbitrary name for something that represents the same protection level that a trench would provide (which is essentially more than a foxhole / improved position, but less than a bunker). You could essentially call a two tier vehicle fighting position of modern times a "trench" for a vehicle, and a Stage 3 fighting position for infantry is a "trench" although they are not connected in a continuous line.



The image is hard to see, but that essentially is the modern version of a "trench" as you probably know. It basically is a trench, an arm pit level position with parapets and without overhead cover. I think the issue is simply that people envision a "trench" as a continuous fortified line akin to World War I. The reality is, even in World War II units were not digging continuous trench lines, but rather digging fighting positions like these. So I guess it doesn't really matter what it is called, the TRENCH in MC and PzC is supposed to represent a trench's level of protection, not literally a continuous mile or kilometer of trench line.

[Liebchen]

From the rules manual "What Bunkers offer over Trenches is generally timber protection from Direct Fire and overhead protection from Indirect or Artillery Fire" .

Oh, sure, Foul. Fall back on the rules, why dontcha... :happy:

[Aaron]

The image is hard to see, but that essentially is the modern version of a "trench" as you probably know. It basically is a trench, an arm pit level position with parapets and without overhead cover.

Oh ya i know what it is how can i forget im 6ft 6in tall and getting to armpit deep only ever happened once, most of the time i was on my knees.

I overall just pretty much have a problem with the second tier, i dont think it should be so easy to get there. An IP should be simple to do but after that well ive said my piece.

Aaron