El Alamein anti-tank ditches

[CountryBoy]

I just started a scenario from El Alamein against the AI and came across anti-tank ditches. It's the Operation Compass scenario. 

According to the manual only bridge engineer units can destroy an anti-tank ditch, which otherwise behaves like a canal. I tried using infantry in foot mode, but they can't cross an anti-tank ditch, which seems a little strange to me. Is this the way it's meant to be? 

I noticed in the comments section on the scenario in the Blitz database that Mr Grumpy said this:

We stopped this game at halfway point as we discovered that we were using old files which did not allow foot movement over AT ditch's, this very important fact had skewed the play to a point it was not worth carrying on, we did provide VM with feedback to improve the scenario some. :)

[beldurax]

I just started a scenario from El Alamein against the AI and came across anti-tank ditches. It's the Operation Compass scenario. 

According to the manual only bridge engineer units can destroy an anti-tank ditch, which otherwise behaves like a canal. I tried using infantry in foot mode, but they can't cross an anti-tank ditch, which seems a little strange to me. Is this the way it's meant to be? 

I noticed in the comments section on the scenario in the Blitz database that Mr Grumpy said this:

We stopped this game at halfway point as we discovered that we were using old files which did not allow foot movement over AT ditch's, this very important fact had skewed the play to a point it was not worth carrying on, we did provide VM with feedback to improve the scenario some. :)

Hello CountryBoy,

I have come across this identical situation playing solo against the AI, and have wondered the same thing about infantry's inability to deal with the AT ditch.  I had chalked it up to a design decision.  Is this so ?

Travis

[CountryBoy]

I guess so Travis. It seems a little odd though.

This is a picture of an anti-tank ditch near Tobruk 1941, and it was the biggest one I found online (there were plenty others where you could ride your 4x4 through quite easily). It seems odd to me that infantry on foot should be considered unable to walk down then up this little slope.

[Green]

In El Alamein '42, it appears that it is only the "Williams & Sinatra" designed scenarios, such as Operation Compass, that have AT Ditches that are impassible by Foot. The other scenarios, including the Alt scenarios, have a Foot movement cost of 7 MP to cross AT Ditches.

This may have been a deliberate design choice by "Williams & Sinatra" or perhaps it was an oversight. Generally Canals (and therefore AT Ditches) are impassible by Foot, so it could easily have been overlooked.

[CountryBoy]

Thanks Green, I think you are right, it must be an oversight. It doesn't completely ruin the scenario, but given the scarcity of Allied engineers it does make it pretty tough.

[Mr Grumpy]

I did help Ed test this scenario many years ago and I do remember the lack of Engineers being a real issue for the Commonwealth side especially if you lose one of them as I did!  

Let me chat to Ed to find out if this is actually intended or not and get back to you.

[Mr Grumpy]

Actually as I think about it I am not sure you are correct that you can move through AT ditch's without destroying them in the non C40 scenarios?

The rules state...…......

"Depending on the scenario, there may be Anti-Tank Ditches deployed on the map. These have the same affect on movement as Canals do and are thus impassible to any unit that cannot cross a Canal. However, Anti-Tank Ditches may be bridged and destroyed by Engineer units as described in the section on Engineers."


I don't have Ea42 loaded on my laptop, can someone test if this is correct or not please? 

[Green]

Darran, I am not sure which scenarios actually have AT Ditches so I have not tested it but I based my comments on the PDT files. For most El Alamein scenarios 'Canals' are not impassible but are assigned a value of 7 MP for Foot. There are no Canals as far as I am aware but it is this value that is also used for AT Ditches. For the "Williams & Sinatra" scenarios the value is set to -1 MP which means impassible.

That is all I was trying to say.

[Green]

It appears this was actually a deliberate design choice. I found this in the Compass '40 Notes;

"...the Italians were exceptional at creating fortifications.  Italian objectives at Tobruk, Bardia, Sidi Barrani, Nibeiwa and the East and West Tummar had been heavily fortified.  The Italians were excellent diggers and masons and when given adequate time they would turn barren desert into a fortified area.  It is important to note that at Tobruk and Bardia the Italians dug extensive anti-tank ditches.  However, at Sidi Barrani, Tummar East, Tummar West and Nibeiwa the Italians had constructed huge earthen walls that had the same effect as anti-tank ditches. These walls served against the Italians by largely trapping them inside their fortified areas once the allies broke into them. As a design decision, all AT ditches cannot be crossed by infantry units since they represent high walls. This means that the allies MUST take good care of their limited engineer units because these units must be used to blow a hole in these AT ditch / high walls. Keep in mind that at Tobruk, the two bridge hexes can be breached with assaulting Travel Mode units so even if all allied engineer units are somehow lost at that point, it would still be possible (but very difficult) to breach Tobruk at these two points."

[CountryBoy]

Thanks for that extra info. If it was deliberate then so be it. Not so much a ditch then, more so a gigantic wall!