A few modern campaign questions

[Sergio65]

1) When an engineer unit abandons the bridge it has built can the opposing side make use of it?

2) I notice MLRS units have their offensive FP value divided into 3 parts. What does the third (RH) value represent?

3) How can helo units detect minefields?

4) Friendly ground unit out of LOS to enemy units will not be targeted by enemy arty units. However, friendly helo flies over friendly ground unit and enemy arty fires on friendly ground unit. How is that possible?

[Ricky B]

1. An abandoned bridge is removed from the map.
2. I believe it is firepower - minimum range - maximum range, without looking directly.
The other 2 are a result of the way helos were created. Basically a ground unit that ignores most features impacting ground movement, but still like all other ground units in the game. So see mines and draw defensive fire at ground units in hex.

Unforeseen bugs really, in the design.

[KAreil]

1. An abandoned bridge is removed from the map.

You sure about that?

I thought it just stays there and the engineer could even cross the bridge, then start "Bridge Ops" again to remove it from the other side. Never tried it though.

[Ricky B]

I am sure of that, at least about 99 percent sure. And it won't have bridge building abilities again. Been wrong too often lately but yes, I have abandoned and moved away.

As long as an engineer has the bridge, it can go to T mode and move to the other side.

[Sergio65]

That seems counter-intuitive. Abandoning is, imo, the engineer unit leaving the hex immediately and with no time to dismantle the bridge. Unless modern pontoons come ready for self destruction I can't see how the structure wouldn't be there for the first unit to come along.

[Ricky B]

Hmm, that seems counterintuitive to me. Abandoning means they cut the pontoons loose to drive down river, or destroy their bridging planks, etc. They aren't going to just leave it for the enemy - and it does take a full turn of movement to abandon it, I believe. Doing bridge ops to recover the bridge for later use takes longer as they are carefully collecting the materials for re-use. So it could be considered left in place, but the design was to "destroy" it, at the cost of never building another bridge.

None of it is perfectly simulated, but that is how the design was done, trade offs for any solution at this level, without huge complexities instead, I would imagine.

[Ricky B]

And keep in mind a bridge engineer can't just "abandon" a bridge for its own side to use either, while advancing, which would be preferred in many cases. Basically, a bridge built by engineers, versus permanent map bridges, require an engineer unit to maintain it, which is more counterintuitive than the abandoning part, to me.

[Sergio65]

Here's how I see it. A bridging unit's primary function is to build and maintain bridges. Lose the bridge and the unit serves no useful purpose other than as a poorly equipped rear area garrison.

So why then would a bridging unit make the decision to lose their own bridge?

The answer, imo, is immediate threat, as in 'enemy tank battalion rolls up to the opposite side of the river' kind of immediate. That kind of urgency would not allow for much time to disable the bridge.

[Ricky B]

Do you have examples of pontoon bridges captured by the enemy and put to use? I am sure there are some but I couldn't find any. I thought maybe Kalach in the Stalingrad encirclement but can't find anything stating that in a quick search. But I can find cases of pontoon bridges being disabled when the enemy approached. Much easier to disable a pontoon bridge than a permanent one, no explosives needed.

Anyway, as I mentioned there was an early decision to require an engineer to maintain an engineer bridge. Engineer gets destroyed then the bridge disappears. In some PzCs it would be nice to leave a bridge for other friendly units but it just isn't allowed. Agree or not that was on purpose.

[Mr Grumpy]

Many features of these games are somewhat abstract, this is an example of that, if an engineer unit wish's to move away from the location where it has laid a bridge immediately (maybe it is in danger of being cut off) then it can abandon the bridge rather than going through the "bridge ops" procedure, there is no explanation in the manual as to what happens to the bridge it just disappears. 

As we know the big downside is that unit can no longer lay bridges in the remainder that scenario.

The "abandon bridge" feature was added after several titles had been released, I assume because players complained that they were losing the engineer units as they were locked into their location by the bridge ops feature.