Bunkers Trenches Improved Positions

[typhoon]

One thing I have often wondered is the rationale behind the downgrading of these positions when vacated. It is probably something really simple but I must confess to never really understanding the why?

[Fortynslow]

One thing I have often wondered is the rationale behind the downgrading of these positions when vacated. It is probably something really simple but I must confess to never really understanding the why?

The attacker is typically moving in the opposite direction as the defender, meaning, if the attacker would need to take up a defensive position against the enemy's counterattack, the fortifications would be orientated in the wrong direction.   Bunkers only point in one direction, reverse slope positions become front slope positions, defensive positions sited against likely avenues of approach from one direction are not necessarily oriented towards likely avenues of approach from the other direction.  If anything, in my opinion, 50% is probably too beneficial.

[typhoon]

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense for the position changing hands but does not explain why an engineer unit can build a trench to 40% move two hexes away to build another and unless the first trench is still occupied it would loose 50% of its defensive bonus. So preparing advanced defensive positions is much harder unless you have the spare units to fill them immediately.

[Dog Soldier]

In addition to what Fortynslow said, obstacles like barbed wire, damage to the position from the bombardment and / or the fight to take the position degrades the position for immediate defense.  The unit can dig deeper, move the wire, move the materials of a road block to another place in the hex or place small mines, etc. from materials in the hex or from the units on hand stores when using the "digging In" command to make the position ready again in a different direction.

Engineers carry in the unit's vehicles, or can readily obtain what is needed to make the position upgraded from lowercase to uppercase in game turns.  This is nor always an immediate next turn task.  Try it with D or E Morale engineers!

Do not confuse the marching engineers with those with transport for any engineer unit can get what it needs to improve a recently taken position from the enemy by calling up the vehicles with their equipment, specialized tools etc to the do the job that are not represented in the game at this scale. Imagine the same with where does the ammo come from?

Dog Soldier

[Elxaime]

The degradation of fortifications when someone moves across them has become a hoary tradition in Panzer Campaigns. No explanation is needed - it just is. Similar to how your army forgets the locations of its own minefields once they are no longer in the line of sight of your units.