Blowing up bridges

[J. van Limpt]

I have a question. I have several units that protect primed bridges and have the order to deny the bridge to the enemy. But not one of my units has been able to blow a bridge up when the enemy comes near. Does anyone has the same or other experiences?

 

[jimcarravallah]

I have a question. I have several units that protect primed bridges and have the order to deny the bridge to the enemy. But not one of my units has been able to blow a bridge up when the enemy comes near. Does anyone has the same or other experiences?

Pages 103 and 104 of Ver. 1.1 of the game manual describe blowing bridges.

There are components involving the level of suppression of the defending force that hinder the blowing of a bridge. Most of my successful attempts to take bridges pre-primed and defended by an AI-controlled enemy force are accomplished while conducting both a ground attack on the forces in concert with a heavy bombardment of their positions during the attack.

If your defenders are suppressed in the same manner, it further hinders their ability to blow the crossings.

 

[J. van Limpt]

Thanks Jim. I did read the manual and understand the principle. However it seems very hard to deny a bridge by blowing up the primed bridge. Everytime I see a message that the destruction of the bridge has failed. So I wonder whether anyone has succeeded in blowing up a bridge, especially while under suppression (which is usually the case because the enemy is nearing the bridge).

 

[simovitch]

Engineers are superior at both priming and blowing bridges. Regular troops not so much.

 

[J. van Limpt]

Engineers are superior at both priming and blowing bridges. Regular troops not so much.

That makes sense too, thank you. It takes something like 16 hours to prime a large bridge according to the manual and my engineers are doing that at this very moment and can't participate in the rest of the battle at Nijmegen, so I hope they will deliver some fireworks when the time has come.

 

[simovitch]

You can select a group of engineers too and give them a single build/demo task - the more the better!

 

[Daz]

Some tips to help blow them bridges:

• Use an engineer unit with the deny crossing order.
• Ensure they are deployed in cover, if it is available.
• Set them to max losses
• Set them to max ROF
• Set them to no rest.
• Set them to ambush. Ambush will stop them engaging the enemy at long range, and prevent them getting suppressed before the bridge is considered to be compromised.
• Support them with artillery, if they come under fire.
• Bridges are usually in a valley, so cover the crossing with AT, or AA units high on the opposite side of likely enemy approach.

 

[john connor]

Given that it's relatively easy to stop your opponent blowing a bridge (I've found) - your frustration is not surprising. A single mortar unit per spotted engineer unit near a bridge can usually prevent it being dropped by bombarding constantly as your assault troops approach. It's not 100%, but pretty high - maybe 90% success rate. I would think the key is to suppress whoever is suppressing your engineers, and if you haven't the units to do that then you will be in a situation pretty close to real life, maybe? What isn't close to real life is that you can't blow the bridge at will, with a simple command, hours before any enemy unit gets near, as part of your 'strategic planning'. But you can see why the present system was implemented, in game play terms...