Early war engineers

[Kool Kat]

Gents:

I located the following interesting quote from a paper titled; "The Italian Army in WWII" by W. W. Turnbow.

Engineers

A. Under Italian doctrine, engineers were considered to be technical, rather than combat, troops. Engineer functions were conventional; work communications zones, erect obstacles, clearance of obstacles, laying of minefields, water supply, and supply of engineer materials. Also, in the Italian army, the providing of signal communications and the supplying of hydrogen for captive ballons were engineer functions.

B. The success of the German Assault Engineers encouraged the formation of Assault Pioneers known as Guastatori (destroyers). These forces were organized into battalions. They were patterned after similar German units and the Assault Engineer School at Civitavecchia was organized by a German engineer, a Col Steiner, in March 1940. The attacks by pioneers (Guastatori) were nearly always carried out at dawn, the objective having been approached during the night. Assault engineers were used against tanks at night. Personnel did not lay mines, but were trained in removing them should they impede their progress.

So; indeed, Italian engineers should have similar combat capabilities as their German counterparts.

[Mike Abberton]

Since just about all combat engineers of the major combatants probably had access to satchel charges and man-portable flamethrowers, early war engineers should probably be considered even across the board one way or the other.

Regarding panzershrecks, were Germans combat engineers even issued shrecks? I can't remember. I am pretty sure that US engineers had bazookas and UK engineers had piats. The Russians and Japanese did not have shrek/bazooka equivalents, so that is a potential difference.

[K K Rossokolski]

I think the equal idea has merit, although were not German Eng equipped at times with the shaped charge (Eben-Emael, I think), but was this used across the board? We need to be careful to distinguish technical capability and skill from tactical daring and ingenuity. These, while related, have different meaning.

Noting we are discussing EARLY war Eng, I suggest Bazookas etc are a red herring. The Bazooka was introduced late 1942, and the "schrek" was a copy. Maybe we should demarcate the term "early war"? Up to March 1942, perhaps?

[Hawk Kriegsman]

Then maybe the issue is not to increase the hard attack value of engineers, but to give them the ability to blow up pillboxes, bunkers, etc, just like they can bridges and walls. This way it does not make them powerful against armor, but it does make them powerful against bunkers, pillboxes, etc

The pillbox, bunker, etc in question could be reduced to rubble (with all of rubbles benefits) while the units inside get disrupted.

So the ideal approach would be

1: advance to the pillbox (ideally under smoke)

2: blow up the pillbox

3: assault the disrupted survivors (possibly upping the engineers assault factor a bit)

This would be a quite realistic approach to the the engineers without turning them all into tank killers.

What do you think?

Thanx!

Hawk

[K K Rossokolski]

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Valor]

Then maybe the issue is not to increase the hard attack value of engineers, but to give them the ability to blow up pillboxes, bunkers, etc, just like they can bridges and walls. This way it does not make them powerful against armor, but it does make them powerful against bunkers, pillboxes, etc

Very interesting idea :chin:

However I would leave engineers with AT capability. Maybe not that high as German End have but significantly higher than ordinary units.

Best regards

Slawek

[Huib Versloot]

Then maybe the issue is not to increase the hard attack value of engineers, but to give them the ability to blow up pillboxes, bunkers, etc, just like they can bridges and walls. This way it does not make them powerful against armor, but it does make them powerful against bunkers, pillboxes, etc

Very interesting idea :chin:

However I would leave engineers with AT capability. Maybe not that high as German End have but significantly higher than ordinary units.

Best regards

Slawek

Agreed. Hawks idea would involve programming a new functionality while just changing the hard attack value wouldn't. To my knowledge engineers in combat would not blow up pillboxes, but rather the entrance of the pillboxes so there is no need to change the hex to rubble.
Here is a very detailed story how a US company set out to knock out a concrete fortified position. click:
The operations of G company 395th infantry

Last year I visited this particular pillbox and was amazed to find the hose of one of the flamethrowers click:

http://picasaweb.google.nl/huib.versloot...directlink

Huib

[Herr Straße Laufer]

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/28777-u...neers.html

Good points Huib and Hawk.

The most interesting thing about WWII infantry versus armor tactics, is that the Germans built off the lessons of WWI, when they fought "masses" of tanks with little to no anti armor except for some direct fire from artillery weapons. German infantry was first to develp anti armor tactics and did not ignore the early lessons.
The Germans continued between wars to develop infantry tactics versus armor, while the "Allies" often ignored the subject altogether. Especially the Americans. Though they quickly adapted once thrown into combat and they early on had their engineers trained for fighting as combat infantry.

As Jason asked, would I like to see Engineers changed for the version 1.05 update. My initial answer would be "heck yeah", but my more thoughtful answer would be "examine the effects over all the theaters and scenarios" before making wholesale changes.
We have mine laying engineers. We have bridge building engineers. Increasing the mix to add "combat" and non-combat units for all countries would seem to be in order.
It would just need to be a more well thought out attempt at change?

Just my two cents.

RR

[1925frank]

Mwest's post shows the Italians did not train their engineers to fight tanks until March 1940. Those engineers might not have been ready for the Albanian occupation later that same year (October 1940?).

I would not be surprised if the French did not train their engineers to fight tanks in May-June 1940.

I believe the German infantry platoons have very poor hard attacks until the introduction of the panzerfausts. The engineers for the various countries could be treated the same way. It wouldn't necessarily require a new unit. It might require adjusting the hard attack values of the existing units.

I've read where the Italian infantry in North Africa really had to improvise against tanks. I have no idea where the engineers fit into the scheme of things for the Italians in North Africa.

I think it'd require some research.

[Huib Versloot]

Mwest's post shows the Italians did not train their engineers to fight tanks until March 1940. Those engineers might not have been ready for the Albanian occupation later that same year (October 1940?).

I would not be surprised if the French did not train their engineers to fight tanks in May-June 1940.

I believe the German infantry platoons have very poor hard attacks until the introduction of the panzerfausts. The engineers for the various countries could be treated the same way. It wouldn't necessarily require a new unit. It might require adjusting the hard attack values of the existing units.

I've read where the Italian infantry in North Africa really had to improvise against tanks. I have no idea where the engineers fit into the scheme of things for the Italians in North Africa.

I think it'd require some research.

So how are the engineers then going to "knack" the pillboxes if you want to reduce/not improve their hard attack value? If they can't do that, then the scenario makers will have make sure there are other weapons with a good hard attack value in the scenario, or accept that the pillboxes are invincible.