River crossing

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> John Tiller's Campaign Series >> Mods and Scenarios >> River crossing

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River crossing - 8/21/2007 12:55:44 AM

sztartur2

Posts: 672
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: Budapest,Hungary
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Gentlemen,

I have questions regarding the simulation of the river crossing operations in Campaign Series.

By river crossing I mean creating a bridgehead over a river obstacle that is at least one HEX wide not only a hexside stream. I know there is an option to make pontoon bridges in the scenario editor, but that would predict the defenders where the river crossing will take place.

I have experience in Steel Panthers, there rafts are assigned automatically to infantry units if there is a major river on the map. There are barge carrier vehicles available and with barges heavy equipment can be ferried across water obstacles. With the help of a huge smoke screen and the equipment described above the exact location can be kept in secret for a time.

Is there such equipment in campaign series or can engineers make pontoon bridges during scenario play? What are the tools/equipment we can use except building a pontoon bridge in the scenario editor?

Artur.

_____________________________

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.", Sun Tzu

Post #: 1

RE: River crossing - 8/21/2007 1:05:04 AM

Jason Petho

Posts: 15009
Joined: 6/22/2004
From: Terrace, BC, Canada
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: sztartur

Gentlemen,

I have questions regarding the simulation of the river crossing operations in Campaign Series.

By river crossing I mean creating a bridgehead over a river obstacle that is at least one HEX wide not only a hexside stream. I know there is an option to make pontoon bridges in the scenario editor, but that would predict the defenders where the river crossing will take place.

I have experience in Steel Panthers, there rafts are assigned automatically to infantry units if there is a major river on the map. There are barge carrier vehicles available and with barges heavy equipment can be ferried across water obstacles. With the help of a huge smoke screen and the equipment described above the exact location can be kept in secret for a time.

Is there such equipment in campaign series or can engineers make pontoon bridges during scenario play? What are the tools/equipment we can use except building a pontoon bridge in the scenario editor?

Artur.

There are pontoon ferries available in East Front for the Germans and Russian forces. These can be transported by truck and unloaded into shallow water or a marsh (assuming the marsh has some form of road into it).

From there, you can load a variety of unit types onto the Pontoon ferry and move it back and forth across the river.

There are also self propelled motorboats that function the same way.

Alternatively or additionally, you could have a number of pre built pontoons, covered in mines and blocks allowing the player to pick one to cross. By clearing the mines and blocks could simulate building a bridge by the engineers. This is something I have done for one of my own designs.

Furthermore, you could have the boats, rafts, what have you, arrive as reinforcements already in the water - transport not being necessary. Unfortunately, you are limited to hex placement in the scenario editor in order for this to work, and really doesn't provide many options as the opposing force will generally know where your boats are due.

Some ideas anyway.

Jason Petho

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(in reply to sztartur2)

Post #: 2

RE: River crossing - 8/21/2007 1:17:54 AM

sztartur2

Posts: 672
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: Budapest,Hungary
Status: offline

Thanks Jason, I will take a look at those units and experiment with the editor. I will sure make a wish about engineers making pontoon bridges in the appropriate thread.

Artur.

_____________________________

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.", Sun Tzu

(in reply to Jason Petho)

Post #: 3

RE: River crossing - 8/21/2007 1:25:33 AM

1925frank

Posts: 1039
Joined: 6/20/2006
Status: offline

Infantry can carry boats and rafts on land. That's about the only means I know of to give a player complete flexibility to choose a point of crossing. Then again, infantry can't move very fast while transporting boats and rafts, so time would limit the range. I'm not sure if AT guns can be loaded on a raft or boat. I'm fairly sure motars can be loaded on a raft or boat. If you had .88s on the friendly shore and a line of sight to the far shore, that could be used to discourage tanks counterattacking the bridgehead.

Wasn't it necessary to secure the far shore before attempting the construction of a pontoon? I think that's what Jason is driving at. You'd have some troops on the far shore trying to preserve the bridgehead long enough for the engineers to clear the minefields and roadblocks to get to the pontoons as an artificial means of simulating the time it would take to construct the pontoon. The reinforcements on the friendly shore would have to wait for the engineers to do their job.

I read somewhere where the Russians would simulate pontoon-building activity at several points along a river to keep the Germans guessing. For our purposes, you could have several pontoons crossings, but you'd have freedom to choose which one you actually used. To make it work, I'd imagine the defenders would have to have insufficient forces to cover all the pontoons crossings effectively.

(in reply to Jason Petho)

Post #: 4

RE: River crossing - 8/21/2007 1:50:39 AM

1925frank

Posts: 1039
Joined: 6/20/2006
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Another way to simulate the uncertainty of the time it would take to construct a pontoon is to have the reinforcements on the friendly shore fixed with variable release percentages. With the mines and roadblocks, you'd know precisely which turn the path would be clear, unless the engineers were being chased off by enemy fire.

You can use barges to transport heavy equipment, but I don't recall whether you can unload from deep water onto land. It may require moving the barge into shallow water and unloading in shallow water. If you have a one hex deep water river without shallow water to unload in, it wouldn't work.

(in reply to 1925frank)

Post #: 5

RE: River crossing - 1/3/2008 1:46:05 PM

baltjes

Posts: 59
Joined: 7/21/2007
Status: offline

Hello Jason and other gamers,

At first, Happy and Healthy 2008 for all of you.

about river crossing.

I did some experiments in West Front. In the German and (wetfront)Allied OOB you can't find Fery pontoons. However they are present in the Russian and Sovjet OOB's. It is possible to construct a Russian Ferry unit within the UK (or USA) OOB. It is also possible to slot a Sovjet Ferry unit into the German OOB.

For making a river crossing over a (at least) one hex wide river, at a place to be detemined by 'flow of game' (I do not know the appropriate english word for it, but I hope you understand what I mean), which is not disclosed at forehand by the opponent, you need Ferry units, Engineer units and Engineer Truck units.

Ferry pontoons can only be loaded on Engineer trucks in order to be transported to the very place where the river crossing is going to happen. Suppose you are playing the Allied side in Westfront and want to have rivercrossing possibilities in your scenario. Then you should (could) do the following: Place a Russian Ferry pontoon from your Allied OOB in a hex. Place an Engineer unit (can be a Russian or an British/USA unit) into the same hex. Load both. Place an Engineer truck unit in that same hex (can be Russian or British/USA unit). Select the Ferry/engineer combination AND the Engineer Truck unit and press on the load function. The engineer unit that has 'lifted' the ferry-pontoon (by hands or cranes or whatever) will place the ferry now onto the engineer truck and will have its hand free again to do other jobs, e.g. placing another ferry onto another engineer truck. This operation can be done on any land hex of your map. The ferry pontoon is now capable of being transported to and unloaded on any riverhex where you want to have a river crossing and your opponent is onaware of! PROVIDED, the unloading is done in shallow water! Now,your Ferry pontoon can transport any other unit over the river to a shallow water hex on the far shore.

If you are playing the Germans, the 'trick' can be done with a Sovjet Ferry pontoon.

I tend to use Russian (Sovjet) bridging engineers and Engineer trucks rather than the ones of the appropriate countries because (apart from the fact that I am a lazy guy that wants to change the lowest possible number of units when contructing a OOB) these type of units are so special, that a different color onthe map makes them quite easy recognizable. A More important reason, however, is the fact that Russian (Sovjet) Engineer trucks have less movement capability (less movement points) than their UK/USA counterparts. And a transport of Ferries is a heavy type of transport, going much slower than a truck full with canned beef running up to the front to feed the troops.

To have a real river crossing operation carried out this way with a whole didvision or so, requires a lot of planning and movement in advance and (thus) a sound strategy on where and when to "storm'the other shore. But tis is just I like so much in the Campains Series.

Hajo Baltjes

(in reply to Jason Petho)

Post #: 6

RE: River crossing - 2/9/2008 1:18:58 AM

countblue

Posts: 160
Joined: 1/8/2008
From: Vienna,Austria
Status: offline

Has anybody realized that one can transport now even "Transports" over a river with those pontoon ferries? I tried it out with 251/1 and similar apcs, I guess it should work with anykind of transport. I did not try with tanks so far.

In order to complete that you need a marsh or swamp with any type of road through.
Now you can drive the "Transports" and the ferries onto one hex and load them up.
Of course in order to unload sucessfully you need again a road/swamp/marsh combination on the other side too.

---
Correction
You can unload even on marsh/swamp/shallow water (without a road) but of course you have to take care about the surrounding hexes of your landing spot, so you can leave that hex with a "transport".

< Message edited by countblue -- 2/12/2008 12:32:12 PM >

(in reply to baltjes)

Post #: 7

RE: River crossing - 2/9/2008 2:11:34 AM

Jason Petho

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From: Terrace, BC, Canada
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As you've seen, Pontoon Ferries should be able to carry anything across a river hex, with the exception of Engineer Trucks.

Jason Petho

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(in reply to countblue)

Post #: 8

RE: River crossing - 2/9/2008 3:20:21 AM

tide1212

Posts: 446
Joined: 7/25/2003
From: New England
Status: offline

Tanks also....I love that

Tank support for the infantry when they hit the beach!!!!!!

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RE: River crossing - 2/23/2008 11:30:19 PM

countblue

Posts: 160
Joined: 1/8/2008
From: Vienna,Austria
Status: offline

I wanted to verify that floating tanks over a river on ferries is realistic and when researching found the following:

(translated from german- from "Das Lexikon der Wehrmacht" http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Zusatz/Heer/Pionierbataillon.htm
----------
Bridgecompany B (mot)

The bridgecompany B existed in peacetime only as material unit with a small base of personal and was only raised to full numbers at war time.
For the purpose of bridgebuilding men from other companies of the battalion had to be supplied.

- Group Leader
- 1. Pontoon Platoon with 8 Half-Pontoons 1 M-Boat
- 2. Pontoon Platoon with 8 Half-Pontoons 6 landing boats

- Supplemental platoon with ramp parts, ferryropes, 20 small and 24 big inflatable raft

- Support and luggage train with fieldkitchen and petrol trucks.

With the equipment of bride company the following things could be build:

A) ferries:
8 ferries with a capacity of 4t each
or 4 ferries with a capacity of 8t each
or 2 ferries with a capacity of 16t each
or 1 ferries with a capacity of 20t each

or
B) Bridges
4 t capacity 130m length or
8t and 80m length or
20t and 50m length
-----------

This shows a max capacity of 20t for the ferries which could carry some Pz III and the smaller tanks.
Although it would actually not be suffice for a Pz IV or the even more heavy Panthers and Tigers.
And the bridges this unit could build are not large enaough to cross a full hex river (250m).

< Message edited by countblue -- 3/8/2008 8:43:37 PM >

(in reply to tide1212)

Post #: 10