Idle hands: Engineers dismantle barbed wire while waiting!

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Idle hands: Engineers dismantle barbed wire while waiting! - 1/11/2001 2:08:00 AM

Tommy

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I just noticed an annoying and/or puzzling behavior by my German Engineers. They are waiting behind a row of barbed wire and mines for the Russians to show up. They are facing the obstacles of course. At the conclusion of most turns when they have had no fighting to do; they remove mines and barbed wire in front of them. That's their own barbed wire and mines! Why would any sane soldier dismantle his own protection while waiting around? On a related point, these same Engineers were earlier designated to "will place mines in front of unit". They sat for several turns at 0 suppression, no combat and didn't lay a single mine. Why not? Tommy

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- 1/11/2001 2:16:00 AM

Lars Remmen

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From: Copenhagen, Denmark
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quote:

Originally posted by Tommy: I just noticed an annoying and/or puzzling behavior by my German Engineers. They are waiting behind a row of barbed wire and mines for the Russians to show up. They are facing the obstacles of course. At the conclusion of most turns when they have had no fighting to do; they remove mines and barbed wire in front of them. That's their own barbed wire and mines! Why would any sane soldier dismantle his own protection while waiting around? On a related point, these same Engineers were earlier designated to "will place mines in front of unit". They sat for several turns at 0 suppression, no combat and didn't lay a single mine. Why not? Tommy

Hello, From the unit info screen you can choose to let the engineers remove mines/obstacles, place mines or to take no action. Perhaps you have accidently set them to remove. Set them to no action and they will take a shot nap during the mine/obstacle removal phase. Or let them place additional mines just to keep them busy :-) Placing mines takes a lot of time and if the engineers are fighting none are usually placed (at least when I have tried). ------------------ Lars Nec Temere - Nec Timide [This message has been edited by Lars Remmen (edited January 10, 2001).]

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- 1/11/2001 2:21:00 AM

Arralen

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1. mine removal A good soldier will do what you told him - if you tell him to remove the mines, he will do so, not matter who laid them. In WW2, you asked for orders, not explanations

2. mine laying High experience does help here, and maybe even defensive stance, but I'm not shure about that. Than the terrain you want them to lay the mines into seems to make a difference - a had a eng squad that needed 8 (!) turns to lay a single mine into a grass/street hex, but layed 1..2 mines / turn into the neighbouring grass-only hex. Likewise it seems to me that they sometimes have difficulties starting minelaying - the first mine needs ages to appear, but after that speed seems to increase. Bottom line of this - if you want mines, buy them at the start and place them yourself

Arralen

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- 1/11/2001 2:23:00 AM

Charles22

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Tommy: Did you know that there's "3" toggles for engineer mine treatment? One of them, the one you didn't mention, neither lays mines nor removes them. About laying mines, they will do it, given time and that you're actually looking at the same engineer unit that you toggled to lay mines. Generally they lay mines every 1-4 turns, though I suppose it's possible that they may not lay any at all. From what I've seen, it's very rare that 1 group of eight German engineers will have a unit which hasn't lain any by turn 8 (and most have lain a couple).

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- 1/11/2001 2:46:00 AM

AmmoSgt

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Tommy those engineers are going to be converting that barbed wire into mines if you use place mines if you have them facing the obsticals they are still going to cut wire at least mine do ... i never put engineers right up on the obsticals for my own tactical resons .. i think you will find that somehow crazy as it seems engineers have the same close assulat as anybody else when adjent to the enemy but use flame throwers and satachel charges only when they are too suppressed to close asualt so i hold them back wait for the prey then after reg infanrty has had a shot at supressing the target hit with engineers if the close assualt doesn't get the target i try to rally to say 10 then torch'em works real good

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- 1/11/2001 3:04:00 AM

Tommy

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I took all of your advice, I went back and re-ran a few turns (Last Stand at Seelowe) to see if I had done it right. The Eng all were set to "lay mines" which I presumed to mean they wouldn't also clear mines in the same turn. Maybe that's why they lay so few mines. The guy in the front puts them down and the guy in the back picks them back up! I also noted that the FJ Airborne troops also are clearing stuff; they have no switch setting to turn off that activity as the Eng's do. Tommy

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- 1/11/2001 3:51:00 AM

Charles22

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Engineers 'do not' place mines and then pick them back up (with the same toggled command), with us only hoping that the laying outpaces the taking. IF mines are being removed/placed both, it's because there's more then one obstacle type in the hex. Perhaps it's removing barbed-wire in order to place more mines, etc. BTW, from what I've seen, you cannot set the mine treatment toggle for the entire group at one time, but must do them all individually. If you have a engineer in one hex, a mined hex behind that, and another engineer behind the mine, then you could easily have the front eng. laying mines, while the back eng. could be clearing them, but I don't know why anyone would do that. I suspect the answer to this sort of problem, is to learn to deal with each unit's toggle individually, and to learn to set one of them (or both) to lay the mines, while the other, should you wish him to face the mines and not clear them, to have the "3rd" option in use, that being the one that allows the engineer to neither clear nor lay. [This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited January 10, 2001).]

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- 1/11/2001 6:34:00 AM

kao16

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Just curious and don't have the manual to hand. For engineers to lay mines - do you actually have to have bought them (mine) in the purchase phase, or do engineers come equiped with mines (unlimited?) that they can place at any time? [This message has been edited by kao16 (edited January 10, 2001).]

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- 1/11/2001 6:52:00 AM

Wild Bill

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Sounds like some real dumb-asses to me, Tommy! Don't worry, they won't last long on the Eastern Front with that kind of performance!

Dress 'em down and tell to get their headgear on straight!

Wild Bill ------------------ In Arduis Fidelis Wild Bill Wilder Coordinator, Scenario Design Matrix Games

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- 1/11/2001 8:17:00 AM

Charles22

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kao16: They can lay them anytime, mines or no mines.

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- 1/11/2001 9:05:00 AM

MECH ENGINEER

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Just a natural response for an engineer. Put them out, then pick up. Wouldn't know how to act any other way

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- 1/11/2001 9:05:00 AM

MECH ENGINEER

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Just a natural response for an engineer. Put them out, then pick up. Wouldn't know how to act any other way

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- 1/11/2001 11:10:00 AM

BruceAZ

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I have found that to set the stance to no action is OK but now I just leave one hex between them and the obstacles. Seems to work well.

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- 1/11/2001 8:01:00 PM

Tommy

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Thanks Mech Engineer, glad to see someone shares my sense of humor. Charles22 - the pick up/put down line was my attempt at a joke to explain why the Combat Eng don't seem to leave many mines behind

BTW, The Russians laid so much smoke that I had to bring the troops right up to the wire & minefields so they could attack the Russians hung up in it. Remember; an obstacle not covered by fire is no obstacle at all! Tommy Electrical Engineer

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- 1/11/2001 9:08:00 PM

Charles22

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Yeah that's my current philosophy with mines. I believe in the mines protecting some of my units, and also those units protecting the mines. I used to put a slew of mines of the deployment line and then string out some of the infantry behind that, with my ATGs and tanks being maybe 15 hexes behind them. Now it's more like my entire field of mines/infantry/tanks/ATGs are all within some 8 hexes of each other. I like to put mines right in front of infantry, whereas, generally, I like to move engineers a hex further back from a mine, so that in the engineer's case, he is building something of a second line of mines instead of just beefing up the first.

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