Engineers

[renaissance_man_30533]

I have seen a couple of posts on engineers so I thought I would share some positive experiences/approaches since most are negative.

First, I only use engineers in the defense. Limited to mines clearing and bridging in the offense, engineers have a much greater role in the defense than in the offense. In the defense engineers are a key component in transitioning from a hasty defense to a deliberate defense.

First I have them dig trenches at key locations for the defense. I place 3 or no more than 4 infantry in a trench (allows them to spread out thus more survivable) and set up my trenches so they are in supporting distance IE overlap fire to a degree. Thus, I need to build @ three trenches per squad and pull them back a few men at a time when they need resupply or re position men and especially MGs as attacks unfold. This usually means I am building trenches up to and including in the first attack. While the engineers are building the trenches, I have the infantry squads (usually two) pull AP mines from the Engineer truck and lay them in infantry avenues of approach. IE forested areas that lead into my battle position and/ or flank areas. I only use AT mines if the map has good choke-points forcing the armor into tight areas. (Based on maps currently available this is river crossings or urban areas) I have them lay mines for about two minutes or about the time the engineers are finishing the second trench. I send one squad to the first trench and one to the second trench then spread them out as the trenches are completed and the situation develops.

Once the trenches are in and the squads spread out I transition the engineers to building obstacles to keep the AI moving into my sectors of fire. First priority is tank obstacles on the flanks to make sure the AI does not send that lone tank on a flank forcing me to micro anti-tank weapons or tanks out of position just to deal with it. As long as there is not an active attack going in on a flank then the engineers can do their work without getting killed. Second priority is anti-personnel wire in forested or flank areas. Doctrinally these should be far enough out that they prevent the enemy from throwing a grenade into a trench. I have not experienced the AI trying t breach wire so again I can deny a flank and force the infantry into my MGs and trench kill zones.

While the field engineers are finishing with the flank obstacles, I have the mine laying engineers continue to mine the flanks, and when the attacks begin to slow, the front. They resupply 32 anti-personnel mines each time they return to the engineer truck, which is enough to lay a small minefield. Since I generally do not use all the engineering resupply capability from the engineering truck, I just keep laying mines. I place these in front of the AT obstacles so infantry can not use them for cover, and in front of the wire to fend off any breach attempts. Now note that the mines in the truck do not resupply, even when you resupply between missions. Some have just chosen to sell the empty truck buy a new engineer truck as necessary to keep stocked which is a good strategy if money is not an issue. The only way to resupply the truck is have the AP or AT engineers resupply with mines and put them back in the truck. This kind of micro is doable when the attack fade out but only worth doing if you no longer need to mirco units for resupply.

Note that infantry that carry mines like the mountain troops do resupply when you resupply them between missions so if you use them as one of your infantry squads in the defense you will always have some mines available even if the engineer truck runs out.

When all obstacles and mines worth building are in place I put the engineers in a trench or have them dig foxholes using them as flank security.

It is not unusual for a deliberate defense to have to be finished under fire in real life. Engineers must be protected/over-watched as they do their job, and laying mines during the initial phases of a defense is an infantry job.

Now as to the frustrations some have expressed regarding trying to plan and initiate in a matter of seconds what is more typically planned out and communicated over the course of hours, that is just a given constraint playing a game that is designed to be finished in 30-60 minutes. In the real world a hasty defense takes several hours to set up and dig in, and a deliberate defense with trenches and obstacles can take days. All the while as the company grade officer or mid to senior NCO you are checking on how the fields of fire overlap, what are the engagement ranges for each weapons system, and how to use the engineering plan to force the opponents into your kill zones. My suggestion here to the developers would be to allow the equivalent of a "leaders recon" in which you could see the map before the mission starts and stack commands on units so they would go to and start work on the first job assigned before the game starts and they are waiting for orders in the assembly area.

However, you can quit the game and redesign your defense as may times as you need to in order to counter all opposing force attack approaches. This differs from real life in that you only get one chance to do it right in real life, and you have to write a lot of letter to next of kin if you get it wrong.

[Cryptic]

Personally I find the engineers very useful for creating defenses and repairing stuff

[Ceredh]

You must be a god of instruction sequence. I usually get them digging 2 to 3 trenches while I position AT guns and infantry before the attack starts. I'm definitely too slow, obviously.

[renaissance_man_30533]

You are right about the focus, the first thing I do is provision the engineer truck in the first group of deployed units and direct the engineer truck to fast drive to the defense location before I give any other commands, Then as soon as it arrives I focus on getting the engineers working before I give commands to any other units. Depending how far across the map you have to drive this can leave very little time to actually work before the first probes/attacks.

But to be clear, I usually do not finish the engineer work before the infantry and AT are repelling the initial attacks. This is why I have to prioritize completing the trenches covering the primary infantry avenue of approach and securing the AT on the primary armor avenue of approach with the engineers before the first attacks and work out from there (mutually supporting trenches to the primary avenues of approach and supplemental trenches covering any secondary approaches). By the time you are completing the flank obstacles and mines, your infantry, AT and Tanks will probably be needing resupply since they have been fighting the entire time.

But obstacle plans and deliberate defense are usually not ever really completed. You continually improve the defense setup as long as you occupy the position. It is not part of the game but engineers and the infantry occupying the position also add bunkers, protected observation posts, communications trenches for protected movement under fire and create secure ammo stockpiles closer to the front. In the real world it is exhausting, but the quip is that you would rather have soldiers who were exhausted as opposed to dead. So the fact that some tasks are completed in a lull on one side of your defense while the other side is actively repelling an attack is not unrealistic.

To ease this the developers, if they chose to do so, could make the countdown to the first probe/attack start only after one has units in the defense area rather than as soon as the map is activated. Also, it would be much easier if the crew served weapons did not require quite so much micro to place them. If they clicked into place behind concealment and with good fields of fire then it would both make setting up the defense smoother and a little more realistic. Even the worst soldier will try to do a good job if he is expecting to get shot at, so they would not set up in a location that was exposed or could not fire.

[Egro]

leave real world out of the game, you don't know ♥♥♥♥ about real world combat..lol. I watch a single combat engineer company build a freaking fort under 30 mins and this boi believe it would take a day, a fking day when your enemies are coming for your ass.. jesus.

[Ceredh]

That's not very polite. I think renaissance_man spoke about a system of deeper trenches, not about a "fort", in whatever way that may be constructed (with prepared elements?). If you don't have heavy machinery the construction of trenches takes time. As far as I know an estimation from WW I was about 450 men digging 6 hours for a trench of 250 m length, if undisturbed by enemy activity. And that's just the beginning, optimizing trenches is a difficult and long lasting task.

[renaissance_man_30533]

Just for the record, I am a West Point graduate during the Cold War and veteran of the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) and First Gulf War. I am very familiar with the eras mechanics of building a deliberate defense using engineer support in the real world. But you have a right to your opinion. Cereth, thanks for your consideration, and yes the technology and resources do have an effect. The earth moving equipment and pre-made barriers of today has changed parameters around construction verses previous generations. That being said, I expect it took more than a squad of combat engineers to build a "Fort". When I site 24 hours, these are the Army Training and Evaluation Program Standards from the Cold War era, designed based on battles from WW2 and Korea.

[Draknah]

The large fox holes come in handy