Instant Airfields. Blowing Bridges
Infrastructure: Instant Airfields, Blowing Bridges, Seabees, Cutting Trails, Building Roads and Railways, Saboteurs
Airfields
Add US Marsden Mat Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) for an instant airfield. Many countries took months to build an airfield, which is well beyond the scope of a scenario, but the US used PSP for significantly faster operation. The US PSP unit would be like a bridging unit but with 0 movement, organic transport for mobility, and "aircraft carrier" class.
We can add other improvised airfields if PG Forever (PGF) adds different airfield types for different types of planes:
The PG/AG bridging engineers as a super combat unit is strange since it is difficult to build a bridge (even a pontoon bridge) before you own both sides of the river. Units like the Seabees worked under fire and defended themselves but were not elite combat units. The seabees recruited skilled craftsmen who would be considered old men for commandos. Seabees are not SEALs.
It would be more realistic for an assault unit to suffer the river penalty while crossing in boats to secure the bridgehead before a separate bridging unit gets to work.
The problem is that AG uses the bridging unit as an elite assault force even when a bridge is unecessary in Overlord despite the existence of a separate US combat-engineer unit. Therefore, it is not practical to change the bridging units much without compromising existing scenarios which have critical first turns. However, you can add a more normal, non-combat bridging unit as a supplement.
The gameplay advantage of non-combat bridging units is that you can leave them in place as infrastructure (especially for games which add supply lines) and the enemy can try to destroy them by air attacks.
Blowing Bridges
The two problems for realistic infrastructure like bridges:
Building Roads/Railways, Cutting Trails
It would be good to have trail (through jungle), road, and rail units like the non-combat bridge units that you can lay end-to end or use to replace terrain to build trails, roads, and railroads.
Saboteurs
The ability to blow bridge/road/rail infrastructure would bring new importance to paratroopers, commandos, and partisans.
Airfields
Add US Marsden Mat Pierced Steel Planking (PSP) for an instant airfield. Many countries took months to build an airfield, which is well beyond the scope of a scenario, but the US used PSP for significantly faster operation. The US PSP unit would be like a bridging unit but with 0 movement, organic transport for mobility, and "aircraft carrier" class.
We can add other improvised airfields if PG Forever (PGF) adds different airfield types for different types of planes:
- Aircraft carriers for carrier aircraft
- Unpaved airfields for light or Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) planes such as a Spitfire or Storch, where a moble airfield (trucked aircraft carrier) represents a unit's staff (planning, ground crew, logistics) that can operate from a grass field
The PG/AG bridging engineers as a super combat unit is strange since it is difficult to build a bridge (even a pontoon bridge) before you own both sides of the river. Units like the Seabees worked under fire and defended themselves but were not elite combat units. The seabees recruited skilled craftsmen who would be considered old men for commandos. Seabees are not SEALs.
It would be more realistic for an assault unit to suffer the river penalty while crossing in boats to secure the bridgehead before a separate bridging unit gets to work.
The problem is that AG uses the bridging unit as an elite assault force even when a bridge is unecessary in Overlord despite the existence of a separate US combat-engineer unit. Therefore, it is not practical to change the bridging units much without compromising existing scenarios which have critical first turns. However, you can add a more normal, non-combat bridging unit as a supplement.
The gameplay advantage of non-combat bridging units is that you can leave them in place as infrastructure (especially for games which add supply lines) and the enemy can try to destroy them by air attacks.
Blowing Bridges
The two problems for realistic infrastructure like bridges:
- You cannot capture a bridge that is a unit, so cannot use the other side's bridge (which is OK for some applications like pontoon bridges or PSP airfields that are essentially bases with base defenses and could be demolished before surrender--but not OK for all situations)
- You cannot blow (disband) a bridge that is not a unit
Building Roads/Railways, Cutting Trails
It would be good to have trail (through jungle), road, and rail units like the non-combat bridge units that you can lay end-to end or use to replace terrain to build trails, roads, and railroads.
Saboteurs
The ability to blow bridge/road/rail infrastructure would bring new importance to paratroopers, commandos, and partisans.
posted by AGW at 10:32 PM
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