Capturing Bunkers

[MBear]

How the heck do you capture bunkers. Playing Normandy, Omaha Beach, what do you need to push out the Germans? Advice please.

[LordDeadwood]

Patience, a lot of blood, and a little luck!

As you have no doubt discovered by now, air strikes do little good. The big naval guns do some damage, but destroyers? Not so much. And mortars are an exercise in futility. That being said, ALL of these attacks CAN produce results, it's just that they usually don't. Which means you have to keep pounding them over and over and over again to try to disrupt the defenders. A full-strength infantry company can sometimes do some damage with direct fire, but it can be pretty difficult to get a full company together, especially early in the landings. The best method imo is to isolate the bunkers. This will reduce the defender's morale level and increase your chances for disruption. Once the bunker is isolated, repeated assaults will eventually reduce it. Of course, if you can manage to disrupt the defenders it's better to assault without it being surrounded so that they will vacate the hex.

The Battles of Normandy Omaha scenario (and the full Longest Day scenario) does a very good job at simulating the difficulty of the landings. Capturing bunkers in the PzB/PzC series is difficult under normal circumstances. Doing the same on D-Day is that much more so! The Omaha scenario is particularly difficult because you only have 16 turns. The Longest Day scenario covers the entire day (40 turns). By the end of that you can usually get off the beach (at Omaha) and inland a few clicks. The other beaches are, as they were historically, easier to manage. But Omaha earns its nickname: Bloody Omaha.

[RickyB]

LordDeadwood got it from my perspective. Note also, you don't have to assault/take all of the bunkers early on. Based on the status of the individual positions, note that some of the bunkers are lower case/Bunkers rather than BUNKERs as the Germans hadn't finished them, and there are a couple of weak spots on top of that. Focus your efforts there and you should be able to achieve fairly historical advances in the historical areas - what happened on D-Day was partly driven by these weak spots in the defenses and the game seems to capture that well, from my plays of the scenario.

[Steel God]

I've noticed 420mm Siege Guns do a bang up job on Bunkers Don't suppose there's any lying about on Omaha?

[MBear]

Thanks, appreciate the feedback, sounds like I just need to keep pounding with everything I can bring to bear. Wondering why engineers don't seem to make much impact-do they have an impact? I thought they were critical based on experience in Panzer Campaigns to overcome a bunker but doesn't seem to have the same impact. Thoughts?

[RickyB]

Thanks, appreciate the feedback, sounds like I just need to keep pounding with everything I can bring to bear. Wondering why engineers don't seem to make much impact-do they have an impact? I thought they were critical based on experience in Panzer Campaigns to overcome a bunker but doesn't seem to have the same impact. Thoughts?

Engineers pack a punch in assaulting. Keep in mind that when assaulting, all attacking units use the lowest assaulting unit's current morale. So assault with those units that have the same morale, avoiding say mixing one D quality with Bs, until the defenders are disrupted and can be pushed out or destroyed.

I will typically assault with the lowest morale group first, then move up a level at a time until I get the best quality units assaulting last.

[RickyB]

I've noticed 420mm Siege Guns do a bang up job on Bunkers Don't suppose there's any lying about on Omaha?

Maybe the paras will haul one over from Utah?

[MBear]

Thanks for the advice everyone, including the search for a 420mm Siege Gun, but don't think thats going to get me off the beach on Omaha! Thanks again for those who responded.

[ULYSSE]

I can confirm how difficult it is to overcome a bunker on the shore.

I am trying to land on Sword, Juno and Gold beaches and even big powerful tanks such as AVRE are useless.