"Engineer" APC?

[PatG]

I have been reading up on the 79th Armoured Division funnies and in several places it mentions that the AVRE were designed to carry demolition teams under armour that could exit through doors in the side of the Churchills to manually place charges.

I hacked up the British OOB to create the teams and add them to the AVRE troop unit. They work a treat, beetling around lobbing satchel charges at the bad guys but...when mounted up on the AVREs the seem to be like any other infantry on tanks - hanging on the outside. One solution would be to change the Churchills class to Tracked APC but that would lose its obstacle clearing capability. There doesn't seem to be an Engineer APC class.

Outside of the scenario editor, is there a way for an engineering vehicle to carry troops as passengers?

Thanks.

[PanzerBob]

Any idea how MBT handles ENG APC's ? There in may lie an answer. Just a thought.

Prosit!

[Mobhack]

I have never heard of any use of dismounting teams by AVRES myself, but an AVRE is a 'tank' and so does not have the protected flag for passengers, like 'APC' classes, so the pax are considered to be tank riders, not internally carried.

Cheers
Andy

[PatG]

Thanks for the suggestion PanzerBoB, any I checked are engineer tanks with no carrying capacity. Interestingly, the Merkava series is also an MBT carrying troops externally. I know there was a big discussion about this on the MBT list and I have no intention of resurrecting it.

Andy, the book is:Churchill's Secret Weapons: The Story of Hobart's Funnies by Patrick Delaforce first published in 1998, reprint 2006. Delaforce served with a tank unit during the war which lends some credibility but in my view, he is given to excess use of exclamation marks! And he seems to see Churchill as some sort of visionary armour expert!(!)

Page 77:

The Churchill tank, although slow and ponderous, was roomy, had tough defensive armour and side-access hatches in the track frames. Through these a demolitions NCO from the crew of five could exit with General Wade charges, and place them in position against sea walls or whatever the object that needed to be demolished.

There are references in the text to this happening in the field which I may edit in later.

To wrap up - this tactical use of dismounted demolition teams can be considered to be part of the general obstacle clearing capacity of the AVRE. To add the teams to the game would be to add a tiny piece of "chrome" only slightly more common than oh say Brandenburgers.

My one frustration is that the "carry as passengers" flag can be set for any unit in the scenario editor, but it is not accessible through Mobhack.

Oh well, an incentive to make a Funnies campaign I guess.

[Mobhack]

My one frustration is that the "carry as passengers" flag can be set for any unit in the scenario editor, but it is not accessible through Mobhack.

The scenario editor deals with the in-game data, which has a flag for protected. It has a variable that stores smoke ammo.

Mobhack has none of that, as the setting of the protected flag is determined by the unit creation code, by reference to the unit class. As is the number of smoke rounds - note lack of any such field in the mobhack editor.

Cheers
andy

[oragus]

Pat,

To me it that sounds like the AVRE carried just one demo expert that was a NCO, capable of solo charge placements, not an entire team. The Churchill is big and roomy but not that big and roomy.

[PatG]

Thanks for the explanation Andy. That absolutely puts dismountable engineers in the scenario only category.

[PatG]

My reading and several websites support that. Rather than the Churchill's 5 crew, the AVRE had a sixth - the demolitions NCO.

The teams I used in testing had only 2 men and were therefore very fragile - the prototypical 1 man would be worse.

For those interested, a bunch of links on the topic of AVREs, extra demo charges and dismounts:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/s...a2690228.shtml

http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/stories/avre-stories.html

http://www.cwgcuser.org.uk/personal/...e/lifday07.htm

http://www.remuseum.org.uk/campaign/...n_overlord.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/s...a2181683.shtml

http://www.d-daytanks.org.uk/articles/avre.html

[Marek_Tucan]

The quote you provided seems to suggest the dismount would happen when not under fir (direct fire, that is) so the fragility may not be such a problem?

[PatG]

The book I quoted earlier refers to beehive charges used at Douvres la Delivrande. Entire crews dismounted to search for mines near the river Odon. Near Le Havre

Lance Sergeant Finan received the MM for working with his five-man AVRE crew dismounted, clearing mines and road blocks under mortar and small arms fire.

Wade charges are mentioned in the fighting in Boulogne.

the first link above says:

The crew also had plenty of ‘standard’ explosives in their Churchill, with names like General Wade, or the Beehive. These could be planted against a pillbox or concrete obstacle using the tank as cover, and then blown up from the safety of the tank. Churchill tanks normally had 5 crew, but in the AVRE there was a sixth member, the demolition NCO, who looked after this huge amount of explosive.

So certainly the demolitions NCO did sometimes dismount to place charges or carry out other engineering tasks under fire. However, this is already handled in the game by the obstacle removing capability of engineering tanks. The dismounts are fun to muck around with though .