Stacking: Wrecks block bridges

[mmacguinness]

One wreck blocks a bridge causing other units to make huge detours. In the attached screenshot, the nearest other bridge is over 2km away for a round trip of over 4km.

Unless it is a very small bridge, it would be wide enough to let a vehicle pass a wreck.
In RL there will very likely be wrecked cars and trucks on every road and bridge.
If tanks can't pass a wreck, they will push it over the aside or out of the way rather than make a 4 or 5 km detour.
If they can't move it, they will call for engineers before detouring.

Proposed solution:
A) wrecks should not count towards stacking limits
B) eliminate stacking limits.

From TacOps Gazette by its developer:

<<Are there stacking rules in TacOps?>>
No. I rely on enemy artillery to discourage stacking.
and..
[There is no need to have the game enforce stacking limits. Your opponent's artillery will generally drive the lesson home about not bunching up.]

[Veitikka]

In real life it can be very dangerous to go close to a vehicle that's burning and exploding. In the game, after the vehicle has stopped burning other units can enter the map cell. The vehicle sprite becomes transparent at this point.

The plan is to increase the stacking limit in the future.

[mmacguinness]

very dangerous to go close to a vehicle that's burning and exploding

True. However, it's not clear in the screenshot because of the path marking, but the tank is not burning.

Most "destroyed" vehicles are not actually destroyed outright, merely damaged enough (maybe a panicked or injured crew or just a broken track) to put them out of action until they can be recovered and repaired. Up to 90% can be repaired and back in service in three days. In 2006, only three of the about thirty Israeli tanks "destroyed"in action actually destroyed and irreparable, the remainder were recovered, repaired and put back in service

Even if it's burning, if my platoon commander orders me to "Push that *kin tank out of the *kin way and clear the *kin road", I'll say "yes sir", button up and shove it out of the way. If it blows, likely the worst than can happen is its turret lands on my tank and bends something, but the platoon, company and battalion can proceed.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: mmacguinness

very dangerous to go close to a vehicle that's burning and exploding

True. However, it's not clear in the screenshot because of the path marking, but the tank is not burning.

Most "destroyed" vehicles are not actually destroyed outright, merely damaged enough (maybe a panicked or injured crew or just a broken track) to put them out of action until they can be recovered and repaired. Up to 90% can be repaired and back in service in three days. In 2006, only three of the about thirty Israeli tanks "destroyed"in action actually destroyed and irreparable, the remainder were recovered, repaired and put back in service

Even if it's burning, if my platoon commander orders me to "Push that *kin tank out of the *kin way and clear the *kin road", I'll say "yes sir", button up and shove it out of the way. If it blows, likely the worst than can happen is its turret lands on my tank and bends something, but the platoon, company and battalion can proceed.

Was thinking about it recently.

Problems:
Dimensions of vehicles, weight of vehicles, size of streets, etc.

Like some vehicles should block streets, depending on directions.

Some shouldn't.

Then, for example, what if the moving unit is a M113 or the wreck is M1 Abrams?

What if one vehicle gets destroyed and another gets destroyed in the same cell?

[mmacguinness]

Multiple wrecks can create a serious obstacle, IF they are close together. Most likely to happen if trying to push past an existing wreck or obstacle as at Arnhem in the movie A Bridge Too Far. If two or three vehicles get nailed by ground forces in one spot, I take seriously my Opfor's suggestion I try a different axis of attack.

Single wrecks can block an old-city narrow street, there will likely be no practical way to clear it. It's not clear that the city streets in the game distinguish between modern wider streets and old-city narrow streets. LOS often tracks through the building icons.

Most bridges are wide enough for several vehicles to cross side by side, ignoring marked traffic lanes. Older smaller bridges are often not capable of supporting tanks. If it is, a wreck would block one, but shoving it off or over the side shouldn't be a problem usually.

[Blond_Knight]

Perturabo, what is that avatar? Ive looked at it for years, it looks like a skeksis wearing an Elizabethan ruffled collar.

[lancer]

Hi,

The small, local-yokel, bridges such as the one shown in the pic above and typical on a lot of the maps, can't handle much in the way of weight.

To give some kind of benchmark, in America the The Federal-Aid Highway Act Amendments of 1974 legislated that bridges should be built to withstand 36 tons (talking metric). What you'd likely find in the country side of West Germany crossing all those streams and little rivers would be older bridges with a significantly lower capacity.

An M1 Abrams has a battle load of around 72 tons and, even on a good day, when the sun was shining, couldn't traverse most of the bridges represented on map without causing catastrophic structural failure. It's not modelled in game as all bridges are assumed to be able to handle any weight. Even a t80 weighs 53 tons.

Where you've got a situation of a broken down vehicle, say a tank, on a small bridge, having another tank push it out of the way would only result in everybody getting wet feet.

There's a reason that the Soviet's main invasion routes through Germany were straight down the autobahns.

A nice-to-have feature would be to distinguish bridges on the maps between small / medium / heavy in terms of how much weight they can carry.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: lancer

Hi,

The small, local-yokel, bridges such as the one shown in the pic above and typical on a lot of the maps, can't handle much in the way of weight.

To give some kind of benchmark, in America the The Federal-Aid Highway Act Amendments of 1974 legislated that bridges should be built to withstand 36 tons (talking metric). What you'd likely find in the country side of West Germany crossing all those streams and little rivers would be older bridges with a significantly lower capacity.

An M1 Abrams has a battle load of around 72 tons and, even on a good day, when the sun was shining, couldn't traverse most of the bridges represented on map without causing catastrophic structural failure. It's not modelled in game as all bridges are assumed to be able to handle any weight. Even a t80 weighs 53 tons.

Where you've got a situation of a broken down vehicle, say a tank, on a small bridge, having another tank push it out of the way would only result in everybody getting wet feet.

There's a reason that the Soviet's main invasion routes through Germany were straight down the autobahns.

A nice-to-have feature would be to distinguish bridges on the maps between small / medium / heavy in terms of how much weight they can carry.

I second that, it's probably a big realism problem on some maps.