Arnhem railroad bridge

[madmickey]

When playing as the British in an Arnhem campaign game where you have quickly captured both bridges including the south Bank of road bridge is it not tempting to knock out the railroad bridge?

The reasons why I say this are:
1) You do not have adequate troops to protect both bridges in a continuous line and losing the Railroad Bridge will allow the German the ability to move troops from the island to area north of the Rhine.
2) An isolated pocket around the Railroad Bridge will receive and give little fire support to the defense of the pocket around the Road Bridge.
3) The defense of the railroad is in polder, which has good defensive bonuses but has little concealment and Armor and AA guns could stand off at a distance and pound at their flanks especially if you eliminated their AT gun units. The German has a strong long range direct fire advantage against the Red devils.
4) You can issue a deny the railroad bridge but the German with their wealth in arty can easily mess up this plan.
5) If you hold the road bridge when 30 Corp arrive in force the German force on the island are isolated and a lot easier to destroy. With a more complex supply calculation this becomes even more important.
6) Some of the troops defending the RR bridge could be better used in establishing defensive position on the island to allow the rapid advance of 30 Corp. These units do not have to be placed on Hell's Highway.

The reason why you would not want to blow up the Railroad Bridge is
1) You could use it to relieve Arnhem and attack the German from a different angle.
2) There is no guarantee that you can hold the Road Bridge with the above mentioned strategy in which case you may want the Germans defending two bridges
3) The points involved but the RR Bridge is usually an occupation at completion and there may be enough time to rebuild the bridge.
4) If you hold both bridges attacking German north of Arnhem is a lot easier.

What are other people opinions on this situation?

[Mr.Frag]

Vp in the historic one need to be looked at on both sides to make that call. Knocking out the bridge means your units have no path for escape should pressure in Arnhem force you back. It also means you cannot attack the bridge at Arnhem from both sides.

The bridge is worth a large chunk of VP to the Allies but worth very little to the Germans, so having it blown when you are playing the Allies means you are giving up a large chunk of your score for nothing. You only have to capture it to ensure it does not get blown. You do not have to actually hold it until virtually the end of the game.

[EricGuitarJames]

Actually that brings up something that has been nagging at me for a while. When playing as the Germans I would prefer not to have the rail bridge blown as I find it rather cramps my strategy[:)]. Can I unprime it myself?

[madmickey]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Vp in the historic one need to be looked at on both sides to make that call. Knocking out the bridge means your units have no path for escape should pressure in Arnhem force you back. It also means you cannot attack the bridge at Arnhem from both sides.

The bridge is worth a large chunk of VP to the Allies but worth very little to the Germans, so having it blown when you are playing the Allies means you are giving up a large chunk of your score for nothing. You only have to capture it to ensure it does not get blown. You do not have to actually hold it until virtually the end of the game.

The Poles were supposed to land south of Arnhem, In Arnhem scenarios you may have British troops also landing south of Arnhem.
The points for the bridge are for occupation at end of game. No point for occupation during game.

[MadScot]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

The bridge is worth a large chunk of VP to the Allies but worth very little to the Germans, so having it blown when you are playing the Allies means you are giving up a large chunk of your score for nothing. You only have to capture it to ensure it does not get blown. You do not have to actually hold it until virtually the end of the game.

I wonder if that is responsible for a problem I had with the historic Arnhem scenario. The bridge wasn't blown, but the paras never got to the road bridge and got pushed away from the rail bridge too. The Germans were so fixated, it seemed, on killing paras they forgot about the rail bridge - not a single unit defended it - so on D5 the poles landed and grabbed it and XXX Corps streamed across in due course.

Does the AI use VP weightings in determining strategy? I have to say that AI strategic flop basically ruined that play of the game.