Matrix Games Forums

Currently, the "Blow Bridge" order will cause an engineering unit to begin working on demolition and destroy the specified bridge immediately upon completing the process. However, it appears to me that there would be situations where a bridge or similar feature might be prepared for demolition without the demolition occurring immediately. I have two questions based on this:

First, is there a place in real-world doctrine for delaying bridge/roadway demolitions (similarly to reserved demolitions used on terrain features)?

Second, would it be possible to implement a "delayed" demolition order that would either take effect after a certain time, wait for units to cross, or only execute when enemy units are spotted in close proximity?

Can't speak to procedural reasons to wait, other than to have a force either move forward to defend or retreat, and then be blown to deny access. Most East-West bridges in Germany were set to be blown quickly, and the north-south bridges were left intact to allow NATO forces to move quickly into the area where force was needed.

As for triggers, not in the game right now. We want to add them with a small scripting system to facilitate a number of actions, and triggers are one of them.

As for a delay mechanism right now, you can look at adding a delay to the order or to the preceding movement order. The trick will be dealing with the timing to actually blow the bridge.

It was quite common to set up bridges and road craters as reserve demolitions including large autobahn bridges' in Germany in the 1980's and earlier. There would be bunkers near the targets with stores and explosives' to rapidly set up the bridge, A firing party would remain behind along with a demolition guard from the unit tasked to guard the reserve demolition.

It could be fired immediately as the last friendly vehicle finished crossing.

The reason I bring this up is that a number of scenarios have forward-deployed units in the defense and a major river (with associated bridges) behind them. With the current state of the game, we can either order engineering units to begin the demolition process (with demolition occurring immediately upon completion of the order) or wait to issue those orders until the situation requires it (with this being limited to the command cycle). As echo9's reply highlights, there would likely be situations where a demolition would be prepared (charges placed, fuzes set, etc.) but only detonated upon certain events (a friendly force finishing crossing, enemy forces approaching the bridge, or others).

So for those situations, having the ability to issue orders such as "prepare for demolition and execute when [event] occurs" would be a significant improvement over the current capabilities.