"Were engineers and pioneers REALLY good at killing tanks?" Topic

When buiding a Flames of War infantry force, one of the first thing I look for are Support choices of pioneers, sappers, engineers, etc. because they usually get an Anti-Tank Assault rating of at least 3. Sometimes 4.
At the very least, that gives the tank guy pause when it omes to assaulting dug in infantry, because his tank usually has a top armor of 1.

I accept this in game terms, but have never understood it.
Why does having crowbars, sledge hammers, and most improtantly sliderules, give you a bonus in assaulting or counter attacking tanks?

What in the Engineers wagon or truck gives them this bonus?
Is thgis historically justified?

I suspect it is a way of miniature manufacturers selling an additional pack of infantry, but in answer to the question i believe that they are taking the amount of satchel charges and general amount of extra explosives etc that the pioneers/engineers would have.

jon

Because engineers tended to have access to explosives, mines and other assorted nastiness as normal fair. Plus they are trained in figuring out weak spots to remove obstacles or make things fall down. They are also adept at rigging traps, and have access to heavy equipment to dig emplacements, holes, and build neat stuff for the defense quickly.

There is a book series (which escapes me now) where aliens invade Earth and they attack an engineering unit and subsequently the base. The aliens soon learn to fear the symbol of the engineers and start to shy away anytime they see it.

I'm guessing they're assuming the engineers have their explosives with them – crater charges, bangalore torpedoes, bricks of plastique, etc. Combat engineers are the demolitions guys in US formations. The higher the echelon, the more they tend to be building bridges vice blowing them up, but explosives are a useful construction tool.

The aliens soon learn to fear the symbol of the engineers and start to shy away anytime they see it.

They should have read some wargames rules before invading. So much for their Alien Intelligence operations.

I'm less concerned that Pioneers etc that have higher AT values as I am that any tank has a Top Armor 2 making it impervious to standard infantry.

If "regulars" had some sort of chance against heavies. Then I expect the popularity of Pioneers etc would be diminished and your average infantry player would not feel forced to take something to deal with the heavies.

There is a book series (which escapes me now) where aliens invade Earth and they attack an engineering unit and subsequently the base. The aliens soon learn to fear the symbol of the engineers and start to shy away anytime they see it.

Probably John Ringo's Posleen War stories. The Posleen grunts were dumb as bricks and suicidally brave, but even they learned to be careful around human engineers.

They had ropes. Ropes can be used to lower children with molotov cocktails down onto tanks. That is what is actually going on anytime that tanks assault pioneers. At least the soviet ones. You just don't model it on the table top.

It even happens in the open. That is how good they are.

Were-engineers.

Scary.

Look at the 291st Engineers in the Bulge. They held that northern shoulder against the 6th Panzer Army.

Look at the 291st Engineers in the Bulge. They held that northern shoulder against the 6th Panzer Army.

By blowing up bridges, and not by assaulting Tigers with a cigar clenched in their teeth and a sachel charge in each hand.

Were-engineers

yes, they are pretty tough. However zombie engineers are down right annoying.

Also by laying mines, then funneling tanks through kill zones then hitting tanks' flanks and rear with bazookas.

My guess is that different armies' pioneers had different capabilities. I'm pretty sure German pioneers had AT mines, hollow-charge magnetic mines, etc. A truly gutsy (or crazy) pioneer could sneak up on a tank and plant one of these right on it.

Once.

Japanese engineers had lunge mines… Big mine on a pole. They then got a volunteer to run at a tank with the pole… Bang.. next volunteer!

As per Tim abobe, Sappers generally had the weapons, the experience and most importantly confidence to use them.

In the German army they were trained in turning their smoke, explosive and mine weapons into tank killers, how to deploy them and what the tank's vulnerabilities were.

Cheers
Mark

Frankly, I'd rather be a Volksgrenadier with a panzerfaust than a Panzerpioneer with a satchel charge. I can see maybe a slight improvement in engineers' anti-armor capability representing superior training and possibly access to more and/or better armaments, but (especially in the later stages of the war) I don't think there should be a big difference.

Doug

"Also by laying mines, then funneling tanks through kill zones then hitting tanks' flanks and rear with bazookas."

And in the short time frame of most games, where do they get the time to do all of that.

What gets me is how high many rules rate flamethrower attacks against tanks. The US Army did a study on the usefulness of flamethrowers vs. tank and found that they were pretty much ineffective against mobile vehicles.

jdg

Leningrad military district reported on April 5th 1940 that during the northwestern front's miliatary actions (ie. Winter War) they lost 954 tanks in combat.

Plenty of those (if not majority) were destroyed by your regular Finnish infantry joes. Sometimes with Molotov's Coctail, sometimes with satchel chargs etc.

ATGs/ATRs were in VERY limited supply and you could say that tanks weren't used at all (one teats up battle doesn't count on wide use of tanks IMO)

The weiredest way to destroy a tank during those days was to jam a log between the tracks and the drive wheel to immobilize the tank and then finish the crew with small arms when they try to escape.

I was trained as AT Platoon Leader in the army, but pussies like us use RPGs etc. The guys in the olden days had cohones the size of soccer balls!

What gets me is how high many rules rate flamethrower attacks against tanks. The US Army did a study on the usefulness of flamethrowers vs. tank and found that they were pretty much ineffective against mobile vehicles.

Version 3 of Flames of War seems to address Flamethowers in a way that is much more in line with this study than Version 2 was.

Well I don't know owt about your rules sets, but I think that the vital work undertaken by engineers is probably quite difficult to model on the tabletop. Th value of Sappers/Engineers/Pioneers is their ability to physically shape the battlefield, by construction or destruction of obstacles, depending on whether their side is defending or attacking. I doubt your average angledozer features highly in terms of sexy kit, but try going to war without it.

As for atk work, there are plenty of things you want your engineers doing to disrupt enemy armour, as part of a more wide ranging approach to the threat, before asking them to run up to said tanks and wedge large pieces of metal and/or satchel charges into vulnerable spots.

Also the Germans had different types of Pioneers; those within Inf Bns or Regts, who were effectively inf themselves, and the dedicated Div Pioneer units. The first type were perhaps more likely to find themselves employed as 'assault infantry' because of their arm of service.

As the Germans increasingly armed their Pioneers with similar levels of support weapons as standard infantry, that probably affected their chances of being deployed as such. RE and US units mostly relied on LMGs and PIATs/Bazookas for their firepower, and in the latter category they had them at usual infantry scales. Must admit when someone says anti-tank, engineers aren't the first thing that come to mind other than having laid defensive belts of land mines.

Gary

Bah! German "specialists" with their panzerfausts and mines! Why, I know a guy who got his tank-killer badge for knocking out a tank with a flare gun at halitosis range!

Combat Engineers are not only better trained with demo but the most important aspect is they have ACCESS to it.

As far as laying down mines to channel the enemy, you can just lay them on top of the ground. That takes a lot less time and really with mines the point isn't to make them hidden tank killers as much as to deny easy access/passage to an area. They do that just as well on top of the ground.

In the case of the German engineers and their tank killing capability, wasn't this a result of the poor state of German anti-tank guns against Soviet T-34 and KV tanks? I recall that the assault engineers specialized in destroying fortifications in 39-41, then were employed as anti-tank troops in desperate situations in the east.

This training then became more formalized prior to the issuing of Panzerfausts-let's say 42-late 43. The German situation was somewhat unique and probably should not give any special skill to other nationalities, other than engineers having special explosives, etc. Even the Germans might get some sort of tank-hunting bonus only during the mid-war period. I assume most of the well-trained tank hunters will become casualties and the replacements will end up with Panzerfausts. No need to run up and stick a magnetic charge on an allied tank.

British Royal Engineers in North Africa are not even allowed to assault tanks or even counterattack.
I would think that that would be more realistic for most Engineers.
However, the Pioneers are given the AT pickaxes and slide-rules.
It took a while scratching my head at the lists before I figured that out.

As for atk work, there are plenty of things you want your engineers doing to disrupt enemy armour, as part of a more wide ranging approach to the threat, before asking them to run up to said tanks and wedge large pieces of metal and/or satchel charges into vulnerable spots.

I quite agree.

Japanese engineers had lunge mines… Big mine on a pole. They then got a volunteer to run at a tank with the pole… Bang.. next volunteer!

Of course there were disadvantages. Such as the velocity at which, after detonation, the pole shot back through the holder. And of course the furious hosing down of the general area with machineguns, that everyone accompanying the tank then engaged in.

I once knew a German immigrant who had been an officer in a pioneer unit. He commanded the flame throwers. He said they were very effective against armour. Not only in the sense of any tank they managed to knock out…but in that any tank that saw the tank in front of them being engulfed in fire…tended to back off…FAST! A human fear of fire. Even if they failed to knock out the tank they used the flame thrower on, it was sure to send the rest into a state of extreme caution.
But as an anti tank weapon he said it was not cost effective. The amount of fuel needed to knock one out with a flame thrower was much heavier to carry and harder to resupply, than a simple panzerfaust.

I suppose it goes down to what looks spectacular. A tank disappearing into a ball of liquid fire or a possibly unseen
missile striking it. The very visual psychological effect must influence those around it and from conversations with him that seemed to be so. Another way of 'discouraging' tanks was to set off some explosives in a spectacular way as they approached. A tank crew that saw it, and did not know what it was, were not much inclined to go too much closer to find out. So they would call up the infantry to check it out. He mentioned one occasion when his unit lacked any effective anti tank weapons…other than suicidal magnetic sticky bomb type stuff…and used the explosions ahead technique to slow down a rapidly advancing American tank column. They had weapons to fight the infantry with and held the column up for a time. Each time a tank advanced, they would set off another large 'bang' ahead of it, and the tank would retire.
Eventually they were over run by the infantry, but he claimed they had stopped the column long enough for a bridge up ahead to be blown.

Of course one had to be careful what one 'believed' from his stories, because the more beer he drank the more talkative he became and the more talkative he became the wilder the stories! But I think the above one sounded about right. People do fear the unknown and a big explosion going off on the road ahead of you would make you stop and think.

His claims to have been with a flamethrower unit were always reinforced by him rolling up one trouser leg to reveal a leg that was horribly scarred from burns. He used to say that he got that when some idiot did something wrong when reloading the flamenwerfers…not due to enemy action….and that some of his new half trained recruits in 1944 were more dangerous than the Americans were!

In the above, I just remembered that I did actually ask him why they didnt just blow up the leading tank instead of setting off an explosion ahead of it.
His explanation was that it only took a small amount of explosive buried shallow, to make a really spectacular looking detonation. To actually blow the tank up would have required a lot more. So with a small amount of explosives left to them, they could make the bangs look far more deadly than they were and spread the effect out for longer.

A case where you dont necessarily have to actually kill the enemy in order to stop him.

Great read Mal

"British Royal Engineers in North Africa are not even allowed to assault tanks or even counterattack.
I would think that that would be more realistic for most Engineers.
However, the Pioneers are given the AT pickaxes and slide-rules."

Because proper Royal Engineers do the things which most engineers do, build things and knock them down.

Infantry battalion pioneer platoons, along with building things and knocking them down, were also issued flamethrowers, demo charges etc. Whether this made them more inclined to rush at tanks waving their slide-rules is debateable.

When people think of engineers in WW2 wargames they always seem to think of German assault engineers laden down with nasty toys that went bang.

Just a thought as I am reading this… very good post by the way…
From what I have read, soldiers today are all "kind of" pioneers… they have a much broader scope of training compared to pioneers and engineers of WW2. Yes, regular soldiers could and often did take out enemy tanks, but pioneers had the goods at their disposal to do so redily and that is HUGE for morale, knowing going in, that you can do it. Not only that, their training was definitely different.

On that note, I would LOVE to see them have "other" abilities in minni wargaming… soem rule sets just give them bonuses to do certain things, whilst I would like to see them able to do special things in the game too.

During the Soviet invasion of Hungary in the '50s they found that you could stop tanks with a row of upside down soup plates in the road, commander ppops his head out for a better look and your marksman shoots him.

Perhaps the cookhouse staff should get the bonus.

I think probably most wargame rules are written by former army engineers.
-Kle.

I've also found it odd that many rules (including Squad Leader) restrict flame throwers to engineers only. Yes I understand what charges are, but ordinary infantry did that sort of thing too.

Rules are just guidelines. Just get your mates to agree with your assessment and you're off to the races. I do agree with your premise though.

In FoW, the "Bloody Omaha" 29th and 1st Division's assault company lists capture this aspect fairly well with standard infantry specifically task organized and equipped to do some serious obstacle breaching and bunker busting. But then they had a very specific mission focus on June 6th, 1944.

God is allowed to cheat!

I recall reading about some American "Combat Engineers" (non-divisional types) during the Battle of the Bulge who stopped a German column (for a while, at least) by laying a "daisy chain" of AT miles across a road at a point where it was not possible for tanks or any vehicles to turn off the road on either side, then placed a .50" MG where it could cover the mines. Any German that attempted to move the mines got blasted.

These were not "pioneers." Their normal job was to build bridges, maintain/improve roads, etc. They just happened to be working on the roads behind the front when the Germans broke through.

Believe that was an US Engineer Brigade that played a key role in holding up the German advance south of Bastogne. Used to know the details much better, guess it's time to "A Time for Trumpets" again!

Wow!! Just realize it's been over 23 years since I read that book! Hope I still have it!

The Finnish Tank Museum has a display of all the different AT weapons used in WWII. Including Moltov Cocktails and the like. They also have a 12" long birch log in the display – apparently during the Winter War troops would run out and jam the treads of opposing tanks with pieces of lumber. No word if they were only issued to pioneers though…

One of the few anecdotes my father related about his brother Bill's experience in Italy might be more indicative of CE employment.

He was in charge of blasting at a quarry for road building material (he had worked as an underground hardrock miner before the war). When he set off his charges the resulting material was graded for size. Rather than having to sort the material for it's intended use the engineers were able to just load from a specific area of the pile.

On the other hand my uncle Ralph spoke of the mediocre anti-tank capabilities of the US AT guns (although that may not have been from personal use). He also had a 37mm HE shell on his mantelpiece.

It probably depends on the country and training.

For example, German engineers were trained to fight, and to attack!, in the first lines. It's a big difference with French engineers which were (and still are) a support corps, not a melee corps, and were/are not supposed to be on the first line of battle as well as infantry and cavalry/tanks.

They also have a 12" long birch log in the display – apparently during the Winter War troops would run out and jam the treads of opposing tanks with pieces of lumber.

Here is an example on how to do it:

YouTube link

My Soviet Engineer Sappers got absolutely annihilated by SS Wiking Last Night. Just thought that was an appropriate thing to post here :)

I think it's a quid pro quo thing…

The Germans get to have special anti-tank ability for their engineers – so therefore to be fair so does everyone else.

Should be case by case and based on research.

British and US especially not so good at this I'd guess. Soviets probably somewhere in between.

British Engrs build stuff, break stuff and build good bars, as far as I know have never been given a specific A/Tk capability, which has been down to the Infantry support Coy.

Tally Ho!

VonBurge: I believe I read that in "First Across the Rhine: The Story of the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion" by Col. David E. Pergrin -- though it might have been in "Time for Strumpets" ;o) also, I don't remember.

Magnetic mines, tank hunting doctrine, but the Brits were pretty big on ad hoc solutions.

The idea is not to destroy a tank company, but to frighten them away.

"Also by laying mines, then funneling tanks through kill zones then hitting tanks' flanks and rear with bazookas."

The scale of issue for bazookas is much lower in combat engineers than it is in the infantry.

Pioneers are different from engineers and that should be remembered. Pioneers were Infantry with additional training in the mobility realm, ie creating obstacles or removing them. Commonly this was done for expediency with explosives. Now Infantiers being what they are apply the toys they get to their craft. While the pioneer courses were only recently removed from the military (well the one I'm in) we still have a number of people trained in it and in close quarters their ability to use the explosives they have on buildings, vehicles and bunkers is shall we say impressive by comparison to the payload of a standard Infantry soldier.

I read an account of engineers trying to blowup a kv1 on the drive to lenin grad. Fail. The Germans finally got it with an 88

That would be a KV2 that was attacked several times. It killed the first 88 as soon as it was set up; according to German accounts, the pioneers attacked after dark to avoid the tank's machine gun fire but the demo charge only blew off a track.

The KV2 was holed – but not destroyed by a second 88 (deployed under cover of a feint tank attack); the crew must have been stunned because the turret began to move again as German troops were inspecting it and finally someone put a grenade in through the hole.

May not be the same vehicle, but this one looks like the work of a demolition charge placed on the track link
I believe the Sturmpioniere in the German army were part of the Engineer branch, unlike the British regimental pioneer platoons as I've read of them being attached to assault units in small teams for specific operations