The Commander Series Forum

I'm in the process of putting together some US Airborne units for some D-Day and Market-Garden campaigns. I was wondering whether anyone uses Combat Engineers? I can't see much use for them in most games, as their CA is pretty low and it's rare for the need to take out bunkers etc.

Any thoughts or feedback greatly appreciated

Only use them in big games or scenarios where there are bridges to be blown or road barricades to be cleared, minefields or wire to be cleared.

There is an argument that they could accompany ordinary infantry digging-in in BUAs. But currently they cannot aid any other units in an action - unlike in FoW.

Combat engineers do also offer some serious muscle in close assaults, attacking with 8 points vs. 4 for ordinary infantry, which makes them quite useful, especially in clearing dense terrain. That in addition to the bunker busting, mine clearing/laying, bridge demolition, bridging, etc.

In CWC they are very good as Sediment says with a CA of 8. Never leave home without a battalion of them

I'm not sure about their CA ability in BKC2

Interesting. In BKCII only German assault engineers get CA8. Plucky Yanks and Brits only get a CA of 3. That seems a bit odd as both Brits and US used man pack flamethrowers, satchel charges, bangalores, etc, so seems a bit odd that they are rated so poorly compared with the Germans. With a CA of 3, they are pretty redundant! IIRC, manpack flame weapons weren't included for Brits or US in BKC3 either. Hope they make it into version 4, otherwise the western Allies are going to find beach and fortification assaults quite challenging.

Yep, I was surprised at the big difference between the Allies and German in terms of CA stats. Anyway, I've modelled them just because I had spare figures and they give completeness to my Battalions. Whether the see the light of day remains to be seen...

Yes but - not certain about the US but the British issued their flame throwers to in Assault pioneer platoon in the infantry battalion, rather than the engineers, RE built and demolished things, ran the postal service and military railways, but were not intended for combat use.

If you look at the American Army List in BKC2 it has infantry upgrades - Bazooka and Flamethrowers. As I am doing SWORD BEACH next year I was going to add some of these upgrades to British Engineers stands, only a few. I was also thinking about allowing Engineers to be carried in AVREs as I have read that they used the side hatches on the Churchills - 2 AVRE make up one Engineer Stand.

No room in a Churchill for passengers. The crew used the side hatches to debark in combat to carryout various tasks. It did not carry any extra crew. If you are going to upgrade anything in the British army upgrade a scout base, the Assault Pioneer platoon only had roughly 20 men.