From the standpoint of realism, it is ridiculous. Maybe you like to use this tactic, and if you do then that’s your business, but from the standpoint of realism I regard the ability to do that as being ridiculous. Just like the ability to make a nest of barbed wire beneath the large holes blown into bunkers. I still think it would make the game more realistic to only allow barbed wire to be built outside and not inside. Allowing it to be built inside slows down the gameplay, decreases realism, and apparently plays havoc on AI bots if done recklessly.
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FM 3-21.71 Chapter 6 (globalsecurity.org)
Realistically you would have a much much harder time getting in.
Though realistically as well you wouldn’t be forced to get in so quickly.
There is one thing that I think the barbed wire does well, and that is when it is positioned on the other side of the sandbag wall. It ensures that an enemy can’t run up to the wall and use it as cover against the side of whoever built it, nor can they go prone and try to take cover right up against the wall where they might be difficult to look over and shoot. With the barbed wire there, it would slow them down, hurt them, and severely diminish their ability to use the wall as cover against the side that built it. So, working alongside the sandbag wall, OUTSIDE OF BUILDINGS, it seems thoroughly sensible and handy at least to me. Otherwise, the barbed wire is rather useless, so I’m inclined towards the barbed wire being automatic when setting up sandbag walls outside, but excluded when setting up sandbag walls within a building where the space is generally limited enough as it is. I think the sandbag wall is fantastic on its own, but it’s improved with the barbwire, however the barbwire on its own is… rather silly. Its best use is directly in front of something to keep people away from it, or directly on top of something to keep people from scaling/climbing it. If it’s small enough for people to jump and won’t stop bullets, then it’s little better than engineers being able to build little 2’ fences in places. Seriously.
Touché, however those are assault rifles I see, and they mention the Bradley tank which is apparently from the 1980s so it’s post-Vietnam. If you find footage of this tactic being used in WWII, or even training information about it for the US/Germans/Russians during WWII rather than actual footage of it being done, then I will concede that it is not unrealistic for the time period. For now, you have proven that it is realistic as a Military tactic, but we don’t yet know if it is period-correct.
It also still bothers me that it only takes an engineer within a minute to get as many as 2+ of those things set up in stairwells or hallways. It is sometimes very much over-used, they get their squad in a building and several minutes are spent, when several minutes can be afforded, to set down wire and sandbags all over the place. If there is no evidence of this tactic being used in WWII, or at least evidence that it WAS a verified and documented tactic that Military in the theatre has accepted in the training, then I will maintain my position of “It would be better if you cannot place barbed wire inside of buildings.”
That said, I thank you for bringing this to my attention. I also read about using window coverings of some sort to keep grenades from being thrown in, but to leave the bottom of the covering loose so that defenders can still drop grenades down outside the wall. Very interesting stuff there in that link.
The tactics are still extremely applicable to WWII; that’s when most of them were refined.
You can’t tell me that nobody would ever stack up everything they could find and cover it in barbed wire to fortify a house in WWII.
There was another infograph I still can’t find that also mentioned layering the floor on upper stories with sandbags to protect it from being shot through.
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In invasion I try to set up defenses for the next point before they shift.
Though I try leaving enough room for me to get out and support the current point when I’m done, and for my teammates to get in from their side of the point.
But why would the barbwire you placed NOT hurt your guys? Thats not how barb wire works. Adding this sounds mega abusable.
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Barbed wire props on maps where its hidden in the ground 100% needs removed
I know a lot about WWII firearms but apparently very little in terms of setting up a house in a defensive manner at the time. Piling stuff up in a stairwell and/or hallway for defensive purposes, sure I can believe that pretty readily, but combining it all with barbed wire, I don’t know. I am aware that barbed wire was used heavily in the trenches of WWI so obviously it’s no question to have been present during WWII as there is still barbed wire used in places today, but whether certain tactics are used or not is less common knowledge.
For example, the AK-47, before the AKM of 1959, was BASICALLY as accurate as an SKS. The SKS has a longer barrel, but by only about 3.7" if memory serves. Less than the difference between an M4 and M16, and with a cartridge that inherently has issues of transitioning to subsonic at something like 500-600m which causes destabilization and so even IF the SKS design was inherently more accurate, you just won’t see much difference once you get to a certain point. So why produce the SKS at all? By the time the AKM comes around, the SKS in comparison is heavier, more expensive, bulkier, has one third the capacity and a more complicated reloading method that is probably also inherently slower. Then once the AKMS comes around with folding stock, boom, with the AKMS stock folded it is SUBSTANTIALLY more compact than an SKS. Yet still, they produced the SKS in Russia through to the mid-1950s. In China, they might still be producing it today, we get LOADS of Chinese SKS rifles in Canada from there, and loads from Russia too. I recall about a decade ago the prices were $180 CAD for Chinese SKS and $210 CAD for a Russian SKS.
Regardless, VERY similar amount of accuracy available between the two and very little affect on velocity. So, the AK is accurate out to a good 300-400m, in fact the M1 Carbine can manage 300yd (270m or so) with impressive ease from what I’ve seen, and surely the AK with its higher velocity, heavier bullet, and spitzer bullet design can manage superior accuracy than an M1 Carbine, even with a slightly shorter (maybe 1.7") barrel. With Chinese doctrine however, their Type 58 AK is regarded as an SMG. The AK in semi-auto can hit targets pretty much as readily as an SKS, but possibly in Soviet doctrine they likewise viewed the AK as a full-auto firearm for close-range engagements and leave those with the SKS to give ‘more accurate’ cover fire from behind. You could just give them all AK rifles, leaving the better shots to give cover/supporting fire from behind with their AK rifles while the other soldiers with their AK rifles move on ahead.
Yet how many people would know all this information about doctrine? That’s why I take issue with that whole “You can’t tell me that nobody would ever stack up everything they could find and cover it in barbed wire to fortify a house in WWII” bit. I JUST DON’T KNOW, and I don’t like to take information from strangers on the internet, figure “Sounds legit,” and there is some definite potential that it IS legit, but I just don’t know. In my opinion I also think it’s very silly to be able to set up barbed wire in a hallway within a minute or two in an active battlefield where people get getting shot/killed within about 100m away. With all this taken into consideration, I am questioning whether barbed wire should be allowed to be built inside at all, if maybe it should take longer to set it up inside of a building, or maybe that it should take longer in general perhaps. Seems like some things about the barbed wire needs to be changed.
Wire is super easy to lay out when it’s baled like you see it in game. If anything it’s the least time-consuming part of the whole fortification process because you’re essentially holding a giant slinky that sticks to everything.
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That sounds much more legitimate, and if this tactic of ‘barbwire in the stairwell/hallway’ was indeed used during WWII, then it is a sound strategy, although I think it should take quite some time to do. I think it ought to take a solid minute or so to do, which is tedious and boring to be fair and would SERIOUSLY slow down gameplay for people using engineers… unless you can start the process of building and then switch to another player. If your squad only has one engineer, then yeah, you’re gonna be working at it a while while your squad I guess ‘covers’ you even though you’re not at the capture point and are probably pretty darn safe. Or, if you have a squad that has several engineers or is even maybe ALL engineers, set up each individual soldier on their own individual house and you could potentially get a whole house set up defensively in as little as 2-3 minutes, meaning in 10 minutes you might even be able to set up defensive sandbag walls and barbed wire in streets and stuff too!
Already in the game there’s some roads that has a bunch of sandbag walls pre-installed before the game starts and we spawn in, well with a squad of engineers, someone can go and really set things up nice to aid in the fight. Yeah it will inevitably end up getting destroyed by dynamite, probably also artillery and mortars and aerial bombings, but it’ll help for a while! I’m digging this concept, and it sounds like the company might make it a reality. I hear they plan to include commanding individual soldiers, and maybe they’ll make it so that the engineer can be made to automatically make stuff while the gamer goes to other troops, possibly other engineers. Sounds amazing…
Good defenses? It already does take some time. Especially with how janky the placement system is.
There are field manuals from WW2 on how to fortify buildings and most of it is still relevant to modern warfare. IMHO the defensive structures you can build in the game a very weak. With a proper system you could close off first floor, leaving an escape route at the back and connect it with a safe corridor to next building. The second floor would have shooting positions. You could set full hight sandbags against the walls to stop penetrating shells/bullets to get in.
These are kind of fortifications that in real life had to be precision bombed, demolished by self propelled artillery or “bunker busters”, to soften them up before infantry could get in close and clear it with charges and flamethrowers.
It takes seconds. If a squad is lucky and the nearby enemy doesn’t shoot them through a window or outright enter the building and wipe out the squad while the engineer is hammering, then they could be within 50-100m of combat and get a full house done-up with sandbags and barbed wire. That just doesn’t sound like something that can go down IRL. Setting up the logs (or I guess furniture in some cases, probably most/all cases), the wire, and ESPECIALLY the sandbags, I mean, c’mon. All this construction work and labour within possibly pistol firing distance of the enemy? The only noise made is the rhythmic hammering. Nah, it’s understandable if it’s behind the line in Invasion where you legit can TAKE a few minutes to set it all up, but it being so easy and quick that a house can get engineer-f*cked without attracting attention from the enemy in the midst of an active battlefield? I am having a hard time with the concept. It is not something that should be able to happen in active warzones, it should be something that occurs in the back, where the mortarmen are likely firing their support, possibly ready to retreat to safety to continue their mortar support, and indeed the engineers may well retreat with them when the action comes to as to get the other position in a more defensible situation. That sounds quite realistic, at least for an engineer-based squad. With someone who only has one engineer, they may well opt to retreat during a firefight to a more defensible position, set up their walls and barbwire and ammo and what not, and dig in, ready to defend the point once the current one is lost and in the back they’d have plenty of time to do so. Shouldn’t be something that people can do while shit’s already going down, because that sounds ludicrous.
Good, and you’re right, there probably are. If you’re familiar with it and know that it has stuff about barbed wire indoors and can bring that information here, I’ll shut my mouth and concede that I was totally and utterly foolish in claiming that it is unrealistic. We’ve established that it’s a modern thing in the Military at least as of the '80s, but was it a thing in the '40s. You might be able to put this debate to sleep once and for all, establish that barbed wire in stairwells is not simply engineers being annoying by exploiting an unrealistic tactical option in this videogame, and so the question of ‘whether we should or shouldn’t allow barbed wire in stairwells’ will be itself an unrealistic proposal to make because it’s documented in black-and-white. I am always open to being proven wrong, I’ve already learned that barbedwire in stairwells has been a Military concept for at least 40 years, which is news to me, and I’d love to learn more even if it’s at the cost of admitting I was wrong. It’s an easy thing to do once you get used to it though 
It’s not just seconds to build up anything but the most halfassed fortifications in enlisted, and getting shot while doing it is still a threa.
Here is something from Norwegians, it’s from 1960 but tactics wouldn’t drastically change:
check last link in first post:
I found some US manuals but they are under the pay wall. I’m sure its possible to find, with more digging.
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Shouldn’t be something reasonably done near combat, should take long enough to where it’s basically suicide unless you’re a safe distance away. If you could set the engineer to build one piece at a time, and while it’s building switch to a different soldier to cover entrances to basically keep him safe, okay. At least you’re covering the engineer while it’s getting done, though I still believe it should take longer so that it can’t be successfully done close to combat. Setting up fortifications is something you do BEFORE the shooting starts, in my perspective. At least for something as time-consuming as filling up sandbags, stacking them up into walls, chopping down logs or gathering furniture, and then setting it all up with wire. Sounds time-consuming and noisy.
Wicked stuff, if I were in charge of developing this game and noticed the trend of setting up barbed wire in stairwells, thinking it was ridiculous, and while considering my idea of making it impossible to make barbed wire indoors, this stuff being brought to my attention would be invaluable for making the correct decisions on what is or is not the right move to make. It’s actually seeming more realistic and easy now to be able to rapidly set up barbed wire on a stairwell than to set up sandbag walls indoors.
I imagine that they learned a lot about house-to-house clearing and making a building more defensible during WWII. Western Front of WWI was mostly stagnant trench warfare, and some stuff in the alps around Italy, to my knowledge. WWII had WAY more urban engagements. Reminds me of a part in Brothers in Arms where you walk into a room full of German soldiers sitting at a supper table, exposed and vulnerable, easily mowed down. Well that’s from an after-action report, a soldier reported being on point and clearing rooms, found that situation of German soldiers eating a meal, and he mowed them down with his Thompson. They were probably reaching for their firearms anyhow.
Not really, outside of the part where the engineer pulls the resources out of his rear end. However, similarly, the engineer would be able to use locally available resources (think rubble, or furniture) to construct such barricades.
In reality, they would patch the hole with wood etc. The entire timeline of doing things has been compressed for this game. Everything goes faster, including constructing buildings.
If I would have to prevent people from walking in somewhere in WW2, I too would just throw anything I could find on top of a barricade. That’s not something you have to come up with in WW2, heck, people did that during medieval times too.
A lot of engineers had pretty respectable amounts of barbed wire.
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