Huge Bomb Craters Everywhere in BR5 Matches ! Is This Normal?

Mess Room
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Hey everyone,

Lately I’ve been playing mostly BR4, but I often get matched into BR5 games. In some of those battles, especially on Normandy, I’ve noticed something strange: massive bomb craters big enough for entire squads to disappear into, and even Tiger tanks get stuck inside and can’t get out.

At first I thought it was just a glitch, but it’s been happening in almost every match recently. It seems to occur more often when there are a lot of jets dropping bombs — after a few minutes, the whole map gets covered in giant craters.

Have you guys seen this too? It feels like something that might need a fix. I actually like how explosions leave marks on the terrain, it makes the game feel alive, but right now it’s getting a bit extreme. Some maps end up looking like the moon’s surface after a few bombing runs.

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Those are the bomb craters of 500kg bombs. They are very common in high br due to jet fighters

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Yeah, you’re right, these are from the jet bombs. But after just a few bombing runs, especially in the tighter areas where most of the action happens, the whole place turns into a field of craters. It looks really unnatural, almost like a glitch, and it kind of breaks the immersion for me.

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Bomb craters are perfect to make a rally inside or to hide your squad there… You should be thankful to the brave jet pilots… :slight_smile:

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I like the craters… you can effectively de forest an area with a jet and these can be placed on common routes acting as trench like tank traps and creating improvised trenches for infantry as well.

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These huge player-made bomb craters are too extreme in Enlisted, for two reasons:

  1. The AI foot soldiers and even human player foot soldiers have trouble get into and out of these large craters, especially if several are near to each other.

  2. The vehicles in Enlisted have even more trouble to get into and out of these large craters, especially if several are near to each other or at the vehicle map entry points. This to the point that they effectively block large areas of the map to vehicles. In one match on the Le Perelle Western Front map for example there were so many of them that other players and I could not even use any vehicles anymore, even Königstiger and Panther could not get in/out of these large craters and the same applied to the SPW (Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251) making the use of mobile entry points effectively impossible in that match. The enemy pilots bombed the vehicle entry points on the map, making sure that vehicles simply were useless upon map entry. The lighter vehicles, such as the SPW (Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz 251) not only have less powerful engines than the Tiger/Panther/Königstiger but they also are generally in Enlisted are artificially made to be too under-powered and cross-country navigation handicapped to let them normally move around the map, which is something they excelled at in real life.

For example the real-world cross-country mobility of the German SPW (Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz 251) in German WW2 military reports was constantly described as being markedly superior to that of the 4-wheeled, 6-wheeled and 8-wheeled PSW armoured cars (Sd.Kfz. 222, 231, 234 etc.).

In Enlisted the key lighter vehicles, such as the SPW (Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251), are not given the cross country performance that they had in real life which has two key disadvantages:

A.) They are too player-unfriendly, troublesome and/or cumbersome for the player to drive around the map , to the point that they not only too easily get stuck on terrain in general, but also that their engines are artificially made to be too weak in Enlisted to even move up to slightly sloped c.q. elevated terrain. Generally speaking driving any vehicle in Enlisted is almost a frustrating experience for the player because vehicles in Enlisted are generally given bad cross-country ability and are made to be too under-powered to climb slightly sloped c.q. elevated terrain, what further adds to that artificial handicap is that key parts of the Enlisted maps are blocked by wrecks and many other obstacles.

B.) Due to the inability in Enlisted of these light mobile entry points (such as the Sd.Kfz 251) to move easily, anywhere and reasonably fast enough around the map that severely limits both their player-friendly and use and game-play because players will stop using them or leave them parked too far from where they are useful as entry points.

Here some videos demonstrating the real-world cross country ability of the chassis of the Sd.Kfz. 250 Sd.Kfz. 251 and other half-tracks, sadly in Enlisted the Sd.Kfz. 251 and similar vehicles have nowhere near the engine power and cross-country mobility that they had and have in real life, it would be GREAT if the Enlisted developers would increase both their engine power and cross-country mobility to match their real world performance.

Keep in mind that almost all vehicles in the videos are about 80 years old, some even still having original engines. Note that in Czechia the Sd.Kfz. 251 production was continued as the OT-810 which basically was the same vehicle. The diesel engine of the post-war OT-810 was not markedly more powerful than the otto/petrol Sd.Kfz. 251 wartime engine, in fact the wartime petrol/otto engine equipped Sd.Kfz. 251 was about 8 kmh faster than the post-war diesel engine equipped OT-810.

Sd.Kfz. 251 / OT-810 in MM Park (try replicating that slope climb in Enlisted)

Sd.Kfz. 251 / OT-810 in Brünn (note the ease and speed with which it drives over that slope)

Sd.Kfz. 10 = Sd.Kfz. 250 chassis (try replicating that slope climb in Enlisted)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W8tK_ijIWU4

Sd.Kfz. 9 Famo (try replicating that slope climb in Enlisted)

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HnerFhFHA8k

Sd. Kfz. 251, Sd. Kfz. 9 Famo, Humvee (= modern day vehicle that gets stuck) and Willys Jeep in deep snow

restored Sd.Kfz. 250 (note how easy it is to drive, even for a first time driver of this vehicle)

restored Sd.Kfz. 251/7 with original engine, note the speed of the 80+ year old vehicle

Sd.Kfz. 251 test drive (note the vehicle speed driving through water and over the slope)

restored Sd.Kfz. 251 driving through the snow (Weald foundation)

Now compare that to the cross country performance test of this wartime production battle damaged Panther A compared to a Sherman in Sweden by the Swedish military after 1945. The superior cross country and slope climbing ability of the wartime production battle damaged Panther as compared to the late war pristine condition Sherman is clear for all to see:

Sherman vs Panther Part 1

Sherman vs Panther Part 2

Note that not only was the Panther in the Swedish tests a wartime production battle damaged Panther but there also were not spare parts available for it nor produced for it anymore either, no German trained experienced maintenance crew, no data on age/wear date of the individual parts of the vehicle (transmission, final drive, engine etc.) all of which were widely available for the pristine condition Sherman in the tests.

The pre-WW2 design German SPW such as the Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251 as well as the pre-WW2 design 2-wheeled, 4-wheeled, 6-wheeled and 8-wheeled PSW armoured cars (Sd.Kfz. 222, 231 etc.) all have sloped armour as did the 1916-designed German WW1 tank A7V. They have sloped armour because pre-WW2 the German designers and military were already quite aware of the superior armour protection provided by sloped armour. Most pre-WW2 German tanks did not have sloped armour however because sloped armour decreases the room available for the crew and equipment, forcing the designers to either limit the space available or making the vehicle wider/longer/taller (= Tiger, Panther, Jagdpanther, Königstiger, Jagdtiger).

The German military used overlapping road wheels on many of their vehicles because they decrease ground pressure and increase grip which as a result give a vehicle superior cross country mobility and flotation compared to vehicles without overlapping road wheels. USA and British half-tracked and tracked vehicles generally did not have overlapping road wheels, and often also smaller (narrower) tracks, resulting in them having increased ground pressure and as a result inferior cross country mobility and flotation. Additionally most USA and British half-tracked and tracked vehicles did not have sloped armour, decreasing their armour protection. The Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251 were as a result in practical use more advanced and better designs than the comparable USA half-tracks.

Additionally the Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251, as well as some other German tracked and half-tracked vehicles, were equipped with track link grooved pattern rubber pads on their tracks, these rubber pads further improved the track “grip” and as a result mobility of the German half-tracks in difficult terrain and when climbing slopes. This should also be taken into account in Enlisted, for reasons of both game-play and authenticity.

And in addition to improving the engine power and cross country as well as slope climbing ability of the Sd.Kfz. 251 the visibility of the head of the shield machine gunner should be minimized to an authentic level. In Enlisted the shield machine gunner of the Sd.Kfz. 251 shows too much of his head, in reality most of the head of the shield machine gunner was hidden behind the shield. Note that the machine gun shield of the Sd.Kfz. 250 and Sd.Kfz. 251 was also sloped to increase armour protection.

This video shows a shield machine gunner re-enactor of a Sd.Kfz. 251 with almost his entire head hidden behind the shield. WW2 wartime images of German soldiers clearly show the gunners being able to hide almost their entire head behind the sloped armoured machine gun shield.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2KlYYM5zsSM

Compare that to a USA M2 half-track where the vehicle machine gunner has half of his body permanently exposed with no possibility to hide or take cover behind anything while firing the vehicle machine gun. This was the case in practically all USA WW2 armour plated half-tracks.

This video clearly shows how much of the body of a USA armour plated half-track vehicle machine gunner is exposed.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iO3pBfexoGE