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[Patrick Hunt]

So in short, you have to defend all the infantry passes and mount patrols as well as the main bunkers or it's pointless.

If you block the passes they'll just sneak through another way and then attack the passes from the flanks and rear to clear it.

[3_14159]

Yes and no. The thought behind blocking the passes is the following:
They need supplies and heavy equipment to attack over land. While it is possible to supply them over a short time with planes, this requires an already-secured area and absolute air superiority and can therefore be ignored for now. Supplies and heavy equipment requires, when going over mountains, passes. Therefore, by keeping those passes guarded and fortified, we can deny them the ability to attack effectively.
The next question is whether it's possible to keep those bunkers secured against infiltrating enemies (small number, no heavy equipment). This can be done pretty easily - the easiest way to do that is to fortify the bunker entrances, too. Those only have to work against infantry, too.
For example, to cover a serpentine pass you can build two bunker in two adjacent turns, facing downwards, each in the rock itself. Even with an entry directly at them, you need to come either from above or below (via the street) which is in their field of fire, or climb down the rock itself (to get to the weapons' openings) where they'd be in direct view and fire of the other bunker. (This does not yet include artillery positions and anti-tank guns)
So yes, it's pretty much possible to fortificate the mountains with an advantageous cost-benefit for us, as you can pin them down pretty good. It still is not at all necessary - after all, you're right with the possibility for diplomatic incidents when we build full-scale fortresses, and which is why I won't vote for building fortifications there. But a few bunkers in advantageous positions (which is what I assume happens automatically and is abstracted away, because even our generals are no idiots) are very useful.

[Patrick Hunt]

Small numbers?

10,000 infantry could climb those mountains each carrying enough in his pack to attack those 4 blocked passes using one of the infantry passes. Small numbers only applies to the sheer faces.

[evilcherry]

Small numbers?

10,000 infantry could climb those mountains each carrying enough in his pack to attack those 4 blocked passes using one of the infantry passes. Small numbers only applies to the sheer faces.

You are talking about 10000 mountain infantry.

That's exactly the reason why we need the necessary organization and materiel for mountain infantry so we won't be overrun in the first place.

[Patrick Hunt]

Thats fine, if your gonna cover the whole line not just major passes. All that does is hang the men on them out to die.

[3_14159]

Well, no.
10,000 men traversing the paths requires ten thousand trained as such (the training necessary being less than climbing cliffs, though), each carrying his essentials - that is, probably food for a few days (water may be found), ammunition, his rifle, specialized equipment and so on. All that slows them down, especially in mountaineous terrain, and especially if they can only move across certain paths. Not all of them can move at once, as most ways will be narrow, and so on. In effect, you may have ten thousand men moving slowly as a ten times a thousand men column. That's no fast way to cross a mountain, especially if you need to fight afterwards.
Like evilcherry, I see those mountains similarly to the dolomites - see, for example, this this picture. This shows all of the terrains - the pass (street in the right half), the infantry-passable terrain (both the part without snow and the snow in the upper left corner), and the cliffs (which I probably won't have to show you ;-) ).
A cheap defensive option would be to build a pillbox on the shadowed peak to the left, with a cannon and machine guns towards the pass and a machine gun to the back. You cover the pass and even with infantry scaling the terrain, you can defend yourself pretty well. Using the view-point for another one, you can also cover yourself versus people scaling the cliff to get to your pass-sided defence. Basically, you block the passes as that's where the attack that can actually hurt you comes from.
Of course, that's just cheap - you can get more and more and more if you want more defensive capabilities. For example, you could build hundreds of bunkers in the cliffs, connected by tunnels. Somewhen, you'll be very, very cost-ineffective.

[Patrick Hunt]

Possible but that still won't last very long when they come through the mountain from multiple angles. The only way to effectively do it would be to build an entire bunker complex on each of the 4 passes. Enough to house 500+ men with several dozen MG otherwise sooner or later something will slip past.

If you can't hold it all and have to focus on the key positions then you need enough force on those positions to counter and prolonged and determined heavy assault.

That means half a dozen artillery or more, the same in AA and dozens of MG's as well as your infantry preferably with elevated firing positions and over lapping fields of fire.

If we have to focus on those 4 points then we need to block them off enough that we can withstand a massed surprise assault long enough to reinforce.

[evilcherry]

That is exactly what the fight in the Dolomites are for. Water, high terrain, and control of passes. Because if we lose them we will have to lay siege the whole mountain down which is, as you said, highly impractical.

[Patrick Hunt]

... I have no idea what your talking about anymore. I was talking about what to build in the 4 passes. Not dolomites.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Patrick, I have a feeling that you are trying to prove that mountains are bad defensive terrain and forts make it even worse...

[Patrick Hunt]

No I stopped bothering with that argument and instead moved onto how to do it effectively.

Which has 2 options, cover every pass, or build substantial forts on the key passes that are capable of surviving massed attacks for extended periods.

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, anyone knows a good diceroller that can roll large groups of dice at once. The wizard of the coast one seems broken. It has a tendency to give streaks. Ie, either lot's of flaws, or lot's of succeses.

If you want to, I can write you one. Give me a bit more details (like what types of dice, how detailed you want the results), and wait a bit.

Currently using dices from 4 to 10. I need the sum of all the rolls, the amount of crits(=Maxed out die) and the amount of failures. Preferably separated per dice group.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

No I stopped bothering with that argument and instead moved onto how to do it effectively.

Which has 2 options, cover every pass, or build substantial forts on the key passes that are capable of surviving massed attacks for extended periods.

Or build any number of forts anywhere because mountains are easy to defend without forts, and even easier to defend with any forts

[Patrick Hunt]

If your going to defend a position you have to prepare it to withstand anything, not just assume the enemy is going to do exactly what you want them to do to make things easy for you. 20-25 men in a bunker will not last an hour if they get ambushed. No matter how much you might think the position is strong if the enemy catches you by surprise you need enough men to counter attack. You can't counter attack an attacking force with 20 men if they're already inside your defense.

So you need a larger bunker to enable you to house enough forces to counter any assault, rather then just the assault you hope the enemy will throw right into the jaws of your defenses.

Over confidence and arrogance based on opinion alone will get you killed.

[Dorsidwarf]

better solution: just keep being freindly with our neighbor.