German Artillery SU Decision-making

[eskuche]

Hi all,
Newer player here. I read everywhere that nebelwerfers should be assigned to panzer corps. I see they are able to take artillery and howitzers as well. Is there an actual reason for this? I am aware that the divisions themselves can't actually be assigned either, so why nebels specifically?

Is it because nebels deal with some ground element that panzer divisions themselves cannot? On a side note, how does one figure out what type of equipment counters another? Adding StuGR and PzJgAbts to motorized divisions makes sense, but the artillery distinction does not. Thanks!

[tyronec]

I don't assign any artillery to Pz corps, certainly not in '41.
SUs with corps are only used in hasty attacks if they start the move within range, or deliberate if they have moved. In '41 not many panzer attacks would meet these criteria. So best to use them with the infantry.

Assigning SUs to Mot/Pz divisions may well be worthwhile. They will get more use this way than anywhere else. The drawback is you may have a few less MPs on accasion, depends how it is managed.

There is little differential between the various Axis SUs (ie. the different artillery types). Pioneers and AA are important. Otherwise my suggestion would be to not be distracted by the small differences and concentrate on the bigger picture.

[SparkleyTits]

I would not assign SU's to panzer corps unless as a last resort for needed disruption as Tyronec stated as it will increase the overall ammount of supplies the HQ needs so once all available supplies are drawn in and are shared over the panzers and SU it means the panzers will be left with less MP next turn to compensate the increase needs of supplies

If you do really need to put SU in HQ's for an extra bit of strength for one turn then set the panzers HQ support level to 0 and they will drift back up so they only draw in needed supplies for one turn

For directly assigned SU on panzers I try to only put in motorised AA & pioneers but again if you need that extra boost in firepower then SP guns get an increase buff from being in panzers and motorised so they can be uesd to good effect if you are brawling/grinding with your panzers and not taking lots of ground

If you want to use SU in attacks that panzers are to take part in it is a good idea to put one infantry divisions from another corps and set that with the HQ with SU's to be allocated to the fight so you still get the disruption from the SU but the panzers are not hindered in MP

General rule is the bigger the gun the better they are in reducing high fort levels
Rockets are good at disruption which is best used when attacking in lower fort levels
The smaller guns like the K18 are best used in clear terrain

[No idea]

As the others said, altough I also assign the two flammepanzer battallions to two chosen mot divisions, as it seems to incerase CV value considerably. However, I am not sure if in actual combat they are that useful, as irl flammepanzers were mostly useful attacking forts. And you dont really want to attack forts with your mot units. They should attack the weakest point, not the strongest.

[SparkleyTits]

Flammpanzers are great in urban hexes and do well against infantry but they take a hefty ammount of resources to trek around and as panzers are not optimal to assault urban hexes IMO you could get less drawbacks with similar advantages by using stugs instead

I find flammpanzers are well suited to the hardy jobs that the infantry in I corp generally get piled with such as assaulting Leningrad and/or Moscow for example

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: eskuche

Hi all,
Newer player here. I read everywhere that nebelwerfers should be assigned to panzer corps. I see they are able to take artillery and howitzers as well. Is there an actual reason for this? I am aware that the divisions themselves can't actually be assigned either, so why nebels specifically?

Is it because nebels deal with some ground element that panzer divisions themselves cannot? On a side note, how does one figure out what type of equipment counters another? Adding StuGR and PzJgAbts to motorized divisions makes sense, but the artillery distinction does not. Thanks!

My general rule of thumb is opposites attract. So if you have something with a big gun, get things without a big gun and vice versa. Infantry goes well with armour, Stugs with infantry units like motor infantry for instance. The battle resolution does not just match CVs, but also resolves them in the order of longest range to shortest range. So infantry can provide firepower at close range that a tank cannot. Think of that man creeping up in the bushes with an anti tank rocket and how a few infantry men with the tank can shoot him first. You could of course double up on high CV units with high CV SUs, but your overall army strength would be on average lower.

I guess the nebs advice is that a tank already has a big gun, so why not get a different weapon to go with it like rockets which explode over a larger area - perhaps that is more effective at dispersed infantry than a single cannon shot?

That said do take the advice of tyronec and SparkleyTits. In 1941 in particular the SUs you will have in a Panzer corps HQ will rarely if ever be used and only add to the logistics and transport costs.

ORIGINAL: No idea
I also assign the two flammepanzer battallions to two chosen mot divisions, as it seems to incerase CV value considerably. However, I am not sure if in actual combat they are that useful, as irl flammepanzers were mostly useful attacking forts. And you dont really want to attack forts with your mot units. They should attack the weakest point, not the strongest.

I am not sure this is a good idea - flamm SUs are huge gas guzzlers. A good way of leaving your motorised unit with too little fuel is burning it up in a flamm panzer SU! Although they get the +1 ratings bonus for being motorised units if you use them from a Panzer HQ, they do have a short range profile. So they are best used in terrain which has a range modifier for long range weapons. Which means urban/city etc. If you are using ordinary infantry rather than motorised for city fighting, which is a very good idea, then you should also put the flamms with infantry.

[Crackaces]

Nebs have lots of tubes per platform and thus use trucks effectively to get a lot of firepower forward. There are (2) types of Nebs. The 150’s and the heavies . So why use Nebs? I propose when the enemy CV derives from a plethora of soft targets and you need to in the first strike rounds disrupt lots of the enemy. What you don’t want is to strike a fly with an axe. So if you track my battles I will break out the Nebels when I am attacking a big stack I can’t get the CV advantage so I am going to use firepower to adjust the CV in the end because that I believe will get me to 2:1. The heavies can take down fort levels.

[56ajax]

Long time since I played as Axis but I think the TOEs of Panzers lacked AA, so I assign those....

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax

Long time since I played as Axis but I think the TOEs of Panzers lacked AA, so I assign those....

Yes there is excellent SP 88’s to stuff in Pz units and LW flak into the HQ’s.

[eskuche]

Thank you all for your detailed responses!

ORIGINAL: tyronec
I don't assign any artillery to Pz corps, certainly not in '41.

There is little differential between the various Axis SUs (ie. the different artillery types). Pioneers and AA are important. Otherwise my suggestion would be to not be distracted by the small differences and concentrate on the bigger picture.

Big picture is difficult for me as a micromanager. I may end up doing what I believe Telemachus does in resetting SUs every turn to army/(groups).

This makes sense. Given that, a followup questions regarding SUs, for example, to transfer all artillery SUs out of Pz corps:
1) Can they move all the way up the chain (e.g., corps to OKH) in one turn?
2) How far down can they be assigned down? My impression is that you can do all the way down to corps level, but individual units can take assignments only from the immediately commanding HQ.

ORIGINAL: SparkleyTits
I would not assign SU's to panzer corps unless as a last resort for needed disruption as Tyronec stated as it will increase the overall ammount of supplies the HQ needs so once all available supplies are drawn in and are shared over the panzers and SU it means the panzers will be left with less MP next turn to compensate the increase needs of supplies

General rule is the bigger the gun the better they are in reducing high fort levels
Rockets are good at disruption which is best used when attacking in lower fort levels
The smaller guns like the K18 are best used in clear terrain

Rockets = disruption, got it. Manual is not clear on these disruption sources from units, and I hadn't looked at a battle at full details yet. I had no idea supplies were taken by SUs. I will tool around with Nebel supplies in the Pz corps HQs, and yes, I had picked up from various sources to add some mobile FlaK, though now I should check how much supplies they are using as well.

[SparkleyTits]

Let's say for example you put 9 SU in a corp on turn 12 it will stay in your corp HQ until the beginning of your turn 13 (Meaning the SU will stay in place in the Soviets turn for defence ontop of your chosen offence) then it will then drift up 1 command from corp to an army, at the beginning of turn 14 would be army to army group, turn 15 would be army group to OKH

If you prefer micro then I imagine this is the the kind of thing that will give you the most control over your SU each turn

[lowsugar]

There is one downside. Pioneers will spread all over the map.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: lowsugar

There is one downside. Pioneers will spread all over the map.

Pioneers and construction have special rules were they try to get evenly distributed to all low level command. I do not like the way the pioneers automatically get assigned by the program.

If you are happy to leave one or two pioneers in every corps HQ the program will do it automatically. If not you have no choice but to spend points to reassign, and lock the HQs to stop them moving out again (if more than two in a corps). And once locked so are all the other SUs in there.

With construction once they are "on map" they do not get reassigned. So if you lock some lower level HQs without construction to stop them getting any in the first few turns you can prevent them leaving higher HQs like army groups. When enough are on map and few left in the army groups and OKH offmap then you can unlock HQs and they will not drift down.

ORIGINAL: eskuche
2) How far down can they be assigned down? My impression is that you can do all the way down to corps level, but individual units can take assignments only from the immediately commanding HQ.

There are two ways of reassigning SUs. One is by going to the originating HQ, selecting the individual SU and reassigning it from there. You will only be given the option of other HQs that are close enough - but they can be any number of levels down or up or even in another chain of command. Only assignments down a chain of command are points free. I refer to this as "push down." The other is to go to the destination and click assign - this will give you a list of SUs you can assign but only by selecting one from a class, not choosing which SU individually (although there is a way still to do this). This I refer to as "pull down." Direct assignment to a combat unit can only get SUs via this method. This method assigns SUs from anywhere up its command chain (including high commands), and, unfortunately, prioritises the highest level first. If doing direct assignment remember it is free to directly assign but costs a point to remove the direct assignment later.

[postfux]

If the game would allow manually moving a SU up one level without AP cost (like the automatic system does) all SU management problems would be solved.

Lock everything and move the SUs were you want them.

Just sayin...

[tyronec]

If the game would allow manually moving a SU up one level without AP cost (like the automatic system does) all SU management problems would be solved.

Lock everything and move the SUs were you want them.

Just sayin...

That is an interesting approach to the game. Personally I find it tiresome moving SUs around and am very glad there are AP penalties for doing so, so as Axis it is bore for the first few turns getting everything into place but once done they can mostly be left where they are. Most infantry corps get their quota of artillery; infantry and armored SUs generally get put where they are wanted and only pioneers and AA may get moved around depending on how the game is going.
If there were free movement of SUs, with no penalty, then everyone could be looking at quite a few extra minutes to play every active turn for fairly small gains, or play at a disadvantage.

[postfux]

ORIGINAL: tyronec

That is an interesting approach to the game. Personally I find it tiresome moving SUs around and am very glad there are AP penalties for doing so, so as Axis it is bore for the first few turns getting everything into place but once done they can mostly be left where they are. Most infantry corps get their quota of artillery; infantry and armored SUs generally get put where they are wanted and only pioneers and AA may get moved around depending on how the game is going.
If there were free movement of SUs, with no penalty, then everyone could be looking at quite a few extra minutes to play every active turn for fairly small gains, or play at a disadvantage.

I dont want to move them around free, only up one level (in addition to what is free already). What I want to do is essentially doing manually what the system does autmatically anyway (along with some unwanted things).

I havent come far into the game beyond the first few turns because I am still learning the mechanics. But it is exactly my goal to get everything where I want it and leave it there without much fuss.

The game forces me to use the auto system which does things I dont like.

Engineers are one example.

The necessity to "clean" Corps one turn and to push down in the next to lock is another. I would prefer pushing unwanted SUs to army level manually and then lock the corps.