Geronimo!!!!!

[Seminole]

Wanted to kick off a thread to discuss the use and utility of airborne.

I just made some para drops in my game (flubbed one with an errant mouse click and ended up 10 miles off the intended drop site - I blame the drunk pilots!)

I noticed something very cool, unintended or not.

I pushed the enemy out of Cherkassy (Italians, they didn't really want to be there anyway) with an attack across the frozen Dnepr. However, none of the units that made the attack had sufficient MP to move into the city that was pending Soviet control.

I decided to drop in a brigade of paras to discourage the Italians from returning, and discovered that a para drop immediately converts the control of the hex to Soviet. This means reduced MP cost allowing me to move in a supporting unit that had participated in the previous attack. Very cool.

Para drops are hell on the transports though, so don't think you're going to get to spam these even though you get a load of airborne after the blizzard starts.

[Flaviusx]

Oh this is very nice find.

I have An Idea that I've been wanting to try out with paras for the blizzard, and this makes that idea even more attractive.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Oh this is very nice find.

I have An Idea that I've been wanting to try out with paras for the blizzard, and this makes that idea even more attractive.

Oh great...I see a gamey exploit of dropping a line of paras along an attack axis, then running a Shock-Cavalry army through the freshly converted hexes.

I hope this gets fixed before it gets massively abused.

[Farfarer61]

Did it to Ploesti and Odessa - never thought of using it to get across those rivers. There is a chapter in Sajer ( I know I know) describing exactly how the Reds tried to do this for crossing the Dnepr. Not ahistorical, other than the MP usage which may or may not be right. I figure if you are going to burn up the paras, might as well get something for it. It may also cause them to be saved fo paratroop duties, rather than a way to exceed the Guards limit.

[Seminole]

Oh great...I see a gamey exploit of dropping a line of paras along an attack axis, then running a Shock-Cavalry army through the freshly converted hexes.
I hope this gets fixed before it gets massively abused.

What you're saying is that Operation Market Garden was a gamey exploit. [:D]
After all, Monty sought to overcome the extra MP cost of bridging multiple rivers in a single week that were under enemy ZOC. His problem was that recon didn't pick up 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Div on refit several hexes behind the line in a city.

I'll see what my transport regiments look like next week, but in both cases all the aircraft used for the lift were listed as damaged, so I'm betting they'll take several weeks to get back to decent strength (I may just send them to the NR), and I only have 5 of them (it appears that only the Li-2 can be used, I'll have to double check if TB-3 can handle transport (it should), but I think the game might restrict to certain air frames.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Oh this is very nice find.

I have An Idea that I've been wanting to try out with paras for the blizzard, and this makes that idea even more attractive.

Oh great...I see a gamey exploit of dropping a line of paras along an attack axis, then running a Shock-Cavalry army through the freshly converted hexes.

I hope this gets fixed before it gets massively abused.

Something like that, yes. Anyways, easiest way to fix it is to treat the hexes as having been flipped over for control purposes.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

What you're saying is that Operation Market Garden was a gamey exploit. [:D]
After all, Monty sought to overcome the extra MP cost of bridging multiple rivers in a single week that were under enemy ZOC. His problem was that recon didn't pick up 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Div on refit several hexes behind the line in a city.

I'll see what my transport regiments look like next week, but in both cases all the aircraft used for the lift were listed as damaged, so I'm betting they'll take several weeks to get back to decent strength (I may just send them to the NR), and I only have 5 of them (it appears that only the Li-2 can be used, I'll have to double check if TB-3 can handle transport (it should), but I think the game might restrict to certain air frames.

It's cheese, let's not kid ourselves about it. But I'd love to get the chance to try the cheese once, just as a proof of concept sort of thing.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

Oh great...I see a gamey exploit of dropping a line of paras along an attack axis, then running a Shock-Cavalry army through the freshly converted hexes.
I hope this gets fixed before it gets massively abused.

What you're saying is that Operation Market Garden was a gamey exploit. [:D]
After all, Monty sought to overcome the extra MP cost of bridging multiple rivers in a single week that were under enemy ZOC. His problem was that recon didn't pick up 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Div on refit several hexes behind the line in a city.

I'll see what my transport regiments look like next week, but in both cases all the aircraft used for the lift were listed as damaged, so I'm betting they'll take several weeks to get back to decent strength (I may just send them to the NR), and I only have 5 of them (it appears that only the Li-2 can be used, I'll have to double check if TB-3 can handle transport (it should), but I think the game might restrict to certain air frames.

The base TB-3 can't, the TB-3-G2 is the one. (They're out of production, though you do have 45 or so IIRC.)

[Seminole]

It's cheese, let's not kid ourselves about it.

The devs know whether they did it on purpose or not, so I'm sure it will be addressed if simply overlooked previously.

I see the reason for it, it literally allows an Operation Market to be tried. If paras indeed control the territory (you can't land in the middle of an enemy unit) then the extra MP costs associated with entering enemy controlled territory (scouting, security, etc.) should be moot, imo.

It doesn't appear to me to be the type of thing that lends itself to abuse (burns up the planes, and you don't have many groups to do this, so it's not like granting the ability to perform another 500 mile plunge that HQ build up allows). You'll still have EZOC costs imposed for what you propose, and while I haven't run the math, I doubt you're getting far if the German has a proper defense established with a line and armor/motorized in reserve behind it.

Be interesting to see how people utilize it.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: Seminole

What you're saying is that Operation Market Garden was a gamey exploit. [:D]
After all, Monty sought to overcome the extra MP cost of bridging multiple rivers in a single week that were under enemy ZOC. His problem was that recon didn't pick up 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Div on refit several hexes behind the line in a city.

I'll see what my transport regiments look like next week, but in both cases all the aircraft used for the lift were listed as damaged, so I'm betting they'll take several weeks to get back to decent strength (I may just send them to the NR), and I only have 5 of them (it appears that only the Li-2 can be used, I'll have to double check if TB-3 can handle transport (it should), but I think the game might restrict to certain air frames.

It's cheese, let's not kid ourselves about it. But I'd love to get the chance to try the cheese once, just as a proof of concept sort of thing.

Indeed. Even worse than a Shock-Cavalry army would be a hybrid Mtn Infantry-Tank Brigade Shock army, backed by a Cavalry Shock Army or two.. Throw in a couple of Combined Arms Rifle Division based armies for creating the hole, and you have the means to do a single turn 10-15 hex deep penetration.

Imagine, a three hex drop behind a section of the front, assaulting the front lines with Rifle Divisions, and popping a three hex wide gap in the lines, then you drop a string of Paras along the axis you wish to advance along. Then, you race through the second Combined Arms army to widen the base to 5-7 hexes and a couple deep. Then you send in the Cavalry Army(ies) to widen the penetration, and/or fan out behind. Then you send in the Mountain Divisions and Tank Brigades to create a huge mushroom cloud of death and destruction throughout the Axis rear. With decent initiative/admin rolls, the Mountain units could get 16 MPs, and with rivers frozen they could theoretically convert a swath of territory at least 3-5 hexes wide well over a dozen hexes deep. The Tank Brigades, as well, moving through the freely converted hexes, are going to be able to pretty much keep up and fill in the gaps.

I'll bring the cheese, and you bring the whine...[:D]

[Seminole]

Imagine, a three hex drop behind a section of the front, assaulting the front lines with Rifle Divisions, and popping a three hex wide gap in the lines, then you drop a string of Paras along the axis you wish to advance along.

No reason it can't be wargamed with the editor, but I think you're overestimating the number of Russian transports available. I think there are 5 regiments total (at least where I'm at in Dec '41)
Your theory also relies on an Axis defense with no depth, which shouldn't be happening anyway, and should be punished if it is.

[Flaviusx]

Lift will indeed be the limiting factor here, along with aborts caused by the weather, but even so, I think you could really wreck the Axis with this.

Bottom line is that this little wrinkle bypasses the entire turn based determination of control, and that surely can't be intended.

[Seminole]

Bottom line is that this little wrinkle bypasses the entire turn based determination of control, and that surely can't be intended.

Such a change would make impossible something like Operation Market Garden if the game engine gets used for the West Front.

What was the point of dropping paras on the bridges if not to expedite allied control of the terrain in question to speed up passage by the forces in Operation Garden? In short, to obviate the additional costs of fighting through choke points that the additional costs are coded to represent.

The reason the original operation failed at the last step was they didn't know that the final bridge was actually 'defended' by two (albeit mauled) SS Pzr Div.

Step-stoning paras into enemy hexes won't obviate EZOC costs (and relies on those hexes being completely empty), it will simply lower the costs of moving into territory at the price of the paras combat effectiveness, and the remaining utility of the squadrons dedicated to making the lift.

I think JAMiAM's concerns are more paranoid fantasy than consideration of all factors involved. But I would like to see what people can accomplish. Paras should be more than just throw-away units used to clip rail lines.

If the Axis have the MLR supported by Pzr Div and Mot Rgt in reserve, you're not going to lay a red carpet of paras. But if they're digging a razor straight line across Russia that is one stack deep, well, I think that's part of the reason vertical envelopment was invented...

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

I think JAMiAM's concerns are more paranoid fantasy than consideration of all factors involved. But I would like to see what people can accomplish. Paras should be more than just throw-away units used to clip rail lines.

Personally, I wouldn't waste them clipping rail lines. I would use them to block retreat routes, and to prevent local reserves from being able to commit due to MP and adjacency restrictions. That is, a tactical/operational usage that will increase their chance of living to fight (and create grief) another day.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Seminole

I think JAMiAM's concerns are more paranoid fantasy than consideration of all factors involved. But I would like to see what people can accomplish. Paras should be more than just throw-away units used to clip rail lines.

Personally, I wouldn't waste them clipping rail lines. I would use them to block retreat routes, and to prevent local reserves from being able to commit due to MP and adjacency restrictions. That is, a tactical/operational usage that will increase their chance of living to fight (and create grief) another day.

That's what I'm thinking. A little late for my 41-42 offensive though.

[Seminole]

Personally, I wouldn't waste them clipping rail lines.

Depends on how your opponent constructs (or rather fails to construct) his rail net. [;)]

I would use them to block retreat routes, and to prevent local reserves from being able to commit due to MP and adjacency restrictions. That is, a tactical/operational usage that will increase their chance of living to fight (and create grief) another day.

I agree, but you have to plan these things out as well. Getting things in position, etc. They're so weak after being dropped that you better get to them fast or they're gone.
Part of the problems the Allies had in the west in using their paras after Normandy was the pace of ground operations kept overrunning their planned drop zones.

[Flaviusx]

The way I'm thinking about doing this, even if just a single unit was successfully dropped, it could really speed things along. (It's an idea I've been working on to deal with Axis blizzard runaways.) It's something I already had in mind, but getting a Soviet controlled hex in the bargain makes it even more effective. And if I can do one such drop each turn, so much the better. So you really do not need mass para insertions to cause havoc. Just a few. And no, not on on rail lines, it's a tactical use.

[mmarquo]

Ridiculous. Here is the introduction to WITE from the manual, "As the Axis or Soviet player, you take the role of the military High Command to use the forces available to you to execute the conflict at the strategic and operational levels of war." The tactical use of parachute brigades to engineer such a breech in the Axis lines in ridiculous. This concept takes place along with the opening Riga Gambit and the massive Soviet amphibious assaults into Roumania seen in earlier versions.

IIRC the use of paras to secure the Dnepr bridges did not work out so well...

Marquo [X(]

[Peltonx]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Oh this is very nice find.

I have An Idea that I've been wanting to try out with paras for the blizzard, and this makes that idea even more attractive.

Oh great...I see a gamey exploit of dropping a line of paras along an attack axis, then running a Shock-Cavalry army through the freshly converted hexes.

I hope this gets fixed before it gets massively abused.

This exploit is much much better.

The russian player has a brain fart, but he can simply drop a unit on one of the 4 rail lines you have and your offensive is stopped cold for a turn and he fixes his lines.Of course he magicly knows which line. Hes being nice and only doing it once, but if he wanted he could do it 3 or 4 turns in a row and simply kill off every unit in AGS. I kill the unit in one turn, but your rail unit has to march back to cut line.

This really needs to be nerfed as it will become a standard exploit that has zero historical basic.

The german player simply can't keep his 4 rail units in back as they have been nerfed to the lower number the last patch.

Pelton

[Seminole]

Ridiculous. Here is the introduction to WITE from the manual, "As the Axis or Soviet player, you take the role of the military High Command to use the forces available to you to execute the conflict at the strategic and operational levels of war." The tactical use of parachute brigades to engineer such a breech in the Axis lines in ridiculous. This concept takes place along with the opening Riga Gambit and the massive Soviet amphibious assaults into Roumania seen in earlier versions.
IIRC the use of paras to secure the Dnepr bridges did not work out so well...

Sorry, you're just wrong here.
Operation Market-Garden was a strategic level plan, signed off by Monty and Ike, to use paras in a 'gamey exploit' and seize bridgeheads for a rapid advance (the plan was to originally conclude in 4 days).
The use of paras isn't 'tactical' (like calling in air support or artillery). Tactical is how you take the hill, strategy is how you develop a (in this case vertical) envelopment.