1) With an eye on the prestige soft cap rules and saving prestige for that rainy day in 1943 and later, what should we do. Early on trucks are clearly a must, blitzkrieg just wont work with Shanks's Pony (on foot for those who don't get the term). Pre GC41 there is limited need for Half-Track's, I would think Vyazma is the first scenario you would really suffer if still in trucks, the mud is where they start to shine (there's a question coming honest!). But late GC41 is where the average prestige soft cap rules first start to be seen and hence here is the question.
The basic Half-Track for 100 pres Vs. the swanky 200 pres version? All I can see as the benefit from the 200 version is move 8 instead of 6 aand about half a pint of fuel. For a number of reasons in starting to think there is no reason to go for the 200pres version. Panzers in general only have move 5, 6 at the outside so the 100 pres version can keep up, and combined arms seem still the way to go, so is the 8 move of any value. Also if I have say 12 infantry, artillery and Pak type AT deployed using the 100 version rather than the 200 saves 1,200 prestige from the total used by the soft cap mechanics, allowing for better quality units or more over-strength, a str12 artillery with a 100HT has roughly the same prestige footprint as a str10 with a 200HT. Your views?
2) Paratroopers and maybe other units. Ok, its a bit nit picky but unless I'm getting something wrong a para without a truck can be deployed as air or ground version, but as soon as you buy them a truck you cant air drop them? It seems to me a bit counter intuitive that if you want to air drop them you have to remove the truck, after all you are going to use them as air troops early on mainly where its a pre planned offensive. It should be more like, "Oi mate, your going to be jumping out of a plane today so you better leave your truck behind this time", that's to say shouldn't you have the choice, especially with para's that if you set them up for air deployment they leave their trucks behind automatically that scenario but you don't have to manually remove them to make them air droppable? This leads to the obvious question with the implementation of the soft cap rules should you be able to choose to deploy other units with or without transport in a specific scenario? Say in Streets of Moscow, would the infantry really have taken their trucks along for house to house fighting?
3) And lastly a sort of transport question. Having watched the AAR videos for Eben-Emael and Crete Naval, I saw the pre positioned para's start on the ground in the video's but for me when I play the scenaro's (and ive tried all sorts but failed to land them before turn one) they start in the air. Is this just a change as a result of patch's or maybe the videos being based on Deducter's mod,or am I doing something wrong? I have to say, the difference between being able to attack with the para's first round or having to drop them and them being free targets as partially suppressed units for the AI on its turn one, makes a big difference, especially in the Crete scenario, with them starting on the ground you can effectively suppress or destroy the central AA gun on turn one, when you have to drop them you haven't touched the AA and will be lucky if they aren't battered wrecks before they can fire a shot in anger.
Cheers
Bonesoul








