2 Things I Don't Understand.

[stan23]

I Do Not understand why recon units can't capture hexes or why artillery is not
classed as a support unit like AT and AA. These 2 restrictions are absolutely dumb
and make no sense at all imo and are ruining (for me anyway) a otherwise interesting and good game.
Can anyone give me a answer?
I am a longtime PC player, a game I love

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Recon units are basically just small groups of armoured cars etc, rather than a proper division/battalion/whatever. 2 or 3 trucks can't just occupy a city and claim it as their own the way 1000+ men can.

- BNC

[kondi754]

Recon units are basically just small groups of armoured cars etc, rather than a proper division/battalion/whatever. 2 or 3 trucks can't just occupy a city and claim it as their own the way 1000+ men can.

- BNC

Belgrade was captured by 11 German soldiers from the motorcycle reconnaissance battalion in 1941.

Post by stan23 » 07 Jan 2017 22:59
I Do Not understand why recon units can't capture hexes or why artillery is not
classed as a support unit like AT and AA. These 2 restrictions are absolutely dumb
and make no sense at all imo and are ruining (for me anyway) a otherwise interesting and good game.
Can anyone give me a answer?
I am a longtime PC player, a game I love

It seems to me the point is that the recon unit doesn't require a supply and can't be cut off, so also doesn't occupy the hexes.
I suspect developers weren't able to reconcile these two things or it's intentional, to balance one advantage by one defect.

[Erik2]

Personally I would prefer recon units that were able to cut supply and capture locations.
They should be able to survive a limited turns when cut off from the main supply, similar to paratroops.
Add supply by air and you would be able to simulate Chindit units, this is simply not possible currently.

On a side note, I also would like recon air units to need refueling.

[BiteNibbleChomp]

Recon units are basically just small groups of armoured cars etc, rather than a proper division/battalion/whatever. 2 or 3 trucks can't just occupy a city and claim it as their own the way 1000+ men can.

- BNC

Belgrade was captured by 11 German soldiers from the motorcycle reconnaissance battalion in 1941.

Maybe for a few hours. The Germans would surely have sent in more guys a bit later, if only to make sure everything was under control. In game this would be like killing the unit inside the city and then marching a different unit in.

- BNC

[kondi754]

Recon units are basically just small groups of armoured cars etc, rather than a proper division/battalion/whatever. 2 or 3 trucks can't just occupy a city and claim it as their own the way 1000+ men can.

- BNC

Belgrade was captured by 11 German soldiers from the motorcycle reconnaissance battalion in 1941.

Maybe for a few hours. The Germans would surely have sent in more guys a bit later, if only to make sure everything was under control. In game this would be like killing the unit inside the city and then marching a different unit in.

- BNC

There are plenty of undefended town, or defended by weak untrained recruits or students of military schools, or finally announced as "open cities" and those also couldn't be taken by recon units?
On the other hand, there were famous recon units such as motorized reconnaissance battalion SS-Leibstandarte, which not only took many cities but was breaking fortified enemy defense lines - example: British fortifications on the Klissura pass in Greece in 1941.
American reconnaissance units also can boast of similar achievements (capture the Ludendorff bridge at Remagen in 1945 ) . It seems to me that sometimes the most important thing is courage and speed, not strenght.

[stan23]

Any comments about Arty not being a support unit?
You would really have to be careful when attacking a unit supported by artillery.
You would have to try to outflank your enemy if possible, just like in reality.
Right now there is no advantage at all to being supported by artillery, which is 'The King of Battle'
BTW, Erik is absolutely right about air recon units and refueling, another weak point of the game imo.

I am currently playng Eriks PC mod, which I highly recommend
and I do like OoB's emphasis on supply, efficiency and having a frontline,
aspects sadly missing from PC.
So I will Blitzkrieg on for now.
Greets from Virginia

[GiveWarAchance]

What is Erik's PC mod?

As for those recon exploits mentioned above, those all sound like Kurt Meyer's heroics. I remember reading about all those in his Stackpole book. He drove up to the mayor's manor with a few soldiers in a civilian vehicle and just told the dude to surrender the city. And in Greece, Meyer was throwing grenades behind his troops to keep them moving up the rocky hills while under fire from the British.

[Horst]

Recon units in OOB do what recon units should do: sniffing around in enemy territory and return to safety if things heat up too much. They usually retreat whenever they receive damage. Recon units are not suppose to battle, conquer and occupy positions, especially not if they are very fast on paved roads and can move twice in a turn, as long as you don’t attack with them.
Well, theoretically, you could remove their supply-immunity and still give them a fuel stat like the paratroopers now, so they still need to return to the own supply lines sooner or later. No idea if the AI could still handle them this way. I had already tested fuel stats with recon planes in the original Pacific campaigns, but that trial ended in a disaster because of constant out-of-supply pop-ups and lack of land-based air-supply points. Supply-requirements for recon units are only something for land units, if at all.

Artillery in PzC always makes the day when properly placed behind other units. Attacking defensive positions is quite difficult, especially with infantry, making it even worse with super-heavy artillery backing up. The way artillery behaves in PzC is like the automated turrets in the old Aliens movie, making it automatically shoot the crap out of anything that closes in until ammo runs out.

Artillery in OOB has basically a slower rate of fire, and especially must be directed manually somewhere. Imagine it must be directed by forward observers and/or under high command’s order. It won’t support on any conscript’s whim, but doesn’t run out of ammo as long as the supply line is intact either. Radio support was rather scarce/unreliable for most nations in WW2, so artillery couldn’t be instantly directed in all directions in a few moments. Not every unit had a field telephone nearby and especially not the authorisation to call for artillery-support all the time.
The artillery in OOB has also a slight range advantage compared to the vanilla PzC guns. The range advantage alone can also mean that you can concentrate fire of several arty units on the same target more often. If you got cash to spare, you can even fire into the fog of war.
If your recon is good around a defensive position, like having some planes hovering above, then you often have enough time to soften up hostile units until they reach your front lines.

All in all, I find the artillery in OOB more plausible and fair.
Anti-tank units, on the other hand, became quite unfair but very useful in OOB compared to PzC, especially if they are armoured. Poor tanks! However, you can still use infantry to take out AT-units, so here we got a good counter-unit type, giving infantry more importance.
Defensive AA fire isn’t that effective as manually attacking in OOB, so that’s okay in my book. Doesn’t it also look so pretty damn awesome from naval units?

Well, yes, there is some new thinking required to accept some changes from PzC to OOB, but I personally don’t miss the former anymore (if you ignore some still missing features). OOB just arrived to Europe content-wise. There is still much development needed until anything is covered. Let’s see what the future brings, etc., etc.

[kondi754]

What is Erik's PC mod?

As for those recon exploits mentioned above, those all sound like Kurt Meyer's heroics. I remember reading about all those in his Stackpole book. He drove up to the mayor's manor with a few soldiers in a civilian vehicle and just told the dude to surrender the city. And in Greece, Meyer was throwing grenades behind his troops to keep them moving up the rocky hills while under fire from the British.

Yes and not.
In Greece there was Sturmbannfuhrer Kurt Panzer-Meyer from Leibstandarte. He was throwing grenedes behind his troops on Klissura Pass.
In Belgrad there were Hauptsturmfuhrer Fritz Klingenberg and 10 SS-mans from SS-Div Reich. Reich Division won the race to Belgrad with Leibstandarte.

[Erik2]

He's probably referring to my custom Blitzkrieg 39-40 (moving into 41) campaign, the last post on this page:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 74&t=65107

Artillery:
It could work similar to AT support if it was allowed to fire only once or twice in a turn. That would simulate pre-planned coordinates.
The attacking player could feint an attack (/or two) and thus force the artillery to spend one or two if its support barrages.

Recon planes:
They would refuel at airfields, carriers or heavy ships like standard air units or ports for the large planes, PBYs etc.

[Horst]

I would also not mind if AT-support only triggers once. I had already noticed a couple of times how stupid the AI attacked like it was totally ignoring my visible AT units nearby. Smoking tank wrecks everywhere! Triggering only one ARTY-support fire would be okay too.

The trouble with the recon planes is that original campaign scenarios don’t always offer land-based air-supply points. This is why land-based aircrafts are usually a waste of cash during the original Pacific campaigns until near end. The recon planes that aren’t carrier-based, like the large sea planes, require land-based points. On maps without airports/airfields, you would get constantly out-of-fuel message boxes if you add fuel and take away the supply-immunity.
Non-carrier capital ships provide only land-based supply points, hence even carrier-based recon planes definitely need a carrier to support them without airfields. I wish you could define two types of support point for capital ships, but currently not possible.
That’s why I think the recon planes should better be left alone with their supply-immunity. Who knows how often the supply-immunity of recon units is required for original/custom scenarios. Adding fuel to recon units/planes would require map changes what I doubt anyone is actually up to do that for old scenarios. I prefer original-map compatibility for whatever change I do with my modifications.

[GiveWarAchance]

Erik thanks for link. I'm doing Morning Sun campaign now and love the game. Good to know there will be a lot of campaigns to play.

[stan23]

Yes, PC=Panzer Corps, Erik's mod is the link he gave, (It's quite excellent and loads of fun)
And I must admit Blitzkrieg is my first outing with OoB.
I hadn't thought at all about the wide open Pacific in regards to air recon and refueling.
And you know, I could probably get used to the recon move aspect of the game.
But I still regard the non arty support to be a serious flaw which should be corrected, imo.
I think about all the battles where artillery support was absolutely crucial,
German, Russian and American forces in particular all had very deadly arty support
and this should in some way be represented in the game.
Probably like Erik said, similar to AT support and allowed to fire only once or twice in a turn.
Greets from Virginia

[GiveWarAchance]

I've read both sides of this ongoing debate and I will unhelpfully say I think both sides have very good arguments about recon units, AT and arty rules.
I feel the reason for the unusual rules is the developers are trying to make this game different from other games for originality, especially to be different from Panzer Corp so some of the rules seem unusual.

[Erik2]

Recon planes:
Lack of ports/airfields etc can easily be solved with an Exit/return location.
I think the support ship could also be given seaplane tender functionality. There's hardly a Pacific naval battle without one or two of these present.

[Horst]

I don’t know from what plausible source this is from, but it might interest anyone here how long the response time of defensive artillery fire supposely was for some nations in WW2:

The Soviets could need 30-60 minutes for accurate defensive support fire from several batteries.
The Germans could need 15-30 minutes for the same.
The British could do it in 3-10 minutes.
The Finns managed to get it to 5-12 minutes or so.
The US could, in perfect circumstances, get it down to 30 seconds, although normal was 2-5 minutes.

That nicely shows which nation has better forward observer and/or radio support.
Soviets relied on the lack of initiative of their enemies and usually gathered their artillery on hotspots, like Kursk with 20,000 artillery pieces. Their radios were also unreliable at beginning, if available at all.
The French were similar like the Soviets and relied on defensive positions. They planed WW1-wise mostly pre-calculated artillery fire on certain expected invasion routes. The flexible mobility-war of tanks totally ruined their artillery support and their front lines collapsed sooner or later.

Anyway, I've played through all the original campaigns of OOB so far and could always rely on my artillery, both in offensive and defensive situations. I don't really need something extra.

[GiveWarAchance]

Horst, very interesting stats.
I agree the game is good as it is now.
That hair-trigger US arty was what saved many platoons in Vietnam in their circular defensive positions from what I've read. Amazing how skilled they are with fire support.
I read about the Finns too. There were very skilled but they had to ration out every shell carefully to make sure enough badguys were killed per shot to make the expenditure worthwhile. They knew where the Russian assembly areas were but they were not allowed to shell them because artillery ammo was only for defensive fire support. I wish the Finns had had more arty ammo and AT guns to really cull the badguys and reduce their tank advantage.

[stan23]

The Soviets could need 30-60 minutes for accurate defensive support fire from several batteries.
The Germans could need 15-30 minutes for the same.
The British could do it in 3-10 minutes.
The Finns managed to get it to 5-12 minutes or so.
The US could, in perfect circumstances, get it down to 30 seconds, although normal was 2-5 minutes.

Horst
I find these figures very interesting to me! If you do remember the source, or if anyone else has info about this sort of stuff, let me know.
I know its a little of topic, but any book recommendations or links would be much appreciated.

I read about the Finns too. There were very skilled but they had to ration out every shell carefully to make sure enough badguys were killed per shot to make the expenditure worthwhile. They knew where the Russian assembly areas were but they were not allowed to shell them because artillery ammo was only for defensive fire support.

I would like more info about this as well.
I knew the Finns were badasses, but had no idea it was this extreme.
Thanx to all replies and
Greets from Virginia

[GiveWarAchance]

The Finns could have easily beaten the Russians if they had had more AT guns and more artillery ammo. The Russian tanks were able to drive around even straight through Finnish defensive lines and then they formed circles way behind Finnish lines and waited for the infantry to catch up which usually didn't cause they were killed off by the Finns. The only way for the Finns to destroy tanks was by infantry running up with satchel charges or similar explosives so it was very risky and costly for them. And Russian attack columns always got stuck on roads in wintry forests surrounded by Finnish ski troops, and their tanks made the convoys too difficult for the Finns to destroy so they literally camped on the roads for the whole 3 months of the campaign until the ceasefire and left mountains of excrement behind when they went back to Russia. The Finns had no tanks at all in the first winter war and only a few dozen 37mm AT guns which were too spread out and too few but they destroyed a lot of tanks. A little bit better weapons and more ammo and the Finns would have won the war and demanded terms from the Russians after crippling losses. It would have helped Germany a lot by weakening Russia.

There are many good books about the Winter War. It is one of the most interesting wars in history with numerous slaughters of the Russians who couldn't break through the Mannerheim Line with its many forts or get over the lakes or move down forest roads blocked by ambushes. Finnish arty massacred Russian troops with airbursts and broke up ice on lakes to sink their tanks. The Russians tried to get revenge by dropping random bombs on Helsinki to kill innocent people for no reason. The Finnish ski troops were decisive in the forests. And their snipers each killed off hundreds of badguys. There were some tragic events too like when the Finns counterattacked strong Russia defenses who used buildings and trenches for cover, and the Russians got mad and used a lot of heavy arty to destroy Finnish forts. Here is good book for example.... https://www.amazon.com/Winter-War-1939- ... 0811714012