Fallschirmjager

[stormbringer3]

I'm thinking of changing one of my infantry to a Fallschirmjager. i have a A+3 and a D+3. which one would be a better choice? What hero stats do people like for Fallschirmjager units?
Thanks for any opinions.

[huckc]

I wish there was an ammo hero for them

Non flippantly, I don't like making my superheroes them since front-line spearhead infantry is more useful and on every scenario. I'd give them my second-rate heroes, preferably A + D as they already have very high initiative.

Movement is also good to make up for scenarios with no jumps thus they need to be on the front-lines yet don't have motorized transport, it also gives them more room to maneuver after jumping.

[AnalogGamer]

Movement and Initiative/Attack. Fallshirm defend well, but need a boost for their un-supported attacks in the rear. Being able to hot-foot it out of sight helps a lot when things go pear-shaped, which they do all too often.

A single Fallshirm is random meat on the table, unless used very carefully. They excel at taking empty hexes, but they better dig in or move on quickly.


I buy one to go with the 2 auxs for Sealion, then get two more during the Russian campaign. A triplet of Fallshirm can actually do things and create responses.

[stormbringer3]

i agree with how careful you must be with them. I was going to use a pair. I'm going to think about your trio idea.

[proline]

D3, because if they are going to be operating behind the lines keeping them alive is paramount. They already have good attack thanks to their high initiative.

To echo what others have said, this isn't really a good idea. You want to get the most of your heroes by putting them on units that will attack frequently. Jumpers have to be very careful with their ammo so they don't attack as much. And if you are using them as jumpers, you face a catch-22: if you drop them somewhere safe where only a couple enemies are, you won't get many attacks out of them before they run out of targets and they will spend a lot of turns out of action. Drop them somewhere where there are lots of targets and they will die. You can try flying them from place to place but that is all time away from combat as well.

[hugh2711]

I agree with proline, D+3. I actually keep two, one for frontline and one for jumps to far flung places. Since they go on a few missions way behind enemy lines, very often to get secondary hexes with captureable units they need to be able to take on one occupying unit without taking much damage and then hold that hex untill you catch up so Defence is the key, they are already pretty good at attack.

[PoorOldSpike]

Just to digress slightly, my paratroops (any nation) usually die quickly after being dropped in enemy territory (even if their transport planes manage to avoid getting shot down) because the enemy simply close in on them, so is there an option to create night scenarios in Pz Corps to give them a better chance of surviving?
(Sorry if the manual editor tells us how to create night scens and I must have missed it.)
Historically, paras did sometimes drop at night, and in the game night could presumably be simulated by having a zero spotting range if that's possible so that the enemy won't see them so easily?

[shawkhan2]

Drop them on rain turns

[PoorOldSpike]

Drop them on rain turns

Thanks, rain would certainly ground enemy fighters, and my C-47's/Ju52's could get to the drop zones unscathed but what if it never rains?
I know I could build a scenario where it rains continually every turn, but an unwanted side-effect is that the ground would turn to mud.

[proline]

Just to digress slightly, my paratroops (any nation) usually die quickly after being dropped in enemy territory

Yup, that's a product of how PzC is designed. In Panzer General, the enemy would start with relatively few units and buy units as the scenario progressed. Purchased units would just sit there unit your units got close to them before engaging. Jumpers could take objectives far behind enemy lines easily, because of how few units were on the board at the beginning of the scenario. That would accomplish two important things. First, you could prevent the enemy from buying their units at a defensible city by taking that city quickly. Second, you could seize an airfield so your air units would be much more effective and the enemy's less so.

In PzC, the enemy starts with several balls of units near the edges of the map that are dispatched to attack along specific lines based on triggers. These balls easily slaughter paras as they include plenty of artillery. Sometimes you can get your jumpers deep enough into forest that they pass you by, but not always. You might think the jumpers slowing down the ball would help, but that's actually the worst thing you could do! You see, every unit in the ball proceeds along the scripted attack path at full speed. As the ball travels, fast units like infantry with transports end up way out in front, followed by artillery, followed by light tanks, followed by heavy tanks. I.e. if the ball travels freely it reaches your forces in total disarray so you can fight it easily. Now imagine some jumpers in a city in the way. The jumpers won't die to the infantry that gets there first, but rather they will die after a turn or two when the artillery shows up. Then the ball carries on to your army much less spread out and much less vulnerable.

Now I'm sure there are things jumpers can do for you on specific scenarios capturing specific remote hexes that aren't in the path of a ball but yet still somehow important. I like taking the far side of the river airports in Stalingrad docks, for example. My point remains that jumpers aren't particularly powerful or influential in this game and you are often better off with a regular combat unit.

[captainjack]

I'm usually do very badly with paratroops, except in some very specific scenarios (eg Metaxas line where they are handy for taking Keramoti to release the Matilda and to attack the position just North of there from a second direction, and in Minsk to take the airports so that the recon Do217 can be used as bombers).

However, I'm currently playing with no tanks or recons, and paras have been very useful to compensate for lack of speed/vulnerability when travelling. They currently work in a pair - both have attack heroes (one is +5A and the other is +1A). Care and a fighter escort make a difference. An SE para with extra ammo would be very nice.

As for night, you could set weather to cloudy (limits visibility and air-ground-air combat which seems reasonable, and doesn't create mud, but does still allow normal aircraft-aircraft action which is a minor anomaly) or sandstorm which limits visibility and resupply and cancels air combat without creating mud. I have used sandstorm for fog and will use cloud for night when I get round to a night time scenario.

The Bay of Pigs scenario has a form of night and may be worth a look for inspiration. I haven't yet played it - too busy playing other things and fiddling around with my three and a half incomplete mods - but the description of how it worked sounded convincing.

[PoorOldSpike]

...if the ball travels freely it reaches your forces in total disarray so you can fight it easily. Now imagine some jumpers in a city in the way. The jumpers won't die to the infantry that gets there first, but rather they will die after a turn or two when the artillery shows up. Then the ball carries on to your army much less spread out and much less vulnerable..

Good point, I suppose it all depends on the tactical situation and map etc.
I've been thinking, paras are tough cookies and if you can get them into a city on the enemies axis of advance they get +3 defensive bonus for the city plus more bonuses if they've had time to dig in, so hopefully they'll stand like a rock in the river and could delay him for at least several turns as well as bleed him a little to boot, especially if his soft tin trucks run pell-mell onto the paras guns in an ambush situation.
As for losing the vulnerable "strung out column" effect when they bunch up on encountering the paras, they might well string out again after eliminating the paras before arriving piecemeal at your main line of resistance.
If we can get over the natural reluctance to sacrifice our paras by hurling several of them onto strategic points (cities/bridges/forest-rds etc) along the enemy line of advance, it might be worth losing them for the delay and disruption they cause by acting as spike strips/speed bumps/roadblocks, especially in shorter scenarios where the attacker is racing against the clock and can't afford to hang about...

[PoorOldSpike]

..As for night, you could set weather to cloudy (limits visibility and air-ground-air combat which seems reasonable, and doesn't create mud, but does still allow normal aircraft-aircraft action which is a minor anomaly) or sandstorm which limits visibility and resupply and cancels air combat without creating mud. I have used sandstorm for fog and will use cloud for night when I get round to a night time scenario.
The Bay of Pigs scenario has a form of night and may be worth a look for inspiration. I haven't yet played it - too busy playing other things and fiddling around with my three and a half incomplete mods - but the description of how it worked sounded convincing.

Thanks, I'll dabble around with various weather settings in the editor..

[proline]

Jumpers are tough, but no infantry is tough enough to withstand an infantry attack supported by 2 or more artillery. So they slow down the enemy, but only by 2-3 turns, which is enough to clump him back up. You're right- he will spread out again when he starts to move, but he will never be spread out to the point he otherwise would have been as the spreading out only increases with time.

Sacrificing is a nice thought, but you don't have money to play that way at higher levels, and throwaway jumpers would be low on XP and this not hold out long, assuming you aren't sending your best. Also, the benefit of slowing down the enemy depends on the scenario. On most scenarios you have to kill em all so you might as well let them come unless you are overwhelmed already.

[PoorOldSpike]

Jumpers are tough, but no infantry is tough enough to withstand an infantry attack supported by 2 or more artillery. So they slow down the enemy, but only by 2-3 turns, which is enough to clump him back up. You're right- he will spread out again when he starts to move, but he will never be spread out to the point he otherwise would have been as the spreading out only increases with time.
Sacrificing is a nice thought, but you don't have money to play that way at higher levels, and throwaway jumpers would be low on XP and this not hold out long, assuming you aren't sending your best. Also, the benefit of slowing down the enemy depends on the scenario. On most scenarios you have to kill em all so you might as well let them come unless you are overwhelmed already.

Yes, as always, the scenario and tactical situation dictates how we should use our paras as every scen is different, plus of course it depends on whether we're playing against a human opponent or the AI, or if we're playing in a campaign or a standalone scenario..
PS- I haven't played PzCps against a human yet, I tried selecting 'Multiplayer' on the opening screen and issued a challenge but nothing happened! Somebody later told me we might have to wait a couple of hours before getting a reply, but I don't like waiting!
I've played over a thousand PBEM's of Combat Mission over the years and we do it differently there, we simply issue challenges by email, then discuss which scenario and parameters we're going to use, and we're away without any fuss!
Incidentally, I only play vanilla PzCps at the moment, so if an opponent uses mods I can't play him because our games won't be compatible will they?

[AnalogGamer]

*** perks ***


Did someone say .... Combat Mission?

Sgt Schultzie.. designer of maps, scenarios and one contest(Clash of The Titans) during the early days.

Aye the good old days.

[PoorOldSpike]

*** perks ***
Did someone say .... Combat Mission?
Sgt Schultzie.. designer of maps, scenarios and one contest(Clash of The Titans) during the early days.
Aye the good old days.

Yes mate I thought I recognised your name..
I played Combat Mission for 12 years solid right from its release around 2000 til a few years ago when I suddenly got fed up with its oldish graphics and moved on to other games.
The developers later improved the graphics but sadly they completely revamped the combat system which I didn't like (too clunky), so nowadays I'm mostly an Armed Assault III player (over 2000 hours on the multiplayer servers so far) and also dabble with PzCps..