Plan Z revised No. 2 - Armistice signed!

[zechi]

Turn 12 - Lorraine captured! French Army takes heavy losses!

No counterattack by Leridano, so the situation at the beginning of my turn did not change much:



Lorraine is captured easily and another INF is destroyed near Reims. Two GAR take heavy losses. Unfortunately my Fallschirmjäger are not as successful and take heavy losses during the drop:



I hope the Fallschirmjäger will survive and I can cut off the Maginot Line quickly.

In the Atlantic a convoy is destroyed and a new one is spotted:

[GaryChildress]

Is there a reason you have Rundstedt assigned to a garrison unit? I had always thought that the best practice was to assign commanders to front line units, such as tanks or mechanized to increase the efficiency of those units.

[Crazygunner1]

Is there a reason you have Rundstedt assigned to a garrison unit? I had always thought that the best practice was to assign commanders to front line units, such as tanks or mechanized to increase the efficiency of those units.

Sometimes front units take heavy casualties and leaders assigned to it may be injured and lost for a couple of turns, sometimes even 12-14 turns.

By putting a leader on a GAR they are out of arms way. But there are certain leaders that give special bonus to the unit that can be valuable on frontline units, you just have to protect them better and not leave them exposed.

Crazyg

[Peter Stauffenberg]

GS v2.0 is quite different from GS v1.06.

* In GS v2.0 you will see that garrisons who has a leader attached has a movement allowance of 3 instead of just 2.
* Leaders will only be injured if the unit is destroyed and not if the unit has to retreat
* Leader max injury time is 9 instead of 18
* Leader's command range is quality - 2 instead of a fixed 8
* Due to lower command range the leaders are quite a bit cheaper

This means you will see more leaders in GS v2.0 than before. Leaders with bonuses to attack or defense should be on units you want to see in the front line.

Rundstedt has no such bonuses, but a decent quality of 6 (command range of 4). So he can just be in the rear to cover as many units as possible.

[zechi]

Turn 13 - French ARM destroyed! Wehrmacht reaches outskirts of Paris!

The French army launches a counterattack against a German ARM with little effect. However, the Fallschirmjäger take heavy losses:



I reach my goals and destroy the French ARM and link up with the Fallschirmjäger, which are brought back to 3 steps:



Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht took some losses and the situation is a little bit chaotic. With some luck the Maginot line units cut destroy the 1. Fallschirmjäger and also cut off my INF.

In the Atlantic I ambush the spotted convoy with three SUBs. Next turn it will be destroyed. I also bought my sixth SUB.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think this attack on France proves the value of the paratrooper unit. You pin French units so they can't retreat to Paris, but you pay a heavy price on the para. It might be destroyed next turn. You also hold an important river line so 8 French units are trapped near the Maginot line. That means the main German forces can concentrate upon taking Reims and adjacent hexes and hitting UK units.

So Britain will end up with quite heavy losses in exchange for holding France maybe 2 turns extra. If the Maginot units had been able to evacuate then the conquest of Paris could have been dragged out for a long time.

If the British units don't retreat across the Seine then the German armor units can go after these units.

So the para unit was definitely very valuable in this offensive. When the para is destroyed you can always build a new one.

[GaryChildress]

I think this attack on France proves the value of the paratrooper unit. You pin French units so they can't retreat to Paris, but you pay a heavy price on the para. It might be destroyed next turn. You also hold an important river line so 8 French units are trapped near the Maginot line. That means the main German forces can concentrate upon taking Reims and adjacent hexes and hitting UK units.

So Britain will end up with quite heavy losses in exchange for holding France maybe 2 turns extra. If the Maginot units had been able to evacuate then the conquest of Paris could have been dragged out for a long time.

If the British units don't retreat across the Seine then the German armor units can go after these units.

So the para unit was definitely very valuable in this offensive. When the para is destroyed you can always build a new one.

Doesn't this sort of make para units convenient throw away units? If you can bottle up the enemy for a couple turns before they are destroyed it may be worth it. Just create a new para unit. IRL elite troops weren't that easy to replace and generally weren't squandered in hopeless situations.

I'm wondering if it may not be better if a player could only create a certain number of para units per year and if those are destroyed, there aren't any replacements until the next increase. Just my two cents.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Well, you spend quite a bit of PP's building them so just giving your opponent a chance to destroy your paras is definitely not the way to win. I think most players want to save the paras they land, but if it becomes impossible it's not the end of the world. I tried to mention that the para has done its job and helped break the French line. So if it's lost the PP's lost might be worth the saved PP's in taking Paris earlier and not having to destroy as many garrisons.

So I'm not afraid that we will see players squander away their paras just so they can build new ones. They use the paras for a purpose and if they're destroyed then they can't complete their missions.

It was interesting to see that French garrisons could almost kill the elite para unit when they ganged up on it. Some players on the forum have complained that the para units seem too strong. I think this proves that paras aren't too strong. They won't last long unless other units are coming to their assistance like in this game.

[GaryChildress]

Well, you spend quite a bit of PP's building them so just giving your opponent a chance to destroy your paras is definitely not the way to win.

Do paras cost more PPs to build than a regular garrison unit? If so, then how much?

[rkr1958]

Well, you spend quite a bit of PP's building them so just giving your opponent a chance to destroy your paras is definitely not the way to win.

Do paras cost more PPs to build than a regular garrison unit? If so, then how much?

It costs 15 PP's to promote a "garrison" to an airborne division. So the total cost per division is 30 PP's (i.e., 15 PP's for the garrison and 15 PP's for the "promotion"). It costs 10 PP's to drop an eligible division. To drop the division has to have an efficiency of 70 or higher, be in a city or next to an air unit and at supply level 5.

[zechi]

Turn 14 - 1. Fallschirmjäger are destroyed! Wehrmacht takes Reims and Maginot line is nearly cut off!

Unfortunately the 1. Fallschirmjäger are destroyed through the units of the Maginot Line. The situation at the beginning of my turn:



I destroy two French INF and the GAR near the Maginot Line. I also capture Reims:



Next turn I will try to begin with the Attack on Paris.

In the Atlantic my five SUBs are in a good position to strike at a British DD. The Wolfpack strikes, but I get very bad results and the DD survives with 2 steps:



I also got more losses in steps with my SUBs (9 steps). Hopefully the DD cannot escape next turn.

[zechi]

I think that Paratroopers are one of the most exciting features of GS 2.0. They allow a lot of new and interesting tactics. As in the real war it is risky to perform a drop behind enemy lines and losses can be high. If you get unlucky the para unit is already badly mauled after the drop as in my case and you lose the unit. This means most drops are risky and it is quite a gamble if the unit survives or not. Nevertheless, a well placed para unit, even it if it is damaged, is a thorn in the side of the enemy.

[ncali]

Interesting, although the paratroop cost isn't too huge - slightly less than an infantry corps or slightly more if you factor in the jump cost - (assuming there are no limits on paratroop builds).

[_Augustus_]

Interesting, although the paratroop cost isn't too huge - slightly less than an infantry corps or slightly more if you factor in the jump cost - (assuming there are no limits on paratroop builds).

I think limit how many you can have at the same time has been mentioned by mr Stauffenberg previously. The limit increases as the years go by.

I also think GaryChildress' comment is something worth of thinking about (if I understood him correctly). Maybe there should also a limit how many you paraunits you can convert in a year in addition to how many you can have at the same time. Otherwise for 40 and 41 you can use number of paras a disposable units. Just replace the lost one go on to the next offensive.

Yup, maybe the cost of converting outweights the benefits of disposable para units somewhat. But this seems like a possible loophole to be exploited.

_augustus_ //maybe the subject was already beaten to death in discussions by beta testers?

[ncali]

If the limit is on how many you can have at one time as opposed to how many you can build (and I'll assume it's just one in 1940), it almost makes more sense for the other side to let a paratroop live at 1 or 2 steps! That means they would be free of worrying about paratroopers for a while since the owner of the paratrooper would have to link up with it, repair it, wait until efficiency rises, etc.

[Rhialto]

Tricky. One problem is that the cost to the player is less than an infantry corps since early in the war one usually has 'spare' garrisons guarding some low-priority city or the Siegfried line (not Rome ) and the only cost is conversion. I can see an aggressive axis player converting multiple garrisons to Fallschirmjager before Barbarossa and using them to cut off Russian units from withdrawal and close pockets. At 25pp (conversion plus jump cost) one could have four for the cost of a fighter if you regard garrisons as expendable. Bit non-historical.

To ncali: The owner of a 1-step paratrooper unit could always disband it in order to convert another garrison to paratroopers. (Does the game give any pp or manpower back from such disbandings the way HOI2 does?)

[ncali]

Thanks for the clarifications - and that's a good point about disbanding the force. While the Germans could, perhaps, have used their paratroops in the way Zechi has in this game (using them to great strategic advantage to prevent enemy retreat but ultimately losing them) - they would have done so at the expense of not having a paratroop force for some time. I think a build limit for paratroopers makes more sense in this context. Zechi's opponent should not have to face the threat of paratroopers in a 1940 invasion of Britain, IMO.

[Plaid]

To ncali: The owner of a 1-step paratrooper unit could always disband it in order to convert another garrison to paratroopers. (Does the game give any pp or manpower back from such disbandings the way HOI2 does?)

He can't, its fixed now. (Of course if you don't mean "selfkill" when saying "disband" . Another bug was that paratroopers loaded into sea transports didn't count against max para limit and you could have LOTS, its also fixed.

When you use paratroops for droping its actually costly. Its *very* painful to land adjacted to 2+ enemy units, you are likely to find this unit somewhere at 5-6 steps and yellow-orange. If terrain is not clear you can lose 2-3 steps without any enemy units around. Paras have realistically poor AT ability and 0 air attack. Also this units poorly scale with tech advance, since they have GAR stats + some fixed values(or -, if we speak about AT and flak), and GAR receive stat increase very rare. I don't think that its *cheap* to throw away this units into certain death, especially for axis in early game - they need every PP.

Also in some cases they are great - for example its much more easy to land paratroops on Crete and secure an island, then struggle RN and attempt to land from sea. Also they can land on airfield hexes, providing you with additional opportunity to attack Malta, Gibraltar, whatever.

In this case looks like Zechi lost his paratrooper in attempt to cut some useless french garrisons - I will never do it, more garrisons - more exp for panzer forces!

Also they serve as good defencive infantry with slightly reduced cost early in the game (not this great when facing 5 4 infantry). In 1939 none unit have ground defence of 5, which paratrooper have.

By the way paratroops usage hint - build a garrison, find an area with enough partisans, kill them until you have 4 starts and convert into paratrooper - here you have +4 quality +2 surv, this unit may need it in its hard life.

P.S. I don't think that we need any paradrop rebuild cooldown. This unit's combat value is correct for its price, and if you like to lose em and rebuild - its your economy problem and nothing more. Actually most powers during WW 2 had LOTS of paratroopers (well, not all, but sure for USSR, Germany and USA), much more that they needed. Many airborne divisions never (or very rare) jumped even.
P.P.S. Can't we add green uniform and helmets to fallchirm? Britts have cool red beretes, while germans looks like common infantry

[zechi]

Turn 15 - Maginot Line is cut off! Paris attacked! Italy enters war!

At the beginning of my turn I get a new SUB tech. The situation at the beginning of my turn:



And after my attacks. Wehrmacht successfully cuts off the Maginot Line and also begins its attack on Paris:



I think next turn Paris could fall. It will be interesting what Leridano will do with the BEF.

In the Atlantic the badly mauled British DD flees into a port:



No chance to finish it off, so the SUBs scatter and spot two convoy, which will be attacked next turn. At the end of my turn Italy enters the war.

[Crazygunner1]

[quote="zechi"]I think next turn Paris could fall. It will be interesting what Leridano will do with the BEF./quote]

Well he could rail the 2 Gar away one to Brest and one to St Nazaire, but the bomber in Cherbourg and move the INF just south east to get supply. Mech INF he can move to Rouen.

He could escape....and there is probably nothing you could to about it.

Crazyg