Slitherine

Pio's right now are underpowered both compared to cost and role. Other types of infantry do their job better or cheaper.

IMHO, they should be even more expensive, but a lot better at attacking forts, trenches and city hexes then they are now. In the open or against tanks and heavy weapons infantry they should perform the same or worse then they do now.

As it stands my army consists of a lot of FJ, supported by SE Grens. And that works a lot better then a Pio force.

In original PG, pioneer of course was the ultimate strongpoint destroyer but was very expensive costing 240 pp in comparison too standard infantry coming in at 60, exactly 4 times as much. I played a lot of hotseat games and to be honest we would very rarely buy them because of their price tag and vulnerability (especially to heavy guns) but we were very careful too use the ones that came with the scenario carefully and effectively. They were the only unit that could deal with this tough bridging unit in moscow (ent 9 str 13) and i mean the only unit (same at Bastogne). I much prefer this kind of system where pioneers were much more specialized, rare, valuable and vulnerable but i can't see it being replicated in PzC.
1 = Defensive artillery won't destroy or heavily damage them on the approach in PzC just shake them up
2 = trenches are far more easily reduced in PzC (much too easily IMHO) by other units. I had a unit entrenched on 8 in MP, 1 level bomber strike, 1 artillery hit, a troop and a tank later ... easily bypassed with no damage done whatsoever, it wasn't worth the effort. I'm sure Stalingrad is different but a single strongpoint just can't hold you up like it did in PG
3 = Losing a pioneer or losing its stars is not half as serious in PzC. There much cheaper and stars have little value for a troop. Once your pioneer lost his stars in PG your key to breaking open so many positions was irretrievably lost and you knew itwas gonna take more time, effort and casualties to break those trenches.

I hav'nt got too DLC 42 yet but I don't think FJ units should be out performing pioneers at stalingrad but don't forget (as I'm told when i whinge about troop dynamics in PzC) that you can customize your own troops easily. Try giving your Pioneers CD of 3, they will perform slightly better but still get canned on occasion.

for me only pios should be fortkiller (as they were in reality) not the Fallschirmjäger.

maybe the FJ got the trait "fortkiller" because of the attack of Eben-Emael but this is only partly correct - The guys who landed on top of Eben Emael and placed their hollow charges were "Fallschirmpioniere" named "Kampfgruppe Granit" under Oberleutnant Rudolf Witzig => Pios were the key factor, not FJ.... even if they were part of the FJ regiment but still pios

The thing about Sevastopol is that the Pioniere can't crack the forts - only the extra heavy artilleries have a fairly good chance. OK these forts are the exception.
But it goes on: Fortifications in future DLCs are also better shot by StuGs, Tigers and other high HA units than Pioniere.

Still they have the ability not to get into rugged defense - that's very good. But you don't really need them if you suppress the enemy sufficiently with artillery fire etc.

For some reason I fear Soviet Engineers much more. They seem to eat tank tracks for breakfast. Must be their usually 2-3 stars experience, I see no stat that would make them tank killers but they really damage even Tigers.

Bottom line: The Panzer IIIN are excellent for urban combat, but they are really the first to die against T-34 in open terrain. This will happen to you when you leave Stalingrad behind and do the upcoming armor battles.

Pioniere: They are indeed not that needed. You can make do without them. But I really don't have any idea how to make them "better" without making them too good. But I agree I find them annoying as well, as Elite reinforcements for them are damn expensive so I really prefer the other Infantry types. Not Fallschirmjäger, not enough ammo.

Longasc wrote:Bottom line: The Panzer IIIN are excellent for urban combat, but they are really the first to die against T-34 in open terrain. This will happen to you when you leave Stalingrad behind and do the upcoming armor battles.

Pioniere: They are indeed not that needed. You can make do without them. But I really don't have any idea how to make them "better" without making them too good. But I agree I find them annoying as well, as Elite reinforcements for them are damn expensive so I really prefer the other Infantry types. Not Fallschirmjäger, not enough ammo.

I never paid much attention to the IIIN until I read this thread but I tried them and they do well in urban combat. As far as their usefulness against other armour, I figure I'll just change them to a IIIM or something else after I leave the city fights behind.

right now it looks like that you can push forward without any infantrie in your core as soon as the PzIIIN pops up

I have 8 Inf of different types... mhm... sell them and buy:

=> 3 more PzIIIN and
=> 5 more Wurfrahmen...

here we go ...

only kidding, i like infantrie - but ....

I played without inf. the last scenario in 42 (Tatsinskaya) and had no problems with it.

5 more Wurfrahmen? That would cost 2550 Prestige! I would not afford this.