How come mech infantry only have 6 movement points?

[PinkPanzer]

The role of mech infantry on the attack is to follow behind the panzers to ensure encirclements.

GS changes the zoc and terrain movement that slows the the pace of the game.

If tanks can move 2 hexes in woods and rough so should mech infantry move 2 hexes instead of the current one hex in GS.
Realistically corps sized units move by road so the terrain penalties for vehicle movement don't make much sense to me.

Just my venting my pet peeve.

[rkr1958]

The role of mech infantry on the attack is to follow behind the panzers to ensure encirclements.

GS changes the zoc and terrain movement that slows the the pace of the game.

If tanks can move 2 hexes in woods and rough so should mech infantry move 2 hexes instead of the current one hex in GS.
Realistically corps sized units move by road so the terrain penalties for vehicle movement don't make much sense to me.

Just my venting my pet peeve.

I'm not sure I'm following you. The terrain movement cost/penalty is the same for armor and for mech.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

The point is that the armor has 6 mp and the mech 5 mp. Entering each forest hex costs 2 points and entering each rough hex costs 3 points for vehicles. So mechs can move 1 rough and 2 forest hexes while armor can move 2 rough and 3 forest hexes provided there is not enemy ZOC.

He feels the mechs should move as fast as the armor in forest and rough.

[schwerpunkt]

An interesting point. I think the issue is that early war motorised infantry were actually slower than armour because of the poor vehicles early (just trucks) - in fact during the german advance, alot of panzergrenadiers actually rode on the tanks and dismounted when trouble was found.

Later in the war of course, vehicles such as jeeps, half tracks and rudimentary APCs (eg bren carriers, etc) became available. Is it possible to increase MECH movement points at a certain tech level to reflect this?

[_Augustus_]

Later in the war of course, vehicles such as jeeps, half tracks and rudimentary APCs (eg bren carriers, etc) became available. Is it possible to increase MECH movement points at a certain tech level to reflect this?

That will not work because the game engine is such that MECH and ARM use different movement costs for mud and severe winter. So for example if you increse MECH's movement points to 6 it will move 3 clear hexes in mud while an ARM also with 6 points will move only 2 muddy hexes.

Look here for details and for a movement cost chart: viewtopic.php?t=20839

_augustus_

[Peter Stauffenberg]

This is not exactly how movement is calculated.

You pay the same movement cost for each hex. The movement cost is based upon weather and terrain type. In addition you have a vehicle penalty (armor and mech) in certain terrain and weather that's added to the movement cost of such units.

In winter you have the following:
Clear: 2 MP (no vehicle penalty)
Armor can move 3 hexes and mech 2 hexes

In severe winter you have the following:
Clear 1 MP + 1 MP (vehicle penalty for mech 1 lower than armor in severe winter)
Armoe can move 2 hexes and mech 2 hexes

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It's certainly possible to increase the movement allowance of mechs by tech, but it means they can under certain weather conditions move more than armor due to -1 vehicle penalty in mud and severe winter.

Having fast moving mechs can alter game balance quite a bit and if that'd done the extra MP from tech should be accompanied by +1 oil consumption as well. This is definitely not something we dare do now just prior to release.

[_Augustus_]

Stauffenberg:

This is not exactly how movement is calculated.

You pay the same movement cost for each hex. The movement cost is based upon weather and terrain type. In addition you have a vehicle penalty (armor and mech) in certain terrain and weather that's added to the movement cost of such units.

Strictly no vehicle penalty. But a MECH and ARM penalty. Which are not the same for mud and severe winter.

In mud you have the following:
Clear: 2 MP + 1 MP (vehicle penalty).

Armor has 6 MP and can move 2 hexes. Mech has only 5 MP and can only move 1 hex.

Pardon? MECHs move 2 in mud and that it is due to different movement cost to MECHS compared to AMRS. A muddy hex is 3 MPs for an ARM and 2 for MECHS and FOOT.

Here's the MECH with 6 MPS situation I mentioned:


If you increase MPs of mechs to 6 they more more than armour. Not a wise chance for the game.

_augustus_

[_Augustus_]

I see you edited the mud part I quoted away from your message. So it might look I'm quoting from thin air for other readers. Anyways hopefully editing means you finally see the different MP costs for armour and mechs, too.

_augustus_

[rkr1958]

The reality is that any change of this scope is well beyond the time for inclusion in v2.00. In fact the time is pass for ANY changes to GSv2.00. I for one would just like to play the game for now. I understand that we may find bugs and need patches for those bugs but; personally, I feel it's WAAAAAY to premature for any additional feature changes given ALL the feature changes that v2.00 will introduce. In fact, I would like to believe that any near-future potential feature change(s) would be to address any game balance issue(s), and hopefully there are none, that might arise.

Though this isn't to put a damper on any of this; but in my opinion it would be nice to have some playing time on GSv2.00 from the general community before we even consider new features.

[luthrower66]

I actually think that the current MP set-up is fairly accurate. Remember the entire point of Blitzkrieg war. First the bombing runs weaken defensive positions and pin down the enemy. Then fast moving tanks punch THROUGH the weakened defenses. Causing even more shock and disorientation. Then the mechanized infantry storms INTO the fray and quickly disperses any attempt at reorganization. Of course, the remaining ground forces come in for mop up.

Tanks in many cases can simply ignore infantry and drive on without too many ill effects. Mechanized infantry however must fight their way through any infantry.

The key point here being that tanks punch THROUGH defenses. Mechanized infantry does not simply drive though the battlefield. The men must dismount and attack on foot. The whole point of mechanized infantry is to get troops INTO battle as quickly as possible.

[gerones]

We are used to current CEAW GS movement allowances so any change on this could seriously affect on play balance. Wehrmacht motorized infantry units used mainly Opel Blitz truck that was able to reach 80 km/h. No german tank was able to reach more than 50 km/h on the road. Keeping in mind this, if something could be changed regarding to movement of the units this should be to reduce armour movement from 6 to 5 thus forcing to also reduce infantry movement from 4 to 3. Anyway, I agree about that any change about this question must wait.

[gerones]

Another important point is that CEAW GS uses "mechanized corps" as a generic concept. This way, russian 1939 set up has no armour units since russian tanks divisions were attached to MECHANIZED corps (Mehanizirovanny Korpus). So despite that Red Army had tanks by millions there wasn´t any armoured russian corps at the start of Barbarossa. So these mechanized corps included tanks even their names seem to be referred to mechanized infantry. This would also explain why mechanized corps units in CEAW have better combat values than normal infantry because strictly speaking a motorized infantry unit had the same combat equipment than a normal infantry unit with the only difference in the number of trucks on each unit: a normal infantry regiment had only 15 trucks whilst a motorized infantry regiment had about 100 trucks.

[PinkPanzer]

Thanks for the input

Oops mech move 2 hexes in woods. My bad.

Interesting seeing how mech move faster than armour in mud/clear hexes. I did not know that.

Some other arguements about mech moving at the same speed as tanks are:

1) A german panzer corps was composed of 1 or 2 panzer divisions, 1 or 2 motorized infantry divisions and 1 or 2 infantry divisions, usually 4 or 5 divisions total.
I understand the game scale of corps sized units and agree with having tank corps, mech infantry corps and infantry corps.
But I think mech infantry should have a bigger speed advantage over regular infantry corps, ie move 6 same as tanks.

2) A panzer division was composed of 2 tank regiments, 1 infantry regiment and one arty regiment. Plus some support battalions(AT, AD, recon supply, signals)
One battalion of the infantry regiment had halftracks, the other 3 battalions had trucks. Essentially 3 battalions of motorized infantry in a tank divsion move at speed 6 whereas the motorized infantry regiments in a mech infantry division move 5.

It doesn't make any sense to me. My personal opinion from a realism standpoint is that mech infantry should have the same speed advantage over regular infantry as a tank corps.


PS my other pet peeve is: Why do garrisons only move 2?
What the hell is a garrison.

Army organization from biggest to smallest is: Army Groups/Fronts, Armies, Corps, Divisions, Brigades, Regiments, Battalions, Companies, Platoons, Squads.
There's no such a thing as a garrison.

What the hell is a garrison and why does it only move 2?

Judging from it's stats, I'd guess it's a division, but why does it move 2 instead of 4 like infantry corps.

[PinkPanzer]

I actually think that the current MP set-up is fairly accurate. Remember the entire point of Blitzkrieg war. First the bombing runs weaken defensive positions and pin down the enemy. Then fast moving tanks punch THROUGH the weakened defenses. Causing even more shock and disorientation. Then the mechanized infantry storms INTO the fray and quickly disperses any attempt at reorganization. Of course, the remaining ground forces come in for mop up.

Tanks in many cases can simply ignore infantry and drive on without too many ill effects. Mechanized infantry however must fight their way through any infantry.

The key point here being that tanks punch THROUGH defenses. Mechanized infantry does not simply drive though the battlefield. The men must dismount and attack on foot. The whole point of mechanized infantry is to get troops INTO battle as quickly as possible.

According to my understanding of Guderian, the principles of an effective tank attack are: surprise, mass and good tank terrain and ???. He envisioned 2 separate stages: The breakthrough battle and the exploitation phase.

Guderian designed the panzer division to be a combined arms killing machine.
During the breakthrough battle, the tanks kill anything that threatens the infantry ie enemy machine guns, infantry squads, artillery.
The infantry and the arty kill anything that threatens the tanks. ie antitank guns.
The antitank battalion is deployed if enemy tanks are encountered as a line and the tank battalions retreat through the antitank screen. Then the tanks attempt to attack the enemy tanks from the flank or rear. Ambush city.

In game terms I think I do what Guderian would do if he was playing Ceaw GS. I use the mech infantry to fight the breakthrough battle and the tanks for the exploitation phase. anyways it saves oil if your tanks only encircle and cut off from supply and don't fight much.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Mechs move the same as armor in mud clear terrain. The screenshot you saw was made to indicate what would happen if the mechs got 6 MP as armor. Then mechs would move 3 hexes in mud while corps and armor would only move 2. Not logical.

Garrison units are similar to static units. Some of them are weaker corps units with little offensive firepower. Their main goal was to hold a line or defend a city. The actual name garrison was created in vanilla CeaW and we didn't bother to change it since we all know that the purpose of these units is to defend and not to attack.

If we would ever make changes to the movement allowance it makes more sense to reduce armor to 5, mech to 4 and corps to 3 and make movement through ZOC be reduced from 2 to 1. But this would affect game play quite a bit. It was suggested by some beta testers, but we decided against it.

Bottom line is that the game works well with the movement allowances we have now.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think the argument that armor corps could actually move and fight at the same time (overrun) while motorised corps units were transported and had to leave the trucks to fight. With improved techs you got real mech units and they use wheeled or halftrack units to fight. Those were more like armor.

So the most accurate could be to let mechs get +1 mp and +1 oil consumption with high tech, but that will not be done now. Since it happens late in the war it means the Allies will mostly benefit from it and you will see them building only mechs since they can move so fast. With the current values you also build some corps units so you get cheaper units. If mechs can perform almost like armor at the price of 50 it means they're a better buy than armor. With 5 MP instead of 6 MP then there are some differences making armor still attractive.

[PinkPanzer]

Mechs move the same as armor in mud clear terrain. The screenshot you saw was made to indicate what would happen if the mechs got 6 MP as armor. Then mechs would move 3 hexes in mud while corps and armor would only move 2. Not logical.

Garrison units are similar to static units. Some of them are weaker corps units with little offensive firepower. Their main goal was to hold a line or defend a city. The actual name garrison was created in vanilla CeaW and we didn't bother to change it since we all know that the purpose of these units is to defend and not to attack.

If we would ever make changes to the movement allowance it makes more sense to reduce armor to 5, mech to 4 and corps to 3 and make movement through ZOC be reduced from 2 to 1. But this would affect game play quite a bit. It was suggested by some beta testers, but we decided against it.

Bottom line is that the game works well with the movement allowances we have now.

Fine with me if you think the game works well with with the current movement allowances.


If you think about Red Army corps organization in the nato/warsaw pact era, a Red Army tank corps is 2 tank divisions and one mech infantry division whereas a Red Army mech infantry corps is one tank divison and 2 mech infantry divisions.

So it seems wrong/weird to me to see mech infantry move 5 and tanks move 6 in game terms. It especially seems wrong watching mech infantry move 1 hex in rough. Ugh

[gerones]

Not all panzergrenadier german units could be equipped with german halftrucks (SdKfz´s) so many of the panzergrenadiers had to use trucks. Halftrucks were more appropriate to accompany panzers and they were a little bit faster than tanks. Interaction and cooperation between armoured and panzergrenadier units was essential so keeping in mind this it seems that CEAW GS reflects this well giving both armoured and mech units a rather similar role in the game. As a consequence of this, I don´t see the use of increasing movement to mechs not even with high tech levels (halftrucks were not faster than trucks). So as I have pointed above the only thing that makes sense to me regarding this question would be to reduce armour movement to 5: tanks in WW2 were rather slow and they had to frequently stop for repairs and maintenance. So even we all used to current MP´s, may be to give to armoured units 6 MP´s in CEAW can make the people think that tanks in WW2 moved fast and this wasn´t so. This way reducing it to 5 steps could be a good idea and useful to avoid german armoured blob but to be applied in future updates, anyway.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

We would have to reduce corps movement to 3 and then reduce ZOC penalty from 2 to 1. I'm not sure this will be good in supply level 3. Then you move only 2 with corps units in clear terrain.