Slitherine

I have not seen many options on how good US corps is.
I am wondering if you guys could tell me how good it is.

I am also interested to know how the last scenarios in the 44-45 campaign is. Is it easy with the enemy having 0 experience, understrength units or do they have constant wonder weapons with high experience and OS?

US Corps is quite good. One of the more interesting challenges is finding ways to deal with enemy armour. Your Shermans are good for taking out soft targets and lightly armoured vehicles but aren't very well armoured so they struggle against real tanks. This means you need to learn how to develop and use tank destroyers as well, because although they have even worse armour they hit hard enough to be very effective, especially on defence, especially at 3 or 4 stars and 12 or more strength. They are also relatively cheap. I have found the fighters are a bit limited, so one or two AA units (at least one mobile) can be a good investment to keep the tac bombers away and weaken the fighters enough to finish them off. This is especially useful when the late war "specials" come in.

The biggest gripe is probably that prestige is very tight, especially with Soft cap, and since experience is important for keeping your fighters and tank destroyers competitive, you will need elite reinforcements (sometimes in game) so this can be quite an issue. Even playing with Soft cap off I am starting to run low in 1944, and that's despite taking advantage of an unintended bug that can get you something like 7000 prestige. If you don't disable Soft cap you will probably run out way too quickly. Disabling Soft Cap either needs a simple mod and GME or adjusting the gamesrules file (only if you know what you are doing). The usual tips for prestige management will help but I suspect that you will need the cheat codes to top up prestige unless you are pretty good.

Cap'njack makes some good points!
There are some critical factors in your unit mix in US Corps and tactics to avoid what I call "prestige starvation."
The way to do it is to compose two or three spearheads composed of three or four experienced full-strength top-of-the-line upgraded TANK DESTROYERS that are ALWAYS backed up by mobile artillery. I repeat, ALWAYS backed up by mobile artillery, even after a move. Heavy towed artillery is almost useless.
The problem is what I call hidden marauding "kamikaze panzer attack groups!" Heavy elite German tanks (and mobile infantry) with high movement factors that appear from BEYOND RECON SPOTTING and devastate US armor. So, take the three or so Shermans you start with or get gifted, upgrade them but relegate them to soft target attack and cleanup duty ONLY, BEHIND the tank destroyer spearheads. DO NOT BUY ANY SHERMANS!
Critical also is use of the US RECON PLANE gifted at D-Day that can spy and scoot. After D-Day(only battle with uncontested air superiority), you must fighter escort it, unless you hang back until you've cleaned the sky of German planes. Even then, it can be used in danger zones and moved away (spy and scoot) to safety or escort. This plane's EXTENDED SPOTTING RANGE is CRITICAL to aggressively spot the kamikaze panzer groups **before they are triggered** to attack. Using the recon plane spot & scoot to safety feature eliminates your own fighter (used for recon) losses from AA and German fighters -- seems there's a German AA every three hexes! Find the group(s), pull back the recon, then devastate the heavy panzers with your **experienced strategic bombers** To say it, US recon units are nearly useless in this regard (cannot spot hidden highly mobile panzer groups).
If you do not use this these tactics, see your tanks crippled, assaults blunted, cry over inadequate prestige.
Last to comment on in US Corps is fighter units. You start the war with P-47s which of course are excellent planes especially with experience. However, as the war progresses P-51s are gifted to you or become available as an upgrade. From WWII history we know the deployment of this plane with its superior firepower, speed, maneuverability, and range won the sky war over Germany. However in this game by the time newbie inexperienced P-51s come into action they are easily crippled or slaughtered by German fighters. Their prestige purchase price is way way too expensive to allow you to upgrade your P-47 to P-51s so stick with the "Jugs (P-47s)!," and upgrade them. This is CRITICAL when the "Wunderwaffe" waves hit. As captainjack notes, you will STILL struggle against this late-war unbalanced ahistorical aerial onslaught so at LEAST two mobile US AA units are necessary in all battles...I'm OK with cheat coding in the two AA units EACH BATTLE as extra core units to rebalance the game, and circumvent prestige starvation.
Btw, you can cheat code in a core spot for the recon plane too.
Unless you're OK with Germany winning WWII.
Do Generals cry?

Wargovichr, I wish I'd read your post before starting my current round of US corps as I would have avoided a few problems.

My most useful units throughout the game (not just once I got the hero infantry in 44):
Strategic bomber (bought at Oran, and at 5* and 14 strength will take anything down to 1 ammo on a sunny day);
Towed artillery with a move hero (useful before the SPart became available);
The mobile AA which has saved a ton of prestige through preventing attacks and reducing effectiveness of attacks.

Later on some other units become handy:
The heavily armoured sherman is a great team mate for the strategic bomber. Strat bomber strips all but 1 ammo; heavily armoured sherman attacks target. Even a King Tiger is unlikely to cause more than a few points of damage. Tank destroyer (and anything else in range) then come to play on an out-of-ammo target. It only needs green reinforcements to do this job;
Lightning P38L (not sure if this is standard - I'm using Nico's equipment file) - the decent ground attack makes it almost like a tac bomber when not protecting other flying things.

I read that at the beginning of US DLC 43, some generals took advantage of evacuating the auxiliary ships and sold them off
In that same DLC during development i wanted to do something fun and unexpected with mount Vesuvius. So when a unit occupies the Vesuvius, you'll receive something.

I rate US Corps as very good. It is certainly more of a challenge than Allied Corps. I actually did an AAR recently (in the AAR subforum, naturally) at General difficulty. Unless you are set on a blind playthrough it is probably worth a read. Check out the replay files for some of the tactics you need to use with the US units.

I would broadly echo wargovichr and captainjack's comments. I went with acquiring 3 Shermans early and nurturing them to deal with soft targets and for the M26 upgrade right at the end. Most of the anti armour work was done by 6 tank destroyers and backing them up with M12 or Calliope artillery is critical. Airpower is also critical, you need a mix of tac and strat bombers. As said, build up a force of P47's early and upgrade them within family as soon as available, forget P51's unless you get a SE. Mobile AA is useful in 44/45.

My first playthrough ran out of prestige at Bastogne but I found no real difficulty with prestige for my AAR playthrough despite taking elite reinforcements in scenario and buying/upgrading the best units available. I use the standard equipment file and play with the default soft cap.

44/45 isn't a walkover, there are plenty of German ground and air units capable of inflicting serious damage, not to mention the Soviet hordes in the last scenario.

US forces have to be played differently to the other nations but once you get that US Corps is a good challenge and well worth playing.

Thanks guys for the information I understand now the style of US forces will be different from German forces I been playing.
It sounds good

nikivdd wrote:some generals took advantage of evacuating the auxiliary ships and sold them off

Who me?
It was that, use the prestige cheat code or run out before I got to 44!

there's plenty of prestige in US corps what are you talking about guys
only overstrength tactical bombers and infantry and you will have more than enough.

I just lost St Vith by trying to be too clever.
If I hadn't sold off my ships,I would have lost sooner and never had the opportunity to be embarrassed in this way.
The Random Number Gods have had their revenge.

AMDonline and Nico
In my defence, Catch 22 shows that no scam should be overlooked in wartime.

captainjack wrote:The Random Number Gods have had their revenge.

I always play with chess dice on. Apart from reducing the risk of losing a core unit with a bad roll it also reduces the chance of a run of bad results wrecking your strategy in a scenario.

Cerberus51 wrote:I always play with chess dice on

I also use dice chess, but this doesn't help much when the general does something daft.

The biggest downfall of US Corps, and the reason I no longer play US Corps past the Battle of the Bulge is a glaring design error that becomes increasingly frustrating. This has been mentioned earlier, it's the Wunderwaffe vrs conventional US Fighters. Since this is based upon Allied Corps and in Allied Corps the decision was made to include the Gloster Meteor instead of the P-80, you do not get any jet fighters to combat the Wunderwaffe. Though the Wunderwaffe gets planes that never flew, you are stuck with P-51's, which are, in game, inferior to the P-47d's. This results in your air units getting shredded and with the scarce prestige, difficult to repair. They should have released a patch to make the P-80 available, or allow the purchase of Gloster Meteors, but never did so. So enjoy until the Battle of the Bulge concludes and then prepare for frustration.

I registered just now to post my support for US corps. I'd rate it as excellent, the scenario design is superb. Heck, even Omaha was fun

kverdon wrote:The biggest downfall of US Corps, and the reason I no longer play US Corps past the Battle of the Bulge is a glaring design error that becomes increasingly frustrating. This has been mentioned earlier, it's the Wunderwaffe vrs conventional US Fighters. Since this is based upon Allied Corps and in Allied Corps the decision was made to include the Gloster Meteor instead of the P-80, you do not get any jet fighters to combat the Wunderwaffe. Though the Wunderwaffe gets planes that never flew, you are stuck with P-51's, which are, in game, inferior to the P-47d's. This results in your air units getting shredded and with the scarce prestige, difficult to repair. They should have released a patch to make the P-80 available, or allow the purchase of Gloster Meteors, but never did so. So enjoy until the Battle of the Bulge concludes and then prepare for frustration.

To be fair, the pre-battle messages gives you explicit warning about the initial waves of wunderwaffen. And being the first one or two turns it's not a huge deal to restart if your air units get wiped.


Overall, the US corps gets excellent equipment:

155mm GMC artillery (13/9 soft/hard attack, 10 ammo!)
M18 hellcats (7 movement!)
B-29 (300+ fuel!, 26 ground defence!)
76mm sherman jumbo (close parity with panthers, albeit a bit late to the party)
Pershings (available the last three scenarios)

I must conclude with how challenging the "Wargames" scenario. Playing on Eisenhower (+50% AI strength) I had to reload days just to eek out a win

Admittedly the highest difficulty I have played US Corps at is General but the only scenario in which I found the Wunderwaffe air units a real issue was Remagen where you will lose a P-47 on the first turn if you put your air force in harms way - so just hold them back for a turn.

huckc wrote:
Overall, the US corps gets excellent equipment:

155mm GMC artillery (13/9 soft/hard attack, 10 ammo!)
M18 hellcats (7 movement!)
B-29 (300+ fuel!, 26 ground defence!)
76mm sherman jumbo (close parity with panthers, albeit a bit late to the party)
Pershings (available the last three scenarios)

The equipment you have written here is unbelievably expensive, especially if you play on the hardest level.
Currently I am playing Carentan mission and in addition to 1 Hellcat I have 3 Wolverines, except 2 Shermans with 76mm gun, I have 2 regular M4.
Artillery: 1 x155mm GMC, but up to 3 M7 Priests.
Tac bombers: 1 Marauder and 3 Mitchells (early versions)
I had a Liberator but they shot me over Italy, don't even dream of a Superfortress.

kondi754 wrote: The equipment you have written here is unbelievably expensive, especially if you play on the hardest level.
Currently I am playing Carentan mission and in addition to 1 Hellcat I have 3 Wolverines, except 2 Shermans with 76mm gun, I have 2 regular M4.
Artillery: 1 x155mm GMC, but up to 3 M7 Priests.
Tac bombers: 1 Marauder and 3 Mitchells (early versions)
I had a Liberator but they shot me over Italy, don't even dream of a Superfortress.

You are playing at a higher difficulty level than I did but US Corps demands very careful prestige management at any difficulty. I would comment that strat bombers are cheaper to run than tac as they take less damage and the suppression of enemy ground units means your ground units take less damage when attacking. The Liberator is available early on and you can buy a couple and they will get you through the war without needing to upgrade to anything else. The later Mitchell's only significant improvement over the early one is defensive air attack (and it is considerably more expensive).

The Hellcat is a relatively cheap family upgrade from the Wolverine. The 155mm GMC (and the Calliope) are worth the extra cost compared to the M7 as, used defensively, they will save a lot of damage to your units over the campaign (the AI loves chipping away at your TD's with infantry and a Calliope will stop that dead).

The campaign breaking scenarios are Sankt Vith and Bastogne. Unless you have several thousand prestige in the bank to burn it will be extremely difficult to get through them.

I have 2 Calliope.
M7 is as good as 155mm GMC, especially when have a lot of experience. Priests are more mobile and much cheaper.
I went through the US Corps 3 times (I participated in Beta tests), now I play really extreme level.

kondi754 wrote:I have 2 Calliope.
M7 is as good as 155mm GMC, especially when have a lot of experience. Priests are more mobile and much cheaper.
I went through the US Corps 3 times (I participated in Beta tests), now I play really extreme level.

I would not presume to tell you, or anyone else playing at the special difficulty levels, how to play (I am finding Allied Corps quite challenging at Eisenhower). My comments were aimed at anyone playing at a normal difficulty level. Enemy units at 15 str requires a different approach to playing at Field Marshal or below. I am finding it is almost a different game and would not be confident to play US Corps at that level, at least at the moment.

Cerberus51 wrote:

kondi754 wrote:I have 2 Calliope.
M7 is as good as 155mm GMC, especially when have a lot of experience. Priests are more mobile and much cheaper.
I went through the US Corps 3 times (I participated in Beta tests), now I play really extreme level.

I would not presume to tell you, or anyone else playing at the special difficulty levels, how to play (I am finding Allied Corps quite challenging at Eisenhower). My comments were aimed at anyone playing at a normal difficulty level. Enemy units at 15 str requires a different approach to playing at Field Marshal or below. I am finding it is almost a different game and would not be confident to play US Corps at that level, at least at the moment.

First of all I play according to historical truth at the highest level, of course.
I buy the equipment only when it was introduced to the units on the frontline in reality.
F.e. in reality: Hellcats appeared in Normandy, similarly Shermans with 76mm gun
In PzC: M18 are already available during Sicily landing, M4A1/A3(76)W in first Anzio or Volturno scn.