Paras don't help combined arms?

[Tom Grosv]

I was surprised to see that when I attacked a region in SU with 1 TB, 2 Armour, 1 Arty and 1 Para against 1 Inf and 1 Arty I did not get combined bonus. I can only think that Paras don't equate to Infantry for this rule, even when they fight as regular infantry (ie not dropping out of the sky). Is this right? Why?

[WanderingHead]

Your observation is correct. Whether it is "right" is open to discussion. It was brought up some time ago by Christian, and my recollection is that no explanation/opinion was ever provided from Joel.

There is another problem right now, however. Airborne units do not count as infantry for combined arms, but militia DO count as infantry. I have observed this in a game and meant to look into it, but this thread prompted me to check the code. Indeed it is true, and this is definitely not right.

Strictly speaking, from the manual (page 73), neither airborne nor militia should count.

I would propose that a change be made so that airborne qualifies as infantry for combined arms, and militia does not qualify as infantry for combined arms.

[christian brown]

As WanderingHead mentions above, I've argued this case before....let me restate the points here.....

1. The Historical Record.
The Soviet Union raised something like 2 entire corps of paratroops, which were never employed as an airborne force, though they acquitted themselves admirably as ground troops.
Germany retained significant airborne forces until the end of the war, using them as elite ground troops, no large airdrops or landings were attempted after the invasion of Crete in 1941.

2. Game Rules
The fact that PARA units can fight in exactly the same way in every regard (except for purposes of CAM)
as INF units (they immediately reap the benefit of all INF tech improvements) is one of the strongest arguments in favor of making PARA units capable of being counted toward obtaining CAM.

3. Production Encouragement

Let's face it, most PARA units are rarely, often never used in airborne ops, at least giving them the ability to affect CAM will be an incentive to build them; they are interesting, expensive units that add to the richness of the game.

Closing Note. An invalid point:
Paratroops are lightly equipped, lacking both organic artillery and armor, they cannot take the place of regular infantry as part of a combined arms force.
Rebuttal:
The very fact that they must be used with MECH and ART units, among other requirements, negates this argument. Besides this, as is mentioned in point 2 above, the PARA unit is the exact equal of INF in combat (except when using the airborne capability or for CAM.)

I can see no reason to exclude these units from the CAM equation and am equally sure the code change would be very easy to make.

V/r,
Christian

[Avatar47]

I concur with Christian. As long as they aren't paradropping, they can be used as INF for CAM. And militia could have been used as INF? All those missed opportunities....

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: Avatar47
I concur with Christian. As long as they aren't paradropping, they can be used as INF for CAM. And militia could have been used as INF? All those missed opportunities....

Should airborne only count if they are not dropped? Seems reasonable to me, and pretty easy to include that check in the combined arms code.

[Forwarn45]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead
Should airborne only count if they are not dropped? Seems reasonable to me, and pretty easy to include that check in the combined arms code.

That sounds right. Additionally, I'd be inclined to continue to let militia count for the combined arms bonus - although I don't have a strong preference either way.

[christian brown]

Not that anyone asked for it (my opinion!) but here it is......

Combined Arms forces typically operate closely together.......I think the nature of airborne operations (far behind front lines, out of contact with friendly forces) should exclude Para units from the CAM equation when airdropped.

Militia should not count toward CAM because of the level of quality of troops.......the ability to act as a combined arms force implies a high level of coordination, communication and training....the thought that WWII era Italian or Rumanian militia would be able to closely communicate and keep up with German artillery, air and armored forces in some sort of coordinated assault is.........preposterous. I don't even want to go into talking about the other nations' militia because there is (IIRC) no way to distinguish between the nationalities' militia units with the current code.....so I'd say just exclude them all from the CAM equation.

Thanks for your time.

[Forwarn45]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
the thought that WWII era Italian or Rumanian militia would be able to closely communicate and keep up with German artillery, air and armored forces in some sort of coordinated assault is.........preposterous.

The quality issue and coordination is why I can see going the other way on this. And generally, I think you have a good point. Although, from what I have read about the desert campaign - Rommel did a pretty good job coordinating with the Italians. This may have been more of the exception than the rule, however.

[WanderingHead]

I feel strongly that militia should not count.

The written rules exclude militia, and I given the direct linkage of airborne to infantry I can only imagine that the airborne exluded either as an oversite or because it was thought that they shouldn't participate if dropped.

So I'll try to convince Joel to

1) exclude militia
2) include airborne, but only when not dropped

I think that is intuitive enough (heck, I somehow doubt that anyone even knew militia could do it before).

[Lebatron]

I agree both 1 and 2 should be changed. There's a lack of consensus on item 1, but I think it would be best to add this one too. If only to make the campaign in North Africa a little harder for the Axis. That is, force the Axis player to use both Inf and Arm to supplement the Italian Mil to get CAM.

[WanderingHead]

Considering that it only takes 1 infantry to satisfy the CA requirement, it seems very reasonable to me. It doesn't work against heavy militia deployments, just 100% militia deployments.

BTW - please not that I would also assert this the other way, i.e. it would require at least 1 infantry/airborne for the defender to nullify CA, militia would not count torwards nullifying CA.

[WanderingHead]

out of curiousity, who was aware that militia could take the place of infantry to give CA?

I was not aware of it until a few weaks ago, when I was surprised to see CA in a particular combat.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: WanderingHead

BTW - please not that I would also assert this the other way, i.e. it would require at least 1 infantry/airborne for the defender to nullify CA, militia would not count torwards nullifying CA.

I agree here too.

Since your curious, I was under the impression that Inf/Mil/AirB were all considered the same for CAM. There is a place in the text files where they are considered to be a group, so that's why I thought so. I didn't know until now that Airborne didn't work for CAM, and I would have never noticed because I never use them alone in a standard attack.

[Uncle_Joe]

Yes, they are grouped for 'target selection'. So I thought the same thing...that they were grouped for CAM as well. I never attacked with just Paras as the infantry component, so I never noticed that they didnt provide the bonus.

For consistancy, I think they should all provide the bonus. Yes, I understand the issue with Militia, but its rarely going to matter and its a easier to just remember that infantry (including its sub-types) provides the modifier.
 
But either which way honestly wouldnt bother me....I see it as something that is pretty rarely going to occur and probably not worth the changes (which inevitably give the potential to break something else).

[Forwarn45]

Same here - I assumed infantry, militia, or paratroopers all worked the same way for combined arms. I just didn't have any situations where the only one of these three present was paratroopers.

[WanderingHead]

interesting that others thought so differently.

I do think it matters. The Russian "all militia in the early years" strategy is good, and perfectly reasonable, but getting CA out of it doesn't seem to make sense. Requiring some infantry to accompany Italian militia in the Med makes sense. Since it only requires ONE infantry unit (even if embedded with 15 militia), it seems like a pretty low bar.

When I surprisedly got CA with militia while I was playing Russia, I truly felt that I didn't deserve it and had the guilty feeling that I was taking advantage of a bug!

I'm gonna wait a bit and see what other comments are generated before finalizing, but I'm still inclined to remove mil from the equation. A change is required to fix airborne anyway. Christian, Lebatron and I all seemed to agree on militia pretty strongly, I assume Avatar47 is on board since he's as surprised as I was, and the rest seem more ambivalent than committed (forgive me if I am wrong in this interpretation!).

[Uncle_Joe]

Oh dont get me wrong, I dont mind that Militia lose the ability per se, but only that it wouldnt be worth a change just to 'fix' that. If you are going to be making changes anyways, then that is less of an issue.
 
The only issue left is the one of consistancy. Militia/Paras/Inf will all be treated as 'Infantry' for one purpose, but not for another. While that doesnt bother me personally, I can see it confusing players who dont frequent the forums etc.

[christian brown]

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe
The only issue left is the one of consistancy. Militia/Paras/Inf will all be treated as 'Infantry' for one purpose, but not for another. While that doesnt bother me personally, I can see it confusing players who dont frequent the forums etc.

Hmmm, I think that the targeting priorities (I assume that's what you're referring to here) are actually more arcane a subject than the one addressed here, this is just an opinion, but I'd suspect that many players are totally unaware that MIL, PARA and INF are considered the same for targeting purposes and the consistency issue is better addressed by changing the CAM rules. Just my 2 cents......thanks for your input.

V/r

[MrQuiet]

I had no idea that Mil could be used in place of inf for Combined arms mod.
I had assumed paras on ground assault would cover the infantry requirement but never ran into the situation or tested it.
 
My opinion is that Mil should not count as inf requirement for the CA mod but paras should.
 
-MrQuiet

[Tom Grosv]

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

My opinion is that Mil should not count as inf requirement for the CA mod but paras should.

-MrQuiet

My vote is with MrQuiet