For god's sake Winston, quit sending me Matilda tanks.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Reg


As Andy will tell you, what you see in game is a compromise (long and hard thought about..) for the very reasons described above.

To utilise Australian armour effectively, you will need to set the units to 'Do not Upgrade' or the Matildas will quickly be replaced by Lee/Grants and you won't be able to downgrade.

I don't have my game up and running right now, but I thought that our only option was "replacements on " or "replacements off", with no switch for upgrades. If you leave replacements off once your units get Matildas they won't upgrade to Lee/Grants, but then any losses won't be made up either...

Nope, to upgrade TOE you have to fulfil at least three conditions
1) Allow replacements
2) Be in rest mode
3) Be in range of a command (so not army, air, corps, ...) HQ

[xj900uk]

Thanks for the info to upgrade TOE. Still a bit confused about what exactly is a Command HQ, is it the unit in questions particular one?
For example, suppose the Unit I want to upgrade is affiliated to the Australian I Corps. Does it mean that it has to be within range of that particular (ie the Aussie 1 Corps) HQ?

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Reg


As Andy will tell you, what you see in game is a compromise (long and hard thought about..) for the very reasons described above.

To utilise Australian armour effectively, you will need to set the units to 'Do not Upgrade' or the Matildas will quickly be replaced by Lee/Grants and you won't be able to downgrade.

I don't have my game up and running right now, but I thought that our only option was "replacements on " or "replacements off", with no switch for upgrades. If you leave replacements off once your units get Matildas they won't upgrade to Lee/Grants, but then any losses won't be made up either...

Nope, to upgrade TOE you have to fulfil at least three conditions
1) Allow replacements
2) Be in rest mode
3) Be in range of a command (so not army, air, corps, ...) HQ

I understood this already - my point is that I can't find a way to allow replacements without allowing upgrades - unless allowing replacements when not in the range of a command HQ gives you the replacements without upgrading?

[Chickenboy]

Coming in a little late on the conversation...

I recall seeing a pretty well-known painting of Australian forces crushing a Japanese position in New Guinea. In this painting, a Grant / Lee tank was very clearly providing infantry support and was credited with (literally) crushing Japanese resistance.

Ring any bells? Seems a bit of a difference versus 'did not see combat' statements re: the tank's service.

I've got some sleuthing to do...

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Smeulders

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay





I don't have my game up and running right now, but I thought that our only option was "replacements on " or "replacements off", with no switch for upgrades. If you leave replacements off once your units get Matildas they won't upgrade to Lee/Grants, but then any losses won't be made up either...

Nope, to upgrade TOE you have to fulfil at least three conditions
1) Allow replacements
2) Be in rest mode
3) Be in range of a command (so not army, air, corps, ...) HQ

I understood this already - my point is that I can't find a way to allow replacements without allowing upgrades - unless allowing replacements when not in the range of a command HQ gives you the replacements without upgrading?

I think Brad is right. Individual devices can upgrade without the entire TOE upgrading. You can prevent the TOE upgrade by staying out of Rest mode, etc, but to prevent individual devices from upgrading you have to turn off replacements for the unit.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: spence

In my PBEM, the Japanese are apparently landing in Australia so it is likely that my tanks will meet their tanks on the battlefield shortly. In AE (as in WitP) do the IJA gum-wrappers with spit-wad throwers still hold their own against tanks with armor and real guns?

No, I faced the same thing and my Australian M3 and American stuarts pretty much ate the Japanese tanks for lunch.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Reg


As Andy will tell you, what you see in game is a compromise (long and hard thought about..) for the very reasons described above.

To utilise Australian armour effectively, you will need to set the units to 'Do not Upgrade' or the Matildas will quickly be replaced by Lee/Grants and you won't be able to downgrade.

I don't have my game up and running right now, but I thought that our only option was "replacements on " or "replacements off", with no switch for upgrades. If you leave replacements off once your units get Matildas they won't upgrade to Lee/Grants, but then any losses won't be made up either...

No you can take replacements. Just leave them in combat or move mode. Only if you set them to rest will they upgrade.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Coming in a little late on the conversation...

I recall seeing a pretty well-known painting of Australian forces crushing a Japanese position in New Guinea. In this painting, a Grant / Lee tank was very clearly providing infantry support and was credited with (literally) crushing Japanese resistance.

Ring any bells? Seems a bit of a difference versus 'did not see combat' statements re: the tank's service.

I've got some sleuthing to do...

Cannot have been the M3 Grant, A lot of pics of the M3 Stuart in action at Gona/Buna are available. Might have been an M3 Grant in Burma with a bit of artistic license on the decsription.

While technically inadequate for the job, they did enough to help clear the opposition. The alternative were the Bren Carriers used as Infantry Tanks in earlier unsuccesful assaults.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: USS America

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: Smeulders




Nope, to upgrade TOE you have to fulfil at least three conditions
1) Allow replacements
2) Be in rest mode
3) Be in range of a command (so not army, air, corps, ...) HQ

I understood this already - my point is that I can't find a way to allow replacements without allowing upgrades - unless allowing replacements when not in the range of a command HQ gives you the replacements without upgrading?

I think Brad is right. Individual devices can upgrade without the entire TOE upgrading. You can prevent the TOE upgrade by staying out of Rest mode, etc, but to prevent individual devices from upgrading you have to turn off replacements for the unit.

Yes, Brad is right, I thought he was talking about TOE upgrades instead of device upgrades for some reason.

[bradfordkay]

No, I have always been and am still talking about device upgrades. The only way I know of to get a device in a unit to upgrade is to have "replacements on" chosen. Is there any other method? 

[Smeulders]

Not as far as I know

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

Now I am confused. From what I am reading at the Australian War memorial the lee/grants were replaced by matidas and no lee/grants saw action but were used for training. That may explain all of the matildas in my pool. But in the game, the Australian units take matilidas early in the war and then upgrade to lee/grants. Do they switch back to matildas. I had the tank replacement bug in my game. Perhaps that was a factor.

They do not switch back, when you use tracker you can see the device upgrade paths and the Matildas upgrade to the Grants. The replacement bug for devices we suffered from has something to do with it though as we long didn´t get any tanks into the units at all. If you have got enough Grants in the pool then it doesn´t matter if you still get Matildas also. If you haven´t enough Grants it would have been an advantage to upgrade one Matilda unit after another but that wasn´t possible with the bug as they also didn´t take replacements.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

How do you get the tank regiments to upgrade? Just leave at rest and replacements 'Y' in a nice big place like Brisbane or Syndey with lots of supplies for a few weeks and watch their establishment?

just have them in range of an appropriate HQ and enough supplies around. No need to have them on rest, rest is only needed when you do an TOE upgrade but upgrading single devices don´t need rest.

[Redd]

OK, so I guess my question is, how do I get a unit to upgrade to matildas so that I can turn off replacements and then keep them? They show up at the same time as the grants, so all I get is a bunch of units with a few grants and no matildas. I don't see the point of including them.[&:]

[JeffroK]

The game appears to be missing 3 Australian Tank Battalions which were solely armed with the Matilda II, unless they are renamed (in game)from another unit which is harder to search for.

Having these would provide a outlet for the Matilda II reinforcements.

The other way would be to have PDU for LCU devices to allow you to keep the inferior AFV. Of course, you could always say the Australian Army were silly and ship the Grants into action.

[Andy Mac]

This is a compromise Aus Army Tank Bns aned Ard Regts still keep me awake at night - its a compromise between relative effectiveness at the right points of the war.
 
Re matilda specifically remember patch 2 had a bug that stopped units taking on replacements as a result pretty much all units for games started in this phase (incl both my own PBEM's) end up with 10 - 12 Matildas when they should have 40 - 50 when the Grants start arriving and they therefore upgrade when you dont really want them to.
 
This was fixed in patch 3 but those of us caught by it are where we are and you need to wait for enough Grants to arrive.
 
Andy

[crsutton]

And you will have enough grants by July or August of 42-and then plenty from then on. Plus you will get matildas in the convoys well into 1943. I got about three hundred in my pool as of 11/42. I store them in that same big locker that I keep my wirraways in...[:D]

[JeffroK]

At some point 2 Cavalry Brigade changes into 3 Army Tank Brigade.

I dont know what TOE it gets but it should be for a Tank Bde equipped with Matilda.

Those Wirra's should be guarding Melbourne & Adelaide from the invaders and training up pilots to fill out the frontline squadrons. there should be some OTU & FTS around Mildura & Wagga Wagga to equip as well.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: Redd

OK, so I guess my question is, how do I get a unit to upgrade to matildas so that I can turn off replacements and then keep them? They show up at the same time as the grants, so all I get is a bunch of units with a few grants and no matildas. I don't see the point of uncluding them.[&:]

It takes a bit of organization (not too much though). Just let your units upgrade one or two at a time. The first unit will take Grants, emptying those pools. Then allow replacements for the next units, they shouldn't find enough Grants in the pools to upgrade to them and will take Matildas. Some small problems may still occur, but this is probably the best way as long as you haven't got the Grants to fill out all units.

[Redd]

Thanks Smeulders ! [:)] Too late for this game, but I'll know better next time. Only against the AI anyway.[;)]