German armor?

[Phelan]

Right, just finished the GC campaign as Allies on beginning of 5th day. Both sides as Line. I was a little surprised at how little armor I encountered in the campaign - in Helmond or Germert I met one force of 2 Panthers and 1 Jagdpanzer, to the north in Verb (58 on strat map) I met a StuG 42 and a StuG III but that was it. For the most part, the Germans only threw piecemeal units at me (like consistently attacking into Arnhem Bridge with 1-3 units of poor infantry). I haven´t read too much on actual oob for the MarketGarden campaign, but shouldn´t I have met at least a little more German armor?

[7A_Woulf]

All BGs are 'trimmed-down' in case of armour in the OOB, guess it's 'cause the Force pool only represent the frontal 1/3rd of the entire BG (i.e. allowing 3 StuG from 280th, 5 'Köeningstiger' from 506th and so on) and the point-system of the game, reducing the possibility to buy sick amounts of armour...

Cheers

[chiroho]

From playing through the GC as the Germans, there actually is very little armour in the campaign. There are a couple of reconnaissance units in the Arnhem area in the early part of the game, the units which Frost historically encountered in the Arnhem Bridge area, but the majority of armoured units were thrown against the supply route for XXX Corps later in the campaign.

Remember that, at the time, the Germans were still desperately trying to reorganize following their massive equipment losses in the Normandy and Falise area only weeks earlier where most mechanized units lost nearly all their equipment. So the majority of units thrown against the Allied attack were hastily organized Ersatz units, hence the poor quality, and very little armour.

[DavidTheGreat]

You have kingtiger 2 and panthers,try combining BG's for more balanced forces.

[7A_Woulf]

Some of the major armoured units during Market Garden:

KG Roestler x15 PzJag IV (against XXX Corps, later 101st)
Pz Brigade 107 (Complete kick-ass armoured brigade, against 101st)
Pz. Company 'Hummel' x14 Tiger I (The first two passed Frost and crossed the Bridge)
Hvy tank battalion 506 x15 Tiger II ("Köningstiger", Oosterbeek and the Island)
Pz. Company 224 (Up to 17 old French Char 1B, some converted to flame-tanks. Against western perimeter of British Paras)
Coy. 'Mielke' x8 Mk III and Mk IV (At Arnhem)
10SS Panzer Reg (Some 16 tanks, mostly Mk IV, saw action in the Island)
9th and 10th SS Pz Recon (Against Frost, a few AC and mostly halftracks)
Stug Battalion 280 (7x Stug III, 3x StuG42, Arnhem and Oosterbeck)

Feel free to correct me if I have missed something, and this is only major armoured units; -I haven't bother to list small 4-5 tank/SP gun units. It's important to remember that the German documentation of this time is really bad, not all was recorded and the records wasn't always true (The German soldiers didn't report all vehicles they had, so they would get more new ones!)

Edit: Could be worth mentioning that this is historical forces, haven't look into LSA enough to say whether or not they are in the game.

[Phelan]

Well, I can´t combine the opponent´s battlegroups, can I?

Anyway, I played on Line, and I can´t say that the pressure on the supply line was that great either. As I said, 2 Panthers and 1 Jagdpanzer at Helmand, once I destroyed those no more German attacks on that side. Some weak forces attacking 2-3 areas east Grossbeek Heights every morning, and around Arnhem not much of a coordinated attack of anything either. The Stugs there (Velb) apparently sat around for a long while, since I attacked them, but they were never thrown at Arnhem Bridge.

Do the Germans get more armor as reinforcements later on? As finishing at day 5 is only half the campaign time.

Cheers / Phelan

[chiroho]

ORIGINAL: Phelan

Do the Germans get more armor as reinforcements later on? As finishing at day 5 is only half the campaign time.

From looking at the Grand Campaign in the scenario editor, it appears as though at least schwere-Panzer-Abteilung 506, with Tiger II tanks, doesn't get committed until day 6, which is probably why you never encountered it. This unit enters the map north of Arnhem. There's another panzer unit with flammpanzers which enters at the same time from west of Arnhem.

So yes, there are a couple more German armoured units which do show up deep into the Campaign.

[Rift]

It isn't worth merging BGs because you loose whatever is in the active force pool roster at the time. So by the time you merge you will have hardly any armour left. This for me is a huge bug and problem and needs to be solved IMO. See my post "Pointless Merges"

[stolidog]

Hey Phelan,
Just curious, what were the results of your GC? Ie major victory, do better than historical?

[Rift]

When I completed my GC this was the end result:

Finished at 1200hrs on 21st and as you can see having meet hardly any armour.

[TheReal_Pak40]

Rift, part of the problem is that there are some serious bugs in the Strategic map. I played the first two days in the GC, and Pz Bgd 107 basically sat in the map that it arrived on and never attacked me. There were many other units on the Strategic map that also did not engage. The axis Strategic AI is basically broken and I think they are supposed to fix that issue in the first patch.

[Tejszd]

True, with some of the current bugs the AI does not put as much fight as it should. Patch 1 will make it tougher based on what they are fixing as the enemy BG's should be less passive....

[Phelan]

It ended at 900 hours on fifth day with complete Allied control of the map.

I think loss results were similar to Rifts campaign, 20 enemy "armor" killed but that included quite a few halftracks and armored scouts.

[D.Ilse]

Well you got to think, there aren't many full armour units in the area. Alot of adhoc.

II.SS Pz Kps had been fighting since June '44 with Op. Epsom against the British.