What to use and when?

[terje439]

Although I bet there are more experienced players than me out there, I thought I would give some information about the different unit types.

Infantry - although the game is names Panzer Corps, do not forget about your infantery. They are the backbone of your army and are at times better than tanks. In the open infantry will take a beating from tanks, however place them in mountains, hills, forests and cities and they are a formidable foe for any tank. Also understand the difference between the various types of infantry. The units you should really learn how to use are paratroopers (to seize rear areas), bridge engineers (to get across rivers quickly) and engineers (to attack entrenched enemies).

Artillery - once the Queen of the Battlefield. Although the artillery is not as devastating as 100 years earlier, do not forget some of these. They usually have a range of 2 or 3 which means they can fire from a distance without taking damage themself. On the offence these guys will aid your assaults on strongpoints of any kind. On the defence they will fire at attackers that attack units adjacent to the artillery, killing and supressing alot of the attackers before they attack your defenders. Do not oversee this ability if you are on the defence.

Anti-Tank - these units come in two types. The towed anti tank guns and the self propelled tank destroyers. The towed guns are cheaper but needs some transports to move around quickly. The anti tiank units are not an offensive weapon as they have low initiative, if they are defending however they are lethal to any armored unit attacking them. This being said, some of the later German self propelled tank destroyers like the JagdPanther and the Elephant are more than capable of going on the offensive as they have very high defensive and offensive capabilities.

Scouts - although these guys are not good for anything but mopping up routed targets in terms of combat, do not forget about them. Their spotting ability allows you to see what you might else have run straight into. also note that this unit type can move-stop-move-stop-move etc. This is good for three things. One is when capturing alot of undefended bases with airfields outside. Drive into the city, stop and capture the city, move out to the airfield and stop to capture it. Freing up other units to keep on pushing on the advance. The second thing about their movement is that you can move to the edge of your spotted area, stop and spot, move once more to the edge of your spotted area, stop and spot etc. This way you make sure your scout does not run into a hidden tank that will blow it to tiny pieces. The final thing about the movement of scouts is that you can use it to squeeze by enemy units taking advantage of gaps in the defence to get at the arty in the back.

Anti-Air - the name pretty much says it all. These guys have one primary task, and that is to shot enemy aircraft out of the sky. They will fire on any enemy aerial unit that attacks a unit surrounding the air defence unit. It is also worth to note that SOME of the AA guns have the ability to switch from an AA to an AT role. Remember to switch back if you want to keep shooting at planes.

Fighters - these guys are here to secure aerial supremacy for your forces. They can attack enemy aircrafts as well as do strafe attacks on ground units. If a fighter is adjacant to a friendly bomber that is attacked by enemy aircraft, the fighter will fire at the attacker reducing the umkber of enemy planes that shoot at your bombers.

Tactical bombers - The most famous plane here would be the Stuka. These planes will do dive/strafe attack at enemy ground units causing alot of damage in terms of killed troops. Due to the low level of their attack however, they are likely to take attack from enemy anti air fire. Some of the Tactical bombers are also capable of attacking enemy planes but are usually less suited to do so.

Strategic bombers - The most famous plane here would be the B17. These planes attack by carpet bombing from high altitude. This means they are less likely to kill enemy troops, but they also take less damage from anti air guns. Often this unit is your best anti navy unit. This unit has some extra abilities that needs to be mentioned.
-they can neutralize cities and airfields, meaning no troops can be purchased nor any plane refueled at these targets untill they have been occupied by an infantry style unit
-they can cause prestige loss with the enemy if you bomb target cities (those with a gold circle)
-they reduce ammo and fuel at bombed units

U-boats - These guys can only be attacked by tactical bombers, destroyers and MTBs. They do good damage against capitol ships but cannot fire on land. A U-boat has a 50% chance to avoid attack.

MTBs - schnellboats in German. These are small fast naval vessels usually armed with small calibre guns and torpedoes. They are fragile so sending them up against bigger ships is usually a bad idea. They can however attack U-boats.

Destroyers - These ships are the jack-of-all-trades of the sea. They can attack anything, but have a short range and can usually not take alot of beating.

Capitol ships - cruisers and battleships. Long range, good guns and capable of taking some pounding, these guys rule the waves with one exception. They cannot attack submarines, which means that if they are cornered with some submarines keeping them there, they are dead. So keep your destroyers available!

Carriers - also a capitol ship, these are somewhat different. They work as a moveable airfield, allowing planes to refuel. They are not capable of defending themselves effectively against other ships.



Finally. Remember that there is a sort of stone-paper-scissor going on in this game.
Example;
tank > infantry in the open
dug in infantry > tank



Hope this is of some help to new players!

Terje

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Trifler]

Good info.

For the infantry, you mention that it's good to know how bridging teams, paratroopers, and engineers work, but you didn't mention say how they work.

I tried the Bridging Team out real quick on the first mission of the first campaign. I wasn't sure if they only make a bridge for themselves, left a bridge behind for others to use, or what. I found that the way they actually work is they allow friendly units to cross as long as they stand on the river. They allow infantry, tanks, etc. to cross as if there was a regular bridge there and with no movement penalties. The Bridging Team has extremely poor fighting stats so I figure I won't have them fight and just use fresh recruits for them when necessary. They definitely need a transport truck, but a cheap one is fine.

I would have liked the Paratroopers to display the plane at the bottom of the Purchase screen in addition to the trucks. This would clearly indicate that they're capable of para-drops, it would display the plane's stats, and critically, it would make it obvious that if you pick a truck, you don't get a plane! Basically, Paras with a truck become ordinary infantry with weaker stats. I completely understand why Paratroopers aren't allowed to drop with transport vehicles (especially armored ones!). However, displaying the plane at the bottom with the trucks in the Purchase screen would have made it much more intuitive. Even better, don't permit the purchase of trucks at all for Paratroopers. Just display the plane so players can view the stats with the plane. Other infantry without transport trucks can board an air transport and get off at another airfield, but they can't get off anywhere other than an airfield.

Where does it list special bonuses, like the Pioneer's ability to ignore entrenched units?

I also did some experimenting with the units available in the second mission of the first campaign (Norway). The quad-cannon AA can be used effectively against infantry if they're out in the open, even though it doesn't have an alternate firing mode. I'm not sure what this means if the enemy has aircraft and infantry in the same hex. It maintains its firing range when firing at infantry too, which is good since its Close Combat Defense rating is 0. However, it will not target infantry positioned in cities. The 8.8cm FlaK is AA that can switch to an AT firing mode. Unfortunately there's no half-track version in the Norway mission, only a towed. I'm guessing there will be in the next mission.