Experience for Mortars

[Phil]

For starters, I'm just going to ask if there is a resource on how experience works in SPWAW?
I don't really expect an answer as everytime I've seen this question asked, it seems to turns into a big confusing debate, so I'm only asking for a link or previous thread.
Secondly, I well into a campaign as US Army. I have some 60mm mortar squads that have gained very little in way of experience and kills.
I was wondering what you guys do to get experince for such units or if more experience even makes that much difference in a mortar unit?
In the same way, how about Forward Observer units?

[Jim1954]

Phil, have you looked at the manual to see what it says? Have adobe acrobat installed and click on World at War Manual on the opening screen. I don't have it in front of me so I can't look it up.

Basically more experience makes you "better" at what ever you are trying to do. Green troops do the worst, average guys are a little better, veteran troops do it better still and elite troops do it best.

Mortars are better at suppressing than outright killing and so my mortar units tend to fall far behind my frontline guys in respect to kills and experience. Same with Fo's.

Hope this helps.

[Phil]

Jim,
Thanks for the reply, but I should have worded my question differently.
What I meant about experience is "How do units gain experience"?
I know the old Steel Panthers used to award kills and points to the unit that finished off the victim, but I think this was changed in SPWAW.
Anyway, any references to the above question always seems to lead to a very confusing disscussion because it was all speculation on the part of the gamers. I can't recall if the programmers ever explained it..... or if they did, I missed it.

But really, I was more concerned about the experience gained by units like mortars and FOs.

[rbrunsman]

Phil, do a search in the Mega Campaign Sub Forum. I asked this very question long ago (~1 year?).

The gist of it was, IIRC, you get experience (0-2 pts) after each scenario randomly. But, you can increase your chance of getting experience by shooting at, and being shot at by, the enemy. Kills don't really make a difference other than for the kill counter. In MC Lost Victories, I have units with 70+ kills and 111 experience. They are murder on the enemy because they rally all the time and they get about 7 shots each turn.

Thus you will find your mortar teams won't gain experience as quickly because they don't usually face the enemy directly that much. (example: my 81mm mortar teams are stuck in the low 80s for experience).

Bottom line: Shoot at the enemy with direct fire to get experience.

I don't recommend using your FOs in direct combat too much, but using them to kill the odd, isolated crew that will be a simple kill will get you experience. I think experienced FOs are far more important than experienced mortar crews (but not so much for US FOs).

[Phil]

So to gain experience, my units basically must be INVOLVED in the battle to some degree.
That makes sense.

[Irinami]

Yup. Otherwise they're REMF's who get a pin for the battle.

[Frank W.]

Originally posted by Phil
So to gain experience, my units basically must be INVOLVED in the battle to some degree.
That makes sense.

yep. this is my experience, too.

if u look on your rear guard forces like
flak + on map arty, they never will
have this much exp. as frontline troops.

i thus use flak often together w/ trucks
to bring them to the frontline. some of
them are good killing soft targets like
HT´s + jeeps. of course american 4x
12,7mm or german flak vierling are inf.
killers, too.


of course this only applies for campaigns.
in a battle u don´t gain exp. am i right ?

[Belisarius]

...which is kind of dumb. I can agree that Flak units camping in the rear not firing a shot through the battle won't gain much experience, but mortar crews work a LOT each battle. I think that would account for something. :p

[Frank W.]

Originally posted by Belisarius
...which is kind of dumb. I can agree that Flak units camping in the rear not firing a shot through the battle won't gain much experience, but mortar crews work a LOT each battle. I think that would account for something. :p

yes, faster ROF of course.

but the ROF should drop down after some
time of continous firing due to crew fatigue
and barrel heating e.t.c.

[Belisarius]

Yep, I agree.

I also like to think that experienced mortar crews would be able to shift targets faster.....?

[rbrunsman]

They don't shift faster. I checked my MCLV mortar crews and the one with higher exp. shoots with a greater delay (.3 for self targeting) than the less experienced crew (.2 delay if self targeting). I think delay has to do with the rating for arty command, not experience.