British 70th Division

[Fallschirmjager]

No offense to the British forces, but what is the purpose of this division?
It appears to be a heavy weapons company on a regimental scale. It has Vickers Maxine guns, lots of tubes and mortars and lots of support. However it does not appear to have any foot sluggers.
Is this intentional, or an oversight?

I did some research on my own and this division received the siege of Tobruk from the Australian garrison and fought with distinction during operation Crusader. It was reguared by Axis intelligence as perhaps the best division size force in the British army.
As far as I can tell it was sent to the Far East and used mostly for garrison duty in India.
Given that until 1943 the British were very concerned about a seaborne invasion of India or Ceylon the 70th would have been the tip of the spear of the counter attack. By November of 1943 the division was broken up to be used for the controversial Chindit formations.
In game of apppears to be a division without any infantry.
Is there an explanation?

[geofflambert]

Sounds like a British version of a kampfgruppen, all the non-regimental stuff. Add combat brigades and you've got something.

[witpqs]

Is there an explanation?

Yes, the other elements of the division appear independently. A search in the scenario design section should yield posts with lots of details and rationale.

[JeffroK]

Its Infantry Brigades were given to Wingate on 25 October 1943 and turned into Long Range Penetration Brigades. In game the Div HQ is the 3 Arty Rgts, AT Rgt and a Recce Rgt.

IRL the Divisional HQ was disbanded by 24 November 1943.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Is there an explanation?

Yes, the other elements of the division appear independently. A search in the scenario design section should yield posts with lots of details and rationale.

The frustrating thing to me was that you cannot recombine the infantry into the division - there is no tie to the infantry portion in the unit OOB.
However, I did not know about them being used for the Chindits, which are enormously useful units so I will suck it up and treat the 70th as a big engineer unit.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Is there an explanation?

Yes, the other elements of the division appear independently. A search in the scenario design section should yield posts with lots of details and rationale.

Okay, I did do some more research and found that all of the brigades do show up at Aden.
A shame you cannot recombine the unit. In my future games I may delete those 3 brigades and make this a 'proper' division.
It would be great for shoring up Burma/India
Is has high EXP and comes in fully formed and has a metric ass load of artillery tubes and engineers. It would be nice to have it in place to stop the IJA coming up the coastal road in what is today Bangledesh.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Its Infantry Brigades were given to Wingate on 25 October 1943 and turned into Long Range Penetration Brigades. In game the Div HQ is the 3 Arty Rgts, AT Rgt and a Recce Rgt.

IRL the Divisional HQ was disbanded by 24 November 1943.

Here's what it morphs into all-be-it with a little help from be.

[crsutton]

If you move on to one of DaBabes scenarios the cadre for the 70th Division does not show up in the game. Only the Chindit units. My only complaint was that the unit had no use at all in stock. I wish that it could have been disbanded for the much needed devices.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Chris H
Here's what it morphs into all-be-it with a little help from be.

Four brigades on top of Karen Hills? The poor girl...

Seriously, which mod is that?

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Four brigades on top of Karen Hills? The poor girl...

Seriously, which mod is that?

Good question. It's a May 42 scenario saved in slot 120. I downloaded it because I wanted a good Japanese AI and it was one modified for that purpose but I've been playing it for over a year and cannot remember who it's by, Andy Mac possibly. When I downloaded it was a work in progress and played pretty well until mid 43 when I managed to sink most of the Kido Butai, now it's seems to have gone to pot. too many suicide runs.

As for the units the 3rd Special Force has two Bde default, I transferred the others in. Powerful unit together but one Bde is weak. Found that out when I still had the 70th Div active.

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Is there an explanation?

Yes, the other elements of the division appear independently. A search in the scenario design section should yield posts with lots of details and rationale.

Okay, I did do some more research and found that all of the brigades do show up at Aden.
A shame you cannot recombine the unit. In my future games I may delete those 3 brigades and make this a 'proper' division.
It would be great for shoring up Burma/India
Is has high EXP and comes in fully formed and has a metric ass load of artillery tubes and engineers. It would be nice to have it in place to stop the IJA coming up the coastal road in what is today Bangledesh.

I think AndyMac did the UK units. There was an extensive discussion at the time regarding the 70th. Afaik, the reasoning behind not being able to recombine the unit is that the 'hq' unit and one of the brigades withdraw. The brigades work well as ersatz air-landing units.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

ORIGINAL: witpqs


Yes, the other elements of the division appear independently. A search in the scenario design section should yield posts with lots of details and rationale.

Okay, I did do some more research and found that all of the brigades do show up at Aden.
A shame you cannot recombine the unit. In my future games I may delete those 3 brigades and make this a 'proper' division.
It would be great for shoring up Burma/India
Is has high EXP and comes in fully formed and has a metric ass load of artillery tubes and engineers. It would be nice to have it in place to stop the IJA coming up the coastal road in what is today Bangledesh.

I think AndyMac did the UK units. There was an extensive discussion at the time regarding the 70th. Afaik, the reasoning behind not being able to recombine the unit is that the 'hq' unit and one of the brigades withdraw. The brigades work well as ersatz air-landing units.

The problem is using future real life events to control what should be a player choice.

70 Division should be available for use as a standard British Infantry Unit, alternatives are to have the 3 Bdes, Recce Bn & HQ capable of forming a standard British Infantry Div, IFF the Allied player chooses, he could have the Brigades remain and change to a LRP TO&E. Not have it forced upon them.

What if the war doesnt run as IRL and you want to have 70 Div defend Pert or Sydney or, in CR World, invade Hokkaido???

[anarchyintheuk]

All true, but we're stuck with that sort of issue throughout . . . in part because of Midway. Had the US lost at Midway: F6Fs would have been available long before the 4/43 stock date, fewer Eastern Fleet transfers back to the Med, etc.

IIRC the first production Hellcat flew in late '42.

[drw61]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

If you move on to one of DaBabes scenarios the cadre for the 70th Division does not show up in the game. Only the Chindit units. My only complaint was that the unit had no use at all in stock. I wish that it could have been disbanded for the much needed devices.

In the stock version the 70th withdraws and the devises are then set to the pools, in DaBabes John added the British infantry back in and then had it "withdraw out of theater" thus loosing all the devises. IIRC Andy brought this up at one point because he had calculated the 70ths devises into the overall total that the allies were to have.

Side Note:
In the editor to the right of the Withdraw date you can see check boxes for 1 or 2. Type 1 is no devices are returned to pool and type 2 is where all devices are returned to pool

Daryl

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: drw61

ORIGINAL: crsutton

If you move on to one of DaBabes scenarios the cadre for the 70th Division does not show up in the game. Only the Chindit units. My only complaint was that the unit had no use at all in stock. I wish that it could have been disbanded for the much needed devices.

In the stock version the 70th withdraws and the devises are then set to the pools, in DaBabes John added the British infantry back in and then had it "withdraw out of theater" thus loosing all the devises. IIRC Andy brought this up at one point because he had calculated the 70ths devises into the overall total that the allies were to have.

Side Note:
In the editor to the right of the Withdraw date you can see check boxes for 1 or 2. Type 1 is no devices are returned to pool and type 2 is where all devices are returned to pool

Daryl

And while you are there in the editor, just remove the withdraw date and it's all good! [:)]

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

And while you are there in the editor, just remove the withdraw date and it's all good! [:)]

I never made change to a scenario, just lived with what I'm given. The only time I've ever gone into the scenario editor is to check stuff that's not available in game, and there's a few things.

Am I correct in saying that you have to make changes before you start a scenario for them to take effect?

[JeffroK]

Only if you save it as another scen number.

You cant alter a stock scenario and keep it under the same name.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

... Am I correct in saying that you have to make changes before you start a scenario for them to take effect?

The short answer is yes but not necessarily yes for everything. Note JWE's posts in this thread:

tm.asp?m=2568346&mpage=2&key=patch&#2575205

There is a better thread which goes into detail as to what can get updated on the "fly" but I didn't locate it this time. Essentially the database for the scenario is "stored" at the beginning of a game and each subsequent save reads off the "stored" database. Some of the database items can be altered but this is not something a player should rely upon.

Alfred

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

The short answer is yes but not necessarily yes for everything. Note JWE's posts in this thread:

tm.asp?m=2568346&mpage=2&key=patch?

There is a better thread which goes into detail as to what can get updated on the "fly" but I didn't locate it this time. Essentially the database for the scenario is "stored" at the beginning of a game and each subsequent save reads off the "stored" database. Some of the database items can be altered but this is not something a player should rely upon.

Alfred

Thanks Alfred

[Big B]

I read that the breaking up of the 70th Division was highly controversial at the time it was done, and much commentary by historians and veterans lamented it's breaking up into Chindit Brigades.

In B-Mod I allowed the unit to be recombined with normal arty assesses for a British Infantry Division, giving the player some strategic choice as to it's employment.