Soviet Airborne Operations; HELP!!!!

[Bozo_the_Clown]

It's not quite that easy because of the following rule:

Airborne units may only be dropped within 8 hexes of a supplied friendly unit.

You can't just drop units as far west as you want. It has to be coordinated with your front line units. I don't like running away as SHC because it's boring. Instead I counter-attack and I'm willing to sacrifice a lot of units. The airborne drop is a benefit of this strategy. I'm sure I will pay the price later.

Overall, I find this very realistic and interesting. Why is it not possible for 300 men to land behind enemy lines to destroy the rail in the hex? Your screenshot shows the perfect way to defend against it. Use airbases and HQs to defend the rail line. You just have to make sure that the front is not moving too far west.

[rmonical]

Why is it not possible for 300 men to land behind enemy lines to destroy the rail in the hex? Your screenshot shows the perfect way to defend against it. Use airbases and HQs to defend the rail line. You just have to make sure that the front is not moving too far west.

I don't have any problem with them cutting the track as if they are a partisan unit. My issue is a partisan sized unit getting 100% of the track.

With airbases and HQs performing railroad security (an odd concept in and of itself), all you need is two air drops. One off the track so the few hundred men without heavy weapons will cause the 10s of thousands of troops to displace, then another to break the railroad.

The air drop rules in WITE are broken.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

all you need is two air drops. One off the track so the few hundred men without heavy weapons will cause the 10s of thousands of troops to displace, then another to break the railroad.

They don't displace on the same turn.

[rmonical]

They don't displace on the same turn.

You tried?[:D]

[Bozo_the_Clown]

No but didn't we have something similar in our last game. I believe an HQ was displaced but only after I finished the turn.

Anyway, why use two airborne brigades if you can achieve the same result with one. The Russians have very few transports. That's why I'm trying to use as many TB3G as possible.

[rmonical]

Oh my, it just gets better and better. In this case, the airborne unit was depleted on landing. It still converts the hex to Soviet control. My regiment causes the depleted unit to do something leaving no record of casualties. The hex remains under soviet control and my regiment does not have the movement points to convert it. Had the airborne unit not been depleted, my regiment would have been able to launch a hasty attack into the hex causing the unit to surrender and converting the hex. So now we see an airborne unit that is likely below the minimum size a partisan battalion needs to launch an attack that is able to convert a hex.

On an airborne drop further north last turn, I eliminated the unit and converted the hexes to Axis control last turn. An Army HQ with 5 construction units is 7 hexes away and none got deployed to broken rail line this turn - the construction units are sitting in the HQ. AGN is even closer, but it chose to deploy all of its construction units to less important hexes.

Like I said, it is broken.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Wouldn't it take more then one turn ]to repair the rail line with a labor detachment? Why not move the RR Repair Unit back?

[rmonical]

In the center I did. Further north, none was handy. My point is that the allocation of construction battalions to rail hexes broken by partisans is good. Rail hexes broken by an air drop appear to not receive a similar priority.

IMHO, easiest solution is if the airborne unit has less than, say, 700 men after a drop, then it should convert to a partisan unit and get an attack in the hex out of sequence to the normal partisan attacks. The Soviets get the broken rail line without have the bizarre add on effect of these battalion sized units being treated as a regular combat units in terms of hex control and displacing adjacent non combat units.

My other recommendation is the air drop does not get the free intel feature and an airdrop on a hex occupied by anything is eliminated.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

I agree with all your points. Also, I would like there to be a chance that the airborne unit gets dropped into an adjacent hex instead of the target hex.

[rmonical]

unit gets dropped into an adjacent hex instead of the target hex.

Especially for night drops. I'm not so sure about day drops. Market Garden generally dropped close to the desired DZs. Normandy (night drop) was a disaster, but the units were generally within a 5 mile radius of where they were supposed to be. My dad was a pathfinder in the 82nd.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

With airbases and HQs performing railroad security (an odd concept in and of itself), all you need is two air drops. One off the track so the few hundred men without heavy weapons will cause the 10s of thousands of troops to displace, then another to break the railroad.

I tested this and it definitely doesn't work that way. The HQ/airbase/rail repair unit gets displaced at the beginning of the next turn. Still, it's useful even with a delay.

[rmonical]

I tested this and it definitely doesn't work that way. The HQ/airbase/rail repair unit gets displaced at the beginning of the next turn. Still, it's useful even with a delay.

Groan. [:@]

So if the Axis group airbases along the rail rail line to keep the airborne from dropping directly on the rail line, the Soviet can get two or three to displace with the resulting elimination of the damaged aircraft. Except for those rare cases where the airborne unit is depleted, the drop never fails in WITE.

Like I said, the air drop subsystem is broken. In addition to my suggestion that small surviving air drops convert to partisans, there should be an AP cost for each air drop. I suggest 40 in in 1941.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

So if the Axis group airbases along the rail rail line to keep the airborne from dropping directly on the rail line, the Soviet can get two or three to displace with the resulting elimination of the damaged aircraft. Except for those rare cases where the airborne unit is depleted, the drop never fails in WITE.

Yes, I guess you can get three on a rail bend. But who would waste an airborne brigade for that.

If you do the drops wrong you can get lots of depleted airborne units. But I think I have figured out what to do.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

there should be an AP cost for each air drop.

Yes, that would actually be quite reasonable. But maybe not 40 APs. Something in the range of five would be more reasonable.

[rmonical]

Just so we all know what is going on here: the 400 man airborne remnant greatly reduced supply in the pocket. Oh, and it it routed my airbase out of the pocket.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Yes, and the unit also displaced two HQs and an airbase. That's why I chose this hex. In addition the unit I dropped was Unready and only hat 900 men to start with. I wanted to try out what would happen. And it was a night drop with virtually no losses.

What can I say. The game is what it is. I love this stuff, other people hate it. Two turns before I used two airborne brigades to herd a unit the right way and to break a pocket. Before I used them to break a rail line. This turn I also displaced an RR repair unit. Is this really less realistic then using 300 Ju-52 to supply a single Corps? I mean supply travels over a road. If you drop a combat unit on that road supply is interrupted for as long as the combat unit it there. I guess this is a problem because of the week long turns.

I wouldn't want the designers to take away this feature because it can really mess up those Axis players who push the system to the limit.

[rmonical]

Is this really less realistic then using 300 Ju-52 to supply a single Corps? I

Yes. The first is historically impossible. The second is an artifact of this game in that the HQ sitting on the airfield gets the supplies.

[lastkozak]

I like Airborne, but at times think that the casualties are so high, 75-90%, that I wonder if the Airborne troops are asking themselves, why we even give them parachutes!

I can see some casualties, but why so high? Or is it the lack of escorts? In which case why do escorts not come up, if they are on night missions?

[Bozo_the_Clown]

the casualties are so high, 75-90%,

The casualties are actually quite reasonable. What you perceive as losses are actually ground elements that are not participating in the drop. It's explained in the manual:

When an airborne unit is airdropped, those ground elements that are not allowed to be air dropped will be transferred into units in or adjacent to the hex with the air base unit that the unit flew from. These ground elements will first be given to other airborne units, then to any other combat unit. If there are no eligible combat units, then the ground elements will be transferred back to the production pool. Any vehicles and excess supply will be transferred to the airbase unit that the airborne unit was stacked with prior to being air dropped.

[Bozo_the_Clown]

Yes. The first is historically impossible.

Can someone please explain to me why this is historically impossible. There is a hex that is the only route outside of enemy ZOC for supplying the troops in the pocket. It's unguarded. I drop 400 men into the hex and supply is temporarily reduced. The divisions furthest North were already way past 100 MPs before I made the drop and after the drop they were at 124. Yes, a number of additional Axis divisions were above 100 MP because of the drop but this is only temporary. Why should it not be possible for 400 men with a couple of artillery to interrupt the supply through a single hex in a surprise attack?