Support Units guide for Axis players.

[eskuche]

Here is a hastily done example. This attack will have a few hundred artillery/engineering points to decimate the immediate fort, which will cause the defending CV to drop to ~35 (assuming Pskov is light urban for a 6X multiplier plus 2X from fort which will be removed). Decisive attack will give 134 CV (plus a bit more after moving the Army HQ closer), which should have a decent shot to succeed.

For an even stronger attack, I would commit L Corps with Polizei division and two others, allowing 6 additional SU commitment from the second corps.

[redrum68]

@eskuche - Awesome. Very helpful. Would be great to see that added into the guide as it really helps bring the concepts together. It would also be great to see the actual battle screenshot to see what values end up showing and SUs getting committed.

Only question I had, if Pskov is urban then couldn't the Corps HQ actually commit up to 18 SUs instead of just 6? So you could if you had extra, adding even more artillery or pioneers to the Corps HQ then.

[56ajax]

ORIGINAL: joelmar

@56ajax

Yes, I agree with Telemecus, I have come to the understanding that using the 88 and other AA weapons in a ground attack role was doctrinal in the Wehrmacht (to the point of being specified in the army doctrine manuals?), but also came to be very common in other armies of the world.

First time I heard about that was long ago when I read the excellent Hans Von Luck book "Panzer commander" and the famous part where he uses them at Caen against the British with devastating effect.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia, for what it's worth:

"Its success was due to its versatility: the standard anti-aircraft platform allowed gunners to depress the muzzle below the horizontal, unlike most of its contemporaries. As WW2 progressed, it was becoming increasingly clear that existing anti-tank weapons were unable to pierce the armor of heavier enemy tanks and ground commanders began increasingly to use the 8.8 cm Flak against tanks."

Hi Joelmar,

I am not arguing about the effectiveness of the 88mm FG as an anti tank weapon, because it was fantastic.

Rather that the use of this weapon as AT debased its performance as AA.

[joelmar]

@56ajax:

Yes, that was clear. My argument is not really about it's effectiveness but about the doctrinal use of it by the German ground forces.

And for the debasing of it's performance as AA, I never heard about it. Quite the opposite in fact, I have read that it was meant to have this dual role and that as the war progressed, they added to the flexibility of the weapon. The other thing is that from what I read, the optical equipment used on it was the same for both roles and that overall the 88's produced with a primary AT role in mind were the same, except they were slimmed out a little to make it easier to manoeuver on a battle field.

But I would be intersted, if you have any pointer to sources explaining, or anyone else, I would be interested to know.

[redrum68]

Figured I'll post this here from my AAR in case someone else finds this helpful:

Support Units (SUs) Overview and Tips
1. So the first thing is to get SUs flowing up the HQ chain by ideally setting all HQs except the highest HQ to 0 and the highest HQ to 9 which can be seen in the guide (this makes all but the following SUs flow upwards)
- Engineers (pioneers) and construction SUs have hard coded support levels so ignore the set levels. For example German corps HQs always require 2 pioneers even if you set the support to zero. The only way to stop them being sucked down is to lock them.
- Sometimes you want to leave construction SUs in higher HQs for rail repair so you'd need to lock lower HQs in the first couple of turns if they do not have construction units so that they do not suck them down. When enough construction units go "on-map" in the higher HQs they will no longer be sucked down and you can safely unlock the lower HQs.
2. All SUs assigned down the chain cost 0 AP so the higher that SUs are up the HQ chain the more flexibility you have when assigning them (can use the push or pull method as described in the guide)
3. SUs mostly divide into several different categories:
- Engineers - good against forts and crossing rivers
- Artillery - good against forts and damage/disruption but can have a high ammo cost (appears higher the ammo cost the better they are against forts)
- Mixed AA - good against air and tanks
- AT - good against tanks
- AA - good against air
- Tanks - high CV and strong against non-dense terrain
- Infantry types (MG, bicycle, etc) - overall good and tend to have decent CV
4. Generally it seems best to assign most SUs to corps HQs but you can assign some directly to divisions (only certain types) which ensure they fight but then cost 1 AP to reassign
5. Hasty attacks only get SUs if their HQ hasn't moved and is within 5 hexes
6. Regular attacks can have SUs even for HQs that move
7. Each HQ can only commit a max of 6 SUs, +12 if urban, +3 if defending, +fort level if defending
8. It seems the standard recommended SUs for Infantry Corps HQs is a few artillery, 1 AA/mixed, and 1 engineer
9. SUs can only be committed by immediate HQs not HQs further up the chain
10. SU commitment chance is based on leader initiative, decreases based on number of support units already committed, decreases based on the total number of non-construction support units attached to the headquarters unit, increases if HQ has not moved during the current player-turn. So to maximize odds for important battles, you want to have a leader with high initiative, don't want to have too many SUs attached to a HQ past the max commitment, and want to avoid moving HQs that are already within 5 hexes.