The Fantom Liberator Airbone Division...

[napoleric]

Mars 1941
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As a German commander we are planing our spring campaign. Axes Hungarian and slovakia forces are covering our flanks, we can move forward!

March 15th, 1941: Front page in the news: slovakia surrender to USSR!
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wait...how this is possible? the closer USSR unit is at least 1,000 km east of Rzeslow? Well, let's send some fresh troops there (it is really unfortunate to invade an ally..). Enemy contact! in fact it is a UK airbone division (what a drop, the closest English troops are in Egypt..they might have found high altitude jetstream to get here). Never the less let's crush them.

March 22nd: Report to German HQ: the UK Airbone division vanished are we came in contact!

March 22nd, 1941: We are about to invade most slovakia territory (with the exception of Rzeslow that is now controlled by USSR with 1 Armor Corps and supported by infantry corps and division). Note: I am suspecting the English Airbone division to have open a warp portal where all slovakian-pro-axis citizen have been droped just before churchill gave the country as a birthday gift to Stalin. Obviously Stalin reacted quickly and sent 50,000 troops through the portal from moscow (or maybe siberia?)

April 1st, 1941: Front News "Hungary surrendered to USSR!" arch so ! the fantom librator airbone division strike again, they vanished from slovakia because they had another job to do...liberate hungary and give it back to USSR.

April 1st, 1941: Herr General our south flank is open, due to slovakia and hungarian redition, about 25 units that used to cover our asses disappeared with the redition of their countries.

...stalin will now be able to push its armor corps directly to center Europe and then to berlin.

history books will explain the german WWII defeat caused by one english airbone division, that came from nowhere, liberated two countries within a month, gave it back to USSR and it was the end of the third reich!
(note: I am suspecting this now famous english airbone division to be lead by Kim Philby)

Morality: don't ever leave a city without garnison if you don't want to see the fantom liberator airbone division winning the game!

[&:]

[Razz1]

This should have been fixed in 1.01 Patch

[napoleric]

well, I am playing the 1.01...

[LiquidSky]

It should be fixed by leaving garrisons in the cities.

Alas, even thought the behaviour seems strange, and would be impossible in real world terms to work, it does force proper behaviour on the axis minors part. They didnt send every unit they owned into Russia, and kept large forces at home. I consider it a design for effect.

On a similar note: I did notice in the ini files the range for the paratroopers, and was thinking of dropping it down to 4 or 5 hexes instead of the umm..12? I think it is. Since the Germans get Norway and Crete by event, the only distance the allies have to drop is over the channel.

[doomtrader]

I'm working on a fix which will should be included in official 1.01

[JLPOWELL]

IMO the main problem with airborne is not so much the range but that they are not intercepted effectively (IMO a FTR intercept should cause either destruction (rare) an abort or significant damage to the airborne unit. At present you can drop an airborne right between two FTR units with impunity (or at least I have when testing a couple of times. The key would be the 'airlift' not the airborne unit. Currently the units appear to have airlift included in the cost. I understand the need for simplicity (adding a unit type) but expensive air transport units could act like bombers and the carried unit if dropped would take proportional damage or abort based on the interception result. They could also be used for supply and point to point movement of infantry units (50% str inf divisions perhaps?) Airborne unit would simply board as a move like boarding a transport. Not completely realistic but a decent model. They are a good way to keep the enemy 'honest' and make them garrison critical points (particularly capitals and ports which would really NEVER be left undefended)

Another point is the turn of the drop they should be significantly disorganized (perhaps by a random but VERY significant factor) and much more vulnerable than they are after a drop. This could be modeled using effectiveness or the effectiveness loss that units get when bombed. Once organised they should become close to a normal inf division in strength (they have lighter weapons but are better trained)

[Razz1]

Your disorganization is already represented as paratroopers can loose strength after they drop.