Operation Husky and Paratroopers

[sfbaytf]

I've come to the conclusion that sending the 82nd and 1st British Airborne on parachute drops results in excessive casualties and its better off loading them onto ships and using them like Marines and coming ashore via ships.

If nothing else you preserve them and they gain experience and come 1944 you'll have experienced troops to use as air dropped cannon fodder.

[zakblood]

elite troops should be only used as a last ditch effort or stop gap, and not to be used as infantry, or tbh is a waste, they spent more time training than fighting like commando's so should always be used sparingly if at all, if another unit can do it, use them and keep the elite for only the toughest nuts to crack, where there extra training and morale comes into play...

Arnhem was always a bridge way too far away, Crete was always a waste of Germany's best troops etc etc. better planning and better support is needed with elite troop use, or you waste and loose them

[henri51]

ORIGINAL: zakblood

elite troops should be only used as a last ditch effort or stop gap, and not to be used as infantry, or tbh is a waste, they spent more time training than fighting like commando's so should always be used sparingly if at all, if another unit can do it, use them and keep the elite for only the toughest nuts to crack, where there extra training and morale comes into play...

Arnhem was always a bridge way too far away, Crete was always a waste of Germany's best troops etc etc. better planning and better support is needed with elite troop use, or you waste and loose them

I am not sure about the game, but paratroopers WERE very often used as infantry in WW2, dropped or not. Just look at the battles fought by the 101st (as described in Band of Brothers).They were dropped in Normandy and in Market Garden, but fought as infantry in many other battles.Same goes for the German paratroopers, who were not dropped after Crete because of heavy losses.

[KWG]

I believe the 509th hit the beaches a couple of times.


Edit

One time..... and they were used as mountain troops.

509th had a varied ww2 experience.

"After a C-47 flight of over 1600 miles from England, the battalion seized Tafarquay Airport in Oran, Algeria by parachute assault."
1600 miles ..... wake me when the green light comes on.

[marion61]

Let me ask if you sent them as an entire divisional drop, or just as regiments? They fight way better as a whole division and can retreat if there is a hex available. Regimental drops I don't believe can retreat, they just surrender.

[KWG]

Regiments can retreat too I believe. A division has better combat power yet dropping regiments cover more area.

[marion61]

I remember there was a debate at the end of beta just how powerful using paratroop regiments were at isolating a large area. I don't recall what all the changes were, except for the scatter rules. I guess I need to read up on that again.

[Joel Billings]

Brigades and regiments can't retreat when dropped. That was a late change that is in the readme file. Historicaly losses to American and British airborne/gliders in Sicily were brutal. Several times the airborne were either amphibiously landed or dropped into a friendly beachhead, but usually at the battalion level which is hard to simulate at this scale.

[KWG]

Brigades and regiments can't retreat when dropped.

One day I did over 50 drops, the rules were changing before the stick was out the door.


Playing German right now. Will have to do a jump some where.

During beta there was a lot of talk of types of limits to decrease the overpowered Airborne operations testers were getting. Glad you didn't impose limits, and changed the abstraction instead.
I think y'all did a good job on the Airborne operations. Toned down the over powered Airborne "land grab" and still allowing big drop, little drop, small area, big area.... giving the historic feel of high danger - high rewards.


During beta I never could take Arnhem on the jump, even when dropping the entire British division on it.

If anyone ever does, let us all know.

[ultradave]

Paratroopers ARE infantry. We just get there in style

[marion61]

I hate to disagree with you, but it's actually the airmen who take paratroopers in style !

[sfbaytf]

I'm pretty sure the 509 was used as amphib infantry in Italy. I'm just not sure what the great benefit of dropping them at the default dz is, considering the risk of very high losses. In real life the planes were misidentified and shot at by our own navy....i suppose there is no risk of that happening in WitW?

[wosung]

Pre invasion air drop planning into a mountain hex is depicted as if possible (light blue hex, coordinates on the para counter, execute button).

But in accordance with the rules the drop just doesn't take place.

A warning or just the lack of the light blue hex when planning such a forbidden drop would be good.

Ed.: With the 1943 grand campaign.