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So I'd really like to have para's down to help the invasion divisions fight off the AI counter attack, but the para's drop before my troops hit the beach and they get absolutely destroyed by the fortified zones on the coast, like all 4 para divisions are lost due to "fatal scatter hex" message because the defenders hold. Is there any way to get the paras to land AFTER the invasion troops have cleared out the fortified zones? If each turn is a week, surely I don't have to drop my paras first.

The idea of them dropping first is to secure passages out of the immediate beachhead area and disrupt enemy response. So you kind of want them to be there first (despite your bad results).

The infamous fatal scatter 8(

Okay, is there any way to NOT get them annihilated when I drop them? Its a fortified zone with 3000 guys in a 10km hex, why am I losing reinforced para divisions (each div has an extra regiment attached) to the man when they have a 95/100 preparation level? Or is this a bug with the new .21beta? I may as well not even use them, doesn't matter how many times I save scum maybe 1 para division survives.

I had the same issue, but with regiments. I wonder though if there was a change here as the invasion hex defender /10 was fixed.
For the record I use paratroopers as really wimpy infantry, air dropping is suicide in most cases.

I have stopped using paratroopers in air drops all together due to catastrophic losses. I have lost entire divisions before and the VP hit is almost war ending.
Now I just carry them over on ships and use them as traditional infantry. They have weak combat power so I usually use them to take secondary objectives like ports or to chase down fleeing enemy units.

Using them in air drops seems to destroy them about 1/3 of the time. My memory is hazy but it seems like I have seen them destroyed even dropping them in empty hexes.

Its easy to drop them afterwards..just wait for your turn then drop them. You can even drop them farther (8 hexes away) then adjacent because your units on the beach will count as units in supply.

The reason to drop them during the invasion is a couple.

The most important: Every hex you own around an invaded hex reduces the odds you need to take the hex.
Also important: It prevents the Germans from counterattacking your beachhead..or may even allow you some room to move off the beach on to your para if he cannot attack it.

I usually drop only divisions in important hexes, and use the regiments to cause chaos behind his lines....they will either die on the drop or die when he counterattacks them to move them off the railline/city or other blocking feature I dropped them in.

Divisions will only die if they have no retreat...and will always take an empty hex.

I´ve also stopped dropping them as its a complete gamble if they survive or not. The VP hit for losing them is brutal.

Sadly a feature that looked good on paper but doesn´t really work. Now I use them as Fallschirmjager does. Weak infantry.

The big thing is to drop them into empty hexes. Between the defense of the unit in the hex and additional reserve commitments, a paradrop will NOT clear the hex. They can't even defeat an empty hex most of the time. Even a division suffers destruction (the fatal scatter message only means that the unit is destroyed - a division through not emptying the hex of enemy troops and a brigade/regiment from not being able to find an empty/friendly hex to scatter to) if the hex is still enemy occupied.

Airdrops are deadly to the paratroopers. You have to be real careful in WitW and very cautious. I lost the 82nd Airborne to Pelton when it dropped into an 'empty' clear hex where it turned up my recon 'missed' the hex and there was a unit there which got five panzer regiments as a reserve and it got trounced.

I just invaded Qball in Calais, and two out of three airborne divisions died on the drop. He figured out how to almost negate para drops during an invasion. When they land on a unit, they are usually toast. As the axis I only leave high disruption to air drop hexes open, but have a combat unit in the low disruption hexes. This almost negates their effectiveness. 33% chance to survive is expensive, but it does disrupt the units it lands on, for the turn after they won't have mp usually and they are disrupted. The vp hit is huge.