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These units I understand are to provide emergency armour replacements in early 42 . I am in early Feb 42 and almost all of them have not filled out with anything - should they not come on at 100% anyway. seems little point in them if they have to fill out as tanks would go to the panzers anyway.

As far as I know, these PZ battalions are needed in order to accumulate stocks of tanks in them and then pour them, if necessary, into your divisions on the line of contact, they are not an independent unit.

These units will fill up over time in the reserve if on refit. However if you 've got a number of panzer divisions in the reserve, these may use up the available tanks. The replacement battalions are there to allow you to leave your tank divisions on the map. The replacements battalions can absorb tanks, than be moved to the map where you can attach them to weak panzer divisions and they will merge in to the division. That saves you from wasting rail usage moving the divisions east from the reserve. It takes months for production to fill out most of the replacement units, and that's if there are no panzer divisions in the reserve.

Accept this point but as before with Tigers in 1944- I have some large amounts of tanks in the pool as of Feb 42 not going into these units. I will post the biggest pool units next turn so you can see.

I have some PZD in reserve but mainly send them to Italy and WE where they seem to fill out better - which is in contradiction to the rules which says NR has the first call on everything.

It's generally known by now that the other TBs have first call on anything and that is why the Max TOEs will lower later on once there are manpower shortages.

You can easily get around that by keeping what you -not- want filled in the Reserve; and send to the West or Italy or so the armoured units you desire to have filled.
See the extra Panzer Battallions as some flexibility to oomph-up motorized divisions or so.

For the amount of tanks you have in pool - make sure though they're in the Active Pool, a lot sit in the 'Transit pool' (see it as a Repair Pool version for weapon devices instead of trucks) and bear in mind that production happens at the end of the logistic phase, so newly produced assets sit in the Active Pool for the next turn (Or so they should).

Not sure then what NR really does - it says in the manual I thought it says it has top priority , anyway have moved out the PZD and see what happens now.

Well it seems I have plenty of tanks in the Pools as I did with my 44 Tiger issue. I moved some of the repl units to Italy and Europe where they are filing out - I guess the issue is what is NR for. I would like to think it gets 100% priority but that seem far from what happens. If it should be getting priority then I think it needs some help.

Another thing were they expanded in any patch as I think I have far more of them this time... maybe just me.

What does the status box of the WE TB look like?

I will post next turn.

WE Europe screen Mid March as requested.

Thanks, but I was looking for the status tab, not the ground tab.

Sorry missed this reply - which tab is status. The game has moved a long now - I got the repl Bat to fill out by sending them away from NR but did not use them in 41??? I have them at the front now in May 42 ( TOE around 80%) ready to be absorbed , they seem to have generally better tanks than the PZD as well. I am thinking mid 42 is a better time to use them as well as the 42 offensive is probably the most important.

Cavalry Corp wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 12:42 pm which tab is status.

It's the first tab in your TBs (aside from Ground and Air).

It was around 120-130% does that help.

Cavalry Corp wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:56 pm It was around 120-130% does that help.

Yes, you probably could have been a bit more aggressive in bringing units out like the GD regiment, 16th Panzer and 16th Motorized. That's obviously water under the bridge now.

FWIW, the only real number you need to focus on are the medium tanks in these battalions. The light tanks have very low production numbers at this stage as they are no longer considered a viable front line tank in quantity. Same goes for the Mark IV CS tanks. So if you have a battalion with 38 Pz III-Ls in it, I'd still be willing to kick it from the reserves.

From my last Axis game that ran mid-March 1942 this was my on-map vehicle count at that time for any comparison you care to make.

Thanks for the interesting comments

I have to admit GD was recovering (getting eliminated in Oct 42 !!! Oh the shame of it...) I had around 10 PZD and Mot in Italy etc more than in NR. The Mot Divs upgrade I think in April 42 so I wanted to make sure that happened before the 42 offensive as on map upgrading is so unreliable. Will post an update.