Several Questions

[MonsterZero]

[ol]
[*] What are the special features of special forces units and how should I employ them compared to regular infantry?
[*] In campaigns (Campaign Generator) when I use the "Change" option and upgrade a PzIV tank to a Panther tank, will the new vehicle retain the old veteran crew? Or will I get a greenhorn crew and the PzIV vets will be gone from my force pool?
[*] When playing auto-generated campaigns is it worth it to spend resources on purchasing anti-aircraft assets? I have fought at least 15 auto-generated battles against the computer and was hit by airstrike only once (or not at all...I'm trying to remember).
[/ol]

[plloyd]

1.Special forces can infiltrate. That, and they have better moral and weapons. During deployment, you assign a hex for then to infiltrate to. During the game they will surreptitiously try to get to that hex. The farther the hex is from your start line, the longer it takes them to get there. The less cover in the area, the less likely they will infiltrate at all.

2.You keep the same crew.

3. This is a judgment call. I use AA in infantry support roles too. I don't normally by AA just to get the planes, so I have not usually gotten much. A section of M15a1s or Wirblewinds come in very handy. Get some, but not many.

[BruceAZ_MatrixForum]

ORIGINAL: plloyd

1.Special forces can infiltrate. That, and they have better moral and weapons. During deployment, you assign a hex for then to infiltrate to. During the game they will surreptitiously try to get to that hex. The farther the hex is from your start line, the longer it takes them to get there. The less cover in the area, the less likely they will infiltrate at all.

2.You keep the same crew.

3. This is a judgment call. I use AA in infantry support roles too. I don't normally by AA just to get the planes, so I have not usually gotten much. A section of M15a1s or Wirblewinds come in very handy. Get some, but not many.

Well said. [&o] However on #2, there are times I think the crews experience level is degraded slightly for new equipment. Can't remember exactly where I read that but I think you pay a small penalty in experience when you upgrade your assets. Test it to see if this happens.

Recon
Semper Fi

[MonsterZero]

Plloyd, I don't see the infiltration function as terribly useful. In advance or assault missions I could order my special forces to sneak up on the most distant victory hex while my main force engages the first lines of defense.

However, the most distant objective hex is where the routed AI-controlled enemy infantry likes to gather in human vs. AI missions. There are millions of them in that area and I use my tanks to surround and run them down in a huge encirclement battle near the end of the scenario. I'm afraid those special forces will be wiped out by that horde.

Hmmm...what if I take all my rifle units and convert them all to special forces? Even without any special tactics they should do quite well, no?

[Goblin]

Heya Monster Zero! Be sure and drop by The Depot and say hi to old Goblin! www.spwaw.com/phpBB2/index/php


Special Forces are especially useful in pre-made scenarios, for the reason you listed (hitting rear hexes, blowing bridges to block enemy reinforcements, etc). The are also the only unit that may navigate a cliff.

Units do suffer a degradation of experience when upgraded.

AA is useful against tanks, and multi-barreled guns are useful against infantry.


Goblin[:)]

[Kevin E. Duguay]

GOB,

I like it when they blow stuff up in the enemies rear. Makes me HAPPY!!!!!![:D]

[Yamashita]

Just a note: When buying infantry consider their fire control number. Paratroops etc generally are better shots. [;)]

[plloyd]

You didn't ask me about how useful special forces were, just what the differences were. Goblin is right in regard to them getting near high value points. Special forces can do a lot of damage very quickly, but remember that they can get screwed over just as fast.

As to your and my opinions about upgraded tank crews and such, it is easy enough to check. Go to http://campaignwatcher.go.dyndns.org/ and download the Campaign Watcher. v0.6 works very well. Just make a record of the campaign.

[MonsterZero]

ORIGINAL: Yamashita

Just a note: When buying infantry consider their fire control number. Paratroops etc generally are better shots. [;)]

Really? It frustrates me a lot when my soldats put up an impressive fusilade of rifle fire but score hits only at close range. Machine guns on tripods are phenomenal but I will explore the paratrooper option. In the ongoing campaign I just upgraded my Wehrmacht regulars to SS. I like the SS because (at least in 1941) they are only troops equipped with the Schiessbecher rifle grenade attachment for the K98, one for each squad.

[ILCK]

I haven't faced any air assest but the Flak Panzers IMHO are great anti-infantry weapons and will rip apart halftracks and even armoured cards if you go with the 37mm variety as opposed to just the 20mm. I buy a section of them only though. I figure eventually ome Allied air should show up but thus far (mid 1942 is as far as I got) I've got nothing in that vein.

[TheChin]

Yeah, Campaign Watcher does bear out that experienced crews do stay and they do take a small hit to experience when their equipment changes.

I personally like special forces in the long campaign for HQ hunting. Going for the VH's is suicide, but setting up infiltration hexes in rough/forest terrain within 6 hexes of the rear VH's will give you a good view of who's hiding out in the rear. Usually it's the HQ, along with some AA and/or ATG's. You can usually get the HQ with your first infiltrator, or at least kill a few of the squad, then the next infiltrator will finish them off. I have got burned doing this though, I played against the Italian AI once and he surrounded the rear VH's with Motorcycle squads who gunned down my infiltrators soon after they appeared. Because of their high mortality rate, I usually buy them with support points.

[Riun T]

Hey bud just triedto click the link u just put on for camp. watcher IT don't work!?!? where else can I find it ,the Link KNOMAD gave me don't work here in canada, and does campaign watcher let U print out the battle results for yourself??

SORRY to have waisted you're time, the link worked after I shut some other stuff down thanks again RT

[vulkansanex]

Tips on Special Forces:

Be sure to have some long range arty around with smoke rounds, then - when its time to take over that rearmost (well any objective will do) objective:

1 Wait for as many infiltrators to appear as possible - You need several units to support each other and to take turns after failed armor assaults. You can see whet turn they arrive on the reiforcements screen. (You can forget about the troops appearing in turns after the battle is over - They just didn't make it in time.

2 Fire explosives one round, to supress infantry if any - but also to make craters that your guys can hide in if it's open terrain.

3 Lay a smoke carpet over the wole area. To make sure you only get shot at from range 0 and 1 when moving in.

4 Turn off your satchelcharges and tank killing weapons to conserve it for tanks if you feel you dont have to use them to clear the enemy infantry.

5 Keep up the smoke to hide your troops from the tankers - and assault them when the rush into the smoke.

6 All the while work a left or right hook of reinforcements along to relieve the infiltrators as soon as the situation allows.

7 Hang tough.

Use the ski-troops now - for that fine supressive rifle grenade.
Oh talking of ski troops -Does anyone know why ski troops has a "+" instead of a number??
Did the game run out of slots, and it had to be a special wepon?

[serg3d]

don't know if upgraded crew suffer exp penalty, but killed and replaced crew retain expirience of previous crew. It get a new command rating of cause, but I'm not sure command rating grew at all.

[vulkansanex]

Is that so? I didn't reflect on it. I always assumed replacement crews got the values of the period - So The germans would get worse and worse replacemenst while the US would get better and better (yet still - unexperienced) crews.

It would be really great if it would be possible to make it this way...

[Poopyhead]

Great advice for the use of infiltrators. In the tests that I did, a unit always lost 5 experience points when it was upgraded. I had read in one of the threads that a unit that was lost and replaced took a hit to its morale, and I can semi-confirm this from memory.

[Yamashita]

ORIGINAL: MonsterZero

ORIGINAL: Yamashita

Just a note: When buying infantry consider their fire control number. Paratroops etc generally are better shots. [;)]

Really? It frustrates me a lot when my soldats put up an impressive fusilade of rifle fire but score hits only at close range. Machine guns on tripods are phenomenal but I will explore the paratrooper option. In the ongoing campaign I just upgraded my Wehrmacht regulars to SS. I like the SS because (at least in 1941) they are only troops equipped with the Schiessbecher rifle grenade attachment for the K98, one for each squad.

Check the paratroops/ Special forces carefully before you buy. Some units are only equiped with sub-machine guns(tho usually a LMG as well). Personally i like a mix so they have effective fire at both longer ranges & up close. In situations of extreme low visibility tho' SMGs are great.

[john g]

ORIGINAL: MonsterZero

[ol]
[*] What are the special features of special forces units and how should I employ them compared to regular infantry?

They can be set to infiltrate in the deploy phase, a very powerful ability

[*] In campaigns (Campaign Generator) when I use the "Change" option and upgrade a PzIV tank to a Panther tank, will the new vehicle retain the old veteran crew? Or will I get a greenhorn crew and the PzIV vets will be gone from my force pool?

You lose a few experience points (something around 5) but the addtional combat power of a later war vehicle more than makes up for it, and they will generally earn that deduction back in 1-2 battles.

[*] When playing auto-generated campaigns is it worth it to spend resources on purchasing anti-aircraft assets? I have fought at least 15 auto-generated battles against the computer and was hit by airstrike only once (or not at all...I'm trying to remember).
[/ol]

It used to be murder, back with version 2-4 the US would bring in over a dozen B25 or A20 and just plaster the map with bombs, you could lose entire companies of men, then it was mandatory. Now that medium bombers are abstracted and you can't shoot them down on the way in, it is a judgement call. Playing a German WWII campaign I learned that the UK never bought planes but the US always did, that was back in ver 2-4, with ver 8.x you have to test to see what the ai purchase routines are like now. It was late 43 or early 44 before the US routine started buying heaps of aircraft, I haven't done a WWII campaign under 8.x to see how it does now, my only 7.x WWII campaign is a UK one and I haven't seen any more planes than a couple of 40mm could take care of.

[john g]

ORIGINAL: MonsterZero

ORIGINAL: Yamashita

Just a note: When buying infantry consider their fire control number. Paratroops etc generally are better shots. [;)]

Really? It frustrates me a lot when my soldats put up an impressive fusilade of rifle fire but score hits only at close range. Machine guns on tripods are phenomenal but I will explore the paratrooper option. In the ongoing campaign I just upgraded my Wehrmacht regulars to SS. I like the SS because (at least in 1941) they are only troops equipped with the Schiessbecher rifle grenade attachment for the K98, one for each squad.

At one time the German FG42 equipped f/j could rip apart troops with bolt rifles or even US troops with garands and bars in the game. The only troops in the game that really could trade firepower with them were the late war SS with the sg44. I haven't played either in a while so I don't know if their firepower ratings have been toned down. Depending on your playing style, you can upgrade the infantry in your core force to paras and have the option of dropping them in the rear, to spec ops and have them infiltrate or to engineers/ss/etc and have them bull their way thru the defence.