Matrix Games Forums

I have touched slightly on this subject before, but I would very much like to know what others think about this matter.

The thing is I dislike auxiliary infantry weapons in their own small units. I am talking about MMGs, light mortars and light AT weapons that are found in infantry platoons and companies as standard issue. I prefer to create "Heavy" squads that incorporate these weapons. A typical heavy squad would have:
Rifle;
MMG;
ATR;
50mm mortar;
12 men;
speed 6.
This squad would be found one per platoon or perhaps two per company, depending on the number of weapons assigned to these formations. The reason I dislike the auxiliary weapons in their own units are:
1. There are already quite a lot of units on the map in large battles to keep track of. It pisses me off to chase down all these machine guns and InfATs to move or fire them. Call it laziness.
2. I am not quite at ease with the way important but simple weapons can be put out of action permanently by killing the crew. When lots of infantry are around, especially in defense, the logical thing would be for the next man to grab a hold of these machinegunhandles and keep spraying. So to shut it down you need to kill or rout everyone in the vicinity (an entire squad). Call it survivability.

When playing the SP games I always create such heavy squads and alter the formations accordingly, at least for the side I am playing. I wouldn't mind doing it for all nations in SPWAW, except that it takes a bit of time.

What do others think? Do the support weapons belong in the squads or their own units? My opinion is clear, except that in a small scenario it is more interesting to have the weapons seperate.

To lump them together certainly makes administrative control of your forces easier but you loose tactical flexibility. Mortars would be in a defilade position (although they can and did fire directly when needed) while MGs would need direct fire LOS, etc.

I'd rather pay the cost to move them than lose the flexibility. I prefer to keep my battles small (2 tank plts, 2 Inf plts + ATGs, etc.) so its not much of a problem for me.

I personally like them seperate also. I've even gone so far in my personal build as to make 3 man flamethrower teams, one team per platoon, seperate from the engineers, and have taken the flamethrowers from the squads. This makes you take much more care in moving up to bunkers and such, and is more realistic, the way they are, there are ENTIRELY too many FT's per company!! The Germans only had 3 PER COMPANY, not 1 per squad!!! The Russians actually had a few more than most others. Anyhow, I had asked earlier on if this could be done for the new oob's, but never heard anything, guess most like the unreal amounts?!

For mortars (50 mm, 60 mm, 2 in, etc) found in infantry platoons, I generally consolidate them at company or battalion level in a mortar platoon/battery. It's just too much trouble to haul them around. They get killed, are out of range or out of contact. In the WWII campaign I usually convert them to something else. Instead of a 60mm mortar in a US platoon, I'll have an 81mm platoon at comapny level.
Machineguns these days are too important to dispense with at platoon level. British and American squads don't have a machinegun, British platoons don't even have a machinegun (the Bren and BAR don't qualify) so I keep the machinegun in the U.S platoon unless they have halftracks. German and Russian squads have an organic machinegun, so a platoon machinegun is almost superfluous.
The 57 mm AT gun in the U.S mech infantry platoon is remarkably useful. I think much more so than in real life, so I keep it. The British Inf company (at the start of the war at least) has no AT weapons at all so I just gut it out until the PIAT equipped Rifle section is available.

I prefer to have generic squads and seperate support .. in fact I am on record wanting individual BAR teams .. You probably wouldn't find the support weapons manuvering with the squad in combat, instead the MG's would be base of fire weapons, allowing the squad to maneuver .. the mortars would be in defalade as mentioned and the Bazooka's/Panzershrecks/At Rifles ect would be a type of local reserve to deal with identified point targets / armor ..on a 50 meter hex grid the current set up is not a big draw back ..but I think this will be more important on the CL proposed 25 meter grid ..
On a related topic given the "realistic" portrail of MMG use in BoB maybe the MMG's should regain move and fire ??? maybe tinkering with the stab value somehow to reflect reduced accuracy for failing to use the tripod ??? ..But maybe window sills and handy logs have built in T&E?? j/k

This kind of conglomeration of support into squads becomes useful when you are making scenarios that max out the 400 unit limit.

Tomo

I like to add the support elements to my platoons myself.

I like to set them up like this:

1 command squad
2-3 rifle squads (as some nations come with more than others it seems)
1 MG team
1 AT Team
1 Engineer squad.

I strip all mortars from platoons and make them into a Battallion Mortar platoon led by the FO. It seems to work well so far.

Alex

I guess the issue is the size of the battle being played...
if platoon level (20-25 units), every team is essential as they help to fill in the front and add another unit for searching...
if company level (60 units)...the mix is just about right in my opinion
if battalion level (200-400 units)...there are just too many units, but it can be said that is the price you pay (I've never played above 100 units because I don't have the patience...I think more might compare to self flagellation)

In vignette terms you don't want you mg nested with your point man and a hex or two behind is probably how far they would be apart. I guess at this level, a german squad would probably consist of four teams, being a scout, a mg team of 2, a rifle team of 5, an infantry AT team of 1-2 (meaning in game terms a platoon of 3 squads and a mg squad totally about 34 men could be converted to
1 command team of 2
2 infantry squads of 8
1 mmg squad of 4 men
2 mmg teams of 2 men
2 scout teams of 2 men
2 AT team of 2 men

I guess the beauty of SPWAW is that the OOB can be edited, so if people want their own unit types, they can create them.

I am grateful for the input on this subject. It seems I have a minority view on this subject, not the first time in my life that happens.
Larry Holt is one who prefers to play small battles, and I agree that then it is better to have weapons dispersed.
Warhorse touches on an interesting subject: the number of flamethrowers in engineer units. This can be adjusted by having some FT squads and some without. The "motorised engineer" type can be utilised for this purpose. If 'horse or anyone has data on this subject, I am interested.
Others mention that the small mortars be removed to special batteries. This makes sense also.
As Tombstone points out, one can have larger forces by joining the weapons to squads. I must admit that this consideration was a prime one in SP1, with the 50 unit limit, and perhaps sits too firmly in my mind still.
Many point out that it is unsound to deploy the weapons with the infantry squads. But we are after all only talking about one squad out of 3-4, maybe even 2 out of 14. There is nothing wrong with holding these units back, they are slower and tend to straggle anyway. On both offence and defence they are the firebase, HQ and reserve all at the same time.

There is one more merit to my proposal: I feel the AI does a better job of handling infantry when the weapons are assigned to squads. It tends to deploy and move auxiliaries in an inefficient manner.

I rather enjoy fiddling with the infantry squads in this way. Unfortunately, the limit of 250 units in an OB is a major obstacle. The Finnish OB is a good example of what imagination can do, although it is perhaps a little over the top. Finland was after all a country with very limited resources, especially in the prewar years, and rarity could be used more to limit the more powerful units. We have at least 5 basic infantry types available, light, medium, heavy, ordinary, Platoon HQ. This diversity can be utilised more than it already is.

im leary of editing any oobs. worried i wont get them back. i konw you all will say its simple. ANYWAY, is it possible to set up a game and just use the editor and alter the stats the same way so it just effects that game?

Originally posted by Truckeye:
im leary of editing any oobs. worried i wont get them back. i konw you all will say its simple. ANYWAY, is it possible to set up a game and just use the editor and alter the stats the same way so it just effects that game?

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Yep.

If you create your own battle with the editor you can change every/anything on any unit using the D key, I belive it is.

Alex