ammo cannisters buggers
 

It's possible to load them on halftracks,but not air transport as they are too heavy in a Douglas??:confused:
Everyone knows ammo was air dropped in WW2 so why can't cannisters?

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Its how the unit's coded, probably to prevent people from dropping artillery. An ammo canister requires a carry capacity of at least 106. If the carry capacity of the C-47 was 128 instead of 28 it could do this, but it could then also drop mortars and light artillery.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Yes, they did air drop ammo but it was probably packed differently than in a crate. They used more specialized drop canisters than a wooden box. Yes, the game name is "ammo canister", but they do appear to be boxes to me in the pictures. Setting the C-47 to a carry capacity of 28 rather than 128 keeps people from air dropping antitank guns and the like, as stated by thatguy96. Those types of weapons were delivered by gliders, which could carry them and ammo crates as well. Gliders seem to have no trouble loading in the crates, or for that matter, ammo trucks and M3 ammo tracks.

I'm not sure you can edit the OOB to get around this either. The weight of an ammo canister is zero, same as an infantry unit, so the code must restrict loading ammo carrier types(56) on parachute transport types(60). That being the case, if you really need ammo dropped with your troops, I would buy a glider :)

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Negative. Canisters show "0" but for some odd reason they're not. Their crew is also not relative to their actual weight. They require a carry capacity of 106 or more. I had to figure this out by incrementally increasing carry capacity in WinSPMBT while modding, and I just set the carry capacity to 128 in WinSPWWII and the C-47 could carry the canister just fine.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

I tried the same thing and C-47s will also carry and 90mm AA guns as well. Two of them, in fact. I bet those were fun to shove out the side door :D

The problem is if you slap a 1 in front of the 28, you have now given the C-47 the ability to carry large guns. Even if you reduce the number to 106, you still can drop small antitank guns, such as the 57mm. Essentially, you have found out that the ammo canister weighs roughly the same as a 57mm ATG. Yes, you could manhandle an ammo canister out the side door of a C-47 much easier than you could an antitank gun, but you have effectively give them the same air drop capability.

If you are creating a scenario where you can prevent that kind of misuse of the new ability of the C-47, that works fine. You just have to hope the ammo canister falls where you want it, because without at least a jeep, it's going to stay where it falls. Realistically, once you got the canister on the ground, the ammo could be removed and moved, but the game won't let you do that without some sort of transport. The funny thing about those ammo canisters is they probably are heavier than they appear, since they seem to have an endless supply of ammo in them :)

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. Ultimately, it's up to you what you want to do and more power to you :up:

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Ammo units are are ammo carrier unit class.

The ammo carrier is a vehicle class.

We wrote special kludge code for loading them that allows loading containers onto a 1XX load class as if guns/weapons rather than a 2XX class. (That it is a container and not an ammo truck is determined from crew count and I think unit size, and having speed 0).

(With the new loading code for air drops, these as crewed units will likely also now split into an abandoned unit and a crew which both parachute separately and need to be re-linked on landing, assuming no casualties, to work.)

Cheers
Andy

But wouldnt sepparating the cannister from its crew make it even more vulnerable than it already is? unless the crew is given at least a SMG or old rifle so it can defend itself from enemy, like all other crews, they got a pistol and 4 grenades, shouldnt crews have a weapon to defend themselves?Pistol wont help much

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

As we have said, a crew is a crew no matter where it comes from and a crew is not a fighting unit without the weapon/vehicle it crews.

We could play " yeahbut " games forever on this subject.... "Yeah but the crew needs a way to defend itself " so what ? If we arm crews with rifles and SMG's then ALL crews would get them and that might make some people happy and other will rightly point out that a crew that just bailed out of a tank isn't a ground combat effective team and should not and WOULD NOT join in the ground fighting.

So....... we tweak the game a bit so that vehicles and crewed weapons will be separated when they are pushed out of an air transport. It's a compromise that improves on past practice where a vehicle was ready to go the second it touched the ground. Was that realistic ?? No but this goes a long way to sorting out that issue which , in game terms, for most players, very, very minor. I doubt in SPWW2 any more than a few people will even care or notice as there are NO air transports capable of carrying and dropping a vehicle and very VERY few "gun" units air transportable.

MBT it's a different issue and this goes a long way to simulate that you don't just drop a vehicle from an aircraft and drive it away.

The best "protection" for the crews is to stay out of situation that would require a rifle.

Don

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

I actually like the idea of separating crews and vehicles when they're dropped. I can see it being frustrating, but it is closer to what actually happens.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

yea, the idea is great, but i think they might need "escorts" jumping out with them, so, will the planes after loading up the gun still have some carry capacity?(maybe 6 men left is eneough)

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

It's entirely up the player how aircraft are loaded. It'd take you a minute with the game to figure out what would go in and what space would be left after it's loaded to allow for "escorts" but there is NO guarantee those "escorts" would land anywhere near where you really need them to be

Don

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

but at least they would be on the same plane

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Why would you be para-dropping 25 pounders right onto a contested enemy held position anyway?. or vehicles, either.

You would drop them as a second or third wave onto ground the previous waves had by then made safe. Better in gliders which they could then roll off. (Tetrarch off Hamilcars say).

Andy

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

I'm confused. Where did the thing about air dropping guns and howitzers come from beyond my joke earlier in the thread?

I understand the part about separating crews from their artillery type pieces (please drop gun before crew jumps :D), but did anyone actually have planes designed to drop guns and howitzers during WWII and in significant enough quantities to be useful for something other than special ops? These days, they are typically rolled out of the back of the plane. Maybe someone had planes like that back then, but I don't know of any. Personally, I have always used gliders for delivering guns and small vehicles. I thought it was standard practice back then and really, the main reason they used gliders.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

from your earlier post:
I took that to mean you needed escorts from the guns jumping. Escorts meaning that you were going into a hot LZ with paradropped crews, since that was the subject being discussed.

Australia has a pack airborne 25 pounder, others may have airborne pack howitzers.

Personally - I would leave any arty in my deployment zone in a regular battle.

Andy

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

The US Army had both Parachute and Glider Field Artillery Battalions, and at least both were armed with 75mm howitzers. There were definitely manpacks and special drop equipment for disassembled components of the 75mm howitzer. I'm not sure about the 105mm airborne howitzer.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

who would drop a disassembled howitzer into a battle area? :D, i think there were no air dropped 105s, but theres a pack 105

Re: ammo cannisters
 

In winSPWW2 the Australian ( ANZAC.. whatever ) OOB has air transportable 25 pounder abrn Howitzer for 9/43 and 9/43 only. AFAIK it was only used once and may have been put in there for a scenario. USMC is the only OOB that has crewed mortars in [A] para formations

This from the text files on that Australian formation
The code to drop crews separate from crewed guns and vehicles in 99.9 % of cases only apples to MBT and is mainly there to keep PBEMer's "Honest" when using air droppable vehicles in modern battles.

Don

Re: ammo cannisters
 

But will this feature be on the next update right?

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Actually, I didn't say that :)

I actually suggested gliders in the first place.

The only thing I would drop, using gliders, would be small antitank guns if the drop force didn't have adequate, integrated, infantry antitank weapons. I just got confused because it started as a discussion on air dropping ammo canisters and switched to dropping guns because the suggested OOB change allowed for unrealistic unrealistic possibilities.

I made the first comment about air dropping guns, but was obviously being sarcastic. The OOB changes suggested to allow one thing that would be realistic (dropping ammo canisters) and as a byproduct, created another more unrealistic situation (dropping 90mm AA guns). C-47s might be able to carry large guns, but I have to suspect they would have had a little note on them after dropped, "Some Assembly Required".

Personally, I wouldn't be dropping ammo canisters in the first place because the canisters themselves are unrealistic. They are little black boxes with every type of ammo anyone would ever need. You can find in them tank ammo from 20mm to 380mm, artillery ammo from 75mm to 155mm, mortar rounds from 60mm to 120mm, flame thrower fuel, satchel charges, grenades, rockets, etc. and a host of small arms ammo; all of this in unlimited quantities packed in a box that can be carried on a jeep :D

Don't worry Don and Andy, I'm not suggesting it be changed. I understand the complications of taking old code and modifying it so only specific ammo types and quantities were loaded into the canister at force selection time and tracking ammo as it's being removed, not to mention a new function for removing ammo in the first place. If you wanted to separate this from other "ammo carrier" types, you are looking at a new class to handle it. Then you have to regression test it to make sure the changes didn't mess up anything else which is much easier in my world than yours. The only practical change would be to get rid of it all together, anyhow and I can do that myself if I want to. At least with ammo dumps and vehicles, you can rationally say those are large enough to have some diversity in the ammo types they carry and carry it in large quantities. As for ammo canisters, I don't use them :soap:

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Game Guide:
"AMMO CANISTER, crew is 1 and speed must be 0, usually transportable, supplies small ammo only (to WH size 3), low supply points per move (20 ammo points)"

Not quite as unrealistic as mentioned...

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

That's really in the game guide? I stand corrected. It's not as unrealistic as I believed. Looking in the game guide for information about a specific unit is nothing that would have occurred to me. As I mentioned before, I don't use ammo canisters anyhow so I haven't figured it out through the trial and error process.

Thanks for the information PopskiPPA. :)

Now I'm more puzzled than before. Why would someone want an ammo canister? Sounds like they are mainly useful for resupplying small arms and I don't think I've ever had a unit run out of bullets and grenades in the game.

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

So please do explain if you don't bother to read the GG and don't use ammo cannisters anyway why would you assume you know how they work and what they supply then write all about it???

You have heard what ASSUME also stands for don't you ?? You just proved it

ammo cannisters are in the game so they can be used more or less as intended. to supply small arms ammo and are useful for that purpose in scenarios and, perhaps, to some players of big games as cheap, SMALL ammo resupply device. YOu may never find a use for them but every player isn't you.


Don

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

No, I don't use them, but I can easily go out and see what they can and can't do. I may change my mind whether I use them based on what I hear from people and see. What I went out and did was tested the air drop aspect of them and the impact of the suggested C-47 changes and not really what they were and weren't capable of supplying. Yes, I did make an assumption there :doh:

As for the game guide, I don't look in the game guide for information about specific units and some things appear self explanatory. It's not irrational to conclude that bunkers and dumps provide ammo the fastest, followed by trucks and the like and finally ammo canisters. I use bunkers and mobile supplies all the time and figured it out by trial and error.

As far as their being limited on what they can supply, I admitted I was wrong to an extent. There was an extra caveat I didn't know about limiting warhead size. They can't supply large stuff yet are still are bottomless sources of what they do supply. One box can supply almost 3600lbs of 50mm ATG HE ammo (500 rounds) in 50 turns. That is a pretty heavy box. AP rounds are more than 20% heavier. I understand this is because grenades and 50mm ATG rounds are both WH3. In this case intent and reality skewed in different directions.

My conclusion about what they could provide was lead in the wrong direction based on information out on one of the ladder sites as well, which implies ammo canisters can provide mortar ammo:

Discussions involved all mortars and not just the small ones like the Italian 45mm. The other company's product might be responsible for the confusion as well. I know Shrapnel isn't responsible for incorrect information put out by other sources, but I based my conclusions partially on that.

There are several reasons I don't use them. Even though they are cheap, they are vulnerable to incoming artillery. I don't use ammo dumps either for the same reason. Another reason is they are immobile unless I want to buy transport for them. I might as well buy ammo truck if I'm going to do that. More typically, I use armored ammo carriers. Mobility helps to alleviate the vulnerability to artillery fire. The fact that they are limited in what they can supply, obviously never crossed my mind.

In game terms, my experiences and only mine, haven't generated a need or practical opportunity to resupply small arms. The only unit I've ever had run out of small arms ammunition wasn't even a leg unit. It was a very experienced Tiger crew that ran out of machine gun ammo. Being experienced, they fired much more often than typical units and burned through what they had. With leg units, I find and again, these are only my experiences, units become combat ineffective long before they run out of ammo.

Yes, other people probably have different experiences and some probably have the same. For people who find uses for them, by all means they should use them. If I found a use for them, I would do the same.

Overall, it's all just opinion and you know what they say about that :D

Re: ammo cannisters buggers
 

Someone who wanted the close fire support vs having NONE.

The 75mm Pack Howitzer M1A1 with Carriage M8 was broken down into specific components suitable for air dropping. These were Paracrates M1-M7, M8 Parachest and M9 Paracassion.

M1 Front trail
M2 Rear traila nd axle
M3 Bottom sleigh and recoil mechanism
M4 cradel and top sleigh
M5 Gun Tube
M6 Breechblock and sight
M7 wheels
M8 Parachest Ammunition, 10 rounds packed in fiber cannisters
M9 Paracassion, a knockdown hand drawn cart for moving 8 complete rounds.

The whole assembly of 9 paracrates have total weight of 2571 lbs.

The US and British Availed themselves of this method of providing close fire support to their Paras. Everything larger was deployed by glider.