Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

For my current campaign, the core of my force is build around two companies of infantry. I swapped the rather useless 50mm mortars for a pair of 82mm's for each company, but I am pondering substituting a pair of the 75mm infantry guns (leIG or whatever the designation is) for one pair of mortars.

Anyone have experience with using these?

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Assuming you are starting in September 1939, and are going for an understrength battalion core (down one company), two good references for what assets are available would be: infantry or motorized infantry.

Rather than use the 5cm GrW units, I normally use the (sw) infantry unit that has primary weapon rifle and 5cm GrW in slots 2 through 4. While pretty useless in indirect fire, the 50's aren't too bad in direct fire as support. From what I've read it was fairly common for a battalion commander to break up the machinegun company (which had the 8cm mortar battery) into 'per company' attachments. So in addition to the 5cm, you could quite historically have an 8cm section as well as an extra HMG section.

Early on at least, the 7.5cm infantry guns (as well as the ATGs) tended to be regiment assets but it doesn't seem totally out of the question to split them among the battalions giving you a pair of 7.5cm infantry guns and three ATGs to reinforce your understrength battalion. The 7.5cm infantry gun is actually a pretty handy piece early on, used together with your 8cm mortars it gives you a better organic indirect fire capability, but also is decent as a long range direct fire weapon against infantry and, in a pinch, a short range AT capability against slow moving lightly armored vehicles.

You will probably also want to add a trio of 2cm FlaK guns, they were detached from Luftwaffe assets to Wehrmacht divisions and generally you could count on at least one per battalion. These are also good in their secondary role as long range ground support and light AT.

Another addition, while not quite historical (but not too far out either) is to add a 10.5cm light artillery battery to your core. These were division assets and were assigned on as needed basis but buying one with support points every turn gets tiresome and limits your support choices.

Don't forget to add some recon elements and a FO, you could attach some division recon assets such as a motorcycle squad or two and a troop of armored cars. If your infantry is part of a panzer division or motorized light division, you could reasonably add a section to a platoon of light tanks. The tanks would almost certainly not be permanent attachments but once again like the light artillery battery, gives you more flexibility with support points.

Hope this helps,
Brian

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

good advice thanks :)

The whole force I got at the moment looks like this:

Command portion:
Forward observer
4 20mm FLAK (plus trucks)
6 37mm AT guns (plus trucks)
a battery of off map 75mm guns (4 guns I guess)
6 sdkfz 222 armoured cars

Reaction force:
Platoon of panzer grenadier in trucks (one upgraded to a half track after the first battle)
platoon of 4 Panzer IV

Main force:
2 companies of infantry (replaced 50mm mortars with 2 8cm mortars). Includes a pair of MMG each.
2 scout sections
2 AT rifle sections (6 total)
1 platoon of Panzer 35(t). (one upgraded to 38(t))


Some bits I might add later is an engineer platoon, a platoon of STUG's when they show up, and maybe some self propelled AT guns, Eventually, a third company to bring me up to battalion.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Why provide tranports for the flak guns?
They can sit still if you deploy them right,and cover most of the field unless it's very large map.
Moving them around makes them less effective against airstrikes and more vunerable to a possible airstrike on them which they mean't to subdue;)

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

yeah, thats true.

So far against the Poles, they've served as direct fire support, since there's no planes to shoot at, but later on, the dastard allies will swarm the skies.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Instead of getting AA early on, i suggest you grab a pair of 88's to gain free xp in poland(mostly light armor) so they are experienced enough to take on british matilda tanks at range if you come across them in france, though you probably won't need them in norway, as it's usually just hills and woods

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Compared to 8 cm mortar, the main differences that 7.5 cm infantry gun provides is better range but lower lethality.

Thus for the close support of the infantry companies (ie. engaging targets in their vicinity) the mortars tend to be better. However, for countering enemy support assets (howitzers, mortars, AA-guns) located at the far end of the map, you will probably need the extra range of the infantry guns.

Then there are those 15 cm infantry guns - pure nastiness! However, historically there tended to be only two per infantry regiment.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

15cm things have too few ammo to make an impact(especially if you only have 1 or 2) and having ammo carriers around for them would be the path to overkill...
I try to avoid having anything other than company mortars in my core, if i'm battalion sized, i get some AT and extra mortar for core units, but most arty(and some ATG) comes in as support...

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

I am bad at forgetting to buy support, hence why I have things in my core force (tanks, arty) that don't belong there proper :)

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

:D Make a buylist, i like having these as support so they won't add up experience raising my core value

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

True, they only get 25 HE rounds (later changed to 20 HE and 5 HEAT), which means you only get so many salvoes before needing ammo resupply. But they are still quite potent against on-board artillery (at least if not dug in).

From 1940 onwards there is also a self-propelled version available, but it comes with even less ammunition.

Another interesting artillery piece in the early war is the 10.5 cm recoilless rifle (available for FJg from June 1940 onwards). It has a powerful HEAT round for anti-tank work, and can also be used for indirect fire with the same effect as a mortar. Drawback is again the limited ammo supply. But these can be a ton of fun to play around with, based on my experience.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Yeah, might be a useful counter battery option.

Interesting on the FjG gun. I don't have any para's but once I get to fight in the west, I'll probably buy a company or so in support for a battle, so I'll make it a point to try it out.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

[quote=Griefbringer;774160]You know,, i've played quite a few battles useing FJg's and never knew about that paticular recoiless,seems like a very useful item to AB ops:)

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

[quote=gila;774203]Could be, but it's kinda hard to drop things-that-can't-start-shooting-as-soon-as-they-land in a battle, as you probably lack a protected DZ, but maybe if you drop them a few turns after the main(or scout) force lands it would be of great use

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

If you are planning to bring in a few recoilless rifles with a glider, then you might want to consider bringing in also an ammo canister or two, so they can reload at some point. As I mentioned before, those things come with relatively limited amounts of ammo (20 HE and 10 HEAT for the FJg version).

Notice that since they come with HEAT ammo, they are much more effective anti-tank weapons at long range in early war than most of the things in the German arsenal (barring good old 88 mm). Downside being that they are not particularly accurate at long ranges (and the previously mentioned ammo limit).

In later war, they are not quite that impressive, since the Germans get plenty of other HEAT weapons, and the recoilless rifle starts having more trouble penetrating heavier tanks that start popping up - though it should still stand a chance against medium tanks.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Late war only sees an improvent in russian armor, US/UK remains mostly shermans, and the gun might still be useful against those...

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Looked into this,the FJ 10.5 recoilless(cost 27 at 70 exp.) has more heat rounds but no AP.
The FJ 7.5 howitizer(cost 33 at 70 exp.) has much less heat ammo but does have 5 AP rounds.
Both are size 0 and have 2 MP's circa 6/1940.

Makes a difficult choice which way to go:confused:

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

The way this sort of stuff usually goes for me, by the time they'd have run out of ammo either the rest of the army has shown up and its all good, or they've been overrun and its all irrelevant :)

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Having tried both, I am more impresed by the 10.5 cm version - much more OOM-PAH! on the HE and HEAT departments. The AP rounds on the 7.5 cm version just didn't feel like providing much added value.

Of course those really into historical accuracy might want to check the production numbers to decide which version would have been a more common sight in your average FJg battalion.

Re: Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?
 

Not ever using either before,it looks like the 10.5 recoilless would be more effective against armour with the HEAT at closer range and better at soft targets at long range.

Even though the 7.5 howitzer has 5 AP rounds many would probaly miss or deflect and has fewer HEAT,and we know the 7.5 has little effect on softies.

I'll put my money on the former rather than the latter and save on some buy pt.s:)