Best way to use airmobile and panzergrenadiers?

[Wonder]

Usually in battles I use airmobile or attack helicopters (ideally a Hind) to attack enemy artillery positions and the HQ unit. Depending on the map I might substitute the helicopter with an APC or a transport plane.

[Mobhack]

Myself, I find a few trasport helos useful. If and only if the map allows some useful terrain masked insertion routes. (Night can be terrain masking, depending on enemy access to radar).

I do not buy the airmobile coys, as a rule. A separate helo unit of 2-3 does fine. Pax come from the leg grunt comapany I generally leave in the rear, covering my gun line etc. from enemy desants (or deep armour thrusts that get round the main body).

1) I dont use them in the early game much - maybe to fly about deep in my half, if the enemy has no LR AAA assets, and visibility is high. They can scout out moving vehicles etc looking "slantwise" from my lines.

2) In the early game, if the terrain allows it, they can be very useful to sneak an AOP or scout detachment int the rear/flank. Dismount out of LOS, fly the chopper back, and use the AOP or scouts to makee-looksee in his flank or rear. Use them to call down spotted arty fire in his rear zones, and DONT reveal them by trying anythingg ramboesque, unless they stumble over something worth alerting the opponent over. (his HQ at 100 yds, or 6 uragans parked beside 6 ammo trucks within 250 yds say). Better to call fires on these though, than use rifles and reveal your presence (esp vs a human player).

Against a human player 1 above - can cause him to get a bit defensive about his rear zone, and to hold back a reaction force. (In WW2 a similar trick to make the opponent wary, is to have a few tigers, and deliberately expose them to view early on, to induce "tiger awareness" in an Allied player. Now hide your targets and your human opponent KNOWS you have the beasts, but WHERE are they going to appear - puts him in a nicely defensive frame of mind, one hopes!)

3) In the end game - is where the platoon of helos are now useful, to move the defensive leg rifle coy over into the offensive or mop-up mode, as a taxi service.

4) In campaigns, they are useful as air ambulances to get high experience beat up core crews or squads to the rear.

5) Even if not going forwards, the helo platoon is still useful to reposition ATGM and/or inf-SAM teams, or ammo containers, or to cycle these back to ammo dumps to recharge. Also, mid game - use to reposition your security leg infantry co into covered hide positions to block against possible ememy thrust lines from ambush, or to provide flank security by observation perhaps. (mobile road blocks etc). Also - can be useful to put fresh infantry into an ongoing firefight, here we use the defensive rifle coy as reserves. Land in a masked area near the fight and walk to reinforce via a secure route (LZ too close to the fight could get arty on the chosen position, or be unlucky enough say to find some enemy flankers!). Sometimes - land the leg grunts well to the rear and clear, and use the unloaded APC of the troops currently in the firefight as an airport taxi service for the final leg. Plan it in advance and pull the APC back to greet the helos as they land, of course. Also useful to move AOP teams to better overwatch positions as the battle progresses.

6) Full-on air desant tactics are really only viable into "cold" LZs, or where the enemy AAA is not too sophisticated (a few AAMG and possibly a few inf-SAM of obsolete type). But the LZ WILL need a preaparation with attack/scout helos (even just to verify it is clean), and working the LZ over a few rounds with HE fire before the drop to sanitise it.

7) DONT expose the helos to any significant AAA threat, especially when loaded. Use terrain masking, if the map allows it (fly behind villages and tree lines and contours).

8)(for any battle type) - any AAA assets that do reveal themselves as you bumble round the battlefield, engage with arty assets ASAP. Remembr where they are, for future route panning.

Air desant is not a great deal of use in the face of any main-force enemy, or even a halfway organised one. Crete for example.

It can be useful against a low tech enemy (e.g. Viet Cong, Mujadeen) if in the assault (lower numbers (points) of defenders). But even then - a "crash bang" insertion can be costly if you choose an overwatched LZ or happen to choose an ingress route which has all his AAMG covering it, so you SHOULD scout out the planned approach line and DZ for a few moves with recce/attack helo teams before deciding where the slicks should go. (slicks to stay waiting in the rear and preferably behind masking terrain while you scout with other assets).

There is no place in modern warfare for jumping out of perfectly good aeroplanes on big handkerchiefs. This should only be contemplated in areas with nil or almost nil enemy presence. (In other words, where the drop will be mainly "administrative" in nature). Not unless you like the enemy to have a bit of target practice. Again - see Crete. See D-Day for a successful use of the paper hankie method (Drop where the enemy generally is NOT, bar a few sentries etc and do it at night! .

The big force-multiplier with helo transport is really the repositioning of your rear-line or reserve assets (e.g artillery or mortars say). They are really just fast trucks!.

Cheers
Andy

[c_of_red]

I most strongly disagree about the 'meat bombs'. Paras have their place and time. They just must be used in quanity. I NEVER drop less then a battalion and NEVER on the first turn. I prefer to wait until my opponent is thourghly committed on the firing line, then I drop the paras on his rearmost v-flags or on his arty park. 90% of the time When I drop 70 to 80 para squads in his rear on turn 18 of a 25 turn game, I can hear the screams 2 time zones away. The problem is keeping my main forces alive long enough to put the knife in his back.
By waiting until the later stages of the game, the AD is pretty much wore down and or out of ammo. Like anything else in SP, its a combined arms deal. If you don't have air support, you don't buy paras. Plus it helps to have as many small mortars (81's or 83's) as you can get without skewing your force structure. Every time you get a sign of AD, drop some mortars on it. Normally a few dozen air craft will swamp the AD. That means when you load your air transport atthe start of the game, you need to plan out your fight right then and there. You can do that most of the time with a para-drop, since you will have the initative for that turn. The transport planes enter in roster order, unless you want to juggle them around, which isn't a very good idea. So you want to put your better units ( experience and anti-tank units) in the later arriving aircraft. I like to concentrate my drops, although there are circumstance where a dispersed drop is better. That is mostly on a map with shotgun flags and rough terrain.
It's costly, since you will need 9 companies of elite troops, which will set yuou back a ways. Plus the transport and some SEAD to ride shotgun. I figure 4 to 5 K points for a drop. So you need to be playing a 10K point battle to even think about it. I have never lost a battle where I got my paras on the ground. I did tie one once, but that was against a wily old vet and he still hasn't quite forgiven me. The very best part is that from the next game on, your opponent will be looking over his shoulder for those devils in baggy pants.
Plus it's a hoot to watch the replay.

[c_of_red]

Mustang, the Farmer saw the Helio. He lined up his trusty blunderbus and squeeeezzed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a cloud of black powder smoke. The Helio fell from the sky.
Those are the actual events that happened as agreed to by both the farmer and the Helio crew. Now as to which of the rounds that were put into the Helio caused it to quit flying, that is a matter that can be debated. Differring claims from both sides. But the facts are clear. The Helio stopped flying due to battle damge caused by small arms fire. The LAST small arm to hit the Heilo was a 150+ year old smooth bore musket. Here is another little fact. After that incident, the Army started their re-write of the book on Helio tactics.

[Marek_Tucan]

c_of_red said:
Mustang, the Farmer saw the Helio. He lined up his trusty blunderbus and squeeeezzed the trigger. There was a loud bang and a cloud of black powder smoke. The Helio fell from the sky.
Those are the actual events that happened as agreed to by both the farmer and the Helio crew. Now as to which of the rounds that were put into the Helio caused it to quit flying, that is a matter that can be debated. Differring claims from both sides. But the facts are clear. The Helio stopped flying due to battle damge caused by small arms fire. The LAST small arm to hit the Heilo was a 150+ year old smooth bore musket. Here is another little fact. After that incident, the Army started their re-write of the book on Helio tactics.

Just a bit of side note, it wasn't a 150-year old musket but a bolt action hunting rifle manufactured in Zbrojovka Brno, Czechoslovakia

[Mustang]

Air drops are the cheapest and safest way to get a lot of troops from point A to point B. It gives you a great deal of flexibility because you can drop them almost anywhere (provided enemy AD isn't too dense), and the enemy will have to divert a significant force or watch his rear areas get toasted.

The only time you don't want to use them is when the enemy has too much armor and/or artillery (or SAMs, of course), but other than that the paratroopers will do just fine defensively, tying down enemy.

edit: Didn't see your APC post, Mobhack. But it looks like I agree with you that you should only buy light APCs for the most part.

Interesting thing about the helo, C_of_Red. What's your source? I heard it was just some propoganda move, and I don't see how a musket could cause enough damage to down an Apache. Where did it hit?

[narwan]

c_of_red said:
When I drop 70 to 80 para squads in his rear on turn 18 of a 25 turn game, I can hear the screams 2 time zones away. The problem is keeping my main forces alive long enough to put the knife in his back.
By waiting until the later stages of the game, the AD is pretty much wore down and or out of ammo.

Well, dropping para's (in any numbers) on or close to VH's in the last stages of the game is generally considered to be a 'gamey' tactic. It makes use of the purely abstract system of a fixed (and limited) number of turns. As your own post implies, the enemy ground forces would usually be strong enough to chew up the airbornes if they had had the time. Which in RL they most likely would have. Last stage paradropping is mostly just a trick to avoid the deadly counterattacks that are sure to follow.
Although it is not often explicitly stated when setting up PBEM games, dropping para's near the end (or even in any of the second half of a game) is considered 'not done'.

Narwan

[c_of_red]

By who? This is the first I have ever heard of that. Greybeard wasn't thrilled when I dropped on him, but he didn't say anything about gamey. I think he would have if he thought it was. He went to some length to explainto me some of the other things he thought were gamy. Or is gamey anything that gives your opponent the advantage? Why exactly is it gamey? How many real world examples would you need to retract your statement, if not change your opinion? Is turn 10 ok, but turn 11 bad? Do you always expect your enemy to co-operate with you? DO you schedule his air strikes and arty fires for him? What is the difference? I'll bet you hate pre-game arty, which was SOP in WW2 for the Allies AND the Germans, if they had the ammo. Some of the Soviet pre-game bombardments went on for days. In DS in '91, the pregame air stikes went on for weeks. If I could do that would you consider it 'gamey'?
I'm am straining to be polite here. But I will say I have never heard such tommyrot.

[c_of_red]

Mustang, which hole? The Helio had hundreds of holes in it. IIRC, the turbine had enough blades shot off that it was shutdown to prevent self destruction. At the time Doctrine for AH's was to form flying wedges and cross the ground at a few hundred feet. Naturally, when you fly over a few thousand infantry armed with automatic weapons, the golden BB factor goes way up.
No telling just which one of the thousands of rounds fired actually did the deed. In WW2, if several planes jumped one plane and all got in bursts, the guy that was firing when the target flamed or blew up got the kill. Or it was split. Of several pilots got the credit. So there is plenty of room for arguement on both sides. I think the AH-64 was on the way down when the farmer fired. There is no way it can be deternined if the farmer actually hit the helio. But since he was the last weapon firing at it before it crash landed, he gets the kill. The Army threw away their tactical manual for attack helios after that. I think the re-write is still cranking along.
Keep in mind that the skin of a helio is a thin as possible. The 'armor' is behind the skin, not part of the skin like a tank. That is so it can be pulled and replaced. The same idea as the bullet resistant vests. As the plates are improved, you can just replace them and keep the vest. As the armor gets better or damaged, it can be pulled and replaced without tying up the airframe. So a round will go thru the outer skin, hit something and bounce, going thru the skin again sometimes. Not many rounds stay in the helio, although the techs have to look for them.

[narwan]

Opinions differ on it. Some like to keep it more realistic, others don't mind using game features to exploit certain tactics. Same for how far in the game drops are allowed, opinions differ.
It is gamey (in my opinion) for exactly the reason you could have read in my post you replied to. It is using the games cut-off point to force a victory. I'm curious, how many real world examples can you give where the enemy tanks stopped firing at the para's 'cause they didn't have a game turn left?

Since the rest of your comments have little to do with the topic I'll refrain from responding to those. I have no problem staying polite.