Newbie Here, with a few newbie Questions.

[Mobhack]

Oh - and a point I forgot to mention - remeber to set your artillery Quick Reaction hexes to where you think contact will occur, for a faster response. Arty fire comes quicker onto pre-registered targets, and has less drift.

Cheers
Andy

[kongxinga]

Thanks for the quick replies.

Now to make sure I get the all the useful info.

1. Repeat to self. "SP:WAW is not WinSPWW2"

2. The reason my tanks are getting nailed is due to a lucky top hit, or getting hit by a mortar. Yes they are tin coffins (Ft-17 Tg and Ft-17 MG). So I guess I should try to keep a bit more distance with the Japanese Squads.

3. I don't get it. Am I supposed to get a formation for AAMGs in 1931, or is everything working as intended, and Nat Chi is not allowed a AA formation early in the war (very true, NatChi had very little credible AA assets ( there was nothing to shoot at), and the game represents it very well by allowing them a pea shooter AAMG as the only AA weapon. I miss the Bofors from WAW .)?

I guess if it is the secound case, I better grin and bear the planes in the first mission, and quickly upgrade my HMGs to AAMGs.

3. About the tankers who look like infantrymen. I loaded another campaign, bought a few armour groups, and checked their armour command ratings of the officers. They still have armour ratings in the teens, but with pretty decent infantry command ratings of 60s. Now I am not complaining about this at all (very historical, a few of my distant relatives talked about how rare it was to even see a tank, much less find someone who knew how to drive and use it), but when I look into the manual and see that nice example officer with decent armour command ratings, and then look at my own tankers running after a few shots and generally missing the enemy, I get the feeling the KMT army has reached the bottom of the barrel and are assigning random conscripts who may have never seen a engine in their lives to command tanks. I mean, heck, my pioneers ( guess they know engineering) and a few infantry have better armour command ratings. Is this a bug, or a cool feature that adds a lot of historical flavour? I am playing on default historical troop quality by the way.

4. On artillery strikes. I guess I have been spoiled by WAW, becuase artillery there hits very fast, often at the end of MY turn. I do plot priority fire hexes and plot missions in advance (mostly on crossroads/towns/ victory hexes), but I hesitate in plotting it inside the jungle. Why? My troops will have to move through the forest eventually, and low morale+ suppression and casualties from fires are a deadly combination. I will give it a try to see what happens though.

A secound point why I don't plot arty until I see the enemy is because I believe there is a severe accuracy/delay penalty if the spotter has no LOS to the target. Should I just ignore it and go blow up the jungle anyways? I have several hilarious incidents of friendly artillery missing the targets by a mile, and hitting my ammo mules, causing havoc and a chain rout when I tried artillery missions without LOS.

5. On Militia. I bought them as support troops, becuase I would rather the militia bump into the Japanese troops rather than my core troops. I guess they are quite the liability. Any suggestions on what to get for support? I always thought support was supposed to be cheap and expendable. Does NatChi have any Off Map artillery at all?

6. On spotters for artillery. From what I gather, any X0 unit can call for artillery? So say I buy a sniper and he spots some enemy troops? Can he call artillery, as he is a X0 unit? Should I have bought a dedicated FO? I used to use my scouts to call for artilllery.


7. On the Long Campaign. Hurray! Someday I can even fight warlords. Would it be possible to have the Chinese Communist forces buy Soviet Allied Support troops late in the war for flavour ( representing soviet advisers)? That would give the NatChi player a NATsty shock. The level of support in this game is amazing.

Once again, great game and thanks for all the help.

[DRG]

kongxinga said:
3. I don't get it. Am I supposed to get a formation for AAMGs in 1931, or is everything working as intended, and Nat Chi is not allowed a AA formation early in the war (very true, NatChi had very little credible AA assets ( there was nothing to shoot at), and the game represents it very well by allowing them a pea shooter AAMG as the only AA weapon. I miss the Bofors from WAW .)?

I guess if it is the secound case, I better grin and bear the planes in the first mission, and quickly upgrade my HMGs to AAMGs.

The AAMG UNITS are available in 1930 but the FORMATION that puts them in the game doesn't start until 1936. That's an error. That formation ( 27 ) should start 1930. You can change that with MOBHack

kongxinga said:
3. About the tankers who look like infantrymen. I loaded another campaign, bought a few armour groups, and checked their armour command ratings of the officers. They still have armour ratings in the teens, but with pretty decent infantry command ratings of 60s. Now I am not complaining about this at all (very historical, a few of my distant relatives talked about how rare it was to even see a tank, much less find someone who knew how to drive and use it), but when I look into the manual and see that nice example officer with decent armour command ratings, and then look at my own tankers running after a few shots and generally missing the enemy, I get the feeling the KMT army has reached the bottom of the barrel and are assigning random conscripts who may have never seen a engine in their lives to command tanks. I mean, heck, my pioneers ( guess they know engineering) and a few infantry have better armour command ratings. Is this a bug, or a cool feature that adds a lot of historical flavour? I am playing on default historical troop quality by the way.

See what I said the first time about a SAVE GAME. I cannot see what you see without one. EVERY time I load a regular game in the time period you mentioned OR a campaign I see armoured units with leader armour ratings in the high 50's to mid 60's generally. There are no officer armour ratings in the teens.

There could be a dozen reason why you are seeing what you are seeing including incorrectly set prefences or simply misreading the rating. If it's the game I haven't found any proof so if you are seeing armour officer leader ratings in the teens your're going to need to provide me with a save game or a screen shot. I just checked 8 Nat China tanks in a campaign set up to start August 1931 and here are the armour command ratings for those eight tanks

64
58
69
53
64
66
56
67

The armour command rating in this game is the last line of the ratings and is just above the "kills" line. Are you sure your reading the correct line becasue when I checked I can see LOTS of ARTILLERY command ratings in the teens for these tanks

Don

[Mobhack]

there is off map arty in the 30s - formations 89-92.

(Open Mobhack, load Nationalist china - use the menu for database check utilities, and in formation tab, select the check unit class sub-tab, and select appropriate class will show all formations that contain such - class 10, and class 155. The unit check tabs will do the same for all units).

As to firing arty blind - if you are searching an area, then why not - if there is reasonable separation from your troops. You wil need to determine "danger close" for your troops capabilities. Maybe 500 yards (20 hexes) in front, since your troops wil be fragile till they reach 75+ experience, on recieving any friendly drop-shorts. I am happy enough to drop it 3-4 hexes in front of e.g UK, GE or RUS troops in the 40s on. And I really do not bother much to get FOOS up front - if visibility is good I will put them on a dminating hill perhaps. In the assault - I may call the first rounds onto a critical bunker with the FOO at the rear, for the quicker call time, and then once his mission has arrived and completed, take it over with a nearby line HQ unit with LOS, using fire-adjustment rather than a complete call from scratch.

Militia type troops are not much use as support if going forwards. Can be useful speed bumps in defence, if positioned in a good defensive area. Woods, towns, rough, or shell an area of your defended zone with heavy arty (for craters) and move them into that after.

When advancing - support points go on arty, mortars, ammo units for onmap arty, a few scouts and scout vehicles maybe, some support APC for your leg grunts perhaps, engineers etc. About the only use for militia I could see in the attack is as a second wave - to take over and hold taken objectives while the more reliable troops exploit onwards.

The Communist Chinese were not supplied with Soviet armour in the civil war period (I have modified the 5/45 WW2 LC onwards so it is guaranteed coms fight nats in both LCs, this is one of the longest WW2 LCS you can take part in - 30 to 48). They used captured japanese tanks (as did the nationalists, though they had some USA supplies too) - but even then, Stalin did not get on with the Chinese Communists and thier "impure" socialist doctrine (in other words they did not kow-tow to Moscow and were impertinent enough to desire independance from the Soviet CCP). So the only Russian stuff available is in the 30s when SU, Italy, and Germany were active advisors in the area. And even then - the Chicom tanks were used more as "bateries" of armoured sp-arty in the direct infantry support role than in any sort of maneuver/cavalry role.

Wiki is not a useful/reliable source - but useful as a starting point e.g Wiki article.

As for PLA tanks Birth of the PLA tank force covers that. Basically - the Soviets did supply 100 tanks and 700 arty pieces - but war booty from the Japanese surrender, and not USSR models. And the tank force was initially designated as "Mobile Artillery" up to 1949, when the actual PLA Tank Force was born.

Cheers
Andy

[kongxinga]

Again, many thanks for the replies.

I have figured out the weird tankers problem.
The thing is, I am buying what is called "Armour Group" which is composed of 2 MotorBikes, 4 tanks, and 4 armoured cars a company. The leader (ie the X0 unit), is a guy stationed on a motor bike. From what I guess, motorbikes are modelled like infantry here, as they die one casualty at a time, unlike SP: WAW where even bicycle infantry tended to blow up like tanks. Thus, the officer on a motorbike would naturally have high infantry command ratings, although the tank command ratings in the teens really hurt. So much for lending his experience to the tanks. I might plonk him a bit closer to the attached support infantry squads though, as he has really nice infantry command skills.

This seems something that could be very confusing to a newbie. Perhaps that small note that very briefly touches on "mixed formations" in the manual be expanded?

As for Soviet Allied Support Troops, I think I meant advisers ( that is , a few units of Russian commando/scout/forward observer infantry units commanded by Soviet officers). I am not sure if they actually participated in actual combat, but it is hard to deny their extensive presence. I vaguely recall a captured IJN ship ordered to randomly fire at the coast to expend its Japanese ammo as it was going to be refitted. It ended up killing by plain accident more Soviet advisers than communist troops.

I must admit I really must be incompetent. What are these Off Board Artillery formations called in the purchase screen? I assume it would be labelled something like Off Board Howitzers or something. I have bought many Off map arty in SP: MBT, but my support artillery purchase screen here seems to offer only on board artillery. I am clueless with Mobhack, so I can't really do anything there.

I am still learning the game, so I guess Mobhack editing is out for me. I guess I will play a few games to learn the game while waiting for the next patch before starting on the epic campaign (1930-1948 Fun!). Thanks for the support advice, trucks it is for my pioneers (unlike you German/ Russian/ American/ Marines/ British etc players, NatChi does not get the luxury of APCs until really late in the war). I will try plotting arty much further from my troops than now and see how that goes.

As I guess I am a clueless newbie, two more questions have sprung up. I notice it is a common strategy for people to buy their HQ a command vehicle after the first mission. I am thinking of getting my HQ a truck (no APCs, so let us hope it does not get stuck in mud). My question is, am I supposed to get the HQ a specific type of vehicle ( that is, something labelled "command Vehicle", or any vehicle can do? If my HQ is riding in a truck, can it still do its duties (rallying, plotting arty, lending experience)?

On a tactics note, since I am sure not many people play NatChi, how does other countries deal with the jungle fighting that occurs with Japan (like say playing as the USMC). The situation I am talking about is that your infantry are in the forest, and you are pretty sure the Japanese are in the same forest. You don't really want to do area fire to flush them out, as the Japanese severely outclass use in medium range firepower with those grenade launchers and support squads, so revealing your and their positions by firing is not really a good idea. I guess this situation does not really apply to the USMC as they also have insane medium range fire power and godly close combat skills, like the Japanese, but what would be a possible solution, from everyone's experience fighting Japanese troops?

Thanks for all the help.

[Mobhack]

whoever designed the "armour group" had a problem then - it should be a tank HQ with scout M/C det methinks. Now we have the OOBs fully i our control again, will sort such problems as we find them.

In any case - the "armour command" has nowt to do with rallying (the important function of an HQ) - but does sometimes allow coaching of a unit to throw a better hit roll, if within 3 or so hexes of it - it reverses the low throw, sometimes.

I never bother to buy my HQ any sort of transport, nor convert him to another type. His job is to stay on the baseline where the HQ should be, not to get into combat. If you change to a vehicle - enemy tac air will tend to notice him. As an infantry unit, he can take arty and have a reasonable chance of surviving, and as an HQ element type, he has better arty skills than an ordinary 0 unit, but not those of a full FOO, and if you change him to another infantry type, those skills are lost.

Artillery is found on the artillery menu. Look for "light battery", "medium battery" and "heavy battery" and thier batallions. hint - off map arty units are all guns, no rifles etc, and on map are individual guns, usually with self defence weapons. The unit will be called something like "84mm Battery" and will have about 30-40 crew serving a platoon/bty of several tubes of off map arty (no personal weaponry), whereas the on-map gun would be called "84mm field gun" or similar and have 8-10 or so crew and personnel serving one (1) on map element. hint 2 - if you can buy batallions/regiments/brigades etc of the stuff, it is usually off map arty too

Or you could actually have a scratch game (battle generator) and buy things, then see which is which perhaps? - just abandon the scratch game during the deployment after looking at the various purchases you made.

Also - the easy way - see the WinSPWW2 unit classes section of the GG, where the unit classes and capabilities are listed. Learn from that which classes are off-map artillery. If you have not read this section, you wont have a clue what is what, or the capabilities of various unit classes. (I will presume you have played through the tutorial game and read the tutorial section of the GG alongside that).

cheers
Andy

[PatG]

I have played a couple of long campaigns from the Japanese side and one aborted Nat vs Com pbem. I am no expert though.

The Japanese are a foot army thus are quite sensitive to terrain especially when the number of turns forces a straight advance. Look for obvious advance routes and target them for arty. Japanese platoons are pretty well rounded but the different weapon systems move at different rates so work on separating the GLs and scouts from the main body.

As China, troop quality differences should give you a numbers advantage. Those conscripts won't last long but they will whittle away at the Japanese as they advance - think of them as claymore mines rather than maneuver units- lock their range down to 1 or 2 and don't move them. Armour is not really worth it but cavalry can give the Chinese superior movement capability.

Japanese AA in this period is also pretty poor - if you get any are consider buying an observation unit (there seems to be an endless supply of disaffected whiskey soaked American pilots willing to fly for the right price) and circle it over your base area - maybe out as far as the centre line - unless mule mounted, the Japanese AA is sloooow.

As for the Chinese advance - I really don't have any suggestions.

If playing PBEM - I would suggested you ask your opponent to buy the GL as grenade launcher units rather than the GL as mortar units - this cuts their effectiveness quite a bit.

[DRG]

kongxinga said:
I have figured out the weird tankers problem.
The thing is, I am buying what is called "Armour Group" which is composed of 2 MotorBikes, 4 tanks, and 4 armoured cars a company. The leader (ie the X0 unit), is a guy stationed on a motor bike. From what I guess, motorbikes are modelled like infantry here,

Yes, that was the problem and I didn't see it because I was buying pure tank formations for my tests. Now fixed. Thank you for finding this and reporting it

Don

[Sgt_Walrus]

Hi Guys

I gotta say, the level of support for this game is tremendous.
I know Andy and Don are busy guys and they still take the time to answer all these questions...brilliant effort there by those chaps. I, for one, never take it for granted.

Kongxinga, you may feel like a noobie but I can tell from your questions that you are no fool. You'll soon be up and running with this game, you just need some practice.
I seriously suggest reading the Game Guide from beginning to end, you will learn SO many tricks and gain plenty of understanding of the way these guys have put this version of Steel Panthers together. Also browsing this forum and looking for topics of interest. I have gleaned many tricks from reading the discussions of others here.

Can I suggest that you play the campaign supplied with the game, 006 "China '37". From your posts I know that you wish to play as China but while you are waiting to get your Long Campaign off the ground you could learn many things by commanding Japanese forces in the same theatre, both about their troop's abilities and those of the Chinese forces.

It is a very well designed campaign, 7 battles I think, and has many different types of battle. It would be a great way to start to get to grips with this version of the game and the units in '37 are not too different from the earlier units. There's plenty of cavalry action which is great fun and you must master the basics of the support units to achieve victory which will get you much more used to the speed of units and their ability against different targets. You'll soon see which Chinese tactics and units are causing you the most trouble :-)

The WAW version of this game (as I understand, I never play that version...why bother :-)) treats arty delays in quite a different way. As you say, some are short enough to land at the end of YOUR turn.
I prefer the system here where you have to have the skill to plot your arty where you "think" the enemy will be. I enjoy seeing my arty do a good job of breaking up an attack where I predicted it was going to be in X turns. The skill is in using the shift fire options and FO/X0 units with LOS to master your arty support or at least make the most of it.

ALWAYS use a FO to plot arty (it's the first unit I buy!). Arty plotting is much faster and more accurate even when they have no LOS. Then use an XO in LOS, and as was mentioned, to "shift" the fire by entering the arty plot screen with the LOS unit and using the "shift fire" tab which brings up a red circle.

You can move the landing/aiming point of the tube/battery etc that you are dealing with by 2 hexes for only 0.1 delay (actually that's for an FO. It's 0.2 for any other X0 unit). So, even for an X0 unit, you can shift fire 4/6 hexes for a full delay of only 1 turn or so.

Using small shifts you can keep units firing turn after turn (at a decreased rate of fire as any delay means a few less shells will fall per turn) and make a "creeping barrage" in front of your advance through the forest, or chase infantry around the map and keep them suppressed.

In a campaign I do provide some transport for my A0 and Forward observer. It is correct that their vehicles will be targeted by air units but you can always unload the unit at the end of each movement and if hit, they stand a better chance of surviving. Move slowly, less than half allowed movement and suffer less casualties when attacked, also have better accuracy when firing and better spotting ability.

Be careful with those units and maybe use them to carefully mop up some enemy stragglers near the end of the battles, thus giving them some kills and improving their experience ratings. In my opinion, experience and morale ratings are more important than arty/inf/armour command ratings.
Kills get your experience up. The first five are the most important.

I enjoy campaigns because I have to be very careful to protect core units that have good experience. It's great fun to launch a rescue mission to provide cover and transport for a high rated tank crew that have survived their tank being brewed up. Or to spend 15 turns quietly manouvering a scout or FO that has been cut off by the enemy.
Set you ranges low using the "y" key or even turn your weapons off. Move SLOW..one turn at most and resist the temptation of firing. That way you can sneak through almost any enemy position, especially if they are moving or are "green" troops.

Can I also suggest trying PBEM against human opponents. It is the true strength of this game. The best AI, and this AI is very good and always improving, will always be worse than an average human opponent.

Try www.theblitz.org for a friendly group of gamers with a strong Steel Panthers ladder (all versions). There are mentors who will gladly take you through your first PBEMs and provide help and answers to your questions...I should know, I'm one of them :-)

Feel free to ignore any of the above! Just trying to help eh. It's a great game.
Join The Blitz and I would be happy to mentor you for PBEM in winSPww2. My name there is Walrus.

Cheers
SGT

[kongxinga]

Thanks for all the advice.

I must say that the community here is amazing and the game support is top notch. Very helpful advice, and very diligent and proactive devs. Good job!

I will go start the China '37 campaign. It will be quite fun to NOT be on the receiving end of those GLs. I had no idea that the Japanese were so fond of GLs. I mean their militia unit includes a "militia GL", that is armed with 4 GLS ( which is much more scary than the homeguard or something unit in WAW that was armed with 1. Bamboo spears 2. Claypot Grenades. I kid you not.) Are there any surprises in the Campaign, like the USMC popping up, or the US army coming in from Burma?

On the difficulty advancing in forests, I think I may have come up with a partial solution. The Japanese may have escaped my HMGs and tanks (not that they are anything to write home about, but at least I have an comparative advantage there) by hiding in the forest to force mid range engagements, but I found by dropping heavy smoke and a few artillery rounds in suspected locations work wonders. Having effectively blinded both sides, I make my squads crawl around 1 hex at a time. A lot of times the Japanese get lucky and spot me first, but eating 3 GL hits at range 1 is not much worse than taking 3 Gl hits at ranges 6-12 ( I think). Plus my squads can retaliate with 3 handgrenade shots, and those hurt very badly.

Are banzai charges modelled in WinSP WW2? I recall in WAW I ordered my HQ to enter into the same hex as a retreating Japanese Squad, and ordered a close range assault. A "BANZAI!" sound effect followed, and the Japanese squad routed my HQ who did not even get to strike at the enemy (first strike for Banzai charges). Soviets and USMC can also go similarly berserk I believe.

I like to get close to the Japanese squads, but not that close, so is there a danger when attacking in the same hex?