Newbie Here, with a few newbie Questions.

[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?

[Sgt_Walrus]

Hi Kongxinga

No suprises in the China campaign IIRC, just a really solid early war type series of battles. The high tech stuff is not too high tech yet but you realise how effective a small tankette can be when there is nothing around with AP!
You'll enjoy it

Good plan with the jungle fighting. Moving 1 hex at a time is the key, it gives you a chance to return fire even if you are ambushed.
A good trick.....even if you are going to move a unit 5 hexes (for example) you should move 1 hex at a time. If you get ambushed after moving 3 hexes the game only computes the 3 hexes of movement. If you clicked 5 hexes away from your unit and let it move itself, when you got ambushed on the 3 hex of movement, the game would be computing your speed over FIVE hexes.
This is also important for spotting/ being spotted. You can sneak more effectivly ONE hex at a time rather than clicking ten hexes away.
I hope you understand my point. It is going to help you heaps...especially in PBEM :-)

I have never heard a Banzai sound but some types of units do get a bonus when moving into the same hex for melee fighting. Cavalry, Gurkhas, maybe commandoes....read the Game Guide from cover to cover and you will know all these things.

Glad you are enjoying the game.

Cheers
SGT

[kongxinga]

But I rather not start a new topic.

I must say it is quite nice that the DEVs fixed up all the little creases the Nat Chi player may face. Retarded tank commanders, missing AA, only Japanese as enemy is all gone now. Good work.

I am starting a new 60 battle ultra small map (20*20) long campaign. I currently have a HQ, FO, Armour Group, Inf Company +, Pioneers Platoon, AT Gun platoon, Recce Group, Inf Howitzers, Mortars, AAMGs and 2 Extra HMG sections.For support I bought some off map artillery and enough ammo mules and transport mules for my artillery (I find trucks get stuck in the mud too frequently. I am off to play an advance mission in hills versus Chinese Communists.

My question today is, what do you think I should get if I get enough points to spare after the mission? Specifically, is it a good idea to get off map artillery as part as one's core? What are the pros versus cons of on and off map artillery? It seems on map arty is vulnerable to being overrun, or hit by air, or hit by other artillery, while off map arty only need to worry about occaiscional counter battery fire. What I am concerned about is that due to the poor artillery plotting skills of my officers, my off map artillery seldom hit anything, let alone kill. They do make pretty forest fires though. My on map artillery also rarely hits anything, but I can bring them up to kill suppressed crews for experience. Will there be any experience gain for my off map artillery assuming it does not hit anything at all? Does it get the minor exp for participating in a battle, even though it was not on the map?

By the way, is firing AT guns at bunkers a smart way to kill them if one does not have tanks?

Is there a problem with not spending all the support points. I know how much core campaign forces one spends determines the points player 2 gets, but does that apply to support as well?

Thank you all for answering my endless questions.