Best way to use airmobile and panzergrenadiers?

[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.

[Mobhack]

It is common to ignore last minute drops in victory conditions of wargames.

For example - the Wargames Research Group 1950-2000 tabletop rules in the "deciding the victor" section, has this senetence:

Do not count elements that landed from air or sea within thier sides last 3 bounds.

Which is clearly there to stop a potentially "gamey" tactic.

So - IF both players agree to allowing paras should thay choose do do so in a PBEM, a simple agreement to avoid landings after a certain move (75% of the contracted game length?) should suffice to kill any use of them as a "last minute" spoiler.


Cheers
Andy

[c_of_red]

The real world doesn't have turns, or V-flags, which makes your question silly. Please Note that no game can approximate the real world, so if that is your standard, then everything is gamey. One reason I don't play the WW2 games any more was the whole thing was to gamy for my taste. A 'typical' battle in the ETO would involve 8,000 points of allies advancing against a german delay of maybe 1,000 points. How often do you play one of those? On the Eastern front a standard Soviet attack would start with 10 to 20 tubes per hex firing for 60 turns or so before the 10K points of Soviets assault 1K points of germans. Done one of those lately?
On one hand you are saying it's gamey and non-realistic, on the other you wish to know what your opponents tactical plans are before the game starts. Isn't that a tiny bit gamey? By your own standards.
The most dangerous weapon on the battlefield costs zero points and is available in every nation's OOB. It is suprise. There is absolutly nothing that prevents you from droping paras also, if it bothers you that much, think how it will affect your opponent. No I see this as an attempt to gain an advantage thru negoiations. You are lawyering instead of fighting. The real world doesn't negoiate force limits on combat operations.
You could do the smart thing and keep a reserve. I pull my scouts back after about the half way point of a game and add them to my reserve, just to be able to deal with suprises such as paras. General Franks dropped the 101st ( or the 82nd, I forget which) north of Tikrit in 2003 to act as a blocking force and give the Iraqi army something else to think about. I'm sure Saddam would have loved to call Franks on the phone and accused him of cheating by attempting to 'game the system'.
The bast way to avoid the game ending dash for the flags is to negoiate pregame the victory conditions and just turn the flags off.