Airborne Operations ??

[EarlofWarwick]

Please forgive me if this has been discussed, but will it be possible to simulate the dropping of an airborne brigade or two behind enemy lines?

[Sergei]

No... why would you need that in an Eastern Front game? :confused:

Although, maybe it is doable as a starting point for a campaign scenario.

[EarlofWarwick]

"No... why would you need that in an Eastern Front game? [Confused]"

Hypothetical fun... (hypothetical but realistic, mind you). And because The Eagle Has Landed is one of my favorites

"Although, maybe it is doable as a starting point for a campaign scenario."

Sounds good. That's probably what I'll do.

[ng cavscout]

Originally posted by Sergei:

No... why would you need that in an Eastern Front game? :confused:

Although, maybe it is doable as a starting point for a campaign scenario.

Just for starters, how about the Soviet airborne drops?

this is from http://www.rickard.karoo.net/articles/weapons_russianairlong.html

The VDV See Action

Despite being part of the Air Force, the 212th Airborne Brigade was deployed to the Far East and saw action in the Battle of Khalkin Gol against the Japanese Army in July and August 1939, while the 201st, 204th and 214th Airborne Brigades took part in the invasion of Poland during September 1939. The first full-scale combat jump in history occurred in November 1939 near Petsamo, Finland during the Russo-Finnish War and were again in action during the occupation of Rumanian Bessarabia. The reasonable success and good combat record, along with the success of the German Airborne forces in Western Europe meant that the five airborne brigades based in European Russia were earmarked to be expanded to corps status, while the sixth remained in the Far East. When war broke out in June 1941, the technical assets of the VDV (Vozdushno-Desantnaya Voyska - Air Assault Force) were totally inadequate to start with, and what they had was devastated by the air attacks early on in the campaign. This shortage of air assets meant that the VDV spent most of the war fighting as elite infantry. A number of operations were conducted during the winter of 1942 / 1943 with the 201st Airborne Brigade dropping near Medzyn on the 2 / 3 January and again near Vyazma on the 18th January, with the 204th Airborne Brigade near Rzhev on the 14 - 22 February. An ambitious plan was formulated to drop the entire 4th Airborne Corps near Vyazma behind German lines at the beginning of February, but with the lack of air transport assets meant that the 22 TB-3s and 40 PS-84s would have to fly two or three sorties a night for a week. The Corps started dropping on the 27th January and about a quarter of them were dropped into terrible weather conditions and the operation foundered. Another operation later in the month against Yukhnov also failed. These heroic but ineffective operations led the Soviet High Command to convert the Corps to Guards Rifle Divisions and they fought with distinction in the northern Caucasus and Stalingrad. Eventually however, the Air Force managed to have them reformed as Guards Airborne Divisions and a large scale operation was planned in September 1943 to drop and air-land 10,000 troops from the 1st, 3rd and 5th Airborne Brigades and establish a bridgehead over the Dniepr River. The operation, however was a costly failure. "By a cruel irony, the only successful airborne operation by Soviet forces in the Second World War were small-scale drops by special Naval Infantry paratroopers in the Crimea, and operations by improvised Army units during the campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria in 1945." [note 1]

not the most successful operations, but they did occur.

[Sergei]

I know, but it hardly is worth modelling in the game separately. IMHO.

I'd rather see well done amphibious operations, which were common throughout the war.

[mrpwase]

I'd rather see both. They can't be that hard to do...can they?

*braces for impact*

[Sergei]

You forgot to mention that you have a programming background (with Qbasic, last time in 1992).

[Ike]

It might be nice to have, but how would CMC simulate it? As an actual, "Reinforcements have arrived!" and then you see them dropping in? That'd be visually fun, one battalion or so at a time, but can it be done? CM:BB doesn't have the programming for it; does it? I've not seen it if it does. One could plot the drop zone, schedule the drop, and then make some die roll for drop casualties (5% - 15% wasn't unusual even in German or U.S. drops, they being the best at airborne ops in WW2), and suitably reduce the strength of the airborne battalion on the ground, with a suitably scattered set-up, to reflect drop dispersion. Yes, doable, but would be it be worth it? Yes I think so, but ....

Only in a game that already has a full-time GM or Campaign Coordinator.

[Hunter]

We don't specifically simulate airdrops. We do have reinforcements, that the editor places on specific turns and places. This could be used to simulate new landings. Alternatively, as suggested above, you could set them all up as a starting position for the campaign.