Jump to content

Paratrooper or Fallschimjager usage


Recommended Posts

I know that paratroopers had been used for shock attack effects at WWII widely, or limited regional attack especially for capturing bridges and leading the way for main attack.

But in this game can't not be used with real approach , only melee units as ordinary infantry.

Why concept can't be changed?

My proposal is especially for campaigns and big maps, paratoopers has to be used with a call like artillery used already in the game but with delays off course..

Company or batallion commander can be deliver an order like artillery call with a delay, troops can enter the map from signalled area, there is no need flying parachute effects, but limited areas can be ordered

At the reverse side aerial defence must be needed.

Any thoughts on that?

Regards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No such paradrops were ever made in tactical situations. They were dropped in large formations (and usually scattered in a very large area) so their use in limited tactical situations would not be realistic. Some small scale commando raids were done, but never during the ongoing battle.

In SF I have played several scenarios/campaign battles where reinforcements appear to different areas in the map to portray chopper landings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it would need a whole different level added to the game, a strategic layer. which is something come to think about it would be good but still thats a heck of a lot of map creation for a large battle. maybe a mix of something like highway to the reich (great game by the way) and cmbn for the tactical level.

my mind does boggle about how many battles, etc something like that would involve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Steel Panthers does this to a certain degree. Personally, I am of the thought that SP is build for a slightly higher level of forces to command then CM. A full company of paras doesn't seem to take up the same room on the map as one in CMBN does. They did have all these things, firing from the ground, sticks being scattered due to wind, enemy fire, bad luck, green pilots, etc. Makes for an interesting turn replay, thats for sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There were some precision paradrops on a small scale, but they were not adhoc and took much time and preparation such as the Bruneval Raid commanded by Capt John Frost or one of Otto Skorzeny's missions. There were no standby paratrooper waiting for call-in.

Perhaps simulating the delivery or paratroopers landing all over the drop zone would be interesting during a fire fight, or a planned mission, but not being summoned like artillery.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nik has it right. Paradrops needed days to prepare, so on-call is out of the question. It would be interesting to model the arrival of a pre-planned drop though. That was done in the CM1 engine by having reinforcements arrive on various parts of the map and not only at edges, but I don't know if that is still possible in CM2.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And having them enter even as teams of 3-4 men together, all in good shape and with their weapons and ammo, is wildly optimistic.

In reality the sticks found themselves scattered all around, with some getting stuck in trees, some splashing down in marshes and flooded rivers, only having a little time to cut themselves free and get on shore lest they drown. It would take hours to form up anything other than loose teams or mobs of men found by an officer and ordered to follow. It's not something that a tactical wargame can simulate.

With glider infantry you at least had everyone coming down together, with all of their equipment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And having them enter even as teams of 3-4 men together, all in good shape and with their weapons and ammo, is wildly optimistic.

In reality the sticks found themselves scattered all around, with some getting stuck in trees, some splashing down in marshes and flooded rivers, only having a little time to cut themselves free and get on shore lest they drown. It would take hours to form up anything other than loose teams or mobs of men found by an officer and ordered to follow.

True enough in the current game. By the time we get to Market-Garden that should be less of a problem.

With glider infantry you at least had everyone coming down together, with all of their equipment.

And frequently dying together when the glider crashed, as quite a few of them did on D-Day.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After the losses at Crete, and despite their victory there, the germans decided never to drop paratroopers again. The allies, on the other hand, were so impressed that they began to take their paratroopers more seriously, bolstered numbers and used them again and again in massive jumps.

No fallschirmjager jumped in Normandy. They were used as infantry only. In fact they hadn't jumped for a few years by then.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Perhaps not so much "decided never to drop again", as "never decided to drop again". They still kept the readiness to use the FJ in the intended way, but understood that it would have to be a damn good reason to do it again, and no such reason ever came up.

They even ended giving new FJ cannonfodder actual para training in 1944, so after that even if it had suddenly been possible and desirable to drop them, only the old hands would have known how it's done. Can you imagine what it would be like to be dropped into war zone with the only instructions being "pull the cord and bend your knees"? :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, they... they... were lucky to HAVE chutes. The Russians dropped men without parachutes at all!

IIRC they found that they suffered fewer casualties dropping men into snow drifts without chutes than with... until the Germans started painting hard surfaces to look like snow drifts...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC they found that they suffered fewer casualties dropping men into snow drifts without chutes than with... until the Germans started painting hard surfaces to look like snow drifts...

I'm pretty sure that it's just a myth. I first heard that story in the army from my platoon leader and it's popped up every now and then but I have never found any solid proof of that. Do you have any reliable sources on that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm pretty sure that it's just a myth. I first heard that story in the army from my platoon leader and it's popped up every now and then but I have never found any solid proof of that. Do you have any reliable sources on that?

What part is a myth? I've read about the part of dropping into snowdrifts in what I considered a reliable source, but the part about painting hard surfaces I never heard of before and tend to doubt. In the version I heard, it would have been unnecessary anyway as the snow tended to have hard objects like trees, sheds, fenceposts, etc. buried in it that would not have been pleasant to discover by crashing into them.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After the losses at Crete, and despite their victory there, the germans decided never to drop paratroopers again.

5 minutes on Wikipedia should be sufficient to disabuse you of that notion. The Germans conducted airborne ops - after Crete - in North Africa (albeit using Storch, rather than silk), Sicily (silk), Yugoslavia (silk), Leros (silk), and Belgium (silk).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BTW , while opening this topic, I mean the usage of this idea at QB games. Especially fictional campaigns (ofcourse campaigns can't have the property of user arangement now may be at future - Quick Campaign).. Paratroopers can be used either ordinary infantry unit with low cost or dropped any restiricted area with high cost. Also can be used at big point - scenarios, but with high cost because of suprise effect.

For example one company dropped would have double cost with regards to usage as ordinary infantry

Regards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...The Germans conducted airborne ops - after Crete - in North Africa (albeit using Storch, rather than silk), Sicily (silk), Yugoslavia (silk), Leros (silk), and Belgium (silk).

What do you mean by 'Storch'? Thats german for stork - and the paras they bring are usually a bit too young... ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...