Army Group Reserve Unit

[mcaryf1]

I have been researching the Soviet and Axis OOBs for a May 1942 scenario and I wanted to create a unit that represented the typical reserve force that was held at Army Group or Front level at this time. This was usually something like a Corps of infantry plus artillery and anti-tank units to be deployed to bolster a critical attack or plug gaps when on the defensive. Clearly SC does not normally allow interventions in the defensive phase except in the case of artillery. So my "AG Reserve" unit has had to be built using the normal artillery unit. That has worked out OK now that we have two types of artillery. I have effectively given the units the attributes of a corps in terms of defence and attack, beefed up its A/T capability somewhat and given it a strike range of 2 and minimum 3 shells . I do not like the fact that the normal artillery has 100% evasion so I give this one 60% evasion so on average it will take one hit when firing 3 times. It does not become too powerful because artillery type units cannot both move and attack so it can support another unit's attack with a bombardment but cannot itself push through gaps and I think this is about right. The AG Reserve can survive in the front line (the 60% evasion is defensive as well as offensive but then I give armies and corps levels of evasion as well to distinguish them from mere divisions) but is best not deployed there.

The Germans had a number of Army Groups (North, Centre, South, A, B etc) - I give them up to 10 to cover the various Western fronts as well. The USSR has a dozen or so, the British have 2 and the US 6. The Japanese get 4 but the Chinese and Italians only have 2 each. Effectively I have AG Reserve units covering a lot of the front lines so I typically get artillery duels plus artillery defensive fire rather similar to the initial attack phase by air deployed by the AI.

I am quite pleased with the way this is working at the moment because it seems only right that there should be more artillery intervention in a WW2 scenario. It is certainly true that artillery caused the greatest numbers of military casualties in WW2 and even that great tank exponent Gen Patton declared to the effect that everyone should know that it was the US Artillery that won their land battles for them.

I would recommend other modders and even the SC team to try it out.

I include the AG Reserve unit image that I use.

Regards

Mike