Lack of HMG's in Canadian and Polish OOB's

[IronCat60]

I have just noticed that there is no selection what so ever for the Vickers Machinegun in the Canadian and Polish OOB's. The only way it seems possible to include such a important weapon is to use a Medium Machinegun Carrier and dismount the crew to use it in a defensive position.

 

Am I the only one with this fault or is it common across the board?

[Heirloom_Tomato]

In Quick battles, they can be found in the Motor Battalion, support company.  In the scenario editor there is a machinegun battalion that can be chosen as well as the independent machinegun company.  I know for the Canadians the Vickers were not in every battalion. There was one battalion per division equipped with  three companies of Vickers machine guns and one company of 4.2 inch mortars.  These companies would be assigned to support on battalion or another as the Divisional commander saw fit.  Otherwise the battalions operated without the support of the Vickers and would have instead relied upon the Bren gun.  In First Canadian Division, the machinegun battalion was the Saskatoon Light Infantry, Second Division had the Toronto Scottish Regiment,  Third the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa and the Fourth Canadian Armoured Division had the 10th Canadian Independent machinegun company, the New Brunswick Rangers.

[ASL Veteran]

Yeah, what Heirloom basically said.  Going from memory it seems that commonwealth forces considered HMGs to be a higher level asset and they were assigned by higher headquarters where needed.  So while a standard infantry battalion may not have as many organic HMGs as ... say an American battalion, that just means that the HMGs were assigned by .. like Regiment or Division rather than from battalion.  I'm just operating from memory though.

[JonS]

I have just noticed that there is no selection what so ever for the Vickers Machinegun in the Canadian and Polish OOB's.

I just had a look in the editor.

 

The Canadians have Machinegun Battalion under the Infantry Branch, and Machinegun Company [independent] under the Armoured Infantry Branch. This is correct. The MG bn is the divisional bn in the infantry divisions (Saskatoon Light Infantry, Toronto Scottish, and the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, as noted by Olde Timey Mater) and the MG company supported the lorried inf bde in the Canadian Armd Div (10th Company, New Brunswick Rangers, again as noted by @Olde_Timey_Mater).

 

The Polish do NOT have Machinegun Battalion, but they do have Machinegun Company [independent] under the Armoured Infantry Branch. This, too, is correct. The Polish didn't have any infantry divisions in NWE, so no MG Bn for them. But they did have an Armd Div and so, as per standard Commonwealth TOE, that division had an MG company (1. Samodzielny Szwadron C.K.M. (1st Independent/Seperate HMG Squadron)) to support the lorried infantry brigade (3. Brygada Strzelców (3rd Rifle Brigade)).

 

If you are in the editor and cannot see MG Bn and MG Coy[indep] for the Canadians, or MG Coy[indep] for the Poles, then there might be a problem with your install.

Edited July 16, 2015 by JonS

[womble]

There's possibly also an additional problem with Vickers: sometimes when you buy them as independent teams, they show up as an HQ team, with a leader, sten and a couple of rifles.

[JonS]

Really? In the editor? I've ... I've never had that happen, AFAIR.

 

Or are you talking about QBs?

[womble]

Really? In the editor? I've ... I've never had that happen, AFAIR.

 

Or are you talking about QBs?

Yes, in QBs.

[JonS]

Ah right. Do you know if that has been reported - can you send me saves or somefink?

[womble]

Upon further investigation, I find that I mixed up some rememberances. There are no Vickers or other MMG teams available to Poles and Canadians as individual teams, so it's not an additional issue for those formations trying to get MMGs into 'em. This seems strange, if there are HMGs sloshing around the AO, being assigned to lower level units...

 

If the QB allows armoured infantry, they can get at the MG Company (no MG Battalion), but there is no MG Battalion available to either if the battle is Infantry Only. This seems like an oversight since mech inf (Motor Battalions) are available in Infantry Only QBs (and this is a way of getting a Machine Gun platoon without having to delete their carriers since they don't have them to start with); they just don't come with vehicles.

 

As it stands, though, it does seem to me that there is no way of getting any Vickers support into a Lorried Infantry Battalion under the same TO. 

 

However, the issue with the Vickers independent team that I was remembering does apply to the Brits, who do have access to them. The Vickers team gets called "2IC team (Vickers)" when it's selected in the force selection screen. And it has 3 Stens, which is nice, but "not what I asked for"

 

Here is a link to a setup phase showing the problem, in Dropbox. I went and looked at all the months, and it's consistent.

 

While we're on CW TO&E niggles, the QLT TT trucks that come with lorried battalion infantry platoons, and carry their PIAT, if they are mounted, only come with one round for the PIAT, and the platoon troopers don't carry any. If the platoon is bought as dismounted and assigned the allowed but not mandatory PIAT, the designated AT team has 6 bombs for the spigot mortar. This seems like an unlikely arrangement, but British TO&E is sometimes... eccentric, so it might not just be a keyboard error. This flaw in infantry AT capabilities applies to all the CW-model-equipped forces: dropbox link for British; dropbox link for Canadian; dropbox link for the Poles. All either single player or as hotseat, with null passwords. It's easy to fix, with a 17 point Supply truck per company bringing the total up to 7-8 per launcher and lots of extra bullets, but might be worth a tinker in a patch some time.

Edited July 13, 2015 by womble

[IronCat60]

Thank you all for taking interest in this post and answering my question, It helped resolve my issues on using the Canadian OOB's!