Add transport planes/Paratroopers

From the Wikipedia article "M116 howitzer":

"An airborne division, according to the organization of February 1944, had three 75 mm howitzer battalions – two glider field artillery battalions (two six-gun batteries each) and one parachute field artillery battalion (three four-gun batteries), in total 36 pieces per division. In December 1944, new Tables of Organization and Equipment increased the divisional firepower to 60 75 mm howitzers (as an option, in glider battalions 75 mm pieces could be replaced with more powerful 105mm M3)."

The great advantage of the glider-delivered 75 mm guns was that they could be delivered intact, instead of tossing multiple color-coded packs of their disassembled parts out of the side door of a C-47, requiring the pieces to be recovered and re-assembled by the paratrooper artillery men. The 75-mm pack howitzer was designed to be maneuvered by hand, but one of the roles of the glider-delivered jeeps was to tow the guns as needed.

The standard organization table for American airborne divisions called for 36 75-mm pack howitzers at the time of Overlord/Neptune, but this was substantially augmented for D-Day, together with the 57-mm anti-tank guns previously mentioned.

Uhm, this is at a time that a regular infantry division had 57 (!) AT guns, according to this oob chart:

ccnmtl.columbia.edu/services/d…g/mil_org/us_infantry.jpg

Most American infantry division also had an attached tank destroyer or medium tank batallion. I'll not go into detail about other major nation AT components here but believe me, 16 AT guns is extremely low.

36x 75mm arty is also not really state of the art where infantry divisions had 66x 105mm and 155mm howitzers.

Jeeps were also not nearly as abundant as in ordinary infantry division(1,440 vehicles in regular inf div, see same chart above!), and trucks (common in even unmororized divisions of all nations) were absent as well of course, let alone armored vehicles of any kind.

Look, we can go into a pissing contest here about who knows his military history best, but I'd like to re-emphasize my point again here. With the POSSIBLE exception of Crete, NO AIRDROP WAS MADE IN THE ENTIRE WAR THAT WASN'T IN DIRECT CONJUNCTION WITH A GROUND OR SEABORNE ATTACK. There must have been a reason for that... could it maybe be, uhm... that airborne troops weren't capable of seizing and holding a sizable piece of land on their own??

I have always been against paratroopers. They're not necessary, and would change the game for the worst; with long-lasting build-ups of forces to protect provinces from air drops. Matches would take months to finish.

I just wish evidence against their worth on a regimental, and territory-holding level was allowed.

Just forget about Paratroopers guys.
IT WOULD RUIN THE GAME!
NO GAME IS GOOD WHEN ITS 100% REALISTIC MY GOD!!!

Nonsense. The addition of a properly designed airborne infantry unit, limited in numbers as a percentage of any given army's total infantry, would increase the variety of units and tactics employed in many games, and add the last important missing unit type from World War II. A world War II-based game without paratroops is like a World War I game without artillery, or a Napoleonic wars game without cavalry -- incomplete.


Yes, but we can worry about that problem when COW crosses the 25% realistic threshold in a 100 years or so. LOL

Regarding transport planes....

You dont need them. All you need to do is have units "prefer" an air route over land routes if there is the proper airfield infrastructure in place. Just in the same way that unit routes are calculated now. In my mind, it would be medium level airfields that would allow some types of units, and high level airfields that would allow the largest/most powerful unit types.

So lets say you have 10 spaces to get from point A to point B. Lets say hop 2 and hop 6 has an airstrip level 3. Your stack would move by ground to the hop 2 airfield, at which point it would "turn" into a transport plane, and move from hop 2 to hop 6, then turn back into a ground stack and continue its movement to hop 10.

Now, lets also say you wanted this transport mission escorted. Then move your stack to the airstrip at hop 2, where you have some interceptors waiting. then select the stack units you want moved, include the aircraft, and drag it to the hop six airfield to have the transports escorted during the trip. At hop 6, everything converts back to ground units to continue its journey.

EDIT - Actually, I think it should only be allowed when you have both high infrastructure ANd high airfield. But it doewsnt seem like it would be difficult task implimentation wise, since the programming to do the calculating already exists.

Tanks could be logical. Quote from WW2 Forums: The Soviets seemed to put more effort in legitimate 'air dropped' tanks (as opposed to 'glider-borne' tanks such as the Tetrarch). There's the famous A-40, one of which was actually built and tested. None-the-less, it was a design failure and the project was cancelled.



The Soviets also extensively tested more pratical means -- dropping tanks from low altitude. The idea was that these would be dropped from a few meters above the ground with their gearboxes in neutral (and crews presumably bracing themselves for a very bumpy landing, or parachuting seperately -- I don't know), and the tanks would simply roll to a stop. This idea actually worked, and it was done during the 1940 annexation of the Bessarabia area of Romania.

They also tried to same technique with amphibious tanks (perhaps assuming that the water would provide a softer landing medium). I have no idea how these tests turned out, but this photo set documents one.

Air-dropped "amphibious" tank, eh? That looks more like an air-dropped submarine to me. Dive! Dive! Dive!

now yer talkin'

... Well, if para aren't capable of holding land, neither is anything else! Usually, for a CoW size territory, you'd need AT LEAST one division, and for a whole front, several armies, which is like 400000+ troops(and IG, you can do it with as few as 3 divisions to put up an effective defense). No individual regiment by itself can hold land, and paratroopers are no different. This is even worse with major cities, where you have to commit a similar number of troops to it as other provinces which are 10x larger or more than the city in question.

And even if they aren't capable of holding land, there is so many operations they were used in, such Operation Gunnerside, the one where the Vemork heavy water plant was finally destroyed. Taking land usually isn't the goal of a paratrooper drop, but instead to disrupt supply, destroy vital infrastructure(or, if possible, capturing it and holding onto it long enough for reinforcements to arrive), and in general create havoc behind enemy lines and tying up enemy resources. And, in mass deployments, the ability to hold some land, but again, the fighting is usually on a smaller scale.

Can you fly to/from alliance member air bases?

yes. but be cautious. sometimes a favorite back stabber move is for an ally to declare war on you while your air force is at his base. then you turn into a defenseless little truck and lose your units

.. not just to coalition members ..
.. you can use foreign airports even already with Right of Way, also at AI.
But for healing at day change the planes have to stay/start on own airfields.

There should be Paratroopers in this game but only 4 of them or 5% for each country it would also stop the idea for country's to just spam troops in the front lines. I am not saying to just add Paratroopers in this game but limited Paratroopers the US amry in WW2 didn't have more than 4 divisions of paratroopers in their army

Paratroopers limited at 1 Infantry for each plane but only a few of them. It would make the game more realistic and better instead players in this game use everything fighting at front lines

this also peaked my mind as well and hope it may be implemented i love this game and hope they can keep it up to date!

When I look at the spy options, I honestly see them as paratroopers. Get behind enemy lines, damage facilities, damage infrastructure, gain intel.
Paratroopers lacked the proper weapons to sustain themselves for long periods detached from main armies. In general, they were unable to sustain long, drawn-out fights, and did not capture land.

I somewhat disagree as they did capture land:

• In operation Market Garden they captured strategic bridgeheads that allowed for faster armored advance.
  
• In Crete they captured key airfields allowing for their relief
  
• In Normandy on D-Day they captured key road junctions and villages to interdict response to the invasion.
  

I do agree that they were unable to sustain long drawn out fights, as witnessed at Ahrnem bridge.

All those are very small compared to an entire province.

Of course they captured land . . . WO made a completely unsupportable statement, which K.Rokossovski has repeated on several occasions. They have repeated it so many times, they apparently now believe it. Contrary to actual historical evidence . . . in WW2, Vietnam and elsewhere.

As to the charge that airborne infantry could not hold land that they had captured indefinitely . . . guilty! But then so was every other regimental to division-size unit that was surrounded by enemy troops. No WW2-era unit could do that ---- including conventional infantry, anti-aircraft, arty, armor, anti-tank, marines ---- and airborne infantry were no exception.

As for surrounded formations of non-airborne troops, let's see, how did the BEF do at Dunkirk? How did more than 40 Soviet divisions encircled at Kiev do? How about the German 6th Army at Stalingrad? The German 15th Army at Falais? Escaped with no equipment, surrendered or annihilated. And no paratroopers were involved. The U.S. 101st Airborne at Bastogne? Fought like demons and held their defensive ground for two weeks against a major German offensive until relieved by Patton's U.S. Third Army, and the 101st had less of their equipment at Bastogne, including their own airborne artillery, than would have been delivered in an air drop. Elite unit, esprit de corps, unit cohesion, training . . . and they were relieved within 8 days.

No WW2-era unit of any of the combat arms was intended to fight alone, against superior numbers, surrounded, without resupply or reinforcement. To suggest otherwise ---- or to suggest that only airborne troops were subject to the need to be resupplied and reinforced by allied units is just plain wrong.

The only thing unique about airborne troops was that they were trained and expected to be inserted into situations were they were surrounded, and they were completely capable of taking ground and holding it against counter-offensives for up to a week until they were relieved. American and British airborne infantry divisions even included their own artillery battalions (up to 4 arty battalions per division), anti-tank guns and scout vehicles, all delivered via air-drop and glider.

Moreover, this idea that airborne infantry were incapable of taking and holding ground is false and contrary to historical fact. And to suggest that the primary function of regiment and division-size units of paratroopers was to engage in reconnaissance, espionage and sabotage is historically WRONG. Yes, there were squad and platoon-size units, sometimes delivered by parachute or glider, who engaged in such activities ---- they were called "commandos."

Often ends in a Pyrrhic victory for the paras.