Slitherine

I was wondering that my pios are struggeling in urban combat - the PZIIIN is doing much better.

Sevastopol/Stalingrad - PZIIIN are taking the lead of the attack ... is that correct?

is it only my impression or are the pios no match for the SMG inf?

a bit disapointing for me to see my pios under-performing in urban fighting... maybe the 43 pios are doing better

I have not been impressed with pioneers in Panzer Corps. Pioneers were awesome in previous versions of this game. In this game - not so much. They are slow and I see little point in ignoring rugged defense if you are going to take 3-4 damage on every attack you make anyway. I have much better success with other forms of infantry.

The great thing about the DLC is that I get more time to experiment with equipment. The PZIIIN is a tank I never really played with till now. What a hidden gem.

I'm sure the upgrade to 43 will help overcome the SMG infantry - unless they get an upgrade at 43 also.

and in addition to that my pioneers were useless against the forts in sevastopol - but there is already a discussion going on in the forum...

I didn't get to use any N's but I found the IVG's did quite well agin' infantry in Stalingrad. My pioneres are ok but my SS Grenadier (14*) is kicking some butt.

I really liked Fallschirmjägers there, Pioniere are for use against fortifications mostly IMO.

I too found the Pioneers less than stellar. I use mostly Fallschirmjägers supported by Grenadiers.

Well look at it this way, if the pioneer was stellar (amazing vs infantry, amazing vs fortifications, AND entrenchment ignoring) why would you ever use any other kind of infantry? You wouldn't, which was a problem of Panzer General. They were pretty much all purpose infantry, with no need to have any other kind. That's why the pioneer is designed the way it is in Panzer Corps. Sometimes HW or FJ infantry are better to have and use, because of their great initiative.

As for the Panzer IIIN well... it wasn't always such a good rough and tumble close support tank. It was patched in 1.04 to have increased firepower, close defense, and ammunition.

@Kerensky: Good point regarding the pios but I would really expect them to perform better in urban fighting because of their training and equipment.

Ignoring entrenchment is a nice explaination and usable "in-game" discription of the abillity of the "Sturmpionier" but in reality they were used to break the defence of the enemy by brute force (explosive device ) and special weapons (flamethrower) ... additional to that they had a lot of SMG (MP40) for close combat.

In general I would expect them to be superior to all inf types in urban terrain - in open terrain they should be inferior to heavy arms infantrie.

Right now the FJ are the real "sturmpioniere" - even if they not ignoring entrenchments.

Maybe in PG the pios were too strong - agree... but now I do not see any use of them. A combination of PZIIIN and FJ breaks more or less any resistance in urban terrain...

Pioneers also cannot get a rugged defence against them which is the main reason I like them! That comes from ignoring entrenchment, i think but it's great.

Lut wrote: A combination of PZIIIN and FJ breaks more or less any resistance in urban terrain...

^^+ artillery to prevent damage is the best combo in Stalingrad.

Pio's right now are underpowered both compared to cost and role. Other types of infantry do their job better or cheaper.

IMHO, they should be even more expensive, but a lot better at attacking forts, trenches and city hexes then they are now. In the open or against tanks and heavy weapons infantry they should perform the same or worse then they do now.

As it stands my army consists of a lot of FJ, supported by SE Grens. And that works a lot better then a Pio force.

I haven't tried using paratroops yet (I'm still in France). If you have paratroops and air transports are available, do they automatically deploy in the transports, or can you choose to deploy them on the ground? Back in my PG days, I often wanted to start them on the ground in halftracks but I couldn't if air transports were available in the scenario.

If you get your paras any form of transport then they deploy on ground. If they dont have transports and air transport is available they start in the air.

Comparing the stats, the FJ has 6 soft attack vs the Pios 5.
Since initiative is capped in the city, thats the only combat advantage for the FJ, the Pios have the advantage of ignoring entrenchment.
There I would prefer the Pio, because avoiding casualties is key when attacking a numerically superior enemy (I usually cant suppress the enemy totally).

What makes the FJ tactically more useful is its much better speed (3 vs 2), but often I have to wait for towed arty anyways.

Overall I still prefer Pios to reduce casualties.

Locarnus wrote: Since initiative is capped in the city, thats the only combat advantage for the FJ,

Not true, initiative is not capped for infantry in any type of close terrain. FJ still have their full 4 INI, while pioneers have 2.

Initiative for infantry is capped in bad weather (rain, snow) and set to 1 in those cases, regardless of terrain.

Aloo wrote:If you get your paras any form of transport then they deploy on ground. If they dont have transports and air transport is available they start in the air.

Many thanks for the speedy reply. What do you do if you want to start them in the air in a subsequent scenario? Deselect the transport and "upgrade"?

deducter wrote:

Locarnus wrote: Since initiative is capped in the city, thats the only combat advantage for the FJ,

Not true, initiative is not capped for infantry in any type of close terrain. FJ still have their full 4 INI, while pioneers have 2.

Initiative for infantry is capped in bad weather (rain, snow) and set to 1 in those cases, regardless of terrain.

Never noticed, but of course you are right. It makes sense, but to truly makes sense, shouldnt infantry in general than have a higher initiative in city fighting than other units? Which would be the case if ini is not capped for infantry in close terrain and the initiative of infantry is higher than the cap...

The problem is, that with the initiative you can simulate higher effectiveness in ranged combat, but not higher effectiveness in close combat.

I propose a system like the fixed turret vs turret, in which the latter gets an initiative bonus.
Similarly the Pioniere should get a bonus in close terrain or maybe even restricted to city terrain and fortifications. Eg like +1 ini and +1 attack. It was their specialty and Grenadiere would still be more useful in non city terrain and Wehrmacht would be more mobile with movement of 3.
The same could be used for SMG infantry, but only for cities and not for fortifications.

Anyone that isn't an infantry unit suffers from initiative caps in rough terrain.

Locarnus wrote:Comparing the stats, the FJ has 6 soft attack vs the Pios 5.
Since initiative is capped in the city, thats the only combat advantage for the FJ, the Pios have the advantage of ignoring entrenchment.
There I would prefer the Pio, because avoiding casualties is key when attacking a numerically superior enemy (I usually cant suppress the enemy totally).

What makes the FJ tactically more useful is its much better speed (3 vs 2), but often I have to wait for towed arty anyways.

Overall I still prefer Pios to reduce casualties.

As others stated, the FJ's keep their edge in initiative over the Pio's. FJ's eat Pio's for breakfast, and supported by Nebel Half-Tracks they can move at full speed in a city.

robman wrote:

Aloo wrote:If you get your paras any form of transport then they deploy on ground. If they dont have transports and air transport is available they start in the air.

Many thanks for the speedy reply. What do you do if you want to start them in the air in a subsequent scenario? Deselect the transport and "upgrade"?

If that is what you want, the best way is to use the cheat code. During deployment hit ctrl+shift+alt+c and enter air 0n into the box. This tells the scenario that there are no air transports available for you to use during that scenario.

It is better than having to buy transports for one scenario just to give them up the next.