Nazi German OOB

[Gud]

Some minor twinks.

Missing (oh, there is always something missing in Ger OOB..)

- StuIG 33. Basically a StuG III with 15cm IG. 24 used in Stalingrad and Winter Storm

- SiG II Bison. Again around 20, 15cm on Pz II chassis, open topped. Africa only.

Minor gripes:

- Armoured Trucks. Italy has them. They were extensivly used as makeshift APCs in COIN ops in Balkans.

- The 7.5cm and 10.5cm PAW in FJ formation should be artillery class, not inf-at

- That was prolly beaten to death, but FG-42 was more a BAR-like weapon and not the squad main armament. Would perfectly fit as LMG squad with 2-3 of those tho.

- The 7.5cm IG 18 was issued HEAT rounds (penetration circa 60mm) for emergency AT defense.

- unit 432 Pz IIIm is showing icon with a short-barreled gun while the unit has long 50mm

- I would suggest lumping ADGZ, ex-dutch and ex-french Armoured cars in one formation - they all were anti-partisan vehicles mostly and seldom appeared in frontline units

- There are 2 instances of Fw 189 Uhu appearing as ground attack plane. I think there could be just one - it wasn't a dedicated ground mover anyway.

[Mobhack]

Gud said:
Some minor twinks.

Missing (oh, there is always something missing in Ger OOB..)

- StuIG 33. Basically a StuG III with 15cm IG. 24 used in Stalingrad and Winter Storm

- SiG II Bison. Again around 20, 15cm on Pz II chassis, open topped. Africa only.




There are only about, what 20 OOB slots free in the GE OB. I have just filled 3 to make an AI choice marder section for very low points usage late-war. (since the normal panerjaeger formations lump everything from a jagtiger to a marder I wanted a 100 or so point item, guaranteed. And since just about every unit class has been utilised, these had to be classed "wheeled SP-AT" but with track move class..)

There simply is not enough room for everything (especially as some enthusiastic previous OOB designers did things like add 27 different %^&$" useless Brandenbergers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So these minority items really cannot be justified (try using the Grille for the bison?)




Minor gripes:

- Armoured Trucks. Italy has them. They were extensivly used as makeshift APCs in COIN ops in Balkans.





Worthwhile addition, generic armoured truck, and heavens! - nobody has used the improvised APC class for something weird:)



- The 7.5cm and 10.5cm PAW in FJ formation should be artillery class, not inf-at




The formation has an inf-AT class formation, which can have these as AT weapon choices. It does not have a pack howitzer formation.

(units 505 and 506 are pack howitzer versions)





- That was prolly beaten to death, but FG-42 was more a BAR-like weapon and not the squad main armament. Would perfectly fit as LMG squad with 2-3 of those tho.





There are only limited numbers of slots left before the GE oob chokes up. I would buy the real LMG units (can reach out to 12 hexes) every time myself, so wasting a slot (more if people insisted on several variants of rifle or SMG etc) would be rather pointless.




- The 7.5cm IG 18 was issued HEAT rounds (penetration circa 60mm) for emergency AT defense.





If I buy an artillery piece, it is for duffing things up with HE. This would need taking shells out of the HE allocation, on the vague chance that light armour chanced by. That would need another unit slot, as HEAT was late war. And apart from making the gun less use to the AI by removing a round's HE fire, and being of rather limited use to the player, would eat a valuable slot for something of exteremly limited actual utility.

If some light armour was to bother my little infantry guns, I would retire to cover while bringing up some anti-tank or armoured units to deal with the particualr pest http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif




- unit 432 Pz IIIm is showing icon with a short-barreled gun while the unit has long 50mm





432 is the Pz3n, with a 75/L24. That is a short-barreled gun, surely?





- I would suggest lumping ADGZ, ex-dutch and ex-french Armoured cars in one formation - they all were anti-partisan vehicles mostly and seldom appeared in frontline units





Fully agree, that one annoys me when I am hunting Germans and dont get real GE armoured cars to kill http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

In future - please give the unit numbers, as "dutch armoured cars" means little - it could be called a muckety-muck(n), how do I know, not being an expert on German kfz numbers? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Ahah! - after faffing round for 5 minutes, "Pzspahwgn L202h" which is not an armoured car class (why I could not find it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif and already in a special formation for various junk used in rear areas, the OrPo thingy (where these other armoured cars can go the italian and the ADKZ, whatever that was)




- There are 2 instances of Fw 189 Uhu appearing as ground attack plane. I think there could be just one - it wasn't a dedicated ground mover anyway.



It should definately be an X3 radio code, so the AI does not bother with it. Appears a duplicate as well, but need to check scenarios to see if someone used one or other, or both, before deleting one, other or both.. hah! - a bright spark has added one with better FC ..

Cheers
Andy

[MarkSheppard]

There are only about, what 20 OOB slots free in the GE OB.

Did a OOB dump of the default WW2 German OOB and loaded it up in Open Office; there are 56 free slots:

201
225
325
365
366
648
658
663
683
693
709
711
763
768
782
787
807
837
841
843
869
871
872
878
879
881
899
904
910
918
919
923
924
929
948
949
952
955
958
959
965
966
967
976
978
979
981
983
984
987
988
991
993
994
996
997

Glad to be of help. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Gud]

The problem with German OOB is that no matter how many slots you have, you will always fill them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As for above thaaat Pz III n was a case of lack of coffee and shortsightness, sorry... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

SiG II can be substituted by Bison no probs. A bit harder with StuIG 33 as it's closest cousin, Brummbar, is not available in 1942. Guess I will just mobhack him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The reasoning behind cutting down Fw 189 - well, it seems SPWW2 still suffers from that old bug when you have more than 20 units of one class available, only the first 20 will pop up in the purchase window. Air strikes are most often victim of that and multiple copies of earth-shattering designs such as 189, Hs-123 or the PaK Ju88 variants don't help http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Mobhack]

The reasoning behind cutting down Fw 189 - well, it seems SPWW2 still suffers from that old bug when you have more than 20 units of one class available, only the first 20 will pop up in the purchase window. Air strikes are most often victim of that and multiple copies of earth-shattering designs such as 189, Hs-123 or the PaK Ju88 variants don't help




Formation, nation and date please for debuggery.

This problem was fixed in MBT and the WW2 code started as a copy of the winMBT code this time round, instead of the other way round.

Course - it may have just been to chop lists > 22 units or whatever, if someone had been daft enough to have so many of the same class available at the same time. Been >6 months plus, so me cannot recall the exact nature of the fix.

Anyway, there are 2 wast-of-space unit classes for WW2 type bombers which absolutely nothng uses. I may convert one to a new class for useless stuff like this UHU-tiddly-bomber, that operates as a simple fighter. And then relegate any such pipsqueaks we may have that might useful to a human player but never the AI there. a "second division fighter" or some such <G>.

That leaves the other WW2 bomber class as the only free unit class, and I may have a use for that, in some crowded OOBS http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

No - not as an armoured train class http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif - I needed a class for a section of 2 late war marders for a "guaranteed cheap" section of 2 for AI pick usage, and was stuck with wheeled SP=at even though it has tracks. (Expect to see a few more sections of 2 marders, in GE AI defence 44 on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif - plus the GE AI later on will make more use of ATG in the defence as that was the case in RL)

- 243/244 light and heavy bomber - will be reclassed
- Wheeled SP/AT I will rename to be more generally usable (Light SP-AT or such)
- Tiger plt CS tank is only useful for GE, so I may rename
- 244 heavy bomber may become another AFV class (tank or SP-AT clone)

Cheers
Andy

[Gud]

Well an additional class for ground attack planes would help a lot in some OOBs - Germans could go with a class for "cheapskates COIN" planes such as Hs-123, Hs-126 (not in game btw) and Fw-189.

And some OOBs - UK and Japan are prime examples - mix naval airplanes and "army" airplanes in one class, resulting in oddities such as Swordfishes in Italy and Jap divebombers over Mongolia.

[Gud]

Unit 588 Flammwgn B-2(f) - availabilty date should be extended to at least June '44 - this vehicle was in service of several German Ersatz tank units in Normandy.

[thatguy96]

Having aircraft of different services has been an issue of sorts since the days of the original Steel Panthers. Unless there's a way to set up a class for aircraft with restrictions like naval gun support, then I don't see there being any way to restrict this from happening. Just don't buy the swordfishes if you feel its unrealistic and if you get attacked by them, well, I don't know what to tell you.

[Mobhack]

I extended it to 7/44 as a few may have survived till then, same as unit 589 already was.

Cheers
Andy

[cbo]

Gud said:
Unit 588 Flammwgn B-2(f) - availabilty date should be extended to at least June '44 - this vehicle was in service of several German Ersatz tank units in Normandy.



There is a picture of a B2 Flammwagen (i.e. a Char B1-bis with a flamethrower) knocked out by British Paratroopers in Osterbek, Holland in September 1944 and according to Chamberlain & Doyle: "Encyclopedia of German tanks...", nine B2 Flammwagen were still in the inventory of Panzerkompanie 233 (Eastern Front or Balkans?) by 30. December 1944.

Claus B

[Gud]

Another one:

I am under very strong impression that SPA batteries (Wespe, Hummel) had 6 guns unlike standard battery size of 4.

Suggest making new unit - offboard SPA batteries each made up of 2 units 3 tubes each.

[blazejos]

Some link to page with pictures of captured combat vehicles in german service
http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/main.htm

[MarkSheppard]

There simply is not enough room for everything (especially as some enthusiastic previous OOB designers did things like add 27 different %^&$" useless Brandenbergers

I counted 15~ of them.

Slot 222
Slots 468 to 478
Slot 635
Slots 700 to 703

And yes, they're essentially useless for anything but a few specialized scenarios representing the kind of surprise attacks that they did in seizing bridges and stuff during Barbarossa.

Perhaps they could be streamlined down to about 5 units, and if the scenario creators want a specific weapon for their brandenburgers, they can edit the unit data in the scenario editor?

[Mobhack]

I knew there was a lot of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Now that they are in the OOBs, they essentially have to stay there I am afraid. They may be used in scenarios, or scenarios in user campaigns and removal is likely to result in problems.

Now we have the OOBSs under our control again, we can be more selective on what goes in (or not). But as you say - 2 of these or so would have done, if any really. Scenario designers can always make up "special farces" types from regular infantry units, as these things are really only of use in such, not in normal games.

Cheers
Andy

[blazejos]

I sugest add in german OOB in years 1937-November 1939 Selbstschutz non regular formation would be good as german partisants during hipotetical fight in Czechoslovakia and than during September Campaigne. They were armed in typical germans weapons transfered in secret for this organisation from germany kar98k , MG34 LMG and granades. Units should be similar to Volksturm in late war. I know in german OOB is only 20 slots and is hard add new units but you think about this formations. Fights with Selbstschutz in Silesia , Bydgoszcz , Torun in all western poland was a very characteristic for many battles in 1939. This german partisants were know in poland as Fifth column that was a pharaphase of General Francisco Franco who say during spain civil war "My four columns march on Madrid but fifth is in the city"

Some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschutz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column

[blazejos]

I sugest add in german OOB in years 1937-November 1939 Selbstschutz non regular formation would be good as german partisants during hipotetical fight in poland and than during September Campaigne. They were armed in typical germans weapons transfered in secret for this organisation from germany kar98k , MG34 LMG and granades. Units should be similar to Volksturm in late war. I know in german OOB is only 20 slots and is hard add new units but you think about this formations. Fights with Selbstschutz in Silesia , Bydgoszcz , Torun in all western poland was a very characteristic for many battles in 1939. This german partisants were know in poland as Fifth column that was a pharaphase of General Francisco Franco who say during spain civil war "My four columns march on Madrid but fifth is in the city http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif"

Some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selbstschutz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_column

[Mobhack]

Such units are realy not worth the bother. Less use than the 12-odds Brandenberger elements already in there.

If you really need some sort of partisan army - rewrite the Green or Blue OOB, as these generate central Europe batlocs. Not sure about Red without reading the code - probably Balkans?.

However as the only real users would be human players, you could simply add them to the OOB as new formations of irregulars of some sort. Then maybe change a few mortar units (or add some) etc. The AI would not pick them then, leaving whichever human player was to play these to select them as required.

Blue and Green exist as middle-Europe lists, to be rewritten as required by OOB designers. They have fantasy armies in place as placeholders. Red is a more soviet-supplied partisan army template for mainly Balkan mobs.

If it is only for scenarios (which really is the only worthwhile use I can see for partisan units, they are not used in campaigns and who would bother with them in regular batle generator games, really?) - simply use any old German infantry units (if you want them to use the nazi flag), and use the scenario editor to change stats etc. The "clone all" function in the CD edition makes this easy - just edit one sample unit to what you want, then use that function to copy the new stats to all others of that unit ID.

Cheers
Andy

[vic]

nail struck squarely on head...it's the "slot" problem. the poor camo guys are stuck with these integrally numbered "slots" (records within a file) all over the place. frankly what they've achieved, given the poor architecture they inherited, is nothing short of amazing.

i picture myself, in a previous professional life, telling a client that if he wanted to add more customers he'd have to get rid of some existing customers as all the "customer slots" were full. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[blazejos]

Hey that is impresive. The origins of famous bradenburger commando unit are in 1939 in one of selbstschutz unit know as kampfgruppe Ebbinghaus. http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3623