Gliders or Paratroop transport?

[Mobhack]

why do gliders show as DESTROYED after a landing?even when they
land ok?

Gliders fly to the LZ then offload troops and are then marked as destroyed because they are no further use to the player. If they were left "live" then the AI would spend lots of time shooting them up if it got LOS to them as soft vehicle type targets.

In reality, the glider crews left the things and went to a central rally point and were eventually sent home. They are too valuable as trained pilots to use as infantry.

Another point to destroying them on landing - it stops silly players using the glider crews as "scouts". It also gives their VP to the opposite player, making the use of glider borne troops need a bit of thought.

The gliders advantage is that any troops landed in them are reasonably concentrated on landing whereas paratroops are usually spread all over the landscape like confetti. Gliders like about 500M of open flat space to land on - they do not like trees, orchards, buildings, slope hexes, marshland, rough ground or water landing hexes!. Good visibility reduces landing crashes, but this opens up the chance of AAA, and gliders are slow fliers...

Cheers
Andy

[chuckfourth]

Hi Andy
Any chance of removing the suppression the landed gliders give to their own troops?

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by chuckfourth

Hi Andy
Any chance of removing the suppression the landed gliders give to their own troops?

The gliders will give no suppression to the landed troops, as they aren't destroyed by enemy action, just marked as destroyed.

Any destruction would only count in the landing phase anyway, since wrecks have no suppressive effect beyond the destruction phase when all the troops are forming up, so are somewhat useless anyway?. You don't just land and go - see the glider landing at arnhem - but the forming up time for glider troops will be less than if you shotgunned paratroopers all over half a county. However either type of air landing troop if it falls under the guns of any formed enemy will be toast.

Cheers
Andy

[Marek_Tucan]

Do not forget that no Abn Regiment commander is going to borrow some ground pounder schmuck colonel a company or a platoon to support his smallish tactical offensive If you want airborne op in PBEM, you should make it all airborne and then the battle conditions would have to be finely tuned (points for attacker/defender etc.).

[Cross]

Good point about paras hanging in the air an extra turn to get shot at. Forgot about that.

I think the reason gliders show as destroyed after landing, is otherwise they could be redeployed, or cause a glitch if you tried to redeploy. Something like that.

[JohnHale]

Internet Shorthand - "If I recall correctly"

[reverend]

Gliders landing code changed - crew is reduced to 0 etc. as before, but they are marked as just STATUS_ABANDONED, not as STATUS_DESTROYED.

That is an excellent change and also more closely portraits the real-life practice.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Originally Posted by reverend

That is an excellent change and also more closely portraits the real-life practice.

Agreed, Gliders showing as destroyed gets you into troubles, since you'll propably waste 3 turns or more until your units can get to their rally point