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Being a big WWII buff, it's kinda surprising that I didn't get into FOW earlier but my FLGS is having a special offer on the Open Fire box and the rulebook.

I like very defensive armies that dig in and move enemy forces into killzones so someone suggested I play Fallshcirm Jaegers and I was wondering:

Can the Stugs in the Open fire box be fielded in a Fall Schrim list? Or should I just go for the rulebook and buy some other models?

Im no expert on FJ lists for FOW but I believe that they can have StuGs attached.

Im not a huge fan of the lists anyway and always say "Play whats historical, not what BF say are historical, its not the same thing"

Historicaly you would be more then justified using StuGs with FJ.

Fallschirmjager units in Western Europe were often supported with StuGs. In Italy however, they had their own organic anti tank assets in the form of Marders.

These were crewed by Fallschirmjager, and you are able to use them. They are considered fearless veteran.

Edit: Thats not to say that they didn't have StuGs in Italy! Because they did!

You may want to check this...

http://www.feldgrau.com/FsPzJg.htm

It lists all the Fallschirm-Panzer-Jäger-Abteilungen. Not all would have been equipped with Marders. Many had to rely on towed A/T guns.

Fallschirmjager units rarely had StuGs crewed by FJ.

If you decide on a specific theatre/division then I can supply more information, as I have the returns for all Fallschirmjager units deployed in Normandy.

You could happily field StuGs with FJ... Assault gun units were often assigned to FJ divisions to provide direct support.

Big P wrote:
Fallschirmjager units rarely had StuGs crewed by FJ.

I wasn't suggesting that!

I run a LW 1750 FJ list, and I don't really care for StuGs. It depends on what you are going for of course. I like my towed AT.

Well Fallschirmjäger-Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 12 & 13 had them...


Though 13 had a mix of StuG III & IVs.

burning_phoneix wrote:Being a big WWII buff, it's kinda surprising that I didn't get into FOW earlier but my FLGS is having a special offer on the Open Fire box and the rulebook.

I like very defensive armies that dig in and move enemy forces into killzones so someone suggested I play Fallshcirm Jaegers and I was wondering:

Can the Stugs in the Open fire box be fielded in a Fall Schrim list? Or should I just go for the rulebook and buy some other models?

In Hell's Highway Briefing book, yes Fallschirmjagers have access to Stugs. Its not a bad addition to the list if you are plan on playing market garden. I believe in most FJ list you are able to take some sort of Stug attachment either as assualt guns or a panzer option in the Festung Europe Briefing book.

I have found that if you are playing mostly Americans or British forces the stugs are a nice cheap answer. As opposed to the heavier and larger Tank Destroyers or Big tanks. This allows you to spend points on heavy atrillery or more FJ Platoons.

(from a purely FoW mechanic point of view. Not Historically.)

Comintern wrote:
I have found that if you are playing mostly Americans or British forces the stugs are a nice cheap answer. As opposed to the heavier and larger Tank Destroyers or Big tanks. This allows you to spend points on heavy atrillery or more FJ Platoons.

(from a purely FoW mechanic point of view. Not Historically.)

I dunno... Seems pretty historically correct to me.

I'd take a few StuGs over a Tiger when defending any day of the week... The Germans had a hell of alot more StuGs around than any of the 'Big Cats'.

Big P wrote:Well Fallschirmjäger-Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 12 & 13 had them...

Semantics!

The FJ Marders are nice because they are a little cheaper in the scheme of things, and fearless veteran. Of course they don't due well to taking fire. In my normal list I run 4 5cm PaK38's, and while they are beginning to show their age against some of the newer Allied armor, they have a respectable AT and great rof. Perfect for Kampfgruppen. The recoilless 7.5's are great for supporting dug in infantry as well. Of course if I know I am going to be fighting all armor, I switch to Fallschirmpioneer. Which can also take StuGs!

burning_phoneix what area of interest were you thinking of?

Dagstyrr wrote:In my normal list I run 4 5cm PaK38's, and while they are beginning to show their age

Well the Germans kept them in service...


Just to be anal... I think only the 1st Para Div in Italy was actually issued any Marders and they had the Marder II, SdKfz 131.

Those seen in Russia with crews wearing FJ helmets are actually Luftwaffe Field Division A/T Battalions. The crews were issued FJ helmets.

That is correct. However, Battlefront does not make this distinction. One of the many things they don't make any distinction on.

I'm mostly thinking of taking a LW fallschrim list based on the ones at Arnhem but without too much heavy armor like tigers. More things like Stugs,Hetzers and pioneers. Basically lots of infantry digging into a defensive location and grinding it out.

burning_phoneix wrote:I'm mostly thinking of taking a LW fallschrim list based on the ones at Arnhem but without too much heavy armor like tigers. More things like Stugs,Hetzers and pioneers. Basically lots of infantry digging into a defensive location and grinding it out.

If a strong defense is what you're looking for, you might also consider regular German infantry or pioneers. They'll be confident rather than fearless, but will hit just as hard in close combat and are just as hard to hit with shooting due to their veteran status. The upside is they cost less points, so you'll be able to afford bigger units and more odds and ends a bit more easily. In my experience Fallschirmjäger, while powerful, are expensive points-wise and so tend to be smaller than regular German forces, which are already small compared to lots of other armies, like Americans and Russians.

I definitely think going for more medium armor like StuGs and Hetzers is a better idea, as opposed to heavy armor like Tigers, whether you decide on Fallschirmjäger or regular German infantry. The problem with heavy armor, especially in a smaller, more elite force like Fallschirmjäger is that you may find it hard to keep up enough momentum when you need to counterattack (and in some missions, you will have to). Tigers are cool and can be effective in some situations, but if you need to move a company or two of Russian infantry off an objective, Tigers probably won't be what you really need. StuGs are a good compromise, they are much cheaper points-wise and shouldn't have much trouble taking on medium armor.

I would also recommend, whether Fallschirmjäger or regular infantry, to take at least three infantry platoons. Almost every time I roll with only two infantry platoons, I end up wishing I'd cut some of the fancy stuff and brought more infantry. Again, it's a momentum thing. If you have to counterattack, you're probably going to want to leave at least one platoon back to cover an objective, and one infantry platoon (even with support) probably isn't going to cut it in an attack. Bring three platoons, and if you assume each platoon only has one good assault in it, you should be fine. Any platoon that wins an assault and is still strong enough to take part in another is just icing on the cake. Keep in mind, you're an infantry company. Your infantry should be your focus, not just a bit of filler so you can bring more fancy toys.

burning_phoneix wrote:I'm mostly thinking of taking a LW fallschrim list based on the ones at Arnhem but without too much heavy armor like tigers. More things like Stugs,Hetzers and pioneers. Basically lots of infantry digging into a defensive location and grinding it out.

No Fallschirmjager at Arnhem.

Plenty on XXX Corps line of advance, but none at Arnhem.

No Hetzers at Arnhem either.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dagstyrr wrote:

Big P wrote:Well Fallschirmjäger-Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 12 & 13 had them...

Semantics!

The FJ Marders are nice because they are a little cheaper in the scheme of things, and fearless veteran. Of course they don't due well to taking fire. In my normal list I run 4 5cm PaK38's, and while they are beginning to show their age against some of the newer Allied armor, they have a respectable AT and great rof. Perfect for Kampfgruppen. The recoilless 7.5's are great for supporting dug in infantry as well. Of course if I know I am going to be fighting all armor, I switch to Fallschirmpioneer. Which can also take StuGs!

burning_phoneix what area of interest were you thinking of?

Also found that Fallschirmjäger-Sturmgeschütz-Brigade 11 is suppossed to have had them, and depolyed them in Normandy... Alledgedly!

Couple of the brigades also got Jagdpanzer IVs late in the war.

Big P wrote:

burning_phoneix wrote:I'm mostly thinking of taking a LW fallschrim list based on the ones at Arnhem but without too much heavy armor like tigers. More things like Stugs,Hetzers and pioneers. Basically lots of infantry digging into a defensive location and grinding it out.

No Fallschirmjager at Arnhem.

Well, I meant market garden as a whole then.

Plenty on XXX Corps line of advance, but none at Arnhem.

No Hetzers at Arnhem either.

Did the fallschrimjaegers tangle with british paras? I seem to recall they did.

No Fallschimjager fought 1st Airborne Div. at Arnhem.

Red Devil and Green Devil locked horns in Africa.

All the FJ assets aligned against Market-Garden tended to be against the corridor and the US Airborne.

3rd Fallschirmjager Division was in bits after Normandy. Its total personnel amounted to just over a battalions worth of infantry in its three regiments. It was in a shocking state.

FJ Regiment Von Hoffman (part of KG Walther) was in better state with around 900 personnel in its two battalions.

Division 'Erdmann' was again understrength, its five FJ Regiments only managing to each put less than a battalions worth of infantry together.

The three battalions of FJR 6 only had 600 personnel in total, so roughly a battalion of men.


The confusion probably comes from the fact that Division Erdmann, scratched together from training units, is listed as being located in Arnhem. The division was an alarm formation and was spread over a wide area, and eventually formed up and went into action against XXX Corps.


The only Luftwaffe formations fighting in Arnhem were a number of Fleigerhorst Battalions made up from redundant air force personnel. These were not FJ, but base personnel, now forced into a combat role. They took little part in the fighting being relegated eventually to containment roles after failing to penetrate the drop zone defences.

There was also Luftwaffe Battalion 'Kauer', again Luftwaffe personnel having to act as ground troops.

FJ can take Stugs, but I usually take Marder II's. They are cheaper tank hunters with less armor but better guns. Throw in some smoke (Mortars w/ Smoke Bombardment), and that's the basic of my FJ army.

I also have Pak40's, but usually I take the Marders. Pak's are good if you can ambush with them though. FJ pioneers are an excellent choice for a support squad, too. I have a blister of them that I've yet to assemble myself.

I'm not sure if any of the stuff I just mentioned is historical or not. Maybe FJ's had Stugs, I don't know. I don't think FJ's were supported by Tigers or King Tigers much, but you can do it.

Noisy_Marine wrote:I don't think FJ's were supported by Tigers or King Tigers much, but you can do it.

They were in the Ardennes...

burning_phoneix wrote:I'm mostly thinking of taking a LW fallschrim list based on the ones at Arnhem but without too much heavy armor like tigers. More things like Stugs,Hetzers and pioneers. Basically lots of infantry digging into a defensive location and grinding it out.

One thing to also keep in mind, that in Operation Market Garden, Fallschirmjagers have the awesome upgrade that allows them to become PanzerFaust Rifle/MG teams. While, expensive one or two of these in a platoon will certainly make enemy armor very hesitant to launch an assault against you!

In the list personally I would go with the Motorised Waffen-SS Artillery Battery. the 15cm guns, while expensive certainly allow me to deal with anything as well as dig entrenched enemy infantry.

Just out of interest... Why would any tank assault infantry?

Its the opposite of what WW2 tanks did.

Historically accurate or not, my Tigers roll over infantry all the GD time!

If the infantry do not have Bazookas or a high AT attack why not assault Infantry with a tank. Historically accurate or not, Infantry take motivation tests to stay in assault regardless. Not to mention it highly favors the Tank.

Especially if the Infantry is Dug in, which no doubt they will be! You cant dig them out by just shooting.

Er... Ok... So the one thing that tanks were vulnerable too, close infantry assault, doesnt matter in FOW?

Tanks would never attack dug-in infantry... That just leads to satchel charges or AT mines on the tank. How does a tank do anything to dug-in infantry? They would just lie down in their foxholes. The crews would have to get out to do anything! LOL!

In WW2 tanks were not designed to assault infantry. That was a job for infantry supported by artillery.

Oh well... Guess I know why I dont play FOW then.

How strange to have WW2 rules that seem utterly at odds to what really happened.

Because FoW is like the 40k of WWII miniatures. It isnt so much historically accurate.

I have to say that in early war this is not a problem, you'd have to be stupid to assault dug in infantry with tanks. Guess this is why I dont play FOW Mid-Late.

I have complained long and loud about BF's buying into the Tiger myth lock, stock and barrel and their apparent German bias, particularly in their army lists, but they keep selling and getting bigger and bigger, so what do I know?

It does worry me that there is an entire generation discovering WW2 history that are treating everything BF say as gospel.

I've been noticing several posters on Dakka keep presenting this idea that FoW isn't historically accurate and that BF has a pro-German bias and similar ideas. I was wondering if any of you actually have any real evidence of this? I've heard similar comments before, and it seems to me that a lot of it is a bit of an exaggeration.

While it is true that you can have unhistorical matchups in FoW, like British vs. Americans and stuff like that, and it is also true that Battlefront's organization charts allow for forces that are heavier on divisional support than would be normal for an average company in WWII. However, if any of you have been over to BF's website, you will notice that it has tons and tons of history articles on campaigns, organization, weapons and equipment, etc., and many of the books are even based on historical units and the equipment that was available to them. For example, there was a lot of uncommon and unique equipment fielded in North Africa, and most of the books released for the North African campaign have restricted this equipment to the divisions that actually had them.

And I must ask Aldramelech, how is it that you feel that BF has bought into the Tiger myth "lock, stock and barrel?" Sure, Tiger's have strong armor and a powerful gun, along with Tiger Ace skills, but they are slow, have slow traverse, and cost a lot of points in LW. In MW they are even more expensive, almost prohibitively so. Not to mention the fact that there are plenty of other tanks in FOW that can outmatch the Tiger. Panthers have a more powerful gun with only a bit less range, and better front armor. IS-2s also have a very powerful gun and great armor.

And Big P, I take it you're not that familiar with the rules? I'm not trying to dis you, I just want to make sure I know where you're coming from. You asked if "the one thing that tanks were vulnerable to, close infantry assault, doesn't matter in FOW?" That couldn't be farther from the truth. It matters a lot.

Tanks are probably more vulnerable in in assault than anything else in the game. Let me explain some of the disadvantages that tanks have in assault, along with a few of the advantages.

Disadvantages
If tanks are assaulted by infantry who did not move in the movement phase and assault from concealing terrain, the tanks get no defensive fire. This makes heavily wooded and urban terrain very deadly for tanks. Also, if tanks assault into difficult terrain (a bad idea), they have to make repeated bog checks, basically any time they move or counterattack, or retreat.

Another disadvantage is that there are no firepower checks in assault. If a tank takes a penetrating hit, it is automatically destroyed, and if it takes a glancing hit, it is automatically bailed. If the other tanks retreat and any bailed tanks are left behind, they are automatically destroyed (i.e. captured, disabled, or whatever). Keep in mind that almost all tanks except for the heaviest have a top armor of 1, and even heavy tanks only have a top armor of 2, and this means that even regular infantry can bail most tanks. If they are engineers or pioneers, your tanks will be in trouble.

Another big problem is that all defensive fire from a unit that tanks are assaulting hits side armor. So this mean any AT guns that you have interspersed with your infantry (which is a good idea if you want a strong defense) will be hitting the tanks lower side armor.

Of course, there are a few up-sides.

Advantages
Tanks don't get thrown back if they take 5 hits from defensive fire.

Infantry have to make a motivation test to be able to assault or counter-attack tanks.

That's basically it.

So no, FOW isn't some crazy unhistorical game where tanks are assaulting dug-in infantry in heavily wooded, urban, or otherwise rough terrain with impunity.

I'll sum it up with one example:

Early war Polish, no AA or Air? Really? Has anyone from BF read anything on the Polish campaign? I suspect they have, Did giving Poland those assets in the game damage the Germans (their biggest seller) viability as a tournament army? Damn tooting.

Germans taking bogging down checks, come on! Not the biggest challenge for them is it?

Aldramelech wrote:I'll sum it up with one example:

Early war Polish, no AA or Air? Really? Has anyone from BF read anything on the Polish campaign? I suspect they have, Did giving Poland those assets in the game damage the Germans (their biggest seller) viability as a tournament army? Damn tooting.

Germans taking bogging down checks, come on! Not the biggest challenge for them is it?

I think part of the reason that Germans are their biggest seller is simply because Germans are the primary "bad guy" army in the game. Yes, there are several other minor Axis powers, but most people think of Germans as the main Axis army. While the Allies on the other hand have three primary armies: Americans, British, and Soviets, and now that EW is released, you could even include the French in that (although I doubt they'll reach the sales levels of the other three). The point is though, because there is only one main Axis army and three main Allied armies, it makes sense that the Germans would be one of the top sellers.

And what do you mean Germans taking bogging down checks? Are you referring to my comments about tanks in assault? Keep in mind that the same is true for every other army that can field veteran armor, which includes at least Americans and British. Have you ever actually taken a platoon of tanks into rough terrain to assault infantry? While it might be easy to pass a bog check here and there, when you are rolling bog checks for every vehicle every round of combat, they start to add up fast and tanks tend to start getting stuck. With small German tank platoons of maybe three or four tanks, even having one tank bog can be crippling, and it gets worse really quick if you actually start getting tanks knocked out by the enemy.

I don't think that the lack of Polish AA and Air is really a smoking gun in regards to a pro-German bias. I will agree with you that it was an oversight (and Battlefront has made mistakes before, and usually admitted to them afterwards - a case in point is the lack of Soviet Motostrelkovy SMGs in Festung Europe) There are certainly MANY other units in the game that can easily "damage the Germans viability as a tournament army." I'm guessing it's probably too early to tell, but have Polish armies struggled to beat Germans in tournaments so far?

That was no oversight and BF have tried to justify their decision and failed in my opinion. Germans with Priority Stuka support against Poles with no way of stopping them? Very historical..............

But it makes no difference to me and my opponents, we don't play tournaments and we play the game and make the lists to fit the history, not BF's sales priorities.

Smoking gun? Smoking Howitzer maybe.

Hordini wrote:

And Big P, I take it you're not that familiar with the rules? I'm not trying to dis you, I just want to make sure I know where you're coming from. You asked if "the one thing that tanks were vulnerable to, close infantry assault, doesn't matter in FOW?" That couldn't be farther from the truth. It matters a lot.

Tanks are probably more vulnerable in in assault than anything else in the game. Let me explain some of the disadvantages that tanks have in assault, along with a few of the advantages.

Nope never played it, so I have no idea on the rules, just sounded very odd!

Thanks for the explanantion. Still not really my cup of tea though... Probably more for the 'potted-WW2-history' thing more than the rules (though they have some excellent, though not always correct, articles on their website I note). But I also have an aversion to 15mm WW2 figures... Im a 20mm man. At the end of the day all rules are abstracts, just being able to close assault with tanks sounded very odd for a WW2 game. I also have an aversion to multiple bases for WW2 games unless its 6mm!

They do however seem to make the army lists favour certain items (only seen from cursory glances at books and anecdotal comments)... It reminds me of GW and the 'must-have' unit syndrome. I would also be of the opinion that a points driven game cant be historical, unless you play it with no regard to the points and use historical 'match-ups', and I know some people do and the rules seem to work for that too.

Still if people enjoy it, fair enough, and an exposure to WW2 history is always a good thing for the 'yoofs', though it would be nice to see it a bit more factual. Though that may only appeal to the anal rivet-counters like me!

Comintern wrote:Because FoW is like the 40k of WWII miniatures. It isnt so much historically accurate.

I don't know how historically accurate 40k is, either, really.

There's certainly room for preferences, but after a point a game has to break historical accuracy as by design a game is kind of a 'What if?' scenario. If not, we'd jsut be palying through the same battles with never a change. FoW is pretty loose, and sometimes seems to venture into 'cinematic' territory, I notice.