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Hello there, I recently got into FOW and made a purchase. I've decided to play the German Panzergrenadiers. My purchase included 10 Opel Blitz, 5 Sdkfz 251/D, 5 Stug and a company of German infantry. All of it were from PSC, except Opel Blitz which is from Zvezda. Im just wondering did I purchase way too much truck. The army list I was thinking about was 2 platoon mounted on truck, 1 platoon mounted on half track, one 3 unit stug platoon, and the rest 2 stug, will form a unit of sturmhaubtze. This will be the nucleus of my panzergrenadier company and I will add more to it later. What do you guys think? C & C are welcomed.

Anything with Stugs in it makes me smile...

Thank you for the quick reply, well I tend to be a themed person and I find it unrealistic to include tanks in a panzergrenadier division. I believe in reality, most panzergrenadier divisions were issued assault guns in their panzer battalion rather than actual tanks. Forgive me if Im wrong thou.

If you're interested in a Panzergrenadier division (as opposed to the Panzergrens who were part of a Panzer Division), you might also want to look at the 90th PanzerGren list found in Cassino. It's an early '44 list, which means no Panzerfausts (even for the command teams), but otherwise it's probably exactly what you're looking for.

I like that you're being very realistic with your list, however to point out a tid-bit, it wasn't uncommon for Stugs or other SPG's during the war to support Panzer Grendier divisions, infact I am 90% positive that most panzer Grendier divisions did have atleast an armored support company as an attachment.

To your question of whether you went overboard on the trucks... in the current edition, I'd say yes, I never see platoons mounted in non-armored transports moving across the board, and with good reason, they get blown to bits pretty easily!

Transports in v3 are supposed to get far better (I'm not sure on details, but transports getting better has been mentioned a lot in v3 sneak peak threads). If so, you may just be ahead of the curve .

Can i use those trucks to tow artilleries and anti-tank guns?

IIRC yes. But it is easier If they come attached to their platoon.

Yes you can but why would you want to? You will be wasting upwards of 2 turns of shooting by towing your guns and setting them up, by which point the enemy will be on you, or their artillery will have smashed you in transit. Better by a country mile to have sited your guns effectively at the start of the game, remember some AT-Gun Platoon can be used in Ambush (if mission allows), this can be great for getting shots at side armour.

So theres little uses for the unarmored trucks in this version, do you guys ever use trucks?

danli7 wrote:So theres little uses for the unarmored trucks in this version, do you guys ever use trucks?

Nope. Sd 251/1 FTW

Sigh, guess I bought too much trucks...

Don't worry you will use them! I use them in MW Burning Empires and Raiding forces, they make good objectives and are also useful in Convoy missions. Having extra vehicles is no bad thing, you can proxy them for other vehicles "This is truck is a Kubelwagen ok?" type thing, plus it means your Infantry can become truck bourne Pioneers. (very useful if you want to make a Panzer list, with a Supporting platoon of Pioneers in Trucks and a AA platoon pour example!). As a German Player Trucks feature in more lists than 251's, plus V3 next month will radically change the meta-game.

Just because I said I don't use them for towing, doesn't mean I don't use them. keep them, they will come in handy.

If you've got enough cover and have managed to hold the enemy off, then they can be a handy way of getting infantry up to the front line.

Also, V3 will be bringing changes, and we know that Transports will be changed somehow. Unfortunately, the details aren't entirely clear yet, although apparently WI 292 has a good-sized section talking about many of the changes.

I use the trucks with my 5. SS to move my troops up to an assault line or as close to an objective as possible. After that its dismounted with trucks sent to the rear.

Mat

It's been confirmed that trucks sent to the rear now can be called back with certain conditions.

It's been confirmed that trucks sent to the rear now can be called back with certain conditions.

Really? That's pretty snazzy,

Mat

It is also confirmed that arty can fire either directly or bombardment the turn it unlimbers.

Whoa, moving artillery sudden becomes more viable.

That it does. I've a six gun battery of 10.5cm for my Wiking, but am "upgrading" to a battery of four Wespes. May have to keep the six guns around for some 3 edition trial rulings.

Mat

You sure about the firing bombardments part?

I know that one of the previews mentioned that unlimbering artillery can direct fire, but I didn't hear about the bombardments.

But honestly, that's fine by me. Towing artillery anywhere in V3 was a pointlessly long excursion that required many turns to complete.

For those that never tried it, here were the V2 steps to towing guns:
1. First you had to drive up the transport and mount the gun, thus the gun was unavailable for that turn.
2. Second turn you move the transport to its new location and try to park it in a place where the enemy won't simply blow it up, but also where the gun might actually be able to shoot something 2 turns later.
3. Then on the third turn you unlimber the gun, but then it can't fire because it moved.

So using a transport meant an entire 3 turns of not shooting direct or bombarding unless you happen to have horse artillery. 3 turns in FoW's timescale is often half the game.