Paratroopers?

[Combat Ingrid]

I'm currently playing Marla's world map (awesome!) as the French, reaching the end of the industrial period.
I will soon (~20 turns) get a cultural win and decided to wipe out the sneak-attacking Egyptian bastards immediately after before I quit the game. They control most of the northern half of Africa as well as the arabian peninsula and a few cities at Ural mountains (bordering to my cities).

I'm currently building up a huge army of Battleships, bombers, carriers (to take bombers around africa so I can bomb them from all directions) and tanks. I will also develop marines (in 5 turns) to raze their coastal cities in the first turn of warfare

Now I'm thinking whether to develop paratroopers. They can drop "within operational range", but how far is that? I have not found any information about that, although I have probably missed something obvious somewhere...
If the range is good, it seems like a good idea to get them to quickly reach the non-coastal cities after bombing them to stone-age

Any input? I don't want to waste those 4 turns researching them when mech.inf. is just around the corner, so testing is not an option

[Willem]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid
I'm currently playing Marla's world map (awesome!) as the French, reaching the end of the industrial period.
I will soon (~20 turns) get a cultural win and decided to wipe out the sneak-attacking Egyptian bastards immediately after before I quit the game. They control most of the northern half of Africa as well as the arabian peninsula and a few cities at Ural mountains (bordering to my cities).

I'm currently building up a huge army of Battleships, bombers, carriers (to take bombers around africa so I can bomb them from all directions) and tanks. I will also develop marines (in 5 turns) to raze their coastal cities in the first turn of warfare

Now I'm thinking whether to develop paratroopers. They can drop "within operational range", but how far is that? I have not found any information about that, although I have probably missed something obvious somewhere...
If the range is good, it seems like a good idea to get them to quickly reach the non-coastal cities after bombing them to stone-age

Any input? I don't want to waste those 4 turns researching them when mech.inf. is just around the corner, so testing is not an option

Look in your editor, it will have the numbers you're looking for.

[Combat Ingrid]

lol, never thought about that

Thx for telling me what should be obvious, now I know it's only 4 (hoped it was 8), seems to be more worthwile building tanks and marines instead

[Willem]

Originally posted by Combat Ingrid
lol, never thought about that

Thx for telling me what should be obvious, now I know it's only 4 (hoped it was 8), seems to be more worthwile building tanks and marines instead

Or you could just change the numbers.

[bogatir]

I wouldn't waste the time to research tech for Paratroopers if you haven't already done it.

In addition to their short range, you'll find your Paratroopers are a fairly snoozy bunch -- they can't attack on the turn they drop. Argh.

[Willem]

Originally posted by bogatir
I wouldn't waste the time to research tech for Paratroopers if you haven't already done it.

In addition to their short range, you'll find your Paratroopers are a fairly snoozy bunch -- they can't attack on the turn they drop. Argh.

And what's wrong with that? A real life paratrooper has some definite time constraints when deployed. First of all he's dangling in mid air for quite some time, a sitting duck all the while. Then when he does touch ground he has to free himself from his harness, ready his weapon, then find some sort of defensive position for the almost inevitable counterattack. After all, you can see a paratrooper in the air for miles around. It's probably one of the most dangerous roles to play in any offensive. Have you ever heard of Operation Market Garden? Those guys were slaughtered. It's a wonder any of them got out alive.

[Hydey]

they are good for cutting lines of supply , drop them behind a blocking city and destroy roads/rail preventing reinforcments from getting through.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Hydey
they are good for cutting lines of supply , drop them behind a blocking city and destroy roads/rail preventing reinforcments from getting through.

Which is exactly what they're used for in real life. They're not meant to be used as an assault group, they're to vulnerable. They're mainly used as support, primarily in areas where the chance of a counterattack is minimal. Other wise they'd all be dead before they even set foot on the ground.

However, I think with a range of 4 they're not much use as is. I think 6 at least would be more reasonable. Or even the same range as a Bomber, whatever that is.

[bogatir]

Hey, if I've got a bunch of guys on the payroll who spend most of their days running around yelling "hooah!" and getting in fistfights with the combat engineers, then by golly they're going to fight when I drop them somewhere.

Aside from that, I understand all of the arguments about why they don't attack on the turn they drop. Doesn't bother me a bit. I just wouldn't waste four or five turns going down a dead-end tech to get them if I wanted to gear-up to stomp some other civ. I hardly ever research the tech to get paratroopers when Modern Armor is just around the corner.

The part about the paratroopers dangling in the harness is pretty good, though. Especially considering the turns are one or two years. That's a lot of dangling.

Hooah.

[Willem]

Originally posted by bogatir
Hey, if I've got a bunch of guys on the payroll who spend most of their days running around yelling "hooah!" and getting in fistfights with the combat engineers, then by golly they're going to fight when I drop them somewhere.

Their purpose in real life campaigns is not to hit the ground running and attack anything that moves. If that's your only use for them, then I'm not surprised that you're not satisfied with their performance. If you start looking at their role more strategically, you might find that they are very valuable. In any military campaign, paratroopers have never been used all that much due to their vulnernability. But when they have been used effectively (sorry but I can't think of any specifics) they've been very useful to the overall battle. They are a special tactics unit, not meant for a
frontal assault. In reality, they're lucky to even get their feet on the ground. If use them as such, you might find them very worthwhile.

[bogatir]

Yep, yep. All of that right in line with how paratroops have been used historically. None of which suits my less-than-subtle approach to solving sticky territorial issues with the AI.

Some folks build paratroops and drop them around to mess up the enemy. I just build a bunch of fast, shooty units and smoosh that sucker flat. Either way works, that’s the beauty of the game.

Cheers.

[Willem]

Originally posted by bogatir
Yep, yep. All of that right in line with how paratroops have been used historically. None of which suits my less-than-subtle approach to solving sticky territorial issues with the AI.

Some folks build paratroops and drop them around to mess up the enemy. I just build a bunch of fast, shooty units and smoosh that sucker flat. Either way works, that’s the beauty of the game.

Cheers.

Yeah well, it's just a matter of preference. I get more satisfaction if I can use some tricky manovuere, rather than shoving 20-30 tank units down his throat.

[Aeson]

I think allowing marines to attack directly out of helicopters would be a good idea. Paratroopers should be carried by bombers, I don't recall any real life instances of helicopters being used in this capacity. Maybe planes that are shot down should have a chance of becoming paratroopers

But when they have been used effectively (sorry but I can't think of any specifics) they've been very useful to the overall battle.

Ah, the Dirty Dozen, Air Force One... but movies don't count. The worth of Paratroopers is the fact that they can strike behind enemy lines, not that they do. The threat of these types of attacks keep defenses from concentrating soley on their borders.

[Dodgy Geezer]

The problem with Paratroops in Civ3 is that their reason for being is made redundant by railways and no bridges.

IN WW2 I believe they were used as decoys - to draw away troops from the front, and to capture and hold key bridges, although for the latter they did go in gliders if I remember my war films correctly.

Since CIV3 does not have choke points that are away from the sea, their use is pretty redundant.

Now if they were to change the rules so that you couldn't RR mountains, that might change.

[Kc7mxo]

A range of 4 is barely enough to get them out of YOUR country, let alone into anyone elses. Paratroopers are, barring extremly unsual circumstances, utterly worthless.

Marines on the other hand are a somewhat overlooked unit. With a large fleet of battleships and bombers, marines can be used to steadily annilate any coastal city and put only the single marine unit that succesffully captures the city at risk.

[Harovan]

The only 2 examples of using paratroopers in WW2 by the Germans were the reinforcement of the Narvik assault force (originally mountaineers and navy) and the occupation of Crete.

The former turned into some kind of "guerilla war", with the German forces being heavily inferior against British and Norvegian forces. They held the fortress only, because the upcoming battle in France made it necessary for the British to concentrate their forces elsewhere.

In the latter the Germans managed to take the island from the British, who surrendered a few days after the drop, but took severe losses and the High command decided not to make any airdrop operations for the whole rest of the war. In fact, the remaining paratroops were used later as some kind of "elite infantry".

As for the Allied forces, I see the huge Market Garden operation, which was a complete disaster.

In my opinion, paratroops are good for small "commando" style operations, but their training and equipment is too valuable to allow it to be slaughtered in spectacular but tactical messy airdrop assaults.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


As for the Allied forces, I see the huge Market Garden operation, which was a complete disaster.

If Montgomery would have taken the information coming from the Dutch resistance seriously, it could have turned out much differently. He refused to believe that there was a Panzer division in the area, which the Allied forces weren't prepared to deal with.

Paratroopers were also used on DDay if I recall correctly.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Willem
Paratroopers were also used on DDay if I recall correctly.

Yes, but it was as disastrous as Market Garden. They were dropped mostly in wrong positions, without sane objectives and were facing troups they had no idea before that they were there.

[Dodgy Geezer]

Couldn't resists a quick check on google for paras. Picked up these

QUOTE:
1) Celebes Island [NEI] Menado-Kema area [target Langoan Airfield]; IJN 1 Yokosuka SNLF (Air) [CO Cdr Toyoaki Horiuchi]; 334 men were dropped from G3M1-L transport aircraft on 11 Jan 42 and 185 more paratroops on 12 Jan 42.
2) Sumatra Island [NEI] Palembang area [target Palembang 1 Airfield]; IJA 2 Parachute Regiment of 1 Parachute Brigade [CO Col Seiichi Kume]; 360 paratroops were dropped from Ki-56 and Ki-57 transport aircraft on 14 Jan 42 and 100 more men on the next day.
3) Timor Island [NEI] Dili-Koepang area [target Penfoei Airfield]; IJN 3 Yokosuka SNLF (Air) [CO Lt Cdr Koichi Fukumi]; 308 paratroops were dropped from G3M1-L planes on 20 Feb 42 and 323 more on the next day. Seizing of Timor was the first combined paratroop and amphibious operation in the history of warfare.

All three paratroop operations carried out in the beginning of the war were successful. (source http://www.j-aircraft.com/faq/japane...rations_in.htm)

QUOTE: During the eight years of war waged by the French Army in Vietnam against the Communist forces of the Vietminh, the two military actions which earned the greatest material and moral success— with the least losses and in the shortest time—— were the Airborne raids on 9 November 1952 at Phu-Dean, and on 17 July 1953 at Lang Son. (http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Qu...chuteraids.htm)

So it looks like they have been used successsfully. I guess dropping onto Islands or into jungles where there are limited garisons might be one of the few effective ways of using them in CIV3 as well - if only their range was a little bit greater. As it stands it is as easy to land marines or conventional forces.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dodgy Geezer

So it looks like they have been used successsfully. I guess dropping onto Islands or into jungles where there are limited garisons might be one of the few effective ways of using them in CIV3 as well - if only their range was a little bit greater. As it stands it is as easy to land marines or conventional forces.

I agree, their is range is to low, but that's easy to fix in the editor. I think they should at least have the same range as a Bomber, since the aircraft used by both is not that much different I believe.

[Dimension]

Willem:

It's a little silly attempting to bring real life into this and say that paratroopers can't attack on the same turn because they have to land and cut their lines. A turn is between 1 and 50 years, and bringing "real life" into it only makes it even more ridiculous. It really shouldn't take a year for troops to get out of their harnesses and find their bearings.

We accept certain flaws in scale -- a city spanning a thousand miles, an airplane being airborn for a couple years but not even having the range to cross an ocean, etc. Bringing "real life" into it isn't a legitimate explanation for paratroopers being mostly useless. You can justify the most absurd in-game occurrences (like some people here explain combat results) by mentioning a random real-life phonomenon, but for every flaw you justify with "real life," there are 1000 other game aspects that are asinine if compared with reality.

[barefootbadass]

Good grief, its only a range of 4? I thought it was 6. Anyway, the only 'specialized' unit I find use for are marines, they can allow you to establish a beachhead and unload all of your heavy stuff without wasting their turn giving you access to some railroad and the ability to press further inland. I guess a transport full of paratroops could be launched from that beachead to strategic positions, but with a range of 4 you barely pass the depth modern armor can reach unless its all mountains. A range of 6 might make them truely useful in this way to disrupt a resource or luxury, or merely to act as cannon fodder.

[Delta-V]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
The only 2 examples of using paratroopers in WW2 by the Germans were the reinforcement of the Narvik assault force (originally mountaineers and navy) and the occupation of Crete.

Don't forget the attack on Eben Emael, the Belgish fortress guarding the bridges across the Maas river. German Fallshirmjagers (paratroopers) landed (in gliders) on top of the fortress itself, and on the 3 bridges. They overwhelmed the defenders using flamethrowers and satchel charges. Only one bridge was blown in the process, allowing the ground forces to quickly link up with the airborne troops.

One of the keys of airborne operations is rapid linkup with ground forces, since they can't stand alone in enemy territory very long. The British 1st Airborne got slaughtered at Arnheim because the British XXX corps couldn't get there in time.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dimension
Willem:

It's a little silly attempting to bring real life into this and say that paratroopers can't attack on the same turn because they have to land and cut their lines. A turn is between 1 and 50 years, and bringing "real life" into it only makes it even more ridiculous. It really shouldn't take a year for troops to get out of their harnesses and find their bearings.

We accept certain flaws in scale -- a city spanning a thousand miles, an airplane being airborn for a couple years but not even having the range to cross an ocean, etc. Bringing "real life" into it isn't a legitimate explanation for paratroopers being mostly useless. You can justify the most absurd in-game occurrences (like some people here explain combat results) by mentioning a random real-life phonomenon, but for every flaw you justify with "real life," there are 1000 other game aspects that are asinine if compared with reality.

Yes I admit that I'm definitely stretching it. I was merely trying to point out that there is a certain logic to it, rather than it being a design flaw. At any rate, it's not really that important since that's something that's easily changed anyway. And I agree with you that Paratroopers are mostly useless as is, though my main issue is the range. It should be at least 6.

[bogatir]

Also, German airborne and airlanding troops were used extensively during the invasion of the Netherlands. They dropped on several key objectives and had a heck of a fight on their hands for a couple of days until the heavier ground troops managed to link up. IIRC, there was even an instance of a key bridge captured by some guys who landed next to it in pontoon planes. And some guys who landed at a soccer stadium (in The Hague, I think) and then rode one of the city trams to their objective.

None of that makes the 4 turns researching advanced flight to get paratroopers worth the effort. If I want to have some really fast movers around to ‘go deep’ on the AI before I build modern armor, I simply keep all of my ‘Elite’ cavalry units around when I start building tanks. (‘Veteran’ cavalry units get scrapped to speed tank production. Hi-yo, Silver.)

Since I seldom have a city (to launch paratroops assaults from) within 1 tile of a border, that means the cavalry can get deeper in one turn’s move than the paratroops. They can start at a border and move 3 tiles through hostile territory – or even fight their way onto an occupied objective or mop up some of the AI’s unguarded workers. Meanwhile, I skip research on Advanced Flight (because helicopters are only marginally less useless than paratroops, IMHO) and study up on either Computers (for mech infantry) or Ecology (as the first step to getting modern armor).

Cheers.

[Dimension]

Willem-

It's interesting that there are so many people in the Civ community comfortable changing the game rules. I suppose it doesn't matter in a single-player game if you think it improves the game and you can actually psychologically separate changing some rules with outright cheating.

The biggest problem with changing the rules is the AI. The AI is tuned for the standard rules set, so I wonder how it would react to rule changes. I'm sure there are some places where the AI will adapt and some places where it won't. That is, if you modify a unit, would the AI make appropriate use of it?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Dimension
Willem-

It's interesting that there are so many people in the Civ community comfortable changing the game rules. I suppose it doesn't matter in a single-player game if you think it improves the game and you can actually psychologically separate changing some rules with outright cheating.

The biggest problem with changing the rules is the AI. The AI is tuned for the standard rules set, so I wonder how it would react to rule changes. I'm sure there are some places where the AI will adapt and some places where it won't. That is, if you modify a unit, would the AI make appropriate use of it?

First of all I don't consider it cheating, I look at it as customising. There's not been a Civ game yet that I've fully agreed with all of the ways they've implemented things. In Civ II ToT, I pretty much redid the entire tech tree because I felt they left out some very important things (nice to see they finally recognize Printing as a major advance). Plus I didn't care much for the endgame, so I changed it around until I felt comfortable with. But it was just as difficult to play as the game that came out of the box. That's one of the beauties of the game. Within a basic framework, you can mold it to what ever shape you want. Once they add some new features to the editor, it could be a very interesting game when it comes to customization.

As for the AI using them, that's more or less a question of trial and error. Sometimes they use them properly, sometimes they don't. You just have to see what happens. Generally though some minor alteration like Range/Attack etc. have no effect on how the AI uses them. It's when you get into the special ability flags that you might get some snags.

P.S. There's also the possibillty that you might create something that the AI exploits better than you imagined, and wish you hadn't come up with.

[Kc7mxo]

Good grief, its only a range of 4? I thought it was 6. Anyway, the only 'specialized' unit I find use for are marines, they can allow you to establish a beachhead and unload all of your heavy stuff without wasting their turn giving you access to some railroad and the ability to press further inland. I guess a transport full of paratroops could be launched from that beachead to strategic positions, but with a range of 4 you barely pass the depth modern armor can reach unless its all mountains. A range of 6 might make them truely useful in this way to disrupt a resource or luxury, or merely to act as cannon fodder.

um. i was under the impression that paratroopers could only paradrop from cities which had airports. i haven't played in a while, and only used them once, am i incorrect here?

[Unregistered]

Some small points about paras, both in game & out.

In game:

Range is now 6 at least, maybe more. It was increased in the patch. & can be increased to taste in the editor.

Yes, they have to take off from an airport.

They are a fairly special purpose unit, obviously, but can be extremely effective in the right situations.

For example, an enemy stack of tanks is near your borders & it would be nice to burn a few of them. But when you attack, they retreat. Well, cut off the lines of retreat w/ paratroopers & then smash away. This is particularly effective in mountain terrain, both because they're able to penetrate much further into enemy territory than even modern armor will and the defensive bonus pretty much ensures that they'll survive, especially if you stack them two or three deep. Also nice to reach that isolated enemy mountain stronghold that would take your armor 4 turns or so to reach. They can do it in two. Or as a quick reinforcement for a city your ground pounders can't reach for a couple of turns because the enemy has bombed out the road thru the mountain pass, & your last mech infantry is hanging by a thread w/ 12 enemy tanks one move away, and you don't have an airport to airlift reinforcements in with.

They can be also be used to assault across a narrow straight of water if there are no transports or marines handy. This is particularly useful if the enemy civ either doesn't have the resources for or the tech for tanks, or other modern units that would make life uncomfortable for the paras.

All of the above situations I've run into playing the game. & no, I haven't changed the range in the editor, I've left it at whatever the patch changed it to. Soren has said in chat that the ai shouldn't have a problem with a change like this. But as Willem noted earlier, you may not like what it will do with it....

In real life:

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the Germans never again used paratroopers as airborne assault troops after Crete. This was Hitler's call, not the German High commands. What Crete did do was point up the fact that paratroopers cannot be expected to serve as the primary forces in an assault. (Being airmobile means traveling light which means your heavy weapons capability is non-existant) This was the lesson the Allies took from that experience.

The paratroopers landed by the Allies prior to the Normandy invasion is probably the best large scale use of paratroopers on record. & yes, they did encounter enormous problems with sticks being scattered due to wind and units becoming seperated from their supplies, etc. As a result they were not as successful as they could have been. Several jobs they were assigned to do were not completed. But they were able to complete a suprising number of their assigned objectives, in some cases later than their timetables called for, but most of those cases worked out ok. One of the biggest things they accomplished for the rest of the invasion forces was to add a lot of suprise & confusion for the Germans, which made them slow to react & when they did react it wasn't always in a productive direction due to the confusion. Were they crucial to the effort? Probably not. The landings would almost certainly have succeeded without them. But without them it would have also been a much messier affair.

Market-Garden was pretty much a c*ckup from the paras point of view. I don't even want to get into that. Suffice it to say that the paras did the jobs they had been tasked with on that op.

Enuff 4 now,

[Willem]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Some small points about paras, both in game & out.

In game:

Range is now 6 at least, maybe more. It was increased in the patch. & can be increased to taste in the editor.

Mine wasn't, I just looked at it yesterday and it was still 4. I've changed it to 6 now though. I'm thinking of changing that to 7. A bomber has 6, and a Paratroop battalion would be a lighter payload than bombs. And, correct me if I'm wrong, a plane transporting troops is not that different than a Bomber, so it would have a bit more range as a result of a lighter load.