Germans. Experience with using infantry guns?

[runequester]

For my current campaign, the core of my force is build around two companies of infantry. I swapped the rather useless 50mm mortars for a pair of 82mm's for each company, but I am pondering substituting a pair of the 75mm infantry guns (leIG or whatever the designation is) for one pair of mortars.

Anyone have experience with using these?

[Brian61]

Assuming you are starting in September 1939, and are going for an understrength battalion core (down one company), two good references for what assets are available would be: infantry or motorized infantry.

Rather than use the 5cm GrW units, I normally use the (sw) infantry unit that has primary weapon rifle and 5cm GrW in slots 2 through 4. While pretty useless in indirect fire, the 50's aren't too bad in direct fire as support. From what I've read it was fairly common for a battalion commander to break up the machinegun company (which had the 8cm mortar battery) into 'per company' attachments. So in addition to the 5cm, you could quite historically have an 8cm section as well as an extra HMG section.

Early on at least, the 7.5cm infantry guns (as well as the ATGs) tended to be regiment assets but it doesn't seem totally out of the question to split them among the battalions giving you a pair of 7.5cm infantry guns and three ATGs to reinforce your understrength battalion. The 7.5cm infantry gun is actually a pretty handy piece early on, used together with your 8cm mortars it gives you a better organic indirect fire capability, but also is decent as a long range direct fire weapon against infantry and, in a pinch, a short range AT capability against slow moving lightly armored vehicles.

You will probably also want to add a trio of 2cm FlaK guns, they were detached from Luftwaffe assets to Wehrmacht divisions and generally you could count on at least one per battalion. These are also good in their secondary role as long range ground support and light AT.

Another addition, while not quite historical (but not too far out either) is to add a 10.5cm light artillery battery to your core. These were division assets and were assigned on as needed basis but buying one with support points every turn gets tiresome and limits your support choices.

Don't forget to add some recon elements and a FO, you could attach some division recon assets such as a motorcycle squad or two and a troop of armored cars. If your infantry is part of a panzer division or motorized light division, you could reasonably add a section to a platoon of light tanks. The tanks would almost certainly not be permanent attachments but once again like the light artillery battery, gives you more flexibility with support points.

Hope this helps,
Brian

[runequester]

good advice thanks

The whole force I got at the moment looks like this:

Command portion:
Forward observer
4 20mm FLAK (plus trucks)
6 37mm AT guns (plus trucks)
a battery of off map 75mm guns (4 guns I guess)
6 sdkfz 222 armoured cars

Reaction force:
Platoon of panzer grenadier in trucks (one upgraded to a half track after the first battle)
platoon of 4 Panzer IV

Main force:
2 companies of infantry (replaced 50mm mortars with 2 8cm mortars). Includes a pair of MMG each.
2 scout sections
2 AT rifle sections (6 total)
1 platoon of Panzer 35(t). (one upgraded to 38(t))


Some bits I might add later is an engineer platoon, a platoon of STUG's when they show up, and maybe some self propelled AT guns, Eventually, a third company to bring me up to battalion.

[gila]

Why provide tranports for the flak guns?
They can sit still if you deploy them right,and cover most of the field unless it's very large map.
Moving them around makes them less effective against airstrikes and more vunerable to a possible airstrike on them which they mean't to subdue

[runequester]

yeah, thats true.

So far against the Poles, they've served as direct fire support, since there's no planes to shoot at, but later on, the dastard allies will swarm the skies.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Instead of getting AA early on, i suggest you grab a pair of 88's to gain free xp in poland(mostly light armor) so they are experienced enough to take on british matilda tanks at range if you come across them in france, though you probably won't need them in norway, as it's usually just hills and woods

[Griefbringer]

Compared to 8 cm mortar, the main differences that 7.5 cm infantry gun provides is better range but lower lethality.

Thus for the close support of the infantry companies (ie. engaging targets in their vicinity) the mortars tend to be better. However, for countering enemy support assets (howitzers, mortars, AA-guns) located at the far end of the map, you will probably need the extra range of the infantry guns.

Then there are those 15 cm infantry guns - pure nastiness! However, historically there tended to be only two per infantry regiment.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Originally Posted by Griefbringer

Compared to 8 cm mortar, the main differences that 7.5 cm infantry gun provides is better range but lower lethality.

Thus for the close support of the infantry companies (ie. engaging targets in their vicinity) the mortars tend to be better. However, for countering enemy support assets (howitzers, mortars, AA-guns) located at the far end of the map, you will probably need the extra range of the infantry guns.

Then there are those 15 cm infantry guns - pure nastiness! However, historically there tended to be only two per infantry regiment.

15cm things have too few ammo to make an impact(especially if you only have 1 or 2) and having ammo carriers around for them would be the path to overkill...
I try to avoid having anything other than company mortars in my core, if i'm battalion sized, i get some AT and extra mortar for core units, but most arty(and some ATG) comes in as support...

[runequester]

I am bad at forgetting to buy support, hence why I have things in my core force (tanks, arty) that don't belong there proper

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Make a buylist, i like having these as support so they won't add up experience raising my core value