Unit radio question.

[stormbringer3]

What determines if the unit will have a radio or not? I have FJg as my infantry and most of them have a radio but a few of them do not. They are all of the same type. Also, I can now upgrade my FJg units to a panzerfaust type FJg but if the unit has a radio, the upgrade will not. Will the new FJg type eventually have a chance to acquire a radio?
Thanks for any info.

[troopie]

Unit size and number of men will be a factor. A lot of WW2 era radios were large and small units of two or three men won't have them. Forward observers will always have them. Otherwise it depends on the army.

troopie

[Cross]

If you go into the Mobhack OOB Editor, and view the units, you'll see there's a radio code for each unit.

If it's a single digit number then the unit won't get a radio. If it's a double digit number then the first (tens) digit is the percent chance (times 10) of the unit having a radio.


Examples of Radio code:

0 (0 percent chance of radio)
1 (0 percent chance of radio)
2 (0 percent chance of radio)

10 (10 percent chance of radio)
11 (10 percent chance of radio)
12 (10 percent chance of radio)

20 (20 percent chance of radio)
21 (20 percent chance of radio)
22 (20 percent chance of radio)

40 (40 percent chance of radio)
41 (40 percent chance of radio)
42 (40 percent chance of radio)

The second digit is the chance that the AI will pick the unit at all:

0 Normal
1 Rare
2 Common
3 Always picked (but do not use this if editing)

I took a quick look at the FLg units. Most squads have a 20 percent chance of a radio. Small ATk units have a zero percent chance. Scouts usually have a ten percent chance, some 20 percent, and most MG units have a 10 percent chance.


Cross

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by stormbringer3

What determines if the unit will have a radio or not? I have FJg as my infantry and most of them have a radio but a few of them do not. They are all of the same type. Also, I can now upgrade my FJg units to a panzerfaust type FJg but if the unit has a radio, the upgrade will not. Will the new FJg type eventually have a chance to acquire a radio?
Thanks for any info.

Look at the radio code in Mobhack, ignoring the X1,X2 etc rarity code part of the number. The 10s digit is the radio chance - units is rarity.

That is the chance a randomly created unit will have a radio. It's also an indicator of the chance it will eventually get one issued at refit if a core unit down the line some day if it was spawned without one.

A unit with a 0, 1 or 2 radio code (ie a rarity code and 0 radio chance) is highly unlikely ever to be handed out a radio, even after many campaign battles. But it is not impossible since experience also comes into the equation as to dishing out a walkie talkie. So a core Worker's Militia might get one in 1945, if you bought it at Stalingrad and it did well - perhaps.

(The SP series games are rather too free with radios, especially pre-war, and especially man-pack ones. Radios (unlike in normal wargames) are free items as well, just like HQs do not cost buy points either. But it's part of the original design, and would need a completely new game system to do properly.)

Higher level command elements are always granted radios - even in 1930, even if man-pack radios really did not exist then. (Field telephones did, but the game does not model them, so look at that as an abstraction of telephone gear perhaps?).

Also - a higher than average radio code is used as a sort of "elite bonus" for e.g. say paratroopers in the OOBs. Assume that they are just especially good at keeping in command and control and/or individual element leaders have a higher initiative level than say conscripts with perhaps a 10 or 0 radio code. It's just an abstraction - and ties in with the fact that the longer a unit survives and the more experience it gains, the more likely the campaign upgrade code is to grant them a mobile phone of their own.

Cheers
Andy

[stormbringer3]

Thanks for your quick responses to my question. I now understand how this works.