Elite Infantry

Seems correct for a 5 iPCs unit to fill the gap.
It gives more versatitility without adding power.

It would be better to call them just Elite Troops or Elite Forces, for a few reasons.

First, “Elite Commandos” is redundant because all Commandos are by definition elite troops (in the same way that athletes who are good enough to participate in Olympic games are by definition elite athletes).  Or to put it another way, there’s no such thing as a “standard Commando.”

Second, “Commando” is not a generic term.  It refers only to certain British units – specifically, I think, to Mountbatten’s Combined Operations troops.

Third, Commandos are not necessarily qualified for parachute jumps.  Some are, but it’s not inherent to the job.  Mountbatten’s Combined Operations guys were intended primarily for hit-and-run raids on occupied Europe, which in practice often meant small amphibious landings.

@Young:

OK, how about Elite Infantry, or Elite Soldiers? elite forces sounds plural and I’m not keen on “troop”.

Elite Infantry would be my recommendation – partly because it echoes the established “Infantry” unit type, and partly because you said this unit is inspired by the G40B [whatever that refers to] Marine unit.  Marines, or at least US Marines, don’t like to be called “soldiers” because that term refers to the fellows from the Army.

Elite Raiders. :evil:

@SS:

Elite Raiders. :evil:

Has a nice ring to it, but it would imply that the unit is only meant for raiding operations, which are the military equivalent of a smash-and-grab robbery: go in, blow stuff up (or do whatever else you’re supposed to accomplish), then get out.  The Makin Island raid by Carlson’s Raiders is a good example.  If the unit is meant to be capable of going in and holding territory (like the Marines at Guadalcanal for instance), then we’re no longer talking about raiding operations.

One thing I’ve noticed about Paratrooper mods in A&A is that people normally state that a Strat Bomber must be temporarily converted to become an air-transport.

I understand the reasoning behind this … it’s a big plane that can carry heavy loads.

But it has never quite sat well with me.  Why not just have the air-transport (C-47’s normally for the Allies) just be included in the cost of the infantry?  At 5 IPCs it should include the air drop.  That way, the Strats can just be left as Strats.

I saw a rule somewhere that said up to 3 (or maybe it was 4) paratroopers can launch a Combat Move up to 3 spaces away when starting from an airbase.  This way, there is no physical plane involved.  Instead, the player is using many of the thousands and thousands of “virtual”/non-visible transport planes are already present in the game and supporting the many Infantry, Artillery, Tank, AAA, factories, and ships that are represented on the board.  …  None of the nations would have all of the troops and ships and tanks on the map without A LOT of transport planes being present!  It’s just that they are not necessary to represent on this scale of play.

In any case, it wasn’t like an airborn Infantry Division was assigned their special transport planes that would be present with them throughout their operations … First an airborn mission was assigned and then transport planes were found and assigned to that mission.  If no mission was on the horizon, the transport planes were used for something else.

I could be wrong about this, but it’s my impression that heavy bombers in WWII were never used as paratroop transports, nor even medium bombers for that matter.  A big bomber like, let’s say, the B-17 looks spacious enough when viewed from the outside, but its interior consists mainly of two things: a small amount of space for the crew, and a large amount of space occupied by machinery and bomb racks.  Paratroopers can’t be loaded into bomb racks; they need to sit on long benches along a level floor, with a door nearby from which they can jump (by which I mean a door in the side of the fuselage, not a hatch in the floor).

I wasn’t saying that the game’s bomber sculpts shouldn’t be used as paratroop transports.  What I was saying is that it’s unrealistic to have a unit that can switch back and forth between being a strategic bomber and a paratroop transport, which is what the “Strategic Bombers become Air Transports when used this way” part seemed to imply.  The two unit types should be kept distinct, even if the same sculpt type is being used in both roles.  A player who, let’s say, buys 1 B-17 as a bomber and 1 B-17 as a transport should be limited to using them in those roles, rather than being able to covert them into 2 bombers or 2 transports when it suits him to do so.  In exchange for the loss of flexibility, the obvious gain would be that the transport could be priced more cheaply than a bomber, which would be an incentive to buy one.

Hey guys,

I would go with “KISS” on this one.  Transport planes are already in the game … we just don’t see them.  So are transport trucks and trains etc …  Therefore, we shouldn’t need to add this unit.  Anyway, transport planes where only used for airdrops when there was an airdrop mission … when no mission was on hand, they where used for transporting cargo.

Airborne operations on any significante scale were MASSIVE undertakings.  Overlord, “Market” from Market Garden and Varsity were the three big ones from the Allies … But even the German operations in the earlier part of the war were still pretty big deals.   All of these required good air-bases.

I would say that the best way to model these wouldn’t be to have a “Transport Plane” unit … which adds more complications to the game.  Instead, it could be pretty well modeled with an air-base.  Actually, I think an air-base would be pretty critical.  I understand YG’s concerns with stating that you would have to spend extra time and IPCs to first construct an airbase.  That is a historically correct statement:

Iwo Jima and Okinawa weren’t captured because we wanted to just remove the Japanese soldiers from those islands.   We wanted to build AIR BASES and staging grounds on those islands for launching Operation Downfall, the Allied invasion of Japan.  If Downfall would have proceeded, we would have launched massive paratrooper air-drops together with amphibious assaults and strategic bombing raids … all launched from the air-bases that we would have first had to construct on those islands.

I really like the YG’s idea for an “Elite Infantry” unit.  1st because it requires a separate unit to be built and costs extra IPCs.  But also because it can be used as both a Marine and Airborne unit … this makes it a lot more simple.  …  Going with that “Simple” and elegant solution, I would keep the OOB rule of having airborne drops be staged from a working airbase.  This eliminates the need for adding a transport plane and keeps things more historically accurate.

@Young:

Understood, so the challenge becomes how to differentiate the same unit with the same color as two separate unit types.

Buy a package of Avery 1/4-inch removable round colour-coding labels ($6 for a pack of 1,152, meaning 2 cents per label) from any Staples store and apply a label to each sculpts you want to use as a transport.  Remove the labels after the game, or leave on for similar use later.

Also … another point for using Airbases as a requirement for launching air assaults instead of introducing a new Transport Plane unit … one of the major tools for inserting an airborne force into an operation wasn’t the parachute, it was the glider.  And those definitely required a nice, big, organized base of operations for launching in any significant numbers.

@Young:

May go with R&D paratrooper rule after all, but may need this idea to differentiate Elite infantry from Regular infantry.

Measure the diameter of the round base on the A&A infantry sculpts and see if it’s less than 1/4 inch.  If so, stick one of those Avery labels under the base of your Elite Infantry units in a centered position; the label will protrude slightly all around the base, thus identifying the special unit.  If the bases are too wide, stick the label under them off-centre so that it protrudes slightly on one side.