You know your army is in trouble when...

[CountryBoy]

...this sort of unit arrives at the frontline:



A unit of the Panzer Lehr Division, with stats that (don't) strike fear into the heart of Allied soldiers:



No hard or soft attack values, but very high assault values? A very odd unit.

[ComradeP]

That's a radio controlled demolition unit, well: that's what it was historically anyway.

Strangely, it's not flagged as a Demolition unit (normally such a unit would have "Demolition" in the lower right of the unit information screen, between Speed and Tracked) . As its quality is F, it's not very suitable as an offensive assault weapon (all units involved would be assaulting at F quality) but it's a potent defensive tool if combined with a high quality unit or stack due to using the highest friendly quality rating in the hex when defending during an assault.

A-B quality 30 assault value units would be...painful to remove for the attacker.

[CountryBoy]

Ah, very interesting. I didn't think it would have any use at all, but I see now that a defensive role would best suit.

I also (ahem) may have forgotten (or never known) that an assault with multiple units does so at the lowest unit morale. I usually chucked them in there on the principle that the more the merrier, but I see that may have been the wrong approach.

[ComradeP]

It's mostly an issue at more than 1 quality level difference between the assaulting units and more or less trivial with the difference from A to B or B to C due to it being only 10%.

1/3 additional assault forces at a cost of a 20% reduction in assault value is fine.

With the Soviets, it's a bit tricky as corps/army troops might be D while Guards are C, so mixing D quality engineer/sapper units with C quality Guards may or may not be worth it. Generally speaking, throwing more bodies at the Germans tends to be the right strategy compared to trying to launch only same quality level assaults.

Due to results being rather variable, it can also be better to assault with (for example) 3x2 units than with 2x3, depending on the strength of the defender.

[Plain Ian]

That's a radio controlled demolition unit, well: that's what it was historically anyway.

Strangely, it's not flagged as a Demolition unit (normally such a unit would have "Demolition" in the lower right of the unit information screen, between Speed and Tracked) . As its quality is F, it's not very suitable as an offensive assault weapon (all units involved would be assaulting at F quality) but it's a potent defensive tool if combined with a high quality unit or stack due to using the highest friendly quality rating in the hex when defending during an assault.

A-B quality 30 assault value units would be...painful to remove for the attacker.

Interesting that its more useful as a defensive weapon rather than an offensive weapon? But of course that's talking about it in terms of Pz campaigns.

History does say it was a bit of a dud. The Germans hoped that it would be a wonder weapon so trying to make use of its hard attack factors by attacking may mimic what historically happened. The attack will fail due to its low quality factor. 

A bit strange that it might be more successful defending against attacks?

[CheerfullyInsane]

Interesting that its more useful as a defensive weapon rather than an offensive weapon? But of course that's talking about it in terms of Pz campaigns.

History does say it was a bit of a dud. The Germans hoped that it would be a wonder weapon so trying to make use of its hard attack factors by attacking may mimic what historically happened. The attack will fail due to its low quality factor. 

A bit strange that it might be more successful defending against attacks?

Well, yes and no.
If on defense, I suppose it could be viewed as some sort of gigantic claymore.
They did find a few of them on the Normandy beaches. Didn't work because the wires had been cut by either artillery or air bombardment.

What impresses me most about the Goliaths is the operators.
That thing carried 60 kgs of explosives, and only had around 6-700 meters of control-wire......
To knowingly set off that amount of explosives at such a short range, you gotta have balls that clank.

[Indragnir]

In reality Goliaths/B IV should have better Quality.
Despite actual narrative of little success if you read german reports after Kursk they stated very clearly that B IV was a somewhat efficient weapon that caused some damage despite all of its shortcomings (it had indeed, it was unreliable and expensive): more than 20 attacks were succesful, specialy when it was paired with Tigers because Fernidads were too slow for them and they showed very poor coordination, B IVs even blowed up soviet tanks. 20% of demolition vehicles were lost due enemy direct fire, since russian soon learnt to fear their attacks and flagged them as priority objectives. (specialy the B IV that was unwired, reusable and quite bigger)


They ordered more demolition vehicles and improved their equipment. In the end the germans produced almost 9000 Goliath/B IV vehicles, not bad for a useless weapon.

The units that used B IVs:
• PzAbt. 300 (Fkl) 2/9/42 Eastern Front
• Versuchs-Kommando (Fl) Tropen 6/24/42 North Africa
• PzAbt. 301 9/9/42 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 311 1/25/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 312 1/9/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 313 1/9/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 314 1/25/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 315 7/6/43 Western Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 316 7/13/43 Western Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 319 8/28/44 Western Front
• schwere PzAbt. (Tiger/Fkl) 301 9/2/43 Western Front
• 3./schwere PzAbt. 508 12/30/43 Italy
• 3./schwere PzAbt. 504 2/1/44-9 Italy
• PzAbt. (Fkl) 302 6/22/44 Eastern Front
• 4./PzAbt. (Fkl) 301 6/5/44 Western Front
• PzAbt. (Fkl) 301 1/25/43 Italy and Eastern Front
• Fkl-Pz. Zug/Pz.Abt. 303 2/18/45 Eastern Front

[CountryBoy]

In reality Goliaths/B IV should have better Quality.
Despite actual narrative of little success if you read german reports after Kursk they stated very clearly that B IV was a somewhat efficient weapon that caused some damage despite all of its shortcomings (it had indeed, it was unreliable and expensive): more than 20 attacks were succesful, specialy when it was paired with Tigers because Fernidads were too slow for them and they showed very poor coordination, B IVs even blowed up soviet tanks. 20% of demolition vehicles were lost due enemy direct fire, since russian soon learnt to fear their attacks and flagged them as priority objectives. (specialy the B IV that was unwired, reusable and quite bigger)


They ordered more demolition vehicles and improved their equipment. In the end the germans produced almost 9000 Goliath/B IV vehicles, not bad for a useless weapon.

The units that used B IVs:
• PzAbt. 300 (Fkl) 2/9/42 Eastern Front
• Versuchs-Kommando (Fl) Tropen 6/24/42 North Africa
• PzAbt. 301 9/9/42 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 311 1/25/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 312 1/9/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 313 1/9/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 314 1/25/43 Eastern Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 315 7/6/43 Western Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 316 7/13/43 Western Front
• Pzkp. (Fkl) 319 8/28/44 Western Front
• schwere PzAbt. (Tiger/Fkl) 301 9/2/43 Western Front
• 3./schwere PzAbt. 508 12/30/43 Italy
• 3./schwere PzAbt. 504 2/1/44-9 Italy
• PzAbt. (Fkl) 302 6/22/44 Eastern Front
• 4./PzAbt. (Fkl) 301 6/5/44 Western Front
• PzAbt. (Fkl) 301 1/25/43 Italy and Eastern Front
• Fkl-Pz. Zug/Pz.Abt. 303 2/18/45 Eastern Front

I just thought it was a small tank with no weapons, but it is certainly not that at all. A very strange little weapon. Here's one in action:



By Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-AhrensA-026-12 / August Ahrens / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5413820

[CheerfullyInsane]

Yeah, it's a weird little gizmo.
I always thought of it as the Austin Powers weapon.... You know, using sharks with lasers on them instead of something much, much simpler.
Throw the Russian mine-dogs, and the British Panjandrum into that category as well.

[Sgt Jasper]

Yeah, it's a weird little gizmo.
I always thought of it as the Austin Powers weapon.... You know, using sharks with lasers on them instead of something much, much simpler.
Throw the Russian mine-dogs, and the British Panjandrum into that category as well.

In action (more or less)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_dr0arBltU