Are paratroopers worth using?

[Tom_Sawyeee]

So I thought paratrooper would be good because they essentially were "elite" ww2 forces compared to regular infantry but whenever they are dropped they are instantly made useless because of supply issues, this has led me to think paratroopes are only for invading England, and not for things like invading Norway, are paratroopes only for invading England?

[Elizabeth The Based]

No, you just need to know where to land and attack. Land next to ports the enemy won't expect an invasion through. You may have to encircle the port to take it. Also, be sure to have some Air superiority for your boys and/or some Close Air Support for them as well. Paratroopers are great for anything from diversions to opening a new front on the enemy. A save before commiting to the land is a good idea as well, in case you find out the spot was full of enemy soldiers.

[Tom_Sawyeee]

Originally posted by A Damn Commie Bastard:

No, you just need to know where to land and attack. Land next to ports the enemy won't expect an invasion through. You may have to encircle the port to take it. Also, be sure to have some Air superiority for your boys and/or some Close Air Support for them as well. Paratroopers are great for anything from diversions to opening a new front on the enemy. A save before commiting to the land is a good idea as well, in case you find out the spot was full of enemy soldiers.

I have an idea, my plan is to drop enough paratroopers to sorround Oslo and then attack with marines and paratroopers at the same time, this could work, but why the CAS? I mean Norway doesn't even have an air force and my bombers will take care of the infantry

[Sillius Soddus]

some tips for you,
1. research logistic in support unit, and add them in your airborne division template, this should reduce the supply usage.

2. though paras are supposed to be elite, and they are, they are usually part of a larger offensive operation in which conventional troops, esp. armoured troops are also used. paras' role in such operation is to disrupt enemy supply line, command chain, etc. HOWEVER, THEY ALWAYS NEED SUPPORT FROM CONVENTIONAL TROOPS, normally acting as a relief force.

3. are you using germany? if so, then you should have Kurt Student as one of your generals, use him as the commander of your airborne army, he has the Commando trait, which also reduces the supply usage of the army

[Elizabeth The Based]

Because the CAS gives a buff to your ground units with air support. This can make or break battles, especially useful for infantry out of suply, where time is of the essence. They've saved my ass on nearly all of my paradrops.

[Sweet Mr. Tinkles]

Originally posted by egp_2401:

Originally posted by A Damn Commie Bastard:

No, you just need to know where to land and attack. Land next to ports the enemy won't expect an invasion through. You may have to encircle the port to take it. Also, be sure to have some Air superiority for your boys and/or some Close Air Support for them as well. Paratroopers are great for anything from diversions to opening a new front on the enemy. A save before commiting to the land is a good idea as well, in case you find out the spot was full of enemy soldiers.

I have an idea, my plan is to drop enough paratroopers to sorround Oslo and then attack with marines and paratroopers at the same time, this could work, but why the CAS? I mean Norway doesn't even have an air force and my bombers will take care of the infantry

Think of your CAS as more accurate than strategic bombers... like if you compared it to today's aircraft, your CAS would be an A-10 while your bombers would be like the B-52 or B-1. You'd want the A-10 (CAS) to be running the close in and accurate firepower for your frontline troops while your bombers would be attacking infrastructure and supply lines.

[Tom_Sawyeee]

Perhaps I am not using them right, I wanted and expected them to be able to operate as normal units but from what I can see, they can't operate as independent regular troops who can just beat regular infantry with no trouble whatsoever

[Bomber]

Paradroopers are totally elite in HoI4 (well, overpowered because of AI^^), but in a different way. You use them to fastly cap alot/all victory points behind enemy lines.

For norway (depending on what you already conquered and where you can station your planes to reach everything) most victory points are in the south. So you shoul reach most of them from denmark. You send your paratroopers from denmark directly on oslo and all the other southern victory points. -> norway should capitulate pretty soon (I don't remember for norway if you can reach all victory points directly with paratroopers to get an instant capitulation).

If you fight any country you can't reach every/most of the victory points directly with paratroopers -> send them to naval bases to directly send your main force there or send them to towns behind the frontline so your enemy runs out of supplies.


PS: For explaination you mostly need to take the victory points so the enemy capitulates very fast, but because victory points are towns its important anyway for your paratroopers so they won't run out of supplies.

[GOT_NO_SKILLZ]

I think most airborne "division" templates in the vanilla game are barely a regiment/brigade in size. So your elite paratroopers are probably fighting "normal" infantry that are 3x as numerous.

And historically, paratroopers rarely walked all over normal infantry anyway. They tended to take very heavy losses against any kind of serious resistance when conducting a parachute assault (German airdrop on Crete and Operation Market Garden are the two that come to mind).

[Exarch_Alpha]

Paratroopers are useless, unless you want to roleplay. Other elite infantry still is very good, specially mountaineers.

[Sinclair]

very usefull I say
- Increase paratroopers' templat to 20 combat width and give them good support brigades, they can be easily be better or equal then regular troops. specially with AI
- You can drop them behind enemies lines, in which you can do a lot of very usefull advantagous things named in previous posts.
- Assign a general like Kurt Student to your paratroops, which cut down supply usage to 50%. I believe a paratroops devision in this way can, withouth to much heavy fighing, survive for 200-250-ish days. Very usefull for keeping and holding airfields ports, strategic points or VP's.
- some countries have numerous small islands with ports. With paratroopers you can take them quickly, so there naval won't give you this wierd guarilla warfare or something when you took there country.
- I find using paratroops better then naval invasions, or VERY usefull for supporting a naval invasion.

there are some more things, but I totally LOVE paratroops!

[Tom_Sawyeee]

Originally posted by GOOD GETTING YOUR DREAMS OUT:

very usefull I say
- Increase paratroopers' templat to 20 combat width and give them good support brigades, they can be easily be better or equal then regular troops. specially with AI
- You can drop them behind enemies lines, in which you can do a lot of very usefull advantagous things named in previous posts.
- Assign a general like Kurt Student to your paratroops, which cut down supply usage to 50%. I believe a paratroops devision in this way can, withouth to much heavy fighing, survive for 200-250-ish days. Very usefull for keeping and holding airfields ports, strategic points or VP's.
- some countries have numerous small islands with ports. With paratroopers you can take them quickly, so there naval won't give you this wierd guarilla warfare or something when you took there country.
- I find using paratroops better then naval invasions, or VERY usefull for supporting a naval invasion.

there are some more things, but I totally LOVE paratroops!

Well, now I have an idea on paratroopers, I'll keep them elite but only as support like I said, I would drop paratroopers to sorround Oslo, and also in other two ports where norway doesn't have anything in there, when they capture two free ports my marines will be attacking Oslo, the paratroopers will help the encirclement while the regular force helps me capture all of Norway and help my mountaineers

[Sinclair]

Originally posted by egp_2401:

Originally posted by GOOD GETTING YOUR DREAMS OUT:

very usefull I say
- Increase paratroopers' templat to 20 combat width and give them good support brigades, they can be easily be better or equal then regular troops. specially with AI
- You can drop them behind enemies lines, in which you can do a lot of very usefull advantagous things named in previous posts.
- Assign a general like Kurt Student to your paratroops, which cut down supply usage to 50%. I believe a paratroops devision in this way can, withouth to much heavy fighing, survive for 200-250-ish days. Very usefull for keeping and holding airfields ports, strategic points or VP's.
- some countries have numerous small islands with ports. With paratroopers you can take them quickly, so there naval won't give you this wierd guarilla warfare or something when you took there country.
- I find using paratroops better then naval invasions, or VERY usefull for supporting a naval invasion.

there are some more things, but I totally LOVE paratroops!

Well, now I have an idea on paratroopers, I'll keep them elite but only as support like I said, I would drop paratroopers to sorround Oslo, and also in other two ports where norway doesn't have anything in there, when they capture two free ports my marines will be attacking Oslo, the paratroopers will help the encirclement while the regular force helps me capture all of Norway and help my mountaineers

Sounds like a brilliant plan