Land Sea and Air Units used in ZWK

 

 HIT POINT & FIREPOWER SCHEME

The scenario employs low hit point/high firepower units to endow a certain amount of unpredictability to simulate real war conditions. This means than on occasion a superior unit may get destroyed by an inferior unit. Another effect of the unit scheme is that units do not always get damaged when fighting, simulating situations of tactical superiority. Attack and Defense factors are very high numbers to allow the scenario to represent minor shades of unit distinctiveness.

 

 GROUND UNITS

Each tank unit represents an armoured division of approximately 250 tanks. These units have the highest attack and defense factors and typically a movement factor of 2. Some light tanks useful in a recon role have a move of 3 while a few others have a move of 1. Tanks over forty tons are heavily armoured enough to ignore city fortifications.

There is a sub-class of tanks known as the tank destroyers. These vehicles have sacrificed their turret to house a larger calibre gun. Thus they have the higher attack factor of the next generation of tanks but not their defense factors.

Each infantry unit represents a divsion of about 15,000 men. Infantry units are cheap, have a move of 1, can ignore city walls and are ideal for garrison duties.

 

 AIR UNITS

Each aircraft unit consists of a Wing in Allied terms and a Group in Axis terms (a Wing consisted of many groups for the Axis). In short, 3 or 4 squadrons with maybe 40 airframes in total.

Bombers have four turns in the air and have high attack factors but low defense factors.

Fighters have low attack factors but these are high enough to destroy bombers. Only fighters and AA units can attack aircraft. Fighters get only two turns in the air.

The long range fighters get four turns in the air but have a slightly lower defense than the normal fighters. They are allowed to land on carriers and are ideal for recon missions.

Ground attack planes have attack factors like bombers and defense factors slightly lower than fighters. They also have two turns in the air but cannot attack other aircraft. These are ideal for carrier based operations.

 

 SEA UNITS

Each capital ship represents a single battleship or heavy cruiser with its escourts. The same applies to carriers. The capital ship has the ability to attack aircraft because of its AA light cruiser escourts. Submarines represent a single U-boat and note that submarines cannot attack directly but must rely on torpedoes.

Unlike land and air units, progressive generations of U-boats will move faster while all ships will generally move faster with the discovery of Atomic Bomb (+1) and the building of two naval wonders, Snorchel (+1 and veteran) and Enigma Decoding (+2).

 

 NON-FIGHTING UNITS

There are no 'settler' type units as they really screw up the map by founding new cities. Reconstruction only takes place after the war and anything that gets destroyed stays destroyed. Land Convoys are the trade units. Another useful (diplomacy) unit is the Commando Battalion but bribing of cities is turned off.

 

 CHOICE OF UNITS

I have used the limited number of unit slots as best I can. It was not possible to include every model or design from the period, so tanks and planes are represented by generations. In particular, the minor races have no designs of their own. It is possible for one race to build another's units if they somehow get the prerequisite tech.

Here are some examples of generation interchangeability within the same empire.

Lancaster = Halifax = Stirling = Liberator

Matilda II = M3 Lee/Grant = Curiser Mk IV = Mk III Valentine

ME 262 = HE280

Meteor = P80 Shooting Star

Pzkpfw III = Pzkpfw 35(t) = Pzkpfw38(t)

Stug IV = Stug III = Hetzer 38(t)

 

Here are some examples of generation interchangeability across different empires.

P51-D Mustang = ME bf109-K

Focke Wulf190D = P-47 Thunderbolt = Hawker Fury

ME bf110D = Beaufighter

P38 Lightning = Mosquito = ME 410 =  Ta 154

B-29 Superfortress =  Ju 390 = ME 264 Amerika

Stug IV = M18 Hellcat