Sorry bit of a daft question but looked around and can`t find answer anywhere. Do Marines get a bonus when fighting in jungles? i know they get swamp and obviously amphibious but not sure about Jungle. Thanks for any help.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I just finished reading HELMET FOR MY PILLOW by Robert Leckie, a great memoir that includes Guadalcanal. Historically, there should be no bonus. The Marines had no special skill at jungle fighting, their successful results there were a result of high inherent organization, superior supply, and experience, all factors that are accounted for elsewhere in the game.
Guadalcanal was just the first of a long list of jungle type battles that the USMC engaged in. The US Army as well. The entire South Pacific Campaign was jungle oriented islands.
The Corps made several adaptations to jungle warfare that the US Army did not.
1. First changed up the squad make up to "fire groups" which changed a squad into two groups. Then later it spilt the squad into 3 groups called Fire Teams. This allowed for the squad level tactics to include base of fire and maneuver, as well as trippling the NCO/leadership at the squad level. These changes also greatly increased the fire power of the basic rifle squad in order to allow them greater chance of surviving the sudden rush offensives from close range as is common in jungles.
2. A new movement concept called "move to contact". In a move to contact, the vanguard element consisted of a strong point element and a closely following rapid react/reinforce element as well as forward flankers. The rapid react element also carried a field phone and field wire. As the vanguard element moved forward, it spooled out wire. The rest of the column could patch their phones into that wire so the senior command element, the primary maneuver elements, the fire support element and the rear guard element were all in voice contact. The rear element would wind the wire up and when the van ran out, there'd be a halt called and the wire would be run back up forward.
The forward flanking elements were very good at cleaning up ambushes before the main body of the column entered the kill zone. The strong point with fast reaction backup behind it was very good at clearing out minor contacts. The enhanced communications made it possible to move from the column into either a line abreast or envelopment from which ever side the commander called it, or both if desired, with no delay except for the time it took to give the orders.
The Japanese were beat hard by this move to contact all over the various jungles. They would engage what appeared to be a small scout party or raid team and suddenly be facing a battalion or regimental force that came at them in an organized fashion with fire support.
After the South Pac campaigns and their jungles, the Marines then went about beefing up their bunker busting and fortification reduction capability to a rather stunning degree as well, since the Central Pac campaing dealt with islands that were infested with fortifications and bunkers.
An easy way to check this is that you can look at the "army modifiers" under the ledger (same place you look up VP totals per country, total army sizes, etc.) There you see that for example infantry get -70% attacking mountains (which means 30% attack efficiency in-game), so you can see which units are more effective in what terrain. Marines indeed are superior in jungles, in this game.
But then, if you want to have a realistic game, there should be a bonus only for us marine no?