Add Fast Artillery and SP Mortars

Add Missing Self-Propelled Artillery

PG/AG classify self-propelled artillery (SPA) vehicles in certain ways that affect overall national balances by creating or filling holes in capabilities.

PG/AG's original SPA:

• Germany = Germany suffers from either low-ammunition SPA or low-range SPA (e.g. StuG IIIb).
• USSR = The USSR suffers from an early lack of SPA. The Su-122 finally brings a balance of armor, speed, firepower, range, and ammunition supply. The SU-122 is more important to the USSR than the M7 Priest is to the USA because the SU-122 makes up for the Soviet lack of tracked transport for towed guns and thus a Soviet general will buy an SU-122 for applications where a US general can buy a half-track-towed gun.
• Britain = Britain suffers the Sexton's 3 Movement Point (MP) error and does not have the M7 Priest that the US shipped in 1942.
• USA = The USA initially lacks a 105mm SPA (wrongly) but quickly enjoys a full menu of good SPA including the fast M8 HMC and M3 half-track that can backup recon and M18 tank destroyers.

Possible Additional SPA:

Germany:

• SdKfz 251/9 (or 250/8) Half-Track = PG/AG made the 251/9 "recon"-class and the early Pz IV "tank"-class (both direct-fire fire support) even though they have the same 75mm L24 gun as the StuG IIIb artillery. The 251/9 had little elevation but it was about the same as the StuG so you could make the 251/9 a 1-hex-range SPA to give the Germans fast SPA. The 250/8 was the light half-track with the same gun.
• SdKfz 250/7 Half-Track = This 80mm-mortar vehicle is another fast SPA option for the Germans (see the mortar post for "leg" mortars in PG/AG).

USSR:

• BT-7A = The 7A was an artillery fire-support version with short 76mm howitzer to provide combined arms to the standard BT-7 with 45mm gun. PG/AG gives its "BT-7" the 76mm firepower but classifies it as "tank" like the early Pz IV. The 7A was rare but rarity never stopped JagdTiger purchases in PG/AG, so you could include a BT-7 "tank" with 45mm and a BT-7A "artillery"-class SPA to give the Soviets a fast, tracked SPA at the start of the war (1- or 2-hex range, depending upon investigation of gun elevation, etc.).

Britain:

• Sexton = Fix the speed to 5MP.
• M7 Priest = Add the US-supplied Priest. However, the British did not get a reliable supply of ample 105mm ammunition, which is why they developed the Sexton with their own 25pdr gun, so perhaps reduce the ammunition supply or make the M7 unpurchasable.
• Carrier 3in Mortar = This version of the Universal Carrier (a.k.a. Bren Carrier, although it carried a lot more than Bren LMGs) mounted a 3-inch mortar. Canadian documents refer to it in a way which suggests it was a common vehicle.

USA:

• T19 HMC Half-Track = 324 T19 half tracks beginning in early 1942 provided 105mm-howitzer SPA until replaced by the M7 Priests.
• M4/M4A1/M21 Half-Track = These 81mm-mortar SPA would add more flavor as a 1-hex-range SPA (see the mortar post for "leg" mortars in PG/AG), although the USA already has the 75mm half-track SPA with a 2-hex range--which, by the way, should be the T30 HMC with 75mm pack howitzer.
• T30 HMC Half-Track = This is the proper name and vehicle for the Army's 75mm (howitzer) half-tracked SPA, while the M3 GMC half-track with "French 75" (gun) should be "tank destroyer" (TD) class with Sherman firepower and available as a TD at the start of the war (although, after the M10 arrives, the M3 GMC did find other employment and the US Marines liked to use the M3 GMC as fire support throughout the Pacific war).

Initiative: You could modify Initiative by tactical flexibility such as speed of redeployment or relaying. With US half-tracks, the M4 was intended to dismount and only fire from the vehicle in emergencies, while the M4A1 had a reinforced floor for mounted firing but no traverse, and the M21 further added forward-firing with 60-degree traverse. The British Carrier had a 360-degree-traverse turntable.

Updated 3/22/07: I added British information and Initiative information here. Also, see Arty's Anti-Tank, Initiative Penalty.

Add Toggled Air Defense to Ships

Give your battleship AD/AA status on-the-fly.

Others have created Air-Defense (AD) ships as separate units. However, you can use the mirror-unit method to create a toggled AD status for any ship including battleships and aircraft carriers. Simply create, say, an Iowa-class battleship as an AD class and then assign a "regular" capital-ship-class Iowa as transport to the base AD unit. You similarly can add toggled anti-aircraft (AA) ability to any ship. Use a modified icon to identify status at a glance. Perhaps you might give toggled AD ability to modern battleships and CLAA cruisers and give AA ability to dual-purpose-gun destroyers.*

CL54 USS San Juan
an AA cruiser with dual-purpose 5-inch guns
instead of a cruiser's usual 6- or 8-inch guns:


The result is not purchasable but ships are not purchasable in PG/AG anyway. Depending on your combination of move and fire activities, you might end a turn in an undesirable status or have to forgo a move but overall this system provides more flexibility and more realism.

*Whether you use this method or not, remember that the United States, Japan, and Britain used dual-purpose 5-inch guns so check the AD/AA firepower compared to other nations' firepower.