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Vhorthex

The Bug Eater
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Apr 6, 2003
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Hello everyone,

I have a question to all my fellow armchair generals out there!

How do you organize your armies? (Division, Corps, etc...)

Do you rename them?

I'm actually pretty insane, IMHO :p, I actually breakdown all the default setup of my country. I sort all of them by brigade and reorganize the whole thing to my liking.

I even go as to rename each division (i.e: 101st Infantry Division, 202nd Motorised Division, 423rd Armored Division, etc...)

I found it to be quite helpfull in previous HOI titles for organisation, but in HOI 3 it's amazing with the new Army Organisaiton.

I don't know about you, but I find it a bit hard to use the default names givin to division. Like "Pkz BERLIN pknd. 229 Divicion" (It's not a good example, but I couldn't summon one off the top of my head :p) I have a hard time associating that to it's content, and even more memorize a name like that. So it dosen't help at all when you receive a message: <insert unit name> has arrived to destination.

So there it is, a simple question. :)

I'm curious to know to what extent people organize their armies, and if they have any useful tips to keep the madness organized!

Cheers,
 
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I rename all my units (other than divisions) when playing Germany but I sometimes end up with some rather stupid names like " I. SS Mountainkorps" :rofl: Anyone know the proper German name for something like that? :p

Wish they had kept the feature that named corps and armies properly for each country would save a lot of time.

I also always keep SS units separate and grouped together in their own corps and armies when there are enough. Usually I use those as a roving force and sometimes don't attach them to any theatre or army group. Not really that historical I'm guessing but it's how I do it.

It's nice to have a designated group, that I can easily identify, that moves from front to front and picks up the slack where needed.

With Germany or Italy I usually try have 3 Inf corps (total 9 divs) -> 1 Inf Army, 3 Mountain corps (total 9 divs) -> 1 Mountain army and another 3 or 4 corps of armor and motorized/mech divisions in the third army to round off the army group.

Have a fixation with Mountain divisions I guess. :eek:o
 
I go ape too. Playing mostly the Germans (and since I speak German) I can't stand the generic English names. So I keep renaming every new unit that gets a generic name like HQ, as I produce them. I even created Armeegruppe A, B, and C for Fall Gelb and executed a similar plan as much as I could recreate it based on the wiki. Fun but time consuming with the current system.
 
I have gone so far as to rename each brigade one time. Not doing that again.
 
I derive my armies organization somewhat from real life ones. I particularly like this site (http://niehorster.orbat.com/index.htm) and this (http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=30) for reference.

But I dont really follow real-life names, only the names standards. I only number corps and armies sequentially every time one is created. Divisions I left default since I dont think defaults for divisions are bad, unless they run out and english names start appearing.

Also I try to maintain 3-4 divisions/corps, 3-4 corps/armee, 3-4 armees/armeegruppen.

When a corps gets only panzer/motorized divisons, I rename it to panzerkorps, keeping the numbering, or gebirgskorps when contains only mountain divisions.

All my air units I keep under an Army Group named Luftwaffe, since I dont like handing units to the AI I can keep them under one theater. Makes it easy to get the numbering right and finding them. I keep fighter, bomber and CAS aircraft separated in groups - JG (Jagdgeschwader) for fighters, KG (Kampfgeschwader) for tac bombers, SG (Schlachtgeschwader) for CAS and so on. I dont know how Im going to organize them if I build too many, wish air and sea units had the same hierarchy as ground ones.

In the same manner, I keep all naval units under an Army Group named Kriegsmarine. I spread all destroyers, light cruisers and some heavy ships in several Kriegsflotte, but submarines I keep in separated Ubootsflotte with 2 flottille each.
 
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First, I hire an efficiency consultant and pay them a huge amount of cash to tell me where I can effiencieize my corporate...err... I mean, military structure.

Then I hire an accounting firm to manage the naming and distribution of my forces.

Ok, seriously for a sec...

Playing as Ger '36. I start out by dividing my forces between those that will be dedicated toward defense, or static line holding duties and those which will be offensive in use.

Defense to the west, offense to the east, initially.

Defensive corps, armies and army group get SK added to their names. I go simple on the naming. Corp 1 SK, Corp 2 SK, etc. Each Corp gets its divisions named. 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 for Corp 1, etc. Sk corps get defensive and log wiz leaders, at corp and division level. My best defense general gets the SK army group command, next bests get SK army commands.

My offensive components get unit type names. Inf Corp 1, LArm Corp, Mnt Inf Corp 1, Cav Corp 1, etc. I don't name the divs in my offensive corps. Armies and army groups get generic names such as Army 1, 1 Armygroup. I switch the side the number is on so that it's harder to get fubared when assigning units to various levels of command.

Bestest offensive gen gets army group command(s). Army commands get next bestest. Exceptions, my fav gens, which I have, and I aint telling which they are (cause the others get jealous and I really don't need to hear all that bickering and bitching from the ones that dont make that list), get reserved for division commands, with some going for corps level. I tend to concentrate uberousity of leadership in skill point/trait dense corps which I use as my main "go to guys".

Once the eastern fight is done, I switch that bunch of brawlers over to the west and use em again for that. The SK units get spread out to the east a bit as needed for def and anti insurgency there once the Poland fight is over.
 
Renaming I do for all the generic "HQ nr.1" and the likes. I leave most of the division names alone as most of them are reltively correct.

How I org my corps and armies differ from country to country

Two examples would be

Germany

Non motorized:
3 inf= 1 corps
3 corps= 1 Army
2-5 armies = 1 Army Group

Tanks
2 arm + 1 mot/mec= 1corps
2 corps = 1 Army

Soviet Union

Non motorized:
5 inf = 1 Corps
2/3 Corps = 1 Army
3-5 Armies = 1 Army Group

Tanks
3 arm + 2 mot = 1 Corps
2 Corps = 1 Army

----

However I must say im looking forward to the weather being fixed so that there is time for some reorging in the winter on the eastfront - Cuz daaamn things can get messed up there :wacko:
 
As Germany I have a North Eastern Front Army, a South Eastern Front Army, Indian Army, Australian Army, etc.

If I move them between theatres or areas within theatres I rename them so I know what they are doing or supposed to be doing.
 
I rename my Groups strictly organized with Numbers: 1 HQ for Theater HQ; 1.1 for Army Groups; 1.1.1 Armies, 1.1.1.1 Corps and 1.1.1.1.1 xxx for the Brigades with xxx = Inf, Lar, Arm, mot and so on.
If one HQ ist not "full" (not enough lower Level HQs or Brigades it gets an x as Prefix).
Not historical but easier to restack if I pulled them out for "helping out" the AI when I let it take some action.
 
I fill out the corps level with homogenous units. Like there will be several all infantry corps and they will be named "1st infantry corps", "2nd infantry corps", etc. All the mobile breakthrough units will get put into their own corps and be named something like "1st armoured corps" for example.
 
I want MORE!

I rename my Groups strictly organized with Numbers: 1 HQ for Theater HQ; 1.1 for Army Groups; 1.1.1 Armies, 1.1.1.1 Corps and 1.1.1.1.1 xxx for the Brigades with xxx = Inf, Lar, Arm, mot and so on.
If one HQ ist not "full" (not enough lower Level HQs or Brigades it gets an x as Prefix).
Not historical but easier to restack if I pulled them out for "helping out" the AI when I let it take some action.

Ohhh... Very nice!

Dosen't look all that pretty, but I really see the efficiancy in that.

I'd also like to thank EVERYONE for their input! I hope more people will join in and tell us how they manage their armies! :D

I'm actually considering changing how I sorted my armies. Like 'RussianRedShirt' said, I too would group all my units homogenously. But I realized that I would have sometimes issues by having my 5 divisions of tanks branching out in different paths, and then having a hard time keeping the HQ in range.

So I was thinking of splitting my forces per mixed groups. For example, 1 Armor, 2 Motorised, 2 Infantry divisions. In that way I think I could keep all these units grouped togheter. Although i'm concerned about slow moving infantry. Perhaps having mobile forces grouped togheter and infantry seperate?

Keep the info coming!

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: @ Maedhric : To you and all who have the courage to rename BRIGADES... my hat is off to you gentlemen.
 
At least when playing germany, I rename every brigade of a newly built division to a historically plausible name. Tanks and motorized units get their own corps/armies, also special infantry. Costs a lot of time, but is worth the extra flavor :cool:

Normal setup:

Armygroup
1-4 Armies

Infantry-Army with 3-5 Infantry Corps, every Corps with 5 Divisions

Panzer-Army with 2 Panzer Corps, every Panzer Corps has 3 Tank, 2 mot/mech Divisions


Special Infantry with special tasks get their corps/army assignments as needed, so they can be flexibly used anywhere.
 
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The structure very much depends on whether I want to micromanage, or leave it to the AI. But in general, try to minimize the number of HQs if possible, ideally ending up with something like

Theater HQ -> 5 Group HQ -> 5 Army HQ -> [3-5 Corps ->] 4 Inf Divs

One of the groups is a dedicated armor group, with a very good leader. The armor divisions are then attached to armies since these have longer range, which is valuable when the armor races ahead. Another dedicated group tends to be the air force. I try to avoid corps if I can.

At the bottom of the tree, an army (or corps) of 4 Infantry divisions with 3 Inf brigades fits one province, but often works well for two.

For the AI, I try to create 5 general purpose groups to which I attach armor and air armies as needed. It increases the need for corps HQs...

Theater HQ -> 5 Group HQ -> 3-5 Army HQ -> [3-5 Corps ->] 4 Inf Divs
 
I give up at brigade level. It does annoy me a bit when I'm using the '12th Infantry Brigade' as Germany, but I cannot be bothered to go to that level lol.

I keep my Theatres, Groups, Armies and Corps well organised though. with airpower attached appropriately and navy at theatre level always. I seldom maximise with 5 divisions to every corp.

I tend to like to keep my group/army/corp names historical, e.g. I/II/III Armeekorps, I/II Armee, panzerkorps etc. Really this is easiest as US/UK cause they're english speaking countries. This makes it easier for swapping a corp quickly out and into another army to aid in the advance etc.
 
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Am playing as Britain right now. Most units are left as is but i have named field corps by Roman numerals and given specific names to some divisons and brigades (Marine/Commando Div of 1 Mar/1 Mtn), Guards Armored
Div, XXX Corps. Burma Rifles, Kenya Rifles, RAF Dover Figher Command, Channel Fleet, Household Cavalry Brigade (amd cars), etc. Set up in Corps of 3-5 divisions into army groups. In field combat i give commands to the AI Corps commanders.
 
for divisions I list their contents, for example ARM MEC TD, INF ART, MOT SPART.. Idon't include how many brigades of each are in the division though, unless I plan to put an extra brigade in the division, so it's easy to find the division in the list, for example: 2 INF + 1 ART, I'll name it 2x INF ART, so when my INF brigade is built I know where to stick it

airwings, I rename to their type: TAC, INT, FTR, NAV, CAG, etc.

fleets I get a little creative and start with a number then the main ship type, 1st CV Fleet, 5th BB Fleet, 7th Uboot Flottile

corps, armies, etc, I name them depending on context, so they get changed often: 1st China Expeditionary Force, Polish Gruppe A, 1st Airborne Corps
 
As far as names are concerned, I use the Canadian mod that's on these forums to automatically name my divisions. Gives them a little flare.

As for structure, as Canada, my armies usually consist of the following

I Canadian Army
--I Canadian Army HQ

--1st Arm. Cav. Div.
----LARM
----LARM
----MOT
----MOT

--2nd Arm. Cav. Div.
----LARM
----LARM
----MOT
----MOT

--1st Arm. Div.
----ARM
----ARM
----ARM
----MOT

----I Canadian Corps
------I Canadian Corps HQ
------INF
------AT
------ART

--------1st Division
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF

--------2nd Division
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF

--------3rd Division
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF
----------INF

--------4th Division (Support)
----------INF
----------AT
----------ART
----------AC

--------5th Division (MOT)
----------MOT
----------MOT
----------MOT
----------MOT

And repeat that for all Corps. So in the long run, I have 3 regular infantry divisions per corps, with 1 support division, 1 motorized division, and the corps itself serves as a somewhat weaker support division. Attatched to each army directly are 2 light armoured cavalry divisions, and 1 regular armour division.

For a small country like Canada (IC and resource wise) I find this setup works well. Lots of infantry to hold the line, support divisions (and corps HQ's with support assets) can move in to help if there's trouble, and plenty of access to motorized units on a per corps basis for flanking, and access to army level cavalry and armour units for the big push.
 
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