Marine question

James_Manring said:

But what about when you are combining Marines with heavy weapons? I could see perhaps 2 x ARM 2x MAR 1x ENG being worthwhile for a heavy division to mix in with your marines artillery combo.

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James_Manring said:

I was thinking as a heavy support for amphibious or river operations already being conducted by marines. Let's say one heavy Marines Division for each Marine Corps. Do you still use MOT or MEC in that instance? I haven't done the math behind this stuff and it seems like you have. I've just always created stuff like that either for role-play purposes or because of incentives provided by amphibious techs in mods.

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I also use MOT or more rarely Mech in double Binary or 2/3 five Brigade divisions combined with 2-3 ENGs to help reduce their massive river crossing combat penalty. I also try to use the Engineer Traited Generals as divisional and Corps commaders leading them too because that 10% or 5% or 15% tallied effect directly reduces the penalty figure that the division would incur, rather than being averaged out like the ENG Bgds and secondarily to that or failing to have enough Engineer traits I'll try to get the Offensive trait for them as much as possible.

See here for terrain penalties:
http://www.paradoxian.org/hoi3wiki/Terrain

RCP = River Crossing Penalty, a negative terrain modifying impact per Brigade.

ARM has 70% RCP
ART has 60% RCP
MAR has 10% RCP
INF has 50% RCP
MOT has 60% RCP
MEC has 70% RCP
SPART is 50% RCP

ENG has a 25% positive RC Bonus modifier. It can be increased by 5% per Bridge Tech advance level, but personally speaking I doubt it is actually worth researching since that 5% has to be split down as an average in divisions when usually combined with 3 or 4 other Brigades making it worth 1% - 1.25% increase in reality, still if you're desperate for it James_Manring you can get it I suppose.

OK So for the Maths of your 2x ARM + 2x MAR (or MOT/Mech) + ENG it is 2 x 70% + 2 x 10% plus the 25% bonus, which you subtract from the total negative terrain penalty arrived at from the others, so it equals 135% penalty tally divided by the number of Brigades (5) in the Division so it finally equals 27%

Now that's the penalty, but lets apply that to the division in the field against the most common Soft target, so I'll use a 1940 Tech level specimen, which I usually like to work things out by because it's most likely what I'll be fighting with, but I'll consider later versions also.

2xARM + 2xMAR + ENG = 2x 5.33 + 2x 4.07 + 0.73 = 19.53 SA

Apply the RCP to this so 19.53 x 0.73 = 14.2569 real SA

Bear in mind that other modifiers will adjust this such as any Engineer or Offensive traits and things like the Night Fighting Penalty (about half the time of battle) and combat events etc.

Now compare that to a pure MAR division, same Tech level

Triangle 3x MAR is 4.07 x3 = 12.21 at a 10% penalty means times that by 0.90 = 10.989
Square 4x MAR is 4.07 x 4 = 16.28 at the 10% penalty results with at the 0.90 = 14.652
Pentagon 5x MAR is 4.07 x 5 = 20.35 with 10% penalty will result in it at 0.90 = 18.315

The Square beats it and so would a MAR Triangle with either an ENG & ART (16.4778) or 2x ART (16.947) while just an ART (14.11275) support brigade comes close too.

The other area to think about is in terms of Hard Attack values between the above combinations.

2xARM + 2xMAR +ENG = 2x 5.33 + 2x 1.13 + 1.07 = 13.99 HA before RCP is applied.
Now with the same 27% RCP 13.99 x 0.73 it equals = 10.2127 HA in reality.

We can already see that that is going to be around double or more than the purer MAR combinations with or without Support Bgds attached, since most of these have only about 1 whole point of HA each per individual Brigade.
So it might be something to consider if your having to attack a hard (Tank) enemy formation behind a river, but how different will it be to a formation with MOT instead of MAR?

2x ARM + 2x MOT + ENG, has a RCP of 2x 70% 2x 60% plus 25% benefit = 235/5 = 47%
SA; 2xARM (5.33) +2xMOT (4.4) +ENG (0.73) has a total SA of = 20.19 adjusted by the RCP = 20.19 x 0.53 = 10.7007 SA
HA; 2x ARM (5.33) +2xMOT (1.67) +ENG (0.73) results in HA of = 14.73 adjusted by the RCP = 14.73 x 0.53 = 7.8069 HA

Now if you switch the ENG for an SPART in the above 2xARM & 2xMOT the RCP = 310/5 = 62% RCP
SA = 2xARM (5.33) +2xMOT (4.4) + SPART (6.27) = 25.73 SA reduced by RCP = 25.73 x 0.38 = 9.7774 SA
HA = 2xARM (5.33) +2xMOT (1.67) + SPART (1.93) = 15.93 HA reduced by RCP = 15.93 x 0.38 = 6.0534 HA

Hmm, interesting James_Manring your 2x ARM 2x MAR + ENG is the best hard combination SA & HA wise except however it doesn't get the CA bonus of 20% base to 30% with the Tech researched plus traits from Generals which the other combos get with MOT instead of MAR.

So yours has 14.25 SA and 10.21 HA after the RCP, lets see how the CA bonus brings the other two towards that:
With 2xARM 2xMOT +ENG with CA bonus of 30% = 13.91 SA and 10.14 HA
With 2xARM 2xMOT +START + CA bonus of 30% = 12.7 SA and 7.86 HA

If you swapped the two MAR out for two MOT and had a couple of Panzer Leader Traited Generals in the chain of command then it would be better plus any Engineer traits you can get as well would help too of course. Also don't forget this combo moves at the 8KMPH limit of the ENG instead of the 4.33KMPH limit of the MAR, so because of its speed it would be better to go with too.

How about the value of having hard_on_soft? If these are such slow moving units could we stick H Arm or SH Arm instead of ARM in there and get CA as well as hard_on_soft?

21oliver said:

The only reason i considered marines is Brazil, probably the only nation in the americas whereby argentina is at a disadvantage (other then the USA) has almost all of their VPs on the coast. Im thinking they may be defeated with a quick amphib war as opposed to trying a war of attrition against a superior opponent. Any combat buff would be big in this case, but even still they may not be worth the price.

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How much Jungle warfare are you going to be doing?

Saulius said:

I also use MOT or more rarely Mech in double Binary or 2/3 five Brigade divisions combined with 2-3 ENGs to help reduce their massive river crossing combat penalty. I also try to use the Engineer Traited Generals as divisional and Corps commaders leading them too because that 10% or 5% or 15% tallied effect directly reduces the penalty figure that the division would incur, rather than being averaged out like the ENG Bgds and secondarily to that or failing to have enough Engineer traits I'll try to get the Offensive trait for them as much as possible.

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I wouldn't use MEC to cross rivers, when ARM is not that much more expensive and will give you CA bonus. Using MOT have a slight point due to being cheaper both on IC and supplies/fuel.

Generally though I look at rivercrossings as critical, and want to bring on maximum firepower for the specialized corps tasked with overcomming then, then you want 2xARM + 2xENG. That corps will also walk right through any fort you may encounter, and most fort/river lines too.

If you haven't build any engineers, but have marines instead, they work even better then MOT+ENG on a per brigade basis except for the lower speed. 2 MOT + 2 ENG will have 92.5% efficiency instead of 90% for marines but only 2 brigades proving good soft attack values. When combat width is the limit they should be about the same.

I agree with finding the engineers traits, traits do help and as you say work for any division.

James_Manring said:

How about the value of having hard_on_soft? If these are such slow moving units could we stick H Arm or SH Arm instead of ARM in there and get CA as well as hard_on_soft?

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3x ARM + 2 ENG should get armor_on_soft bonus. In my experience that division is also very effective in taking rivers and forts.

James_Manring said:

How about the value of having hard_on_soft? If these are such slow moving units could we stick H Arm or SH Arm instead of ARM in there and get CA as well as hard_on_soft?

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A Division Combo only attains the Armor_On_Soft bonus modifier if it has a less than 50% Softness Teddy-bear. You try getting below that with HARM and 100% Soft MAR or 95% Soft ENG Brigades in there. May be with 3x HARM & 1 (no CA bonus with only one)or 2x ENG, but remember that HARM has an 80% RCP, so 240 - 25 or 50 = 215/190 divided by 4/5 = 53.57% or 38% RCP.

HARM in 1940 has 5.33 SA & 6 HA so it works out as 3xHARM +ENG with a 53.57% RCP = 7.76 SA & 8.85 HA without CA bonus but would get the Armor_On_Soft benefit of about 20% greater ORG damage to the soft target it hits so it would make the 7.76 SA worth 9.31 SA against the ORG of the soft enemy but wouldn't effect the HA figure AIUI, while the 3xHARM + 2xMAR after the RCP is applied = 10.81 SA & 12.48 HA but with the CA for both at say 30% plus the Armor_On_Soft modifier benefit against the ORG of Soft enemy target only the results for 3xHARM + 2xENG = 14.06 SA before A_O_S and finally 16.87 SA & 16.23 HA effectively before other things modify things further.

I suppose you could place a MAR in instead of the ENG or add one along with an ENG to 3x HARM, but only the second would attain the Armor_On_Soft benefit. The latter has a final result of 17.83 SA effectively with both the CA & A_O_S & 14.44 HA with the CA bonus only. So the latter of these is better against Soft enemy targets but slightly weaker against the Hard percentage of units. Remember that the target's percentage of Softness determines the likelihood of firing at it with SA or HA values, so you're not going to be using the HA against mixed Tank divisions all the time. Either of these or the 3xHARM + 2xENG are better than your original combo with 2 medium Armour mixed with 2 MAR & an ENG. Speed is less of a miss max but supply demands and IC & Tech research are huge drawbacks.

Then again you could build either 3xARM+ an ENG (14.02 SA & 11.92 HA effectively) or 1x MAR (14.08 SA & 10.01 HA effectively) for both the CA and Armor_On_Soft bonus benefits too. Both are close to your orginal combo as well James_Manring, which was achieving 14.25 SA & 10.21 HA effectively, but for major costs and speed issues.

Thanks for chiming in Alex.

In my practice 3 types of "special" force divs come handy:

2xMAR + 2xENG - good all around river/fort buster, can handle anything
2xARM + 2xENG - even better river/fort buster, can handle anything, except amphibious, marches, jungles and mountains
2xMNT + 2xENG - good river/hill/fort buster

All those divs are not most efficient attacking X ( be it forts, amph or river crossing ), but in game sometimes you need flexibility, a div that can bust through Maginot forts and go on attacking rivers, handle belgium rivers, forts and marches etc. It's also not only about attacking, but defending as well - ENG give a nice bonus on certain terrains and forts, so once you take that position with those special force units, you can blunt counterattacks, bleed ORG and continue attacking.

P.S. and give me some credit, i am well aware of reorganize button, so it's likely that I will use to to attack mountains with pure MNT etc.

JoeRambo said:

It's also not only about attacking, but defending as well - ENG give a nice bonus on certain terrains and forts, so once you take that position with those special force units, you can blunt counterattacks, bleed ORG and continue attacking.

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The engineer defence bonus for forts is still broken though, otherwise a good point.

Mariners for me are something too good to be true. They like an exploit. They are so good that I have to limit myself in building them.

Build enough mariners and you will flow through Belgium, the Netherlands and France as rivers are no longer an obstacle. The Russia is also good for mariners as it has a lot marches and rivers too. Mariners can walk through marches and rivers as one man from the Bible

@ Jamas_Manring OK here are a few more combos that compete with your mix, all of which attain both the CA bonus and Armor_On_Soft benefit and also move at motorised speed.

These are all using 1940 Tech advance levels except the MECH, which is 1941, but that can be unlocked before the start of 1940 by Tech rushing.

3xARM +MOT +SPART= with a RCP of 64% = 14.97 SA & 9.16 HA
3xARM +MOT + ENG = with a RCP of 49% = 16.80 SA & 12.41 HA

3xARM +MEC +SPART= with a RCP of 66% = 15.30 SA & 9.15 HA
3xARM +MEC + ENG = with a RCP of 51% = 17.82 SA & 12.65 HA

All good to know. I usually use the last entry as my Breakthrough formations.