36, 39 or 42 light tank?

[Spelaren]

Let's say you are playing a moderately sized minor like Poland or a formable nation one like thalassian confederacy or Scandinavia. Which tank is most suitable? Rushing the 1936 one let's you start producing it super early, but it's quite a bit slower than motorized battalions, 8 km/h vs 12 km/h. 1939 ones can be acquired early too with generic focus tree if you do that, but it still takes a bit longer.

 

[Voigt]

There is no 1939 Light Tank, and the 1939 MARM1 is quite weak.
1936 LSPART is quite good, more so of course the 1941 model, but this is quite late.
For MARM I would only work with atleast 1941 models.

 

[Crixus]

If you gonna rush the late tech you can start researching the 1934 tank at day 1, then go for the 1936 tank right after and save your focus-research bonus for the 1941 tank, it might take some time, but you'll have the 1941-version in 1939 or 1940, prolly.

 

[Spelaren]

There is no 1939 Light Tank, and the 1939 MARM1 is quite weak.
1936 LSPART is quite good, more so of course the 1941 model, but this is quite late.
For MARM I would only work with atleast 1941 models.

Oh yeah, i mistook

If you gonna rush the late tech you can start researching the 1934 tank at day 1, then go for the 1936 tank right after and save your focus-research bonus for the 1941 tank, it might take some time, but you'll have the 1941-version in 1939 or 1940, prolly.

What benefits would there be to that? Why not research medium at that point?

 

[Crixus]

Oh yeah, i mistook

What benefits would there be to that? Why not research medium at that point?

Since you were consired about the speed, i assumed you were talking about light tanks.
By all means gå mediums if you have the industry and resourses for it.

 

[Spelaren]

Since you were consired about the speed, i assumed you were talking about light tanks.
By all means gå mediums if you have the industry and resourses for it.

Well i don't really have the industry, or so i think at least. Never tried using mediums as a minor.

 

[el nora]

Well i don't really have the industry, or so i think at least. Never tried using mediums as a minor.

Every battalion of 1941 lights cost 600 ic, mediums cost 650. The difference in industry is marginal, but the difference in quality is huge.

 

[Simon_9732495]

The advantage of light tanks compared to Mediums is that they only need steel (no tungsten or chromium) and you get the decent Light Tank 2 with minimal research.

The advantage of medium tanks is the armor. And one of the main reasons why tanks are better as Inf at attacking is the armor bonus. You do +40% damage if the defender can't pierce you.

The differnce in production cost is minimal, as @el nora wrote, because you need 60 light tanks for one batallion and only 50 medium tanks. That equalizes the a bit higher IC cost.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

I research the and Upgrade the Tanks like historical as possible (as well as the never done Reasearches). The historical Research can´t be done in the Medium Tanks atm. So I hope for the cool stuff like in the Navy for Airforce and Army.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The advantage of light tanks compared to Mediums is that they only need steel (no tungsten or chromium) and you get the decent Light Tank 2 with minimal research.

The advantage of medium tanks is the armor. And one of the main reasons why tanks are better as Inf at attacking is the armor bonus. You do +40% damage if the defender can't pierce you.

The differnce in production cost is minimal, as @el nora wrote, because you need 60 light tanks for one batallion and only 50 medium tanks. That equalizes the a bit higher IC cost.

I'd only recommend favoring light tanks for nations that get light tank specific research bonuses, or if you're intending to use them as overrun specialists rather than line breakers. Though with how fuel issues screw things up tiny mot divisions might be the most convenient way to take advantage of line breaks in SP.

Actually I wouldn't advocate bothering with tanks at all in SP as Poland until later (like after you've beaten Germany if staying non-aligned path). The reason you need tanks against other players don't really come to fruition in SP playing as a minor.

 

[him_15]

BTW, any good Light Tank division template for reference?

 

[el nora]

Vindicators 5-2-2 LT-mot-LSPG/katyusha can work if you are going to buckle up and really micro every single detail on speed 2 or 3. It relies on 4 width cav to intercept enemy divisions and the light tanks to outmaneuver and pocket them to be cleaned up later. It relies on outnumbering the enemy and exploiting the ais stupidity. If you typically battleplan your infantry, this is probably not going to be a comfortable strategy to use.

Pure light tank divisions can capture territory faster than motorized can (>30 km/h), but they are vulnerable to getting strength-deleted from the map anytime they encounter an enemy division because of their low hp.

As an actual, 40 wide, combat division, I don't think there is such a thing. Not in light tanks.

Medium/heavy tanks will typically be anything between 15-5 and 12-8 tank-mobile infantry if you use SF doctrine and between 17-3 and 15-5 if you use MW doctrine. 17-3 heavy-mech is unpiercable by any amount of medium TD, so you force your enemies hand into making heavies of their own. 12-8 medium-amtrac is super cheap and has negligible penalties crossing rivers, which is very useful when invading Russia.

 

[Spelaren]

Vindicators 5-2-2 LT-mot-LSPG/katyusha can work if you are going to buckle up and really micro every single detail on speed 2 or 3. It relies on 4 width cav to intercept enemy divisions and the light tanks to outmaneuver and pocket them to be cleaned up later. It relies on outnumbering the enemy and exploiting the ais stupidity. If you typically battleplan your infantry, this is probably not going to be a comfortable strategy to use.

Pure light tank divisions can capture territory faster than motorized can (>30 km/h), but they are vulnerable to getting strength-deleted from the map anytime they encounter an enemy division because of their low hp.

As an actual, 40 wide, combat division, I don't think there is such a thing. Not in light tanks.

Medium/heavy tanks will typically be anything between 15-5 and 12-8 tank-mobile infantry if you use SF doctrine and between 17-3 and 15-5 if you use MW doctrine. 17-3 heavy-mech is unpiercable by any amount of medium TD, so you force your enemies hand into making heavies of their own. 12-8 medium-amtrac is super cheap and has negligible penalties crossing rivers, which is very useful when invading Russia.

I do use vindicators 5/2/2 thing, it does not work with battleplans at all i have noticed. What support battalions does the cav have? Engi and recon?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

As an actual, 40 wide, combat division, I don't think there is such a thing. Not in light tanks.

You can do it. It's strictly worse than medium tanks, but you still get high breakthrough and light tank hardness is still 80% so a 40w division using '36 or '41 tech on light tanks with some SPG thrown in there for good damage still works. There's just no good reason to pick them over medium 2's. The '36 variant can see some play in SP because it's available before medium tanks are feasible and some AI targets will have literally no support AA/AT and still take the penalty from failing to penetrate comically low armor values like 5.

I do use vindicators 5/2/2 thing, it does not work with battleplans at all i have noticed. What support battalions does the cav have? Engi and recon?

I'm not Vindicator but I'd guess probably nothing. 4w does two things: walk into uncontested provinces and pin opponents' units from moving. Putting support on it will make it way more expensive, without changing the fact that it's useless outside of those two jobs. Early game damage values are low enough that it can take ages for divisions to de-org small width spam like that, and his light tank maneuvers are tailor made for dominating the early game and snowballing.

 

[Voigt]

The one thing about Light Tanks is, that they are very cheap and LSPART has very similar Soft Attack to MARM and MSPART.
So something like 8 LSPART + 8 Mot can push extremly well against Infantry for a very low IC and Fuel cost.
If you wanna have some Armour/Breaktrough then just switch 2 Mot for MARM2. You lose a bit of speed and org but gain lots of armour and breaktrough. The production becomes a bit more complicated but the division is still very cheap overall.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Light tanks aren't that much cheaper than mediums (both are significantly cheaper than heavies). Going from '41 light to '41 mediums with 8/6/4 (tank/mot/SPG) is ~7500 IC for light vs ~8350 for medium. You get about 40 soft attack less and much less armor, and take a small penalty to hardness as well.

The same division using heavy tanks/spg instead costs 12500 IC, which is a much larger increase. However this division has more than 100 extra soft attack even compared to the medium tank version and benefits more from the variant upgrades.

The stats can be somewhat misleading though, tanks take increasingly harsh terrain penalties as they get heavier.

I do think heavy tanks would see more play if they had something between the '34 and '41 variants. '41 heavy tanks are somewhat troublesome to deal with unless you use your own heavy tanks (TD) or CAS. Even medium TD will struggle vs them and generally fail to pierce unless you sustain fighting with them to wear them down (taking armor penalty meanwhile).

 

[Voigt]

I wouldn't use 8/6/4 though, this seems the worst combination of variants that is possible. some templates I would use:

Quite high Soft Attack for quite a low cost of under 5k IC. Remember that you can even convert old LARM1 into LSPART2 and old LARM2 into LSPART3, which works very well with conquered Czech and French Tanks. The fuel usage with 17.2 is also quite low. Of course the armour is minisucle, enough the defend against pure infantry, but support AA1 will pierce. Still very decent against AI.

This is why you can put in 1941 MARM into the division, you lose a bit of org and speed but still a very fine with over 10 km/h and over 35org. Fuel usage goes also up a bit, but still qzute low. Production cost is over 5k now.
But you can 36 armour which helps against AA2 piercing, your soft attack goes up a bit more, you get good piercing against enemy tanks, and with 193 breaktrough you should be quite save against enemy infantry damage. Your hardness is also quite decent.

compare that to a somewhat regular tank division, 9k IC cost and 47.5 fuel usage, this will cost you alot. 780 breaktrough is far more than enemy infantry can bring soft attack, so a bit wasted there. You get quite nice hardness and a combination of soft and hard attack, making this division ok against other tanks and infantry alike.
If you go 15MARM/5Mot or even 5 Mech you can even more attack but of course your IC cost goes up even more.

Now if you use pure MSPART instead of pure LSPART you get a somewhat higher soft attack, but also a bit higher IC cost. this scales roughly linearly. But Light Spart you can produce much earlier and and convert older LARM you capture. You get more armour but with under 30 armour, AA2 can still pierce you.

If you mix MSPART with MARM you get again decent breaktrough, but you soft attack values are only slightly higher than LSPART+MARM. Again for LSPART you can get an easy stockpile early and convert older stuff. I would only use MSPART when you have researched the Panther and can convert old Panzer IV MARM2 into MSPART3 in best case replace MARM with Modern Tanks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Quite high Soft Attack for quite a low cost of under 5k IC. Remember that you can even convert old LARM1 into LSPART2 and old LARM2 into LSPART3, which works very well with conquered Czech and French Tanks. The fuel usage with 17.2 is also quite low. Of course the armour is minisucle, enough the defend against pure infantry, but support AA1 will pierce. Still very decent against AI.

This is just a fast version of the 8/8 inf/arty setup I mentioned earlier .

compare that to a somewhat regular tank division, 9k IC cost and 47.5 fuel usage, this will cost you alot. 780 breaktrough is far more than enemy infantry can bring soft attack, so a bit wasted there.

It's not a completely safe assumption wrt breakthrough. Even infantry can sometimes get 1k-1.5k attack on AI. In more extreme cases I've had 2k-3k on infantry. Your breakthrough can also benefit from experience/planning/etc but the point is that especially if terrain you're attacking isn't ideal 780 might not be as overkill as one might expect when theorycrafting the division pre-modifiers.

 

[Hoi Neuling]

What I do with the Tanks is to combine the light Tanks with mobile Infantry. That get called a light Devision later, which was the Fire Fighting Troop and Breakthrough Troop for the first Years of WW 2. There you can use

And the light Tanks are good for Support Scout-Troop later (esp. in Russia), where the motorised Support Scout-Troops / Kavallarie-Troops aren´t good anymore. The 1942 Tank is for smaller Countrys and esp. for Asia a good Fighting Tank until good mediums show up.

But we will see what get done in the next Versions and DLC´s.

 

[squid_hills]

I find light tanks to retain their combat viability a lot longer if you're fighting in Asia. AI China doesn't field many tanks, so Japan never bothers to add support AT to their divisions. AI Japan doesn't field many tanks, due to MIC and resource limitations, so China doesn't bother to add support AT to their divisions, either. Light tanks are great for zipping across Australia and grabbing VPs. Yeah, by 1944 everybody in Asia has AT in their divisions, but you can squeeze a few more years of value out of light tanks in that theater. They still aren't the ideal armor option for majors, though.