40 width for major nations?

[Thrac]

I usually 44w divisions as Soviet with Mass Mob left side. 20inf 4 arty + eng, recon, medic, mentinence and AA suport.
Medic cuz soviet life’s and Experience matters.
Mentinence cuz it has alot of Equipment, and its cool not to waste it.
AA support cuz its easily grinds the fascist air pigs.
40-44w cuz you save on Support Equipment compared to a 20w. For the same amount you get the same bonus as on a 20w.
Plus 40w div will allways be better in combat vs 2 20w

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are a lot of people who think their own approach of playing the game is the only right way. Take what people say with a grain of salt. People have specific playstyles and they will give what goes best for that playstyle, and they will assume their advice will work for everyone else. Best you can do is to try out stuff on your to your own liking.

Even people are writing stuff like "CAS is best even in large USSR". This is in 90% of all circumstances just WRONG.

Read all the tooltips and go with what you like the best and make it work.

To some extent, it's useful to realize that most of this advice actually works in SP if you micromanage effectively, because the AI doesn't. 20:1 with 10 infantry battalions and support is attainable with nothing else in terms of divisions, and easy if you have air superiority. Nobody should pretend such a setup is optimal/ideal in most cases.

Rather than worrying about 10 vs 20 vs 40 as USSR, a foundation of knowledge in the game should let players win with any or all of the 3 in SP. Once more experienced, it's important to understand what outperforms alternatives in each scenario and why. That reasoning is how you actually counter stuff, should you ever need to do so.

Aeon gives sound advice for example, but getting width screwed by tactics --> shoved back means a lot more on some fronts than others. If your line breaking cause you to die, this is a dominant consideration. If you're more concerned about equipment or manpower efficiency and are in a strong position maybe you just go 40 width anyway. He even gave reasoning why a tank width would therefore be better suited at 40w, but not all infantry if you infer the rationale properly.

A rookie player needs to be processing the "why" of the advice, because understanding that is the way to improve. That, and practice micro because in SP you can seriously win with almost anything halfway competent, and if you do fight good players later they'll have the compositions AND the micro.

 

[BulgarianFocusTree]

I wouldn't start 40 width, even as a major, mostly because while twenty 40 width units are superior to forty 20 width units, you can stand those 20 width units in forty different spots.
This is a big deal for the USSR, who needs a lot of bodies in a lot of different places.

That said, your mid game (or late early game, whatever) should be to try to get your attacking divisions up the width chart. That way you won't get backstabbed by an AI.

 

[optimerad]

20w is plenty good for defense. You should go 40w only for stuff that you want to attack with because due to reinforce mechanics it sucks at defense.

Best divs to use 40w with are medium or heavy tank divisions.

You do realize that you are contradicting your self a bit here?

1. You need the 40w even in defense, especially for counter attacks and keeping your supply lines intact
2. There is no way any 20w template can stand up to a decent high soft attack 40w template (were talking +1000 base soft attack here), they just melt. Unless you have air superiority and fortresses, a 20w army is doomed.

Best solution I've seen so far is modding the Division Width cap to below 40.

 

[Gort11]

Even people are writing stuff like "CAS is best even in large USSR". This is in 90% of all circumstances just WRONG.

I'd like to see some reasoning to back up this statement, if you have any.

 

[N3UTR0N]

So I should not put 2 artillery on my infantry division then? Or I should do put them if I go for the Superior firepower doctrine?

So many recommendations, and It's confusing me.

 

[Gort11]

So I should not put 2 artillery on my infantry division then? Or I should do put them if I go for the Superior firepower doctrine?

So many recommendations, and It's confusing me.

2 battalions of artillery in a 40 width infantry division is not much artillery. The world would not end if you did make divisions like that, however, and I doubt it's the major factor in why you took so many casualties compared to your enemy last game - I'd say the main reasons for that were that you attacked at the outbreak of the war instead of allowing the Germans to grind themselves down attacking you, and that you didn't use CAS to bomb their divisions.

Artillery are some of the best battalions you can have for fighting enemy infantry (which is what you'll mostly be fighting) - the problems with them is that they have very low organisation, and are about four times more expensive than infantry. This is why you don't just build divisions of nothing but artillery - they'd be very expensive, and would not be able to participate in combat for very long before their organisation ran out.

Many players advocate a ratio of seven infantry battalions for every two artillery battalions in your division (so 7/2 for 20 width, or 14/4 for 40 width), but there are many thoughts on the matter. Some players don't use artillery at all, and just use hordes of infantry and never attack with those divisions, using the industry they save to build more planes and tanks.

 

[N3UTR0N]

Many players advocate a ratio of seven infantry battalions for every two artillery battalions in your division (so 7/2 for 20 width, or 14/4 for 40 width), but there are many thoughts on the matter. Some players don't use artillery at all, and just use hordes of infantry and never attack with those divisions, using the industry they save to build more planes and tanks.

Ok thanks for telling me.

So, if I go for the Superior firepower doctrine, I should put artilery, but If I go for a different doctrine like Mass planning, Mobile warfare or staying on Mass assault, then I should ignore the artillery for infantry divisions, I'm correct?

 

[Gort11]

No, not really. Superior Firepower has some buffs for artillery halfway down the tree (note that the opening tech in Superior Firepower does nothing for artillery), but it doesn't really change things that much. Artillery is a great source of soft attack for any infantry division, regardless of doctrine.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

It would be quite obvious but the range penalties you suffer in the larger airzones in USSR totally outweights the higher ground attack CAS has over TAC.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

And for all the talk about width. I hope that some day people will actually understand that in a one to one scenario a 26 width division will kill a 20 width divsion. And a 46 width division will kill a 40 width division etc.

 

[Gort11]

It would be quite obvious but the range penalties you suffer in the larger airzones in USSR totally outweights the higher ground attack CAS has over TAC.

I don't think you've actually done the maths on this.

And for all the talk about width. I hope that some day people will actually understand that in a one to one scenario a 26 width division will kill a 20 width divsion. And a 46 width division will kill a 40 width division etc.

Sure, but nobody is talking about one-on-one division fights. We're talking about the effect using different division templates has on your entire army.

 

[TorAndreKongelf]

I am not a math guy so I hope someone eventually will do the job of calculating. But I only tried it like 20 times and the results speak for itself. I recommend you try it your self. Its a shame that these "CAS is always best" memes influence the community so strong, because a lot of people will actually think its the best and will never try anything else.

 

[Gort11]

I am not a math guy so I hope someone eventually will do the job of calculating. But I only tried it like 20 times and the results speak for itself. I recommend you try it your self. Its a shame that these "CAS is always best" memes influence the community so strong, because a lot of people will actually think its the best and will never try anything else.

Wait, you've directly compared the results of CAS and TAC planes in a war between the USSR and Germany twenty times? Or are you just fond of being contrary on the Internet but don't want to put in the effort of doing arithmetic or experiments?

1940s CAS has a ground attack of 15 per plane, and they're much cheaper than TAC. With them, you get 0.625 ground attack for each point of production cost.

1940s TAC has a ground attack of 9 per plane. You get 0.231 ground attack for each point of production cost.

OK, so we've established that plane-for-plane, CAS are twice as good as TAC for ground attack, and production-for-production, CAS planes are a little under three times as good as TAC. So, in order for TAC to be a better choice than CAS for a given air zone, the CAS need to be taking a penalty of about 66% due to range.

Unmodified 1940s CAS don't get any appreciable penalty from range in the air zones where the USSR and Germany fight. The worst I could get was a 3% penalty in the Northern Front zone.

CAS are a much better choice than TAC for the USSR.

 

[N3UTR0N]

Is there is anyway how to deal with the damn japanece? First time I played, I didnt put much divisions in the asian front, which ofcourse the japanece could easly push. But now the second time I'm playing, I've put like 50 divisions on the asian/japance front, still no success against the japanese.


And I've took your advie about the german front, the germans now have 1900k around casualities, while I have only 900k.

 

[Gort11]

Japan's land forces have no chance against the USSR if you don't have to also focus on Germany. I usually put two armies of 24 infantry divisions over there to provide resistance while my main effort is directed at defeating Germany. Once Germany's dealt with I can move my main forces to the Japanese front and August Storm them.

It can be helpful to build a chain of 10 infrastructure provinces going from Moscow to Vladivostok to allow you to field a larger army out East, but that's a pipe-dream best reserved for after Germany and Italy capitulate.

 

[a_sophist]

Is there is anyway how to deal with the damn japanece? First time I played, I didnt put much divisions in the asian front, which ofcourse the japanece could easly push. But now the second time I'm playing, I've put like 50 divisions on the asian/japance front, still no success against the japanese.


And I've took your advie about the german front, the germans now have 1900k around casualities, while I have only 900k.

Honestly the best thing you can do is play with mods that make Japan form their own faction or sign a NAP so you don't have to bother with them . Fortunately with WtT that will happen on the historical setting. Fighting in the Far East and other low supply areas is the most tedious and frustrating experience in the game, and I generally let the AIs handle it when I can. Therefore when I play without mods I just make a fallback line north to south around the Ural Mountains and let them push. You might lose some resources, but the AI won't even take empty space most of the time if supply is bad, so they won't get as far as you think unless you take forever capitulating Germany.

 

[Shaka of Carthage]

So many recommendations, and It's confusing me.

Yep. Can be very confusing.

There is no right or wrong way to play the game. As stated above, against the AI, almost anything will work. Doesn't mean your first few times out will be successful. And it doesn't mean you are incompetent when the AI beats you.

With the current numbers, the basic 7/2 is a good starting point.

Everything else is just a matter of how much time you want to spend understanding situational circumstances and how you can effectively respond to them. For most players, just getting more of your basic stuff to throw against someone beating you is good enough.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think you've actually done the maths on this.



Sure, but nobody is talking about one-on-one division fights. We're talking about the effect using different division templates has on your entire army.

Some damage > no damage. CAS beats TAC so long as CAS can participate in that battle given available airfield space. TAC > no planes on CAS, and can reach from distances CAS can't.

If you had unlimited industry you'd just use both and ensure every battle has coverage to the extent possible, after first securing air superiority so it works at all.

This also makes "math" pretty difficult to use without making a lot of assumptions first. Depending on what assumptions you set (air field size, enemy air presence) you can push the math to favor either TAC or CAS pretty easily, and that's before we get into versatility discussion or IC opportunity cost.

As an example, take your picture from above but consider what it would look like if you needed 3000 more light fighters to get decent air superiority in the same region. CAS still winning over TAC?

 

[xMer]

CAS vs TAC in competitive MP play:
Contested air zones are very likely to be saturated with fighters on both sides. And every airport that can provide fighters provide them, even relatively small differences can turn attrition air war into either side favour.
Problem of CAS is that it use same airports as fighters use while TAC use far away airports.
Also TAC is sufficient to provide full ground support bonus with speed up advance of quality tank forces.