Add-on brigades

[unmerged(30040)]

Which battalions should I add for my foot soldiers? As I understand, artillery brigades add to soft attack, anti tank to hard attack, anti air to air attack and anti river- er, engineer- are useful for crossing rivers. Do you prefer any of these? Or is it better to just use vanilla infantry? Also, do you build brigades for your tanks and mechanized divisions?

 

[MagicBacon]

Which battalions should I add for my foot soldiers? As I understand, artillery brigades add to soft attack, anti tank to hard attack, anti air to air attack and anti river- er, engineer- are useful for crossing rivers. Do you prefer any of these? Or is it better to just use vanilla infantry? Also, do you build brigades for your tanks and mechanized divisions?

When I do add brigades to INF, I usually add AT - 20 hard attack for INF is pretty good anyway you cut it. Besides, the Russian infantry is easy to rip to shreds - its the fifty-odd tanks and mech divisions that give you trouble.

 

[Thistletooth]

Personally, I avoid brigades most of the time. My biggest problem is never producing enough units, since I spend so much time researching; focusing on building expensive brigaded armies would only distract me further. Besides, my tech levels are usually higher than the AIs when I go to war, so I don't need the help. If I had my superior research AND brigades, I'd cut through anything...assuming I don't get overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers.

I do like to add engineers to my mountain troops, and occasionally to my marines. I'd just like them to have a GD comparable to my plain ol' grunt infantry.

 

[unmerged(29537)]

I do like to add engineers to my mountain troops, and occasionally to my marines. I'd just like them to have a GD comparable to my plain ol' grunt infantry.

Personally, that is what I do with my elite units - mountain-engineers.
I have 15 divisions of them, 6 infantry divisions with artillery brigades attached to them, and 4 parashoot divisions. (those are my attacking (infantry) units)
Rest of them are plain infantry- without any brigades.
I do no build any of them mechanized nor motorized units.

 

[MagicBacon]

Early game vanilla infantry is pretty good, but later in the game (1941) vanilla infantry will be destroyed by brigaded infantry

 

[unmerged(13158)]

Figure out your strategy. With Germany you have so many resources that you can build just about anything. ART brigades are nice because they upgrade so much. AT would be nice if you were a small nation that had to confront a fully mechanized nation... read: any of Germany's enemies. AA nice again, if you can rely on your airforce to survive. ENG if you're interested in defense.

I generally sprinkle in att/brig div.s to gain superiority at the point of attack. the rest are the matador's cloak.

 

[Thistletooth]

I do no build any of them mechanized nor motorized units.

You really should give mechanized infantry a chance. They're faster to build than armour, much cheaper, and almost as strong. You should be able to field huge mechanized armies for half the cost of a comparable armoured army. Two mechs are more powerful than one tank, give you more tactical options, are better at defending, and even consume less supplies and oil.

 

[Myrmidon]

I go for a mix, arty and eng mostly, with some at armor units

 

[unmerged(25143)]

I always use brigades when buying new units. 95% would be art. If you invest in art doctines, the stats esp a mech division with art support are huge to say the least. Oh and art brigades give you a jump in soft and hard attack.

If i have marines they get the Eng brigades.

Mind you im not a fan of nilla inf, I only use what i get at the start of the game, unless things are getting serious.

And on a side note - never underestimate the full potential of Para troops.

 

[unmerged(6780)]

Again, it all depends on what nation you're playing. Some, like the USSR, have so much manpower it almost doesn't make sense not to attach arty and AT to infantry, unless you need something really fast. With others, notably Germany, one must balance the need for a large number of divisions fairly quickly with the restrictions of a limited MP pool. Often the best way is to produce a certain percentage of units with brigades, (as Germany, I produce 1.3rd of my inf as inf-A) mostly inf-A, though it can be worth it to consider attaching an eng bde to a few divisions of fast, light tanks in order to build an exploitaion force.

By all means build mech and mot and armd. Armour are great as shock troops, with mech to provide the backbone of your mobile force. Early on, mot can be used in the role of mech and later, surviving mot units can be used quite effectively in some of the secondary theatres and/or as part of the mobile reserve in Western Europe, ready to reinforce beach garrisons.

 

[unmerged(17298)]

so it is betterif you build say 12 aa brigade inf. To have them all together or split them up with a couple of engineers and anti tank, vanilla etc?


I think the ideal 12 div inf stack is:

4 vanilla inf
2 anti air inf
2 art inf
2 anti tank inf
2 engineers inf

I would reduce these as necessary for smaller army groups; 9 or 6.

 

[unmerged(6780)]

so it is betterif you build say 12 aa brigade inf. To have them all together or split them up with a couple of engineers and anti tank, vanilla etc?


I think the ideal 12 div inf stack is:

4 vanilla inf
2 anti air inf
2 art inf
2 anti tank inf
2 engineers inf

I would reduce these as necessary for smaller army groups; 9 or 6.

Again depends on who you're playing. I don't have 12-div stacks as anyone but the Sovs. With everyone else, I build 3-div corps, lots of them, and use 2, 3, 4 together. 4 of them have the same combat power as a single 12-div army but with much greater flexibility.

As to the unit mix, as Germany, for example, my standard inf corps is 2 inf and 1 inf-A. The only time you'll see and eng bde in my German army is with improved and advanced light tank divs, all six of them, that I normally build to use as an exploitation force for my attack on the USSR.

As the Sovs, though, I will build inf armies of 6 inf, 3 inf-A and 3 inf-AT, or sometimes use a 4, 4, and 4 mix, but that's it. AA bdes are only really effective if every unit in a corps has one, for the little bit you get added to the soft and hard attack, because it's just as likely an attacking air unit will go after a non-AA unit as one with an AA bde.

 

[unmerged(14922)]

As someone already said it depends on how much manpower you have.

If you are low on it go with brigades. Use eng to speed up your units, or for garrisoning key provinces (the defense bonus helps). I never build artillery, i find them too useless. The speed hit they take doesn't fit with the mobility I want to give to my armies.

When I play against USSR or Germany I build lots of Anti-tank and Anti-air brigades, but otherwise i prefer to a brigaded infantry a mech division.

 

[mesut]

Hi,

maybe you can find some useful information here .

Regards
Mesut

 

[seattle]

so it is betterif you build say 12 aa brigade inf. To have them all together or split them up with a couple of engineers and anti tank, vanilla etc?


I think the ideal 12 div inf stack is:

4 vanilla inf
2 anti air inf
2 art inf
2 anti tank inf
2 engineers inf

I would reduce these as necessary for smaller army groups; 9 or 6.

I would only attach one brigade of each (8 vanilla, 4 brigades).
With your concept you can build tanks or mech instead of infantry. 2/3 of an infantry stack consisting of brigades consumes way too much supplies and oil. Almost the same as mechs, only worse performance.

------------------------------
@mesut

I just wanted to post the link

 

[WarDog]

As GER I build no new units without brigades. I group them as 3 div. corps with identical units. Pre-mech I build 2 corps of 3 mot w/art. + 2 corps of 3 Pz IV 80+ (one upgraded form Pz I Mg and one new with Art). Then all is thrown in to build mech. Mech Eng for speed and exploit + defencive pos. and Mech Art for punch. If I have the IC I usually build 2-4 corps of 3 Mot Eng for fast defences behind the spearheads.

Works like a dream. Gives flexibility, power and a little MP to spare for the sloughter in Russia.

 

[steveh11]

I think it very much depends on who and when you are.

Forex, at the moment I'm playing Sweden - not much in the way of manpower to waste. So most of my army is vanilla inf, I have a division of Tanks with Engineers, and a division or two of Mech with Artillery. That gives me enough for immediate defence, a Quick Response unit, and a counterattack option. Developing your forces to suit your strategy, and your strategy to suit your circumstances, is what the game's all about!

Steve.

 

[Mr.G 24]

As Republican Spain I sent everyman I got to the Franco-German line. It stayed in a stalemate, I think because of my engineer brigades. The high defense kept the French alive, until I lost my 9 fighters then I ran, but they later came in use along my Spanish border line where there was level 5 forts, no German divisions ever broke through, ever since that I've been using the Engineer brigades and occasionally some ART.

I'm a sucker for research and only start making men in the eve of war, thats why its hard for me to win as France but playing with countries like the US or Britian I make the finest infantry possible, there decked out with Engineer brigades, Art, Anti Air, because when you add up the MP lost through out the game, those infantry get the job done with less causualties. Only sometimes do I make vanilla infantry, thats or the non-strategist I'm a Combined Arms Warfare man where I get my plane to do the job along with some ground.

 

[unmerged(3221)]

In standard 1.06, Germany very hard in single play:

I build motor inf always with eng bde. For pz and mech I first build them with eng bde for the river crossing benefit and because I delay researching the arty tree. No sense in building time consuming arty brigades when they are little better than brigaded arty.
As the game goes on, I start extensive research on arty so I start adding arty brigades to my pz and mech inf at that point. So I end up with a mix of eng bde and arty bde for those forces, but eng bde are always done in the beginning.

I focus on developing high quality inf without brigades early in the game to conquer Western Europe and beat the USSR. By high quality I mean finishing the inf tree and almost all inf land doctrines. My 1941 inf will have GD 24 with SA 15 and 90+ org so they do not need arty brigades.

When I build marine and mountain they do not have any brigades. These are very powerful units even without brigades and to me these units like paratroopers should not have brigades. They are meant to fiight in hostile terrains with what equipment they can carry around. Mountain units can not carry river bridging equipment or heavy arty in mountains. Marines either fight amphibiously and must get heavy support from other sources (navy or bombers) or fight best in jungles where lugging around heavy equipment is not an option. Brigades for mountain and marines are an exploit as far as I am concerned (your opinion is probably different).