Anyone else use mostly Light Armour ?

[Tomnoddy]

Maybe it's my style of play, I don't use the battle planner for the main front, I micro stuff and encircle/overrun units as much as possible. So, I want my divisions to be fast. Limited as they are by the slowest brigade, I find myself taking the Mobile infantry line which limits me to 13.2KPH for the Mots. I then take a heavy armour design team and create +armour variants to get as much armour as possible onto these light tanks, so long as they can still do 13.2kph.

Penetration is provided by the AT support company. Other support companies are ENG, Signals, Maintenance and Recon. If you are using more than 4 brigades of L ARM in a 20 width division, you quite often encounter enemy units that are unable to penetrate.

Given the choice between a larger number of fast divisions and a small number of very tough ones, i'd take the fast option every time. Other advantages are that earlier buildup is possible , and they don't use any Tungsten.

I have researched MARM and tried combining these slower tanks with the slower, early mech models. The trouble is, by the time you're ready to start fielding these units WWII is in full swing and managing production and deployment of these extra unit types is a lot of agro when you're busy at the front is not fun. The MARM are certainly better at punching through the line to create the initial opening, but it's hard to field enough of them to make much difference.

 

[Blackwolfpt]

I use Light Armour as Japan, because for the type of terrain and considering the opponents in Asia, it's the best choice. As Germany though, I don't even start producing Light Tanks, I just beeline for the Soviet treaty, which allows you to research the Panzer III without the ahead of penalty penalty, effectively researching it almost 2 years early. That way when the war starts you can already have a good production of tanks going on.

 

[Diados]

I end up using light armor as pretty much everyone except Germany, SU, and US. I don't use any exp on armor. They light armor divisions should have about 50% hardness after getting the motorized buff from the first mech tech. That is enough to protect them fairly well from artillery. I do upgrade the guns.

 

[Misaka_Complex]

I use light armour mostly because its the easiest to make, especially with countries like Germany which doesn't have a lot of tungsten or Chromium to spare. Heavy armour is good for countries with lots of Chromium and Medium is good for countries with a lot of tungsten.

 

[Secret Master]

Aside from Japan, I won't ever be using light armor again in any great numbers. I learned my lesson after I tried to build LARM divisions to save tungsten (as the Soviets). It went very poorly. They were just overpriced MOT divisions.

 

[melkor88]

LARM is worthless in a fight, stick to MARM.

 

[War Emblem]

I'm a medium armor player all the way. Medium armor are boss.

 

[elitesix]

Maybe it's my style of play, I don't use the battle planner for the main front, I micro stuff and encircle/overrun units as much as possible. So, I want my divisions to be fast. Limited as they are by the slowest brigade, I find myself taking the Mobile infantry line which limits me to 13.2KPH for the Mots. I then take a heavy armour design team and create +armour variants to get as much armour as possible onto these light tanks, so long as they can still do 13.2kph.

Penetration is provided by the AT support company. Other support companies are ENG, Signals, Maintenance and Recon. If you are using more than 4 brigades of L ARM in a 20 width division, you quite often encounter enemy units that are unable to penetrate.

Given the choice between a larger number of fast divisions and a small number of very tough ones, i'd take the fast option every time. Other advantages are that earlier buildup is possible , and they don't use any Tungsten.

I have researched MARM and tried combining these slower tanks with the slower, early mech models. The trouble is, by the time you're ready to start fielding these units WWII is in full swing and managing production and deployment of these extra unit types is a lot of agro when you're busy at the front is not fun. The MARM are certainly better at punching through the line to create the initial opening, but it's hard to field enough of them to make much difference.

I've personally struggled with finding a role for Light Armor, so here are my thoughts:

So it seems like you like LArm Divisions for three reasons (1) cheaper, so more of them (2) Very Fast (13 kph) and (3) Combat effectiveness due to armor. I've considered LArm Divisions for such roles, but frankly a 7 Mot: 2 LSPArt Division seems superior. They're cheaper than 6 Mot: 4 Arm Divisions, they're just as fast, and they're nearly as good due to high soft attack. I do agree that for certain nations MArm isn't really viable because of how far it is in the research tree.

But for me, when it comes to strong, cheap, and mobile units, the choice is usually between 7 Motorized Infantry with 2 Light Self-Propelled Artillery OR 6 Cavalry, 2 Light SPA, 1 Heavy Tank Destroyer, Recon Company (about half as fast as motorized, but way stronger due to high armor, good hard attack, and high penetration and similarish cost).

 

[Bernard95]

As Japan I had great success using LARM against the Chinese and Russians, especially after it was fully buffed by going down the Modern Blitzkrieg path for the Mobile Warfare doctrine. Since you do have limited factories and resources, it does make some sense to use them over heavier types of armor- it sort of becomes of issue of quantity versus quality in my mind. I've also used them with some of the minors that are in similar situations as well.

 

[Emden1]

As Germany, I use LARMs for about 6 divisions to start with. After Poland falls, and MARMs production is growing, I change them out to Med Panzer Divisions, battalion by battalion until there are no longer any LARMs left in any active units. The remaining LARMs I have left, they become my costal quick reaction force.

 

[tobias.mb]

LARM is great if you are struggling with Industry / resources and/or you aren't fighting majors (who bring their own tanks).
Perfect example for countries that can use LARM to great effect are Japan and Italy.
If you are fighting against the majors, stick to MARM if you want speed.

It doesn't help that LARM is a dead-end path, but the biggest problem is that even a single support AT will easily pierce LARM divs. Speed won't do you any good if you can't breach the enemy lines. And if all you want to do is an encirclement, MOT divs will do that just fine, even without LARM mixed in.

 

[C-Breeze]

The only thing I use LARM for is lend lease. I find they're quite effective in situations like the Spanish Civil War where the opposition has little-to-no Armor/AT weapons of their own. They're relatively cheap to build, and I have no qualms shipping them overseas, as I'm quite confident my MARM would cut them to ribbons if they ever made the mistake of turning on me.

 

[luvfatfish]

I may be the only one, but I just build LARM and SPLARM divisions as every country. 22 width, 4 LARM, 4 motorized and 2 SPLARM. Supports are eng/art/AT/maintenance/hospitals. On Veteran, sliders maxed, and expert ai mod.

I use infantry 22 width, 11 battalions, with eng/art/anti tank/hospital supports as a defensive line against majots. I use the light tanks for piercing and encirclements.

I build a 4 cavalry eng/art for ports and a 4 cav only for suppression.

Those are the only 4 divisions I ever build.

Germany is a cake walk even with the difficulty maxed. France was tuff but doable. Italy wasn't possible. Just finished an England campaign and had to get very creative to pull it off. Even integrated a couple of puppets for the man power (probably because I was using LARM instead of MARM). That and I use concentrated industry and slug out the air war. I prefer not to switch out lines if I don't have to. I find on veteran, every bit of production you can get helps.

What can I say, I love the fast divisions... As germany with all the speed buffs, it's nearly broken.

 

[Otto of england]

I enjoy using light army with the following build (best as germany)

1. Mobile Warfare design team (+5%)
2. 1941 light armour, max speed variant. No upgrades that reduce speed. (+25%)
3. Guderian (+10%)
4. That army chief of staff for another +10% speed
5. Mobile Warfare for max speed on tanks.
(+20%)

Total speed bonus +70%

Division build
1x recon
1x engineer
4x light armour

Total speed bonus +80%
With a base speed of 15 kph
27 kph.

They make good exploitation divisions that if they die it's not big deal

 

[luvfatfish]

I enjoy using light army with the following build (best as germany)

1. Mobile Warfare design team (+5%)
2. 1941 light armour, max speed variant. No upgrades that reduce speed. (+25%)
3. Guderian (+10%)
4. That army chief of staff for another +10% speed
5. Mobile Warfare for max speed on tanks.
(+20%)

Total speed bonus +70%

Division build
1x recon
1x engineer
4x light armour

Total speed bonus +80%
With a base speed of 15 kph
27 kph.

They make good exploitation divisions that if they die it's not big deal

That actually might be fun.

 

[sterrius]

The question is a little tricky.

i like a lot to mix LARM + HT because it both work as a cut on costs but also work just as fine as a full HT or MT division. Specially because that opens later the SHT + LARM combo that is very very deadly and can only be beaten by Modern tanks in 1945.

the cost i cut on the making of those divisions is transfered to pure LT + Mech divisions that can easily take the job of encircling or just pushing by themselves vs weak infantary or going for tanks. (as long they can pierce, easy to achieve with 1942 LTD that is quite good).

 

[Baldeagle91]

At most I'll stick LARM onto my Mech/Motorised Divisions for a little extra oomph, or if I'm playing a minor that simply can't produce enough mediums (aka cheap LARM + CAV cheap tank divisions).

With the Mech/Motorised I tend to keep them as SPG or TD variants than using them to actually provide any hardness. That way you can increase hard and soft attack without slowing them down which is a godsend for encirclement maneuvers (Tanks break the line, motorised and mech exploit).

However if you have the resources, simply upgrading the engines of you mediums works just as well.

 

[jsheikh]

IIRC in my last game I noticed that Tier 2 Light - SPA has the same soft attack as Tier 1 Medium SPA i.e. The Wespe has same SA as Grille. Really useful for spamming loads of SPA on the panzer divs and/or re-allocating that MIC for other things.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: Added Screenie

 

[Tomnoddy]

I've used LARM successfully as France, Germany and Russia vs AI. As Russia, we ended up annexing Germany by the end of 1941, we had quite a lot of these divisions and when Germany left a weak spot near east Prussia, the AI was utterly unable to cope with the breakout.

I've been using LARM too in my Germany game, got about 18 LARM. 3 Light Armour/7 Motorised in 1941 due my large pre-war stockpile of Moto. This ran down once war started since i could no longer import rubber, and i started swapping Mots for LARM, which also increased hardness in the face of the increasing pierce rating of newer infantry divisions. 3 LARM / 7 moto was immune from piercing in 1941, 4 larm/6 moto in 1942, by 1943 it's 5/5.

I have also been developing medium tanks and mech infantry, i have 2 divisions of 8.8kph tanks and mech, and 2 of 9.9kph tanks/mech (includes a few of the 1934 tank stockpile too, which are limited to 10kph).

With 1943 techs I will finally be able to produce 13.2kph mech and medium armour brigades, so i'll slowly start exchanging my light armour and motos for these, one brigade at a time, as stockpiles allow.

 

[Secret Master]

IIRC in my last game I noticed that Tier 2 Light - SPA has the same soft attack as Tier 1 Medium SPA i.e. The Wespe has same SA as Grille.

Same SA is good. Cheaper cost is also good. Faster speed is nice.

But what you're really paying for is the hardness and armor rating.