Armor best setup

[milman]

I still don't have H and SH tanks but here are how they are organized now and will be prepared for Russia.

2 Panzer armies

Panzer division = Arm, Arm, Mot, SP
Moto division = 3 X Mot ( and i will probably add engie for russia)

Panzer corps = 4 Pz div
Moto corps = 4 moto div

Panzer armie = 2 X Pz corps and 2 X Moto corps.

I had one armie in France and they do miracles (which is not very hard with this AI)

Those Larm tanks will be used for defence of France.

 

[unmerged(156866)]

One combo I havent seen on here is:

L Arm x 2
AC x 2

These units are ultra fast by 1939 with the appropriate techs (10km), get the combined arms bonus, and are relatively cheap. If you start building them as Germany in mid-36, you can run a 5-division corps off the line every few months and put 6 5-division corps in the field by 1939. All for about 50IC, iirc. All the production adds to practical and drives down the costs of the other armor techs for your later divisions. Upgrade costs are not hard to bear either.

These divisions can disembowel Poland and France, bursting through and encircling rapidly. Once a line is broken open, these units flood through at crazy speed.

I am about to test it against USSR sometime this week.

 

[jalapen0]

One combo I havent seen on here is:

L Arm x 2
AC x 2

I'm going to test this variation after the 1.2 patch. Thanks VK.

 

[tonguz]

Simple is the best

Well, I prefer SU tactic. Build same type in quantities for maximum effect.

I prefer simple LARM+MOT+MOT later MARM+MOT+MOT for spearheads and MOT+MOT+SPATY for keeping ground and follow ups.

 

[Nukeitall]

I'm going to test this variation after the 1.2 patch. Thanks VK.

It's pretty solid, but frankly I find that I like using armored cars "when needed"

The little guys become obsolete when SPAT brigades start driving around.

 

[unmerged(156866)]

It's pretty solid, but frankly I find that I like using armored cars "when needed"

The little guys become obsolete when SPAT brigades start driving around.

Can you say "expeditionary force"

Slovakia with Armored Cars is very very funny.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My armor setup looks like this:

LARM-LARM-AC => Early war CA armoured division.

LARM-MECH-MECH => A fast spearhead brigade. High firepower and spe, but only decent softness.

ARM-ARM-MECH => Lower softness and more hard attack, but slower. Better if the enemy has tanks on his side.

HARM-HARM-HARM => Does not use the CA bonus, but is very effective thanks to low softness, esp. vs units lacking proper HA (basicly anything but AT, TD and other ARM/HARM)

 

[sytion2012]

No, hes talking about regular foot Infantry. What he stated is a fact. The military unit record for largest sustained daily gains in km/day belongs to this day to Mongol Horse Archers who averaged something like 25/km a day which is pretty impressive. While Tank units tactically were faster than other units, when you averaged it all out, they faired about the same as Infantry in ground gained. The way your imagining it, tanks would have to be able to go full throttle without any contact with the enemy. Thats not how battle went (or goes for that matter). When tanks get into contact or EXPECT to be in contact, they slow down dramatically for security. Tanks blowing through will suffer horrendous casualties to AT Infantry in spider holes, land mines, and well placed AT guns. Now, if the tanks were able to get through without contact, sure they might make some substantial gains. But at the end of the day, when you average it out, it works out the same as Infantry.

Back on topic, I have a few different types of Armor Division I like to run.

Flanker light tanks Div. = 2xLA, 1xMot
Standard line breaker Div. = 1xMA, 1xLA, 1xMot (Sometimes Mech if I have enough)
Heavy Duty line breaker Div. = 1xSHA, 2xMA, 1x Mech

I sometimes will attach SP Arty or ENG BDEs as needed.

The attacking divisions on the northrussian front july 41 about 80km (14 hours a day with a speed of 8km/h and some littel rest and no combat) a day wich was not egnoth (the leading Pz divisions ha tod hold sothing about 2weeks for their inf support)

 

[unmerged(45464)]

One combo I havent seen on here is:

L Arm x 2
AC x 2

These units are ultra fast by 1939 with the appropriate techs (10km), get the combined arms bonus, and are relatively cheap. If you start building them as Germany in mid-36, you can run a 5-division corps off the line every few months and put 6 5-division corps in the field by 1939. All for about 50IC, iirc. All the production adds to practical and drives down the costs of the other armor techs for your later divisions. Upgrade costs are not hard to bear either.

These divisions can disembowel Poland and France, bursting through and encircling rapidly. Once a line is broken open, these units flood through at crazy speed.

I am about to test it against USSR sometime this week.

Might be good early in the war, but by 1943 light tanks were obsolete and not used much on the front lines any more. Not sure if it's true in the game though since the game cannot differentiate between 1 big gun and 2 small guns. So in the game 2 light tanks vs 1 Tiger the light tanks might have the same attack power even though IRL the shells from the light tanks would just bounce off so even a 10:1 advantage would be irrelevant.

 

[unmerged(156866)]

Might be good early in the war, but by 1943 light tanks were obsolete and not used much on the front lines any more. Not sure if it's true in the game though since the game cannot differentiate between 1 big gun and 2 small guns. So in the game 2 light tanks vs 1 Tiger the light tanks might have the same attack power even though IRL the shells from the light tanks would just bounce off so even a 10:1 advantage would be irrelevant.

I would never use those units for front line combat. They are for rapid manuever. Medium armor or heavier is for opening the hole, these are for exploiting it.

Never underestimate the value of being able to throw 25 divisions behind your enemy's lines that he cant catch up to.

 

[unmerged(141861)]

Yes, if you want to replace infantry with support units, these are good choices! If you want to be proactive, however, you may also consider.
3 Arm + AC (34% soft) and 3 Arm + 2 SP Art (40% soft).
They give you very good concentration of firepower for breakthrough, and you can keep them throughout the war. You can then also early on decide if you go for AC techs, Art techs or both (2 each). Engineers are a little expensive in terms of bang for your buck in the long term.

It seems to me from playing that suppport units take less damage in combat than front line, which is why I go for these two sets. In HOI2 my Arm/Mot groups were always waiting for the MOT component to repair and rest (improve ORG). So by sticking with this combo, I do not even upgrade my AC, but as I upgrade the ENG, they get crazy good at crossing rivers to the point that I can ignore taht feature on maps, and forts also cease to exist...So i do not consider the Eng to be not "proactive" as you say.

 

[unmerged(141861)]

The little guys become obsolete when SPAT brigades start driving around.

Not if you prefer the speed of AC.

 

[unmerged(45464)]

I would never use those units for front line combat. They are for rapid manuever. Medium armor or heavier is for opening the hole, these are for exploiting it.

Never underestimate the value of being able to throw 25 divisions behind your enemy's lines that he cant catch up to.

Still, by 1943 light tanks were relegated mostly to become chassis for SP AT and such. The new handheld AT weapons like panzershreks could turn a light tank into dust. As far as I know the research system in HoI3 lets you research all the way to year 2000 if you want to which seems strange since light tank design was pretty much abandoned at 1943.

A light tank at the end of the war should be about as good as cavalry is early on. Meaning they are going to get ripped to pieces in a real fight since even infantry had so much AT weapons at the end of the world that the thin metal of a LT would not help you much, but they can hunt partisans or as you say exploit holes in the line if you want to (but they should not do very well if the enemy manages to fight them)

 

[unmerged(156866)]

Still, by 1943 light tanks were relegated mostly to become chassis for SP AT and such. The new handheld AT weapons like panzershreks could turn a light tank into dust. As far as I know the research system in HoI3 lets you research all the way to year 2000 if you want to which seems strange since light tank design was pretty much abandoned at 1943.

A light tank at the end of the war should be about as good as cavalry is early on. Meaning they are going to get ripped to pieces in a real fight since even infantry had so much AT weapons at the end of the world that the thin metal of a LT would not help you much, but they can hunt partisans or as you say exploit holes in the line if you want to (but they should not do very well if the enemy manages to fight them)

This thread is not about how it should be. It is about the best way to use the units in the game as it stands. And as it stands, I think 2 light armor and 2 AC per division creates an extraordinary blitz force once breakthrough is achieved. They move at 10kph and they can overrun light resistance.

How things should be is a subject for the modding forum.

 

[vertinox]

Only problem I see with that Manstein is the slow speed of the Harm will nullify the main advantage of Larm, which is speed.

One of the things that made the great encirclements of the Barbarossa campaign was the quickness of the German panzers, and the slow response of the Soviets.

The speed of Larm makes up for their firepower/armour dificiencies.

I keep my Larm, Marm, and Harm all separate.

And I'll only group Marm and SP-art together simply because they are the same (or there abouts speed).

Even though Larm has little puch its good for attacking and exploiting weak spots. Marm is to hit or defend the big stacks in play.

 

[unmerged(149786)]

I am pretty sure we have light tanks now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tanks#Light_tank

Basically, after early WW2 they became used for Recon.

JM

 

[unmerged(149786)]

For late game, I would use LArm to increase the hardness of my Mech divisions, if I had them.

Other than the Recon/etc role.

You want things that can travel at the same speed. Mech hits hard enough, honestly.

JM

 

[unmerged(149786)]

With hardness playing such a role, can you not upgrade your defense/etc to increase the speed of your armor/TDs?

I am thinking, especially with TDs, that I might want them moving faster, but without the heavy armor they can have. Their real point, I think, is to add a lot of fast HA as well as hardning the diivision.

JM

 

[Jmland]

I haven't done any in depth analysis of it...but this is what I'm building...

Panzer Div
1 x M Arm
1 x Mot Inf
1 x SPARTY (Stug...actually it says Hummel)
1 x SPAT (Jagdpanther)

Motorized Div

1 x L Arm
1 x Mot Inf
1 x SPARTY
1 x SPAT

Advantages: width of 2 (with my current tech), manpower cost of 8k, Mot Inf Divs get combined arms bonus, and act as "Pocket Panzer Div's".
Disadvantages: from most of the posts, it looks like most of the casualties will be taken by the Mot Inf Bde. I haven't confirmed this yet, as I havent attacked Russia yet.

Also, I just got the tech to allow a 5th bde in the divisions, so I'll be adding mech bde's to the above.

Edit: currently 12 Panzer and 12 Mot Inf divisions on the line

 

[Linx MP]

I am pretty sure we have light tanks now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tanks#Light_tank

Basically, after early WW2 they became used for Recon.

JM

I can't think of a single example. The lightest tanks right now are Main Battle Tanks weighing 40+tons which weigh is a lot less than the 60tons German, US and UK MBT but they are still MBT. Light/medium/heavy is just not a classification that is used or useful today.

There are other vehicles that now perform different missions but recon is not for light tanks or something close to that. In the Dutch and German armies the role is performed by the Fennek.