Army Organization

[The Andy-Man]

Hi guys,

as ever I still suck at this game, and I am trying out as spain as it is a smaller area with a smaller army for me to get used to things. It's after the civil war (with HPP) and I am now reorganizing the army, and have a few questions:

How many Corp should be attached to an army, and how many divisions in each corp? I am thinking 4 divisons in a corp, 3 corp in an army (roughly).

The next thing is, what is the best way to balance them? Should each divison have 1 inf, 1 art. 1AT and 1 engeneer (for example), or should i go 3 inf + 1 armour, or should I group the army into seperate divisons etc. Or if there is a FAQ for such things, can someone let me know where to find it?

Thanks!

A

ps. Are there any other medium sized countries which are fun to play and easy to learn?

 

[Maggix]

1) It doesn't matter how many corps you attach to an army, how many armies you attach to an army group and so on. As Spain is rather low on leadership I'd recommend going for as many divisions in a corps as possible. Generally however it makes sense to have 3-4 divisions per corps, so you can reattach divisions if they are out of range of their original HQ.

2) INF/INF/AT/ART is a good choice as Spain, as it doesn't require a lot of techs or manpower. Since you have a lot of IC you might want to license some armour from a major, as well as motorized infantry (you can use armoured cars as cheap support brigade, as they provide movement bonuses and some extra soft attack)

3) China or Italy are good choices.

 

[misterbean]

The maximum you can attach is: 5 armies per army group, 5 corps per army, 5 divisions per corps. As many units as you want per theater HQ.

For HPP, the choice is relatively easy. You have 3 types of support brigades that are a combination of artillery/anti-tank/anti-air: horse-drawn, truck-pulled and self-propelled. I think as Spain, you can just forget about self-propelled for a variety of reasons.
Horse-drawn support brigade is for the slow divisions: militia, infantry, that sort of thing.
Truck-pulled support brigades are for fast divisions; armour, motorised.

Just look at the speed in the production tab and it points itself out.

How many depends on what you want to do with them and what nation you are playing. I don't think Spain has a ton of Manpower, so you might want to do something like 2 inf/2support. These will add some extra firepower but will be a bit lagging in defense and take more supplies.

You don't usually want to attach fast brigades to slow brigades, unless you are trying something special.
Specialist units should never have any support brigades attached since it impairs their unique ability. These "specialist units" are mountaineers, marines and paratroopers.
Last thing I can think off, is that cavalry (which Spain should have) can be upgraded to motorised infantry or armour. If you click on a division, you should see a little wrench next to each brigade. If you click on this wrench, a list will come up with choices. The brigades you choose to upgrade will be put into the production queu and put back in place once they are done. Mind you that this is a one-way street. Once they are in there, there is no changing you mind later.

So say I have a division of 3 cavalry brigades. I could turn this into a division of armour/mot/mot. Add a motorised support brigade and you are good to go.

 

[Maggix]

One little correction, Spain in HPP has tons of manpower. Something like 1.000.000 once the reserves are mobilized.

 

[misterbean]

One little correction, Spain in HPP has tons of manpower. Something like 1.000.000 once the reserves are mobilized.

ow. In my defense, I only played them once and got my butt handed to me by the Nationalists after a couple of weeks.

 

[The Andy-Man]

thanks for the help guys, I think I am getting the hang of it. I might cruise along for another few months with spain then give someone else a try now I have a rough idea what's going on

 

[The Andy-Man]

Ok, one last question:

So, a regular division should generally be 2xInf,1xAT and 1xArt. How about an armoured unit? I am thinking 2x Mech/Mob Inf, 1xArmoured, 1x Mobile art.

Thanks again, going to try a pro-allies Italy and see if I can manage it this time.

 

[Kovax]

Ok, one last question:

So, a regular division should generally be 2xInf,1xAT and 1xArt. How about an armoured unit? I am thinking 2x Mech/Mob Inf, 1xArmoured, 1x Mobile art.

Thanks again, going to try a pro-allies Italy and see if I can manage it this time.

Support units provide a Combined Arms bonus, as well as contributing whatever specific firepower they add (although HPP combines ART/AA/AT into one mixed brigade). Problem is, they cost a lot more than an INF brigade, and use more supplies. Given Spain's limited Leadership and IC, you probably want something like 3xINF+Support for the vast majority of your army.

ARM and MEC are insanely expensive, and Spain is probably in no position to research all of the doctrines to support them, even if it license-builds the units with decent tech. In the vanilla game, I'd suggest 2xMOT+AC as a start, and add a LARM or ARM later. With HPP, AC is integrated as an "upgrade" into other several other units, rather than being a separate brigade.

I tend to put 5 divisions in a Corps, 5 Corps in an Army, and attach those Armies to an Army Group. The more subordinate units you have per HQ, the less HQs you need, so you don't need to draw as many officers from your Officer Pool and lower the Officer Ratio. You can also use a smaller number of skilled Commanders, leaving more for the divisions, and those Corps and Army Commanders you do use will gain experience faster with more units fighting beneath them. That's also less supply required for HQs not contributing directly to the effort. Except for special cases where you have units scattered over a wide area (the Pacific Islands comes to mind), it pays to pad out your HQs with as many subordinate units as possible, rather than deploying more HQs than necessary.

 

[misterbean]

Ok, one last question:

So, a regular division should generally be 2xInf,1xAT and 1xArt. How about an armoured unit? I am thinking 2x Mech/Mob Inf, 1xArmoured, 1x Mobile art.

Thanks again, going to try a pro-allies Italy and see if I can manage it this time.

This may be a silly question, but what version of HPP are you playing, exactly? Because in HPP they consolidated the support brigades ages ago. There is no seperate art/AT/etc.

 

[The Andy-Man]

Thanks again for all the help guys, I didn't realise that they had intergrated AT/AA into arty, it explains why the option isn't their to build them!

This may be a silly question, but what version of HPP are you playing, exactly? Because in HPP they consolidated the support brigades ages ago. There is no seperate art/AT/etc.

I am playing the latest (beta) version for TFH.