Best Armoured Div build?

[Major Ballache]

Whats the best 4 brigade armoured div?

I've always gone with ARM/MOT/MOT/SPART - but on another thread I was reading that this is considered to be a poor build.

What do people generally use?

 

[unmerged(56084)]

Whats the best 4 brigade armoured div?

I've always gone with ARM/MOT/MOT/SPART - but on another thread I was reading that this is considered to be a poor build.

What do people generally use?

It is actually close to the IRL div composition that some countries used during the conflict. I will, for France, have a few 2arm+1mot+1spart div's as battering rams. For Barbarossa, most of my Pz divs will be in your configuration. I will add 1Harm to one Pz div/PzGrp, for Russia.

 

[Major Ballache]

It is actually close to the IRL div composition that some countries used during the conflict. I will, for France, have a few 2arm+1mot+1spart div's as battering rams. For Barbarossa, most of my Pz divs will be in your configuration. I will add 1Harm to one Pz div/PzGrp, for Russia.

I tend to go for only 1 ARM in the div becasue I can have more Armoured divisions then and - as Germany - I tend to have the advantage in tech and doctrines so they are usually strong enough to overcome anything in my way - unless its rivers or urban, in which case I'll use MOT or INF with an ENG attachment. 2ARM/1MOT/1SPART might work better if playing USSR though,

 

[Wraith11B]

I always build for my Armored Divisions (2 ARM, MOT/MECH, SPARTY/ENG). Mostly because I prefer to roleplay vice game the system using pure numbers. I also will always go for the superior firepower, though, and once I get that I go for both self-propelled artillery and engineers.

I reserve the (2 MECH, ARM, SP ARTY, ENG) build as my Panzer-Grenadier/Mechanized Infantry divisions... again, role playing.

 

[blue emu]

"Best" depends on many factors. What are you optimizing? Hardness? Toughness? Soft Attack? Hard Attack? Speed? IC-day cost? Supply consumption? Oil usage?

Different Armor builds score differently on these criteria. Best=Hardest is not the same as Best=fastest.

I've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of "Armored Divisions" containing no Tanks at all... MOTx2+TDx2 is hard enough to gain the CA bonus, very fast to build and cheap to supply (far more affordable than a "real" Armored Division, especially on Fuel), and has a combat width of 2, so you can attack with six of them abreast on a one-province front.

Consider that before you have "Spearhead Doctrine" researched, you can only attack with three ARMx2+MOTx1+SPAx1 across the same frontage, and the six MOT/TD Divisions are far cheaper.

 

[unmerged(168806)]

So far in my Germany campaign, I love my armored divisions, because those divisions make the real difference. I use 2xArm, 1xMot, 1xSPArt. Soon I will add to each armored division an engineer brigade prepping for Barbarossa.

 

[Timoteo]

Do any of you guys build 3 arm / 1 ac? that's my normal build. seems like it has a good hardness.

 

[tommylotto]

Yeah. What blue emu said. Don't bother with tanks. Way overrated. Build 2xMOT+2xTD until you can build MECH, then build 2xMech+1xTD+1xSPART (I think that still gets the CA Bonus). With the ICE mod you can instead get freaky with Armored Cavalry and assault guns.

 

[blue emu]

Do any of you guys build 3 arm / 1 ac? that's my normal build. seems like it has a good hardness.

Those are my Light Armored Divisions... LARMx3+ACx1.

Why pair an AC with Medium Armor? The Medium Armor is almost 50% slower than the AC. If you're just doing it for Hardness, why not use ENG instead of AC? It's a better speed-match, and gives the Armor great terrain modifiers (which is really the major weakness of ARM Regiments).

 

[delra]

Why pair an AC with Medium Armor?

Why pair ANYTHING with Light Armor? LARM is the single suckiest brigade in this whole game with their horrible upgrades. 1944 CAV is stronger than LARM.

3xARM+AC gives almost perfect hardness, stays within 2 doctrines (CA doesn't come cheaper than that!) and is more powerful than any MOT build. Maybe 3xARM+2xSPART can beat them on flat terrain, 3xARM+2xENG on crappy terrain - but each for an added cost of two doctrines. You could mix with MECH too, but that's counter-productive if you can get CA with just support brigades and fill the frontage with proper tanks.

 

[blue emu]

Why pair ANYTHING with Light Armor? LARM is the single suckiest brigade in this whole game with their horrible upgrades. 1944 CAV is stronger than LARM.

You don't see many 1944 CAV in 1939 and '40. At least in my games. The value of Light Armor depends on your priorities. If you like to include at least one very fast unit in each Panzer Corps, it's hard to beat the Light Armor's speed 11. You won't do better than that before MEC are available.

... and speaking of MEC, that's another good reason for the MOTx2/TDx2 build. It drives up your Mobile Practical, so that by the time you have MEC researched, they are very affordable (about 2/3rds the usual price).

3xARM+AC gives almost perfect hardness, stays within 2 doctrines (CA doesn't come cheaper than that!) and is more powerful than any MOT build. Maybe 3xARM+2xSPART can beat them on flat terrain, 3xARM+2xENG on crappy terrain - but each for an added cost of two doctrines. You could mix with MECH too, but that's counter-productive if you can get CA with just support brigades and fill the frontage with proper tanks.

I'm surprised that you dismiss the MOTx2/TDx2 build so readily. Have you worked out a comparison in terms of IC-days and/or fuel expenditure?... or in terms of combat width (which limits how many you can attack with at once)?

Bear in mind that Battle-Winning Ability goes up as the SQUARE of the number of units engaged. If the MOT/TD build is twice as cheap, then the ARM/AC build would need to be FOUR times more effective, just to hold its own in comparison with them.

Armor-heavy builds are OK when you're running short of Manpower, but I rarely encounter that problem as Germany... not with "Collaboration Government" in effect.

 

[Wraith11B]

I could see using it in a Mechanized Infantry division to represent a sort of Infantry Fighting Vehicle with gun system, ala Stryker/Bradley/Puma/Centurion/LAV-25. But that would be rather silly...

Also, though I don't have the actual data anymore, Blue Emu: I was whupping the ever-living stuffing out of French 2xMOT/2xTD with my armored and inf(mot) divisions (2xARM, MOT, SP-Arty, ENG and 3xMOT, SP-Arty, respectively, deployed in a "kampfgruppe" of 1 each). Rapid combats... dunno if that was because of the French dissent impact, or the terrain (the specific ones that I remember were on a river/wooded and river/plains provinces), but they were taking horrendous losses with no air support from me.

 

[blue emu]

I could see using it in a Mechanized Infantry division to represent a sort of Infantry Fighting Vehicle with gun system, ala Stryker/Bradley/Puma/Centurion/LAV-25. But that would be rather silly...

Weren't Russian Motorized Infantry Divisions often composed of Regiments of Truck-mounted Infantry brigaded with Battalions of SU-76's? That sounds like the MOT/TD build, to me...

 

[delra]

Heh, a misunderstanding. I don't dismiss MOT/MECH+TD at all - I love those builds and go for them in my no-tank USA or Japan games where I only research ARM engine to make TD as fast as MECH. In that case I use them as both exploits and breakthrough units and simply don't have any tanks at all. I'm using LARM techs to upgrade MECHs because let's be honest that's the real purpose of those. Oh and LARM really has less SA than CAV in 1944 techs, I noticed looking at counters of anti-partisan forces in China. ;-)

What I dismiss is taking something as beautiful as ARM+ARM+ARM+ENG+ENG (halves river penalty for tanks) and replacing two ARM with two MOT and one ENG with SPART adding softness, piling up expenses in doctrine research, increasing casualties, slowing down the blitzkrieg and weakening overall performance of armored corps in every single area - and calling that a good thing. The only reason to do that would be roleplaying - otherwise you're just gimping your armies for no reason.

If you really need exploits, it's better to use MOTs at first and then upgrade them to MECHs than build even fastest LARM+SPRART combinations and then have nowhere to go with them 2 years into the war.

Personally I'd prefer HoI3 to be designed in a way that would make CA a battle modifier, not a divisional level bonus. So when you have 3x INF and 3x ARM divisions attacking somewhere, neither would have CA but fighting together they would get CA for that battle. The idea that one brigade of armored cars gives combined arms to a division of Arm or that one tank destroyer does the same with a div of Mechs makes very little sense to me - but I just got used to it over the years like most people here. Real combined arms wouldn't be on divisional level.

 

[Wraith11B]

Delra: I totally agree. I feel like (and experience in combat bears this out) that a pure Tank force should not be allowed to result in Combined Arms. Only forces that utilize both Tanks, motorized/mechanized infantry and fast artillery should equal a combined arms division.

 

[blue emu]

Also, though I don't have the actual data anymore, Blue Emu: I was whupping the ever-living stuffing out of French 2xMOT/2xTD with my armored and inf(mot) divisions (2xARM, MOT, SP-Arty, ENG and 3xMOT, SP-Arty, respectively, deployed in a "kampfgruppe" of 1 each). Rapid combats... dunno if that was because of the French dissent impact, or the terrain (the specific ones that I remember were on a river/wooded and river/plains provinces), but they were taking horrendous losses with no air support from me.

Did the defending French MOTx2/TDx2 divisions heavily outnumber you?... if not, then it's not really a fair comparison, since (in IC-day terms) it's possible to build two MOTx2/TDx2 divisions for every Armored Division that the opponent builds. Also, I suspect that you had an edge over the French in both Generals and NCOs.

Try using this build schema on the offensive, with Panzer Leaders as Divisional commanders and Army Commanders. You might be favorably impressed.

 

[unmerged(261714)]

I think it really depends on your countries situation? Are you fighting defensively or offensively for example?

But i think my favorite armored divison is LARM/MECH/MECH/SPRART/SPRART

It can get up to 11 KPH in the late game, and I'm all about speed. Plus, even though a human can build a division to beat the hell out of my division the AI almost never produces a division that can stand up to that, in speed, or firepower.

 

[blue emu]

Personally, I feel that it's more important to optimize your early-war units (unless you are playing a nation that doesn't enter the war until later). After all, by 1942 or so it's usually pretty clear which side is going to win the war. That's one reason that I like the MOTx2/TDx2 build... Germany or Russia can start cranking them out as soon as you have Medium Tanks researched... a 1936 tech.

It takes a lot longer to get MEC Regiments and the fifth slot... and by then, you are probably winning the war anyway.

 

[Wraith11B]

Did the defending French MOTx2/TDx2 divisions heavily outnumber you?... if not, then it's not really a fair comparison, since (in IC-day terms) it's possible to build two MOTx2/TDx2 divisions for every Armored Division that the opponent builds. Also, I suspect that you had an edge over the French in both Generals and NCOs.

Try using this build schema on the offensive, with Panzer Leaders as Divisional commanders and Army Commanders. You might be favorably impressed.

It was one kampfgruppe of 1 Armored and 1 MOT divisions against two of their motorized infantry divisions, plus a few regular leg-infantry divisions going into and out of the battle. Battle (iirc) took three days, and I remember (because it was something ridiculous) the popup saying something like 500 - 1k+ casualties. I was going to point it out in my AAR, but didn't think to (as my notes weren't as detailed as they ought to have been).

It was bad of me, as I hadn't committed enough troops to the fight. I had a total of about 16 Infantry Divisions (4 corps), 8 PzDs, 8 I-D(mot)s and three AB divs that were actually committed to ground operations... this made for a precarious situation past Belgium. It wasn't that I didn't have the troops (OKW had another 16 infantry divisions, mostly covering the Maginot Line; OKO had 32 INF divisions; OKN and OKS had a total of eight), I just didn't recognize how detached my forces would get in the fight, which ended up in the combats like above: lots of pairs of divisions going at it alone against some rather large stacks of enemy forces. More often than not, they did end up carrying the day--I think I definitely could have done far better inasmuch as force composition.

 

[unmerged(261714)]

Personally, I feel that it's more important to optimize your early-war units (unless you are playing a nation that doesn't enter the war until later). After all, by 1942 or so it's usually pretty clear which side is going to win the war. That's one reason that I like the MOTx2/TDx2 build... Germany or Russia can start cranking them out as soon as you have Medium Tanks researched... a 1936 tech.

It takes a lot longer to get MEC Regiments and the fifth slot... and by then, you are probably winning the war anyway.

But germany has pretty bad OIL problems... If you dont capture moscow quickly, you will almost defiantly lose the war... or at least run out of Fuel and oil