Brigades.....still mostly useless?

[unmerged(156753)]

Just wondering whether the effectiveness of brigades has been changed in this mod.

It seems like that with the original there were only a few brigades worth building such as self propelled artillery and Engineers. Even then a lot of people said it was better not to bother with brigades and just build more divisions since brigades were a waste of manpower and generally added little.

Personally i like to build a variety of brigades for role playing purposes (always considering speed limitations of course).

Also for those of you that do bother with brigades, what combinations do you go for?

Thanks

 

[Rotten Venetic]

Brigades are pretty weak in this game; their stats are fairly low for the investment, though I build them anyway. Though the only really useless ones seem to be Police, the cavalry brigade and AA.

In the unedited game, a militia-and-air-power strategy is dominant, with the former using up all the manpower and the latter, all the IC. Except that which you use on the HQs that are vital with this strategy (you'll generally need no more than 5 though), and you might want to have some cavalry to exploit gaps along with the aforementioned HQs. The HQ 1939 and CAV 1942 models are very fast, and the later models only get more so. Give them Engineers to add insult to injury

 

[Miihkali]

One of the main reasons to use brigades is that they don't consume manpower after they have been built. OK, you spend 12 manpower to infantry division and about 3 manpower to brigade. But even if your division is almost completely wiped out, to 1/100 strength, the reinforcing costs only 12 manpower, not 15. Thus you get some extra efficiency with no extra manpower cost for the rebuilding.

 

[Easy1]

For countries with low manpower and a large IC base brigades can be a fruitable option. They are indeed more effective than regular divisions when it comes to manpower use. I agree that most brigades are not worth the investement though

 

[Miihkali]

Well, the classic strategy for brigade-usage is to build only artillery (or mobile artillery, if you've got plenty of IC, oil, and mobility is important part of your strategy). Maybe anti tanks as USSR, if playing against human player Germany, or as France against ai Germany. In DH I think tank brigades may make some sense before getting armoured division formation and you need Plenty of Power (guess which band?) quickly for your infantry. Most of time they are too useful though. Also, as you now don't need to build separate rocket artillery brigades, I have found that researching rocket arty improvements for the regular artillery brigades are rather useful, especially when going to face masses of infantry, as you will when you are going to war against USSR.

 

[nigo]

Id like to see brigades usefull in DH, not useless


maybe some brigades like arty can make more atrittion warfare, other like engs, AC, Ltanks more fast combats?

 

[wolf1455]

Well, the classic strategy for brigade-usage is to build only artillery (or mobile artillery, if you've got plenty of IC, oil, and mobility is important part of your strategy). Maybe anti tanks as USSR, if playing against human player Germany, or as France against ai Germany. In DH I think tank brigades may make some sense before getting armoured division formation and you need Plenty of Power (guess which band?) quickly for your infantry. Most of time they are too useful though. Also, as you now don't need to build separate rocket artillery brigades, I have found that researching rocket arty improvements for the regular artillery brigades are rather useful, especially when going to face masses of infantry, as you will when you are going to war against USSR.

I agree with your assessment about artillery and want to add that dont forget the armored cars. Always been a favorit of mine, it gives extra org so the unit can fight longer between rest and refit. I use them on my early tank units and always on my cavalry if I not use Cav for partisan hunting then I use MP. MP give nice suppression bonus good enough for most unruly partisans togheter with both garrison,cav and HQ. And using S.T.U.G.s (early SP arty) with my INF give an extra imersian flare IMHO ;O)