Brigades?

[PanzerHue]

Playing my first DD-game as GER. I build up my army in the late 30ies and I produced some E-brigades, A-brigades etc, since they seem usefull in their add to defense.
But now that war broke out in Poland and France i rewieved my brigade-strategy. As I see it the brigades havent made the huge difference, in fact they seem too expensive in both IC and supply.
What is the advantage with those brigades?
Is it a better deal to produce INF or another ARM instead of some brigades?

 

[unmerged(29126)]

Brigades cannot hold/take ground by themselves ... so you need divisions to cover the front ...

Brigades allow you to add some firepower in situations where you reach the stacking/command limit ... i.e. in an amphibious assault

Brigades are not IC-effective compared to divisions but they are useful for countries that are low on manpower and have high IC instead

Brigades help increase the combat value & survivability of your expensive units (i.e. armour, mot.inf., mech)

Brigades help increase the combat value & survivability of those specialized units which enjoy lower combat efficiency modifiers due to terrain or mission type (i.e. marines, mountain troops)

you should not attempt to brigade all of your inf, just the ones that you have a special role for, and brigade the aforementioned specialized/expensive units ... those units which will see a lot of fighting (mobile troops) or will see fighting under difficult circumstances (specialized units)

one more thing: it might be worthwhile to attach Arm.Car or L.Arm Brigades to Mot.Inf or Cav in order to reduce their Softness, where the combination of Cav/Mot.Inf + Arm/Mech will give the Combined Arms bonus ... reducing the softness will reduce the damage these units will sustain

 

[unmerged(27192)]

Not sure but... MECH is Hard isn't it ? So you won't get CA bonus with MECH + ARM.

 

[blue emu]

Not sure but... MECH is Hard isn't it ? So you won't get CA bonus with MECH + ARM.

Correct...

But if you re-read the above post, he meant (Cavalry or Motorized) plus (Armor or Mech)... which gives the CA bonus in any combination.

 

[Manoa]

More Uses for Brigades

Brigades are also useful when you lack enough skilled leaders because they do not increase the number of units you need to command while providing additonal firepower. For this reason I use them for France where good leaders are sorely lacking. Germany always has plenty of leaders and enough manpower so I rarely use a lot of brigades as Germany, just some engineers for rivers and a smattering of artilllery to prevent the infantry from being too vulnerable to armored counterattacks. The big exception for me is police brigades for garrisons, these are immensely useful in supressing partisans in the occupied terrirtories. I usually attach a police brigade to every garrison I build.

On the other hand, I have often used brigades just becaue they are fun. Having lots of beefed up units is just cool, even if it might not be sensible. Heavy tanks and self-propelled artillery are particulary useful in this "role."

 

[unmerged(12779)]

As the USA, I always use Brigades with all my ground forces.
Why Not, I can afford them....


JIM

 

[unmerged(27192)]

Correct...

But if you re-read the above post, he meant (Cavalry or Motorized) plus (Armor or Mech)... which gives the CA bonus in any combination.

Sorry, misread. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[blue emu]

Since Brigades cannot even be deployed on the Map independantly; only when attached to a Division... the proper way to look at it is not "Brigade vs no Brigade"; it's "Division+Brigade vs Division alone".

So rather than just looking at the capabilities and the IC/Manpower cost of the Brigade, you should look at the capabilities of the Division+Brigade, the IC/Manpower cost of that combination... and compare that to the capabilities and cost of the Division alone, un-Brigaded.

From that point of view, expensive Divisions like Armor and Marines should ALWAYS be Brigaded, since the Brigade adds quite a bit to the capabilities, with only a modest increase in the cost of the (already expensive) combined unit.

Cheap units like Infantry, on the other hand, should only be Brigaded when you have a special role in mind for that unit (eg: River Crossing = ENG, or Offensive Pivot = ART, or Fortress Troops = ART/AT/AA).

Brigades add signifigantly to the cost of Infantry... and by spending those IC's and Manpower on more Infantry Divisions (instead of on Brigades), you would have bought not only Hard and Soft Attack, Defensiveness and Toughness... you would also have bought ORG, unit Strength, and additional targets to split your opponent's fire.

 

[ohms_law]

speaking of Armor, what recomendations does everyone have for them?
I was actually thinking of using either sp-art, or event armored cars.

 

[blue emu]

speaking of Armor, what recomendations does everyone have for them?
I was actually thinking of using either sp-art, or even armored cars.

Personally, I like SP-ART.

No speed penalty (like Heavy Armor has), reasonably cheap both to research and to build, improves your Softness as well as Soft Attack, Hard Attack, Defensiveness and Toughness... and since enemy Hard units are still partly Soft (an Armored Division is 30% Soft, for instance), they are quite effective against both Hard and Soft targets, unlike SP-AT.

 

[goobermaster]

speaking of Armor, what recomendations does everyone have for them?
I was actually thinking of using either sp-art, or event armored cars.

In the early game (ie pre 1941), motorized divs have a speed cap of 8 (basic motorized) while basic medium armour has a speed cap of 10. So if you can, try to use Hvy Armour brigades - the 10% softness reduction is quite useful, and in a 2Arm-1Mot or 2Mot-1Arm combos, the speed 8 of the motorized will reduce the whole formation to that speed, so the speed penalty of Hvy Arm on armour units will not be noticed.

Plus, whats cooler - an artillery gun on a Pz. II chassis or a Tiger Tank?

 

[Manoa]

Expensive Units

Thanks Blue Emu for the insight on the benefits of brigading expensive units. It seems so obvious that I should have noticed it before. That is what makes this forum so useful. Now, if only production of brigades could be "amortized" to allow them to be ordered with the unit to which one plans to have them attached. It is annoying to try to coordinate and in some cases (eg, an agressive Italy) the TC strain of holding built brigades to match production schedules can be very trying. Is there some way to do that that I am missing or is it just a matter of careful, tedious planning.

 

[PanzerHue]

YES!, thanx for the very usefull informations.

 

[blue emu]

Thanks Blue Emu for the insight on the benefits of brigading expensive units. It seems so obvious that I should have noticed it before. That is what makes this forum so useful. Now, if only production of brigades could be "amortized" to allow them to be ordered with the unit to which one plans to have them attached. It is annoying to try to coordinate and in some cases (eg, an agressive Italy) the TC strain of holding built brigades to match production schedules can be very trying. Is there some way to do that that I am missing or is it just a matter of careful, tedious planning.

Always happy to pass along what I've learned on this Forum... in this present case, it was Kanitatlan who pointed out to me that there is a much bigger pay-off in brigading expensive units.

This is an excellent, friendly Forum, with a lot of knowledgable and helpful members... one of the best that I've visited... and the Moderators try to keep it that way.

As far as timing of builds goes, I try to figure it out in multiples. For example, MP-brigades (Military Police) build about twice as fast as Garrison Divisions... so if I start four 99-unit serials of Garrisons and two 99-unit serials of MP-brigades, they will roll off the assembly line at an even rate, so the MP's can be mated to the Garrisons with minimum hold-overs.

You can always check the build-times in the text files in ../db/units and decide how many serials of each it will take to syncronize the timing.