Direct naval assault impossible ?!

[GenFelix]

Hello !

I have to say this complex game is very interesting. I played many nations, however my latest run with USA it's very hard due to my inability to act with success. War goes in favor of the agressors ( lost many allies, year is 1951 ) I still have air / naval superiority and good troops too. in almost theater regions.

I have a very serious question : CAN YOU NAVAL LAND on a guarded spot ? Japan is heavily guarded at EVERY SPOT !

I even landed +50 marines vs a infantry division in simple land ( not city or port). I tried infantry, tanks too. I have air superiority, close combat support, ground support, bombards even shore bombardment..... AND I NEVER WIN !!!

There was a massive fascist unrest in South America, quelled and destroyed ... yet a single island nation (Republican Dominican) has all her spots guaded by 50+ divisions. I tried 3 points naval invasion, i even nuclear bombed them before landing ... zero success again..

WTF ?) How can i win ?

 

[kviiri]

The division spam is a well known issue, and the fact that you're playing well past the supported timeline (the game is "supposed to" end in 1948) makes it far worse. Given enough time, all countries can produce enough rifles and raise manpower laws to have a silly amount of divisions, and guided by AI, they also will. They'd be stupid not to.

 

[Gort11]

In order to win a naval invasion against an enemy with a ton of divisions on its beaches:

1. You need enough navy sitting outside the target area to get the full 25% shore bombardment bonus
2. You need as much air superiority as you can get from fighters (use carrier fighters if you must)
3. You need as many CAS planes as you can muster (use carrier CAS if you must) doing close air support on the target area
4. You need to have multiple invasions queued up to hit the same spot so that when one invasion fails you have another invasion immediately coming in before the enemy can regenerate their organisation

With all of that, you should be able to win against pretty much anywhere.

However, it can often be a better tactic to just land some giant tank divisions next to a port and attack it that way. Air superiority and CAS planes definitely help in this case too.

A third option is to pick somewhere out-of-the-way on the enemy island, and land some tank divisions there. Then build a port of your own there. It takes about a month, so you have to hold out for that amount of time.

 

[Mztr44]

You need Signal Companies in your marines if you want to crack open heavily defended ports. It will help your fresh marines to reinforce as the initial attackers run out of org. Otherwise, the initial attacks run out of org and cause the entire invasion to retreat.

 

[GenFelix]

Well, I understand that but it's not a spam problem. I couldn't direct assault even in 1942. It doesnt matter there are 1 unit or 50. If i send full divisions of 50+ units vs a single land entranched divsion I will 100% loose

And yes, i have full strenght, full organization (maybe i loose a little during convoy transportation).

My main questions was : can you invade AND WIN guarded ports for example ? Cause if you can only land nearby and attack from 2-3 directions it's not a viable options in MANY CASES Just imagine the time i lost trying to conquer Pacific islands guarded by a single shitty unit

 

[GenFelix]

You need Signal Companies in your marines if you want to crack open heavily defended ports. It will help your fresh marines to reinforce as the initial attackers run out of org. Otherwise, the initial attacks run out of org and cause the entire invasion to retreat.

Thanks all for answers, while i was typing more answers came.

This looks like the only possible answer to my problem. You think this works ? And how you do it ? Can you describe your perfect division who can DIRECTLY attack and win a guarded point ?

While of course I always provide carriers, shore bombardment etc. too

 

[Moishe Greenblatt]

omae wa mou shindeiru

 

[Praetori]

WTF ?) How can i win ?

As others have mentioned. Lots and lots of CAS (or even more late TACs if range is an issue).
You want to land in adjacent beach-provinces to the ports if possible and then push from multiple-sides when the main port-landing happens. The idea is to maximize combat-width.
If you go with pure Marine-divisions you'll probably lose since you don't have enough SA to kill off the defenders before you break yourself. The penalties from doing a landing can be mitigated by really high SA and breakthrough and you just need to keep hammering the defenders with multi-pronged landings (maximizing the combat-width will let you get a lot of CAS into the battle). If you have the manpower/IC to spare you can drop paras on top of the whole thing to get even more width. It's usually good (against the AI) to also drop som paras behind their lines further inland to connect and isolate the port in question from supplies (if you can manage to link up with the beach invasions).

Troops that have landed on adjacent provinces should do the support-attack (ctrl-right-click) and not a direct attack since they'll run out of supplies and take horrible attrition otherwise (as an attack is actually a "move order" while the support attack isn't).

Don't forget the marine and landing-techs or the landings will take forever and be reinforced faster than your troops can get ashore.

Regarding nukes. I've never failed a landing with well-timed nukes. You time and start your invasions so they arrive synchronized and you nuke the province as close to the landing-time as possible. The defenders ORG gets mauled and your troops walk ashore with little to no losses. If you didn't manage this you're not timing the nukes correctly (the ORG will regain pretty fast so it really needs to be just an hour or two before the landings begin).

Landing in Japan can be done via another method. There are islands that are connected to the mainland through straits. You can land there with a sufficiently strong force to repel counter-attacks (over straits) while you build up a port behind you, then just march across to the main island.

 

[Mztr44]

Thanks all for answers, while i was typing more answers came.

This looks like the only possible answer to my problem. You think this works ? And how you do it ? Can you describe your perfect division who can DIRECTLY attack and win a guarded point ?

While of course I always provide carriers, shore bombardment etc. too

Add the Signal Company support unit to your marine template. Preferably make them either 20 width or 22 width (if using offensive field marshall). This way you have 4 marine attacking at once and less chance to have all four marines that are in combat drop out before they can be reinforced. This way that giant 50 stack set to invade will keep fighting instead of retreating. Also, Signal Companies increase your planning speed. So if you land marines on a non-port you can set up a battle plan and get some planning bonus before your troops run out of supply.

You can also try to find a non-guarded piece of land, land your marines there and start building a Naval base right away and hope it finishes before it gets attacked, preferably if you do this, you send troops outwards so that the piece of land you are building the naval base on doesn't get interrupted from attack. Only works with a small force though, a level 1 naval base can't support 50 divisions.

Combine the above with the other suggestion of making sure you have air superiority with some CAS or TACS to support your landing and you should have a lot better success.

Edit: Also, if the naval invasion is a short trip and there is another nation close to where your departing port is, you can put your marines on a battle plan against that nation to gain planning bonus while you have a naval invasion plan also set up. Then when they are ready, delete the plan, move the troops with the planning bonus to the port and add them to the invasion.

 

[Gort11]

You need Signal Companies in your marines if you want to crack open heavily defended ports. It will help your fresh marines to reinforce as the initial attackers run out of org. Otherwise, the initial attacks run out of org and cause the entire invasion to retreat.

Does this mean the Soviet Union have the best marines in the game due to the +30% reinforce rate bonus they get from the NKVD focus? That would be pretty funny.

 

[bERt0r]

You need reasonable marine templates. Although with enough air superiority and cas even 20w pure marine templates should win virtually any invasion.

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Try this:

 

[Gort11]

i even nuclear bombed them before landing ... zero success again..

Try this:
View attachment 334906

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Oh, sorry.

 

[bERt0r]

Btw what you apparently didn't try is strategic bombardment. If you bomb the infrastructure to 0 they should suffer equipment losses and ORG.

 

[Gort11]

Btw what you apparently didn't try is strategic bombardment. If you bomb the infrastructure to 0 they should suffer equipment losses and ORG.

You'd have thought the nukes would have done that

 

[bERt0r]

You'd have to regularly nuke over some time. One nuke is probably not enough to lower infrastructure enough to caus supply deficiencies in a VP province.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nuking them both when you launch and again mid-battle when landing has never failed me. It strips so much strength and the 2nd one will flatten org mid-fight. Before that late in the game you're stuck with heavy multi-prong launches with air support, which do work pretty well in most cases.

 

[walt526]

Invade with several dozen 10 width Marines divisions and have CAS at the max.

 

[petrovchris]

I had success with constant nuking. Nuke the port several times in a row before the invasion, nuke the adjacent squares and continue nuking until you win.