How Are Players Changing Their Division Templates Due To Waking

[duplej]

I am not good when it comes to designing division templates. I readily admit I look to the forum posts to guide me - okay I just copy them . I also realize only the first patch is out, and there is obviously far more to come.

But I have already seen numerous references about eliminating artillery from infantry divisions, some even about replacing artillery with aa (etc). So I was curious what kind of division templates are being used by more experienced/knowledgeable players as they play the wakened Tiger ? How have they changed and what caused the change ?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and insights...

 

[PanzerMan7]

I'm using A LOT more pure infantry divisions. I'd say 1/2 to 2/3 of my infantry will be all inf. 40 width of course But the 14-4s, or maybe something heavier like 11-6, will be used for special purposes. Ie: I park the heavy divisions in front of Moscow while regular rifles cover the rest of the line.

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

I have less than a hundred hours played, so the expansion itself hasn't had any impact really. The only thing I'm doing differently now is controlling for specific combat widths.

 

[duplej]

I have less than a hundred hours played, so the expansion itself hasn't had any impact really. The only thing I'm doing differently now is controlling for specific combat widths.

PAnZuRiEL

Could you be more specific about how you are controlling for width - Are you using certain widths for certain unit types (e.g. armor versus infantry) or is width selected based on the role of the division ?

Thanks

 

[Ironside121]

I haven't changed mine at all- the infantry still work well with 7-2/14-4 at holding the line, they're just so much worse aggressively, and tanks are still dealing with pushes reasonably well.

Considering 11-6 though, might give it a go. Doctrines will be very important when it comes to this though.

 

[a_sophist]

Considering 11-6 though, might give it a go. Doctrines will be very important when it comes to this though.

If you're going to make those take 10 inf divisions with them or else prepare to lose a lot of artillery and get beaten back as soon as you make a breakthrough.

 

[Cutty1911]

My first game on 1.5, I ran 26 width INF (8 INF battalions, 3 ART, 1 AA) and 26 width panzers (8 Armored battalions, 5 motorized) with Germany. For front line divisions. I had intended to go 40 width armor, but instead ended up just building a greater number of armored divisions to increase tactical flexibility (40 width is crazy expensive). Used 30 such divisions on the Soviet front. I'm going to try it again with Expert AI 4.0 to see if it's still feasible.

For the Atlantik Wall, 10 width INF, with engineers and support art. Plus a 26 INF army and 4 armored divisions to counter breakouts

 

[Quantum_AI]

I think the intent of this patch was to not have every single division be a breakthrough division with a cookie-cutter INF+ART design. Now, most of your infantry divisions would ideally only have ART as a support company and they would be used for only holding the line. Breakthroughs are to be achieved with specialized divisions - ideally tanks or specialized INF divisions with substantial air support. There is no more "everyone just move forward" but rather you have to "break through" certain points in the front line with your specialized units. Concepts like force concentration and armoured spearheads are now to be actually used and not there just for flavour like before.

 

[a_sophist]

I think the intent of this patch was to not have every single division be a breakthrough division with a cookie-cutter INF+ART design. Now, most of your infantry divisions would ideally only have ART as a support company and they would be used for only holding the line. Breakthroughs are to be achieved with specialized divisions - ideally tanks or specialized INF divisions with substantial air support. There is no more "everyone just move forward" but rather you have to "break through" certain points in the front line with your specialized units. Concepts like force concentration and armoured spearheads are now to be actually used and not there just for flavour like before.

I agree that this was probably the intention, the problem is when you nerf something too much there becomes little reason to build it beyond immersion.

 

[Quantum_AI]

the problem is when you nerf something too much there becomes little reason to build it beyond immersion.

What are you referring to? ART? You still need SA for your breakthrough divisions - in fact you need MORE ART in your breakthrough divisions (or rather BETTER ART like SPART). It's just that you can't put ART in ALL your divisions and expect them ALL to be jack of all trades anymore. You need plain INF to hold, breakthrough divs to breakthrough (ideally high armour, high SA, and low org is ok), and fast mot to secure the breakthrough.

 

[Surimi]

I find I distinguish more between defensive (generally pure infantry) and offensive divisions.

To be fair, this is something I used to do when playing the USSR with Deep Battle doctrine, but I find it's more generally useful now. Just having one type of infantry/art division and rolling to victory with soft attack alone doesn't seem to work any more.

Since breakthroughs are now more important, having specialised mobile infantry divisions to capitalise on them seems more important. I've been neglecting this, but in my last few games I've definitely noticed it.

 

[a_sophist]

What are you referring to? ART? You still need SA for your breakthrough divisions - in fact you need MORE ART in your breakthrough divisions (or rather BETTER ART like SPART). It's just that you can't put ART in ALL your divisions and expect them ALL to be jack of all trades anymore. You need plain INF to hold, breakthrough divs to breakthrough (ideally high armour, high SA, and low org is ok), and fast mot to secure the breakthrough.

I think towed artillery is a waste of production for most countries. It gets a negligibly higher amount of soft attack per industrial cost than guns and uses tungsten. I didn't build it much in 1.4 either. You also don't need anything other than guns and planes unless you're a low manpower country anyway, but yes, of course SPART, MOT, and ARM are nice to have.

 

[Jorge Firebomb]

I don't think that looking at it from a "soft attack per industrial cost" point of view is necessarily the right way to look at the utility of towed artillery. What towed artillery does provide is more soft attack density for your infantry units. This can be quite helpful, though I agree that you don't necessarily need line artillery in all of your infantry divisions now. Adding support artillery is actually a lot cheaper now than it used to be (pretty sure they cut the number of guns required for a support artillery company in half while leaving the statistics of the unit unchanged aside from the general artillery nerf) and feels like a worthwhile investment even for your defensive units.

That said, if you're able to afford it a 7 inf + 2 art or 14 inf + 4 art template still works pretty well overall. They aren't super great on offense, but can get the job done if necessary. On defense they are pretty beastly.

 

[a_sophist]

I don't think that looking at it from a "soft attack per industrial cost" point of view is necessarily the right way to look at the utility of towed artillery. What towed artillery does provide is more soft attack density for your infantry units. This can be quite helpful, though I agree that you don't necessarily need line artillery in all of your infantry divisions now. Adding support artillery is actually a lot cheaper now than it used to be (pretty sure they cut the number of guns required for a support artillery company in half while leaving the statistics of the unit unchanged aside from the general artillery nerf) and feels like a worthwhile investment even for your defensive units.

That said, if you're able to afford it a 7 inf + 2 art or 14 inf + 4 art template still works pretty well overall. They aren't super great on offense, but can get the job done if necessary. On defense they are pretty beastly.

I should have added this to the earlier post, but I disagree with the premise that any infantry division requires an appreciable amount of soft attack. Artillery takes away from org, which is the one stat I actually care about on my infantry divisions, as I let planes or tanks do the damage. If artillery did an absurd amount of damage I might change my priorities, as aluminum and rubber can be sometimes hard to come by, but I don't even think it did enough before the nerf. Given that Mass Mob has a 5% manpower boost, only the lowest manpower countries need to worry about something other than guns and planes, unless, like I said originally, one is more interested in immersion and historical army building.

 

[Cutty1911]

I find I distinguish more between defensive (generally pure infantry) and offensive divisions.

To be fair, this is something I used to do when playing the USSR with Deep Battle doctrine, but I find it's more generally useful now. Just having one type of infantry/art division and rolling to victory with soft attack alone doesn't seem to work any more.

Since breakthroughs are now more important, having specialised mobile infantry divisions to capitalise on them seems more important. I've been neglecting this, but in my last few games I've definitely noticed it.

Yeah, I'm thinking this is the case. It's something I want to try out in my next SP game; my first 1.5 game I basically did the same thing I always did. Unfortunately USSR failed to equip its armor divisions with medium armor but for some reason had thousands stockpiled.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

The usual 10 width for poorer minors, 20W inf with supp for everyone else. Sometimes I splash in heavy TD or ART for special divisions, like the Maginot breachers

 

[PAnZuRiEL]

PAnZuRiEL

Could you be more specific about how you are controlling for width - Are you using certain widths for certain unit types (e.g. armor versus infantry) or is width selected based on the role of the division ?

Thanks

40 for foot infantry and 20 for armour, mechanised and motorised regiments. Although considering how easy it seems to be to wipe out pure armour units (and mine are all modern tanks, even) and how much experience they constantly lose, I might stop using those altogether and stick with tank/mech combined arms regiments. I'm also using the Mass Assault doctrine which makes it more annoying to get the foot infantry regiment width right, since foot infantry now take up 1.6 width instead of 2.

As for why 40 and 20, that's half because of what I could afford in terms of production output, and half just arbitrary. I'm not an HoI veteran and my decisions are not especially well-informed.

 

[halvorni]

Others, like myself, go for pure immersion and role-play. This would suck in MP, I know.

So I use infantry divisions with 3 brigades/regiments, each with 3 infantry battalions. And 2 artillery battalions, 1 AT, 1 AA and 5 support companies. Total width of 26, which isn't really that bad, with three divisions filling 78 of the front width. And armoured divisions loosely modelled on the British 7th Armoured Division, late war, with one armoured brigade of 4 armoured battalions, one infantry brigade with four mot/mech battalions, and self-propelled arty and AT. Also width 26.

I haven't done any calculations on either efficiency or production cost; I just like to follow a historical path.

 

[GSP Jr]

Others, like myself, go for pure immersion and role-play. This would suck in MP, I know.

So I use infantry divisions with 3 brigades/regiments, each with 3 infantry battalions. And 2 artillery battalions, 1 AT, 1 AA and 5 support companies. Total width of 26, which isn't really that bad, with three divisions filling 78 of the front width. And armoured divisions loosely modelled on the British 7th Armoured Division, late war, with one armoured brigade of 4 armoured battalions, one infantry brigade with four mot/mech battalions, and self-propelled arty and AT. Also width 26.

I haven't done any calculations on either efficiency or production cost; I just like to follow a historical path.

I also try to build divisions based on the historical composition, that goes to army builds also - very rarely will an army go over 12 divisions.