Infantry & Heavy Tanks

[YourMateGouldie]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help me out here. Just wondering about the effectiveness of having a heavy tank regiment attached to your infantry division. Is it worth doing? Does it give infantry more breakthrough power? What are the pros and cons? I'm just thinking of the British divisions during WW2 and their Infantry Tanks that they used in support of the infantry.

Cheers.

 

[Magraev]

I don't have the numbers, but have read, that it makes for a very strong and cost effective way to give your infantry some armor and hard attack. The downside is, that this means fewer actual armor divisions, that are faster, better armored and better on offence. If you have plenty of tanks available though, I'd say go for it. I don't know how the terrain penalties are calculated for a division with 8 infantry battalions and two heavy armor battalions compared to 10 infantry.

 

[spartansociety]

Not sure if anyone goes for a heavy tank with infantry. Some do go for a single HTD though. This increases hardness enough to usually stop piercing against infantry that has no anti-tank and provides pretty good piercing by itself. I have only done this with 40 width divisions as it would cost a fortune in 20 width. According to a few people on the forums, it has fallen out of favour in MP, although I still do it sometimes as I hate building anti tank weapons.

Oh and even though it doesnt lool like it at first, HTD are much cheaper than tanks because you use half as many.

 

[Orlunu]

Infantry and heavy tanks?

Cavalry and heavy tanks.

Anywho, HT gives you a whole lot of breakthrough, anti-armour ability, and armour, as should be obvious. The major downsides are production costs, terrain maluses, and supply strain (Heavy Tanks in Africa, for instance, is a recipe for disaster). Really, though, they're overkill for most situations; in SP, a light tank battalion should give your division enough of all those things for almost all situations at far less cost and whilst keeping more versatility.

The game's really bad at representing the infantry tanks, but your most accurate option for the Brits is light tanks with maxed out armour.


(Seriously, if you're shelling out for heavy tanks, shell out for horsies. They move faster than infantry.)

 

[Alex_brunius]

Hoping someone can help me out here. Just wondering about the effectiveness of having a heavy tank regiment attached to your infantry division. Is it worth doing? Does it give infantry more breakthrough power? What are the pros and cons? I'm just thinking of the British divisions during WW2 and their Infantry Tanks that they used in support of the infantry.

While they would give you more breakthrough and breakthrough is very important to reduce casualties on the attack, If you just want breakthrough light or medium tanks would give you alot more per cost then Heavy tanks does.

Most of the extra value of Heavy tanks is their increased hardness and armor piercing values, both which are mostly wasted if diluted with significant amounts of infantry. For this reason Heavy tanks work better when concentrated and working together with mechanized infantry ( although such divisions are prohibitively expensive for almost all nations ).

 

[Dalnar]

Infantry and heavy tanks?

Cavalry and heavy tanks.

Anywho, HT gives you a whole lot of breakthrough, anti-armour ability, and armour, as should be obvious. The major downsides are production costs, terrain maluses, and supply strain (Heavy Tanks in Africa, for instance, is a recipe for disaster). Really, though, they're overkill for most situations; in SP, a light tank battalion should give your division enough of all those things for almost all situations at far less cost and whilst keeping more versatility.

The game's really bad at representing the infantry tanks, but your most accurate option for the Brits is light tanks with maxed out armour.


(Seriously, if you're shelling out for heavy tanks, shell out for horsies. They move faster than infantry.)

Isn't the problem with cavalry that it is not affected by doctrines? Now, I have never used them with tanks and only used them early, but as far as I remember, no doctrine affects cavalry - unless it counts as mot.

 

[Orlunu]

Isn't the problem with cavalry that it is not affected by doctrines? Now, I have never used them with tanks and only used them early, but as far as I remember, no doctrine affects cavalry - unless it counts as mot.

It's not immune to doctrines, but it doesn't come under the common "infantry" category that a lot of doctrines like to apply to. "Army", "all frontline" and the like will still get them.

I tend to go Mobile Warfare, which only leaves them a little shy on org, where I think the other trees leave them shy on def as well. I've never found either of those that big a problem, but can understand the concern. I use them as aggressive units and value the extra 3kph quite highly, but I wouldn't use them for my main line units.

 

[Dalnar]

Well, I have nothing against Cavalry, I used it pretty extensively as UK when I puppet Egypt/Kenya and raise divisions from their manpower. But I also use them as China. It just never occured to me to use them with heavy tanks, will give it a try I guess.

 

[Praetori]

Isn't the problem with cavalry that it is not affected by doctrines? Now, I have never used them with tanks and only used them early, but as far as I remember, no doctrine affects cavalry - unless it counts as mot.

Cavalry is great early-mid war in the right combinations with armor (and faster than INF). You're right in that they don't benefit from doctrines and techs and thus lose the edge as the war progresses. Mid-Late game though you're hopefully into positive production numbers as far as trucks and/or mechanized goes and it's cheap to replace the CAV with MOT or Mech in the templates (preferably at the same time as you get new, faster Heavy armor models that would be restricted by the cavalry's lower speed).

 

[HaruhiFollower]

While they would give you more breakthrough and breakthrough is very important to reduce casualties on the attack, If you just want breakthrough light or medium tanks would give you alot more per cost then Heavy tanks does.

Most of the extra value of Heavy tanks is their increased hardness and armor piercing values, both which are mostly wasted if diluted with significant amounts of infantry. For this reason Heavy tanks work better when concentrated and working together with mechanized infantry ( although such divisions are prohibitively expensive for almost all nations ).

I would argue heavy tanks are important when you need all of breakthrough, armour and hardness. For just hardness, piercing and armour heavy tank destroyers are better and cheaper. This makes marines the only places heavy tanks are useful, as marines are used to provide bonuses in attack anyway. This type of division is good for attacking in the rare case you need to cross a river with no chance of going around, but at a great cost in MIC.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I would argue heavy tanks are important when you need all of breakthrough, armour and hardness.

So would I.

My sentence in that post could be clarified as: "Most of the extra value of Heavy tanks [besides the already mentioned breakthrough] is their increased hardness and armor + piercing values [compared to the other lighter tanks]"


I disagree that they only have a place in marines though. German 9km/h Heavy tanks + MEC2 divisions are as close to unstoppable as an offensive division can become.

 

[geckoman1011]

Ive been throwing a couple heavy tank units with my infantry to use in static/defensive units. since they are slow, I dont really use them to attack or move, so I also load them up with some extra arty and make some hefty 40 width divisions. as i was reading through the thread it occurred to me that it might not be the most effective use, but they seem to be pretty reliable in standing their ground draining the enemy of manpower until i have other units ready to attack.

 

[Bane5]

Not sure why it hasn't been mentioned yet but:

If you're looking to sneak in some armor into infantry divisions that non-AT equipped enemies can't pierce,

1936 Heavy tank Brigade - 1000 production cost
1936 Heavy TD Brigade - 500 production cost
1936 Heavy SP-AA Brigade - 200 production cost

Even more shocking is:
1939 Medium SP-AA Brigade - 144 production cost

As a comparison, an infantry brigade with basic weapons costs 30 and weapons 1 costs 50 production. A 1936 anti-tank which counters the armor costs 144 production as well or a towed AA for 120.

SP-AA has always been a staple in multiplayer especially with air bombing being so strong against big combat width divisions. And unlike the other options, SP-AA and AA have 1 combat width.
Disclaimer: the resource costs are hideous though. Lots of oil, steel, and chromium

 

[Galithor]

The Hvy SPAA's have a nice advantage in that they're only 8 equipment each, which means it takes considerable strength damage to a division to actually cause them to suffer a single equipment casualty.

Once they're built and added to a division, aside from being encircled or overrun, they're really hard to actually destroy.

Super Hvy SPAAs are even sillier in that regard, but they're harder to get into play in serious "1-battalion per infantry division" numbers by the start of the war compared to 1941 Hvy SPAA.

 

[Bane5]

I would also add that its cheaper and more effective to make a cavalry + SP heavy AA early on than it is to make a pure motorized divisions. You get similar hardness, more armor, some hard attack, minor piercing, and air defense in exchange for reduced speed but at only a small fraction of the cost.

20 width of motorized = 1750 cost.
18 width of cav + 1 SP-H-AA = 740

You can make almost 2.5 divisions of the latter for the cost of the former.

 

[Orlunu]

Ive been throwing a couple heavy tank units with my infantry to use in static/defensive units. since they are slow, I dont really use them to attack or move, so I also load them up with some extra arty and make some hefty 40 width divisions. as i was reading through the thread it occurred to me that it might not be the most effective use, but they seem to be pretty reliable in standing their ground draining the enemy of manpower until i have other units ready to attack.

The main tanks specialise in breakthrough. What's best for your units kinda depends on what you're facing, but as the gentlemen above have indicated, SPAA is probably your best bet.

 

[Bane5]

The main tanks specialise in breakthrough. What's best for your units kinda depends on what you're facing, but as the gentlemen above have indicated, SPAA is probably your best bet.

A slight addendum to this: Rocket artillery also has roughly the same breakthrough per production cost in between light and medium tanks, but it is not combat width efficient. If you're on a cheap budget:

9x inf, 1x SP-H-AA, 1x rocket art

Combined with the general trait to reduce combat with from 22 to 20, support brigades of your choice, you have a good basis for a well rounded line division for a minor nation. Tanks are better kept in large numbers in large width divisions so their high breakthrough stacks with multiplicative bonuses and the armor value is maximized to counter actual AT.

If you are a research starved minor like China, you can swap out the infantry for cavalry and go for motorized rocket artillery instead for slightly higher cost, but better all around stats. Motorized rocket artillery has the advantage of only needing 2 researches to unlock. Cav, with its 10 higher starting org, is also probably attractive for a 2 research slot minor who can't research far into doctrines.

 

[cat013]

Infantry and heavy tanks?

Cavalry and heavy tanks.

Extremely bad idea. See, cavalry is in theory both infantry and mobile and should be getting the benefits of both, but in the actual game all the doctrines and techs are painstakingly worded so as to exclude poor cav from getting anything good, sometimes to ridiculous degree. (Was one of the devs bitten by a horse as a kid?)

 

[geckoman1011]

(Was one of the devs bitten by a horse as a kid?)

Horses are well loved by the CKII team. Glitterhoof reins supreme.