And not just a defensive 'hold the line' kind of game, I mean as the Reich or the Soviets where you pretty much have to take someone else over to win.
Is it possible to win a game without tanks?
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Yes.
I did it all the time in my early hours. As long as you have the manpower and industry to sustain such huge loses. Tanks are much better though obviously.
I did it all the time in my early hours. As long as you have the manpower and industry to sustain such huge loses. Tanks are much better though obviously.
Most tanks aren't worth making too now to be honest. As an experiment I tried an 8LARM/6MOT/4LSPG division with light tank 3's as Soviets with fully upgraded gun and even with air superiority they were only consistently effective on plains tiles against equipment from earlier tech generations. Of course one should be using medium tanks anyway, but they don't have much more soft attack either. The alternative, and IMO better option right now is cycling individual infantry divisions into combat and letting CAS/TAC do the damage, or as said above, pure meat grinder.
AI air presence in SP is flimsy so almost anything will work. Tanks help a ton though, huge breakthrough keeps casualties down and if you get the armor bonus you're not taking many casualties.
My last game was NatChina. 50 garrison divs and 120 width 40 infantry (only riflemen, no arty...).
I defeated Japan by 1941, then united China by taking the warlords. In late 1942 I joined Barbarossa and took everything east of the Ural mountains.
When even pure riflemen can do that, think about real infantry divs like: 13 inf, 3 arty, 1 AT, 2 LT with 5 support brigades.
With the LT you reach 160+ breakthrough instead of 50. That's enough to break through trenches. Attach CAS to armies and there you got the hard attack.
I defeated Japan by 1941, then united China by taking the warlords. In late 1942 I joined Barbarossa and took everything east of the Ural mountains.
When even pure riflemen can do that, think about real infantry divs like: 13 inf, 3 arty, 1 AT, 2 LT with 5 support brigades.
With the LT you reach 160+ breakthrough instead of 50. That's enough to break through trenches. Attach CAS to armies and there you got the hard attack.
Yeah you can win without tanks ( especially vs the AI ). You probably want something that can do damage though, like CAS / Artillery or both, and be ready to take more casualties.
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Let's take an extreme case like a width 40 infantry div consisting of 20 inf battalions without CAS support, i.e. the Chinas.
Only benefit: infinite manpower.
You can't hold lines pretty well with enough of those divs. A little tough against tanks, but with plenty of rotation, doable.
On the offensive you can hardly push a hole into the enemy lines. This is where micro enters the fray. Make sure to have a battleplan set up which you never execute. You just need the bonus.
The rest is timing: there will always be times when the a.i. has exhausted itself and you can counter-attack some adjacent provinces where the enemy is currently on low org. Other opportunities are temporary local superiority where you can mass all neighbouring infantry to concentrate an attack on a single province.
Ideally you utilize these micro attacks in a pattern that lets you slowly advance towards a pocket.
PS: Just because you are the invader doesn't mean that you have to do the attacking. Pure infantry can work, especially if you can afford CAS and the use of strong templates with arty and breakthrough.