Is Mechanized worth it?

[PurpulaPhoenixum53]

I am currently doing an Isolationist US game and was looking at using Mechanized for the first time, since I would have the factories. However, their stats aren't the best and they lack good breakthrough. So I'm wondering, Is Mechanized worth picking up and using?

 

[Anaraxes]

I'm not sure what you mean by "lack good breakthrough". The competitor for mech is motorized infantry, and mech's breakthrough is three times that of MOT, with a defense that's 2.3x as high. They also have armor and hardness (meaning that a lot of opposing infantry's soft attack is wasted), and some piercing which will at least help out the attached tank destroyer battalion a little bit. They're not tanks, certainly, but mech isn't a replacement for armor battalions, nor are armor divisions pure tanks.

All that said, they do have some disadvantages, eating fuel and most importantly, a production cost that's almost three times that of MOT. Many players don't find them worthwhile because of that cost. In between the research time and the high IC cost, it's fairly late in the game by the time you can field noticeable amounts of MECH. So you've got to ask yourself whether it's really going to be worth the research slot time, or whether you'd just rather have 2.5 times the number of battalions as MOT. A mech division will shred a MOT division -- but it's not obvious that two mech would shred five MOT. (Notice the influence of country manpower on that question -- do you have 2.5 times the number of men to put into trucks, plus replacements for their extra casualties, or do you have to make each individual in your small army as effective as possible? There's also a similarity to the 40-vs-20 width question, in that in the vast expanses of Russia or China, you wind up needing a lot of individual units to cover the ground, not necessarily the most concentrated power you can field. Supply costs also matter.)

A lot of choices in HoI4 come down to the scarcity of research slots. It's not so much a question of whether a particular item is good, or has some utility in some particular scenario, as it is a question of what else you have to give up in order to have some particular toy. Most of the units have some area where they're better than the alternative, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need them if you can get by the second-best-but-more-widely-useful.

For me personally, mech isn't a strong draw. Of course, not getting started on the research early just aggravates the time-to-battlefield-quantity problem, so that conclusion is a bit circular. When I do build it, it's usually as a flex as dominant powerhouse, and often after the "first war" has been won, so the mech buildout is really done in preparation for the second. In the first war, they might further harden up the armor divisions, or you could issue small numbers to the elite assault force.

 

[Reman]

Mechs compete with motorized in terms of function, but compete with tanks in terms of cost and supply usage. The main reason you'd use them is to make ultra-quality tank divisions that concentrate power as much as possible, at the expense of overall strategic efficiency.

In the early-mid game mech is usually not worth it since just building more tanks is almost always going to be better. In the late game, mech is somewhat more appealing if production constraints have been lifted and you already have 24+ divisions of tanks, although I still prefer motorized due to the lower supply usage (tanks + mot is a more efficient use of supply than tanks + mech). I still don't use mechs in the late game personally, but past 1945 the decision on whether to use them is closer to "reasonable people could disagree".

 

[Gort11]

I am currently doing an Isolationist US game and was looking at using Mechanized for the first time, since I would have the factories. However, their stats aren't the best and they lack good breakthrough. So I'm wondering, Is Mechanized worth picking up and using?

They're an upgrade to motorised infantry - you don't bring them for their breakthrough stat. You bring them because they have a high hardness and more armour than motorised, which means they take fewer losses and make your tank divisions less vulnerable to piercing and soft attacks.

They've a lot of disadvantages:

1. They're very expensive compared to motorised
2. Some models are slow compared to motorised. Until the 1945 model of mechanised you're better off using motorised divisions for fast infantry divisions.
3. Their research comes late in the game - in historical play the war in Europe and Asia tends to be decided by 1942, which doesn't give you long at all to build them.
4. They can't be mixed into motorised battalions. This means you have the awkward switchover period that you also see with the light tank to medium tank switchover.

I don't tend to use them, but I could certainly see the US making use of them - you should be able to research at least the first level of them in 1940, and once your war industries come online you should be able to make some good medium tank/mechanised divisions out of them. They do fight very well.

 

[User29]

mechs are basically something for people who have tons of mils in excess to their regular army build, mechs are great if you're just wanting to add a little oomph to an already strong template, but you need the supply/fuel/industrial capacity to really churn em out.

Essentially they're a win more type of unit, if you are already comfortable with building a bunch of mechs you probably already won the game imo

 

[Eisscrat]

Mech is absolute worth it if you are able to build enough of them.

The hold every line against enemy Units especially if you give them SPGs and TDs to beef up there soft and hard attack.

Use them as germany after the soviets are done. In russia the speed of light tanks and motorized is very helpfull but when u invade the US you need troops that can hold back a lot of enemys by themself. Even if the need more supply and fuel the need less in the end then 3 or more infantry divisions to hold a province.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Playing as Germany, I wanted to use Mechs for roleplay reasons, but I found them useless because:

1 -> The 1940 model is too slow at 8 km/h it slows significantly units made of 1941 tanks. Similarly it cannot be mixed into Motorized Inf or it slows it even more...
2-> The 1942 model appears too late into the game to be useful

So it is really hard to make them work, which is sad, because the germans used tons of them in reality, 15k of the 251 model only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sd.Kfz._251 and it could reach 50km/h in reality and was introduced in 39.

I think that to make them useful we would need:
1 -> Add ahead of time bonuses for Germany, like 2 of them
2 -> Increase the speed of the 1940 model to 9km/h

 

[Eh up me duck]

The only real disadvantage of mechs is that you should have won by the the time they're built and deployed.

Occasionally in games that last a long time (if i'm forming HRE or Byzantines) then yeah I will make sure I have mechs in my heavy tank divisions. They're better than motorised at everything but speed, and speed isn't really useful late game.

 

[Secret Master]

I consider MECH to be a luxury item for reasons most people list here.

I will add something that's not immediately obvious in most games, but if you think about it, it's something that matters.

You need rubber to build trucks and MECH. You also need rubber for planes. Now, if you are just building trucks, they are so cheap that the required rubber for those factories is tiny compared to your planes. You might have 80-100 MIC on planes, and 2-5 on trucks. It's not a big deal.

But then MECH happens.

Even if you have 15-30 MIC to put on MECH, that's another 10-20 rubber you need for those MIC. Now we are talking about a serious investment in rubber. For some countries, that doesn't matter, because you have your own rubber to use. For other countries, it might matter, because you need to import, but you are importing from allies, so you're just lining their pockets during a war for national survival. But for other countries, that's another batch of synthetic rubber plants you need to build, or it's another round of imports that drag your economy down OR you have to budget your rubber away from planes and towards MECH. This is a dubious choice in some situations.

 

[qqmagnuz]

I'm not sure what you mean by "lack good breakthrough". The competitor for mech is motorized infantry, and mech's breakthrough is three times that of MOT, with a defense that's 2.3x as high. They also have armor and hardness (meaning that a lot of opposing infantry's soft attack is wasted), and some piercing which will at least help out the attached tank destroyer battalion a little bit. They're not tanks, certainly, but mech isn't a replacement for armor battalions, nor are armor divisions pure tanks.

All that said, they do have some disadvantages, eating fuel and most importantly, a production cost that's almost three times that of MOT. Many players don't find them worthwhile because of that cost. In between the research time and the high IC cost, it's fairly late in the game by the time you can field noticeable amounts of MECH. So you've got to ask yourself whether it's really going to be worth the research slot time, or whether you'd just rather than 2.5 times the number of battalions as MOT. A mech division will shred a MOT division -- but it's not obvious that two mech would shred five MOT. (Notice the influence of country manpower on that question -- do you have 2.5 times the number of men to put into trucks, plus replacements for their extra casualties, or do you have to make each individual in your small army as effective as possible? There's also a similarity to the 40-vs-20 width question, in that in the vast expanses of Russia or China, you wind up needing a lot of individual units to cover the ground, not necessarily the most concentrated power you can field. Supply costs also matter.)

A lot of choices in HoI4 come down to the scarcity of resource slots. It's not so much a question of whether a particular item is good, or has some utility in some particular scenario, as it is a question of what else you have to give up in order to have some particular toy. Most of the units have some area where they're better than the alternative, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need them if you can get by the second-best-but-more-widely-useful.

For me personally, mech isn't a strong draw. Of course, not getting started on the research early just aggravates the time-to-battlefield-quantity problem, so that conclusion is a bit circular. When I do build it, it's usually as a flex as dominant powerhouse, and often after the "first war" has been won, so the mech buildout is really done in preparation for the second. In the first war, they might further harden up the armor divisions, or you could issue small numbers to the elite assault force.

I agree with this but I'll even add an argument to your case in order to strengthen it. When you start to produce motorized, it needs to build up efficiency over time. Even if you use one precious research slot on mechanized, you still have to put military factories on them and build of efficiency. This is less of a worry if you use dispersed (Germany) rather than concentrated (USA, Soviet) industry. But the war typically will either be won or lost by one side before anyone gets meaningful number of mech.

 

[Eisscrat]

eah the need of rubber for Mechs make no sense.

While trucks needs 6-10 tires the AFVs need 2. And this 2 are only to steer so there were less wear and tear.

At the moment tanks and armoured cars dont need rubber while especially armoured cars are wheeled vehicles.
I think mech should not need rubber to build.

 

[Znail]

eah the need of rubber for Mechs make no sense.

While trucks needs 6-10 tires the AFVs need 2. And this 2 are only to steer so there were less wear and tear.

At the moment tanks and armoured cars dont need rubber while especially armoured cars are wheeled vehicles.
I think mech should not need rubber to build.

That would be a nice idea and increase the use of mech.

 

[FindFloppies]

I use mechs only when:
1) I have resources and MIC coming out my ears
2) usually late, if I'm taking over the world, and more likely to use with modern tanks rather than medium tanks.
3) You won't see mechs in my earlier wars.

Having said that, mech/med or mech/modern tanks can be pretty fun to watch someone just roll through them. But, like I said only when I have the resources and factories to have fun with them.

 

[Voigt]

I never use Mech I, but sometimes I use Mech II. They are not thaat late, and if you duplicate your tank template and only convert one division after another you don't need that much Mech Equipment.

Having like 3 elite tank division which have Mech instead of Mot is nice, aince it increases their hardness by quite alot.

Having a bit more defense against counterattack and a bit more armour also isn't to bad.

 

[sterrius]

When you plan to go mech its important to understand its not for all your tanks. They are better centralized in a few divisions to help support your normal tank divisions.

They are the Tip of the spear. Not the spear itself.

So instead of slow replacing 1 Mot for 1 Mech in all your tank divisions for a very slow and useless increment in stats and huge losses in atrittion.
Duplicate the divisions and replace all the Mot you want. Centralize and get the real benefit of having a fully mechanized division.

With luck you will have 2-4 divisions in 1941 for the USSR. DOn´t need much more than that to pierce problematic fronts.
Another very good use where they can make a difference in small numbers is to defend against a D-Day!
Again a small amount of 40W divisions to support your normal tank divisions with MOT.

Replacing all tank divisions for mot is a very long plan. That demand a very high investment and time.

 

[porta80]

I just went for a Mech build in a modded MP game as New Zealand, they had a hard time to crack my 2 40 Width mechs in El Allamein they were just lucky our AC was afk and the UK player a ...
In Multiplayer for some specialised builds probably an option for some minors, in Singleplayer nice to have later on if you play longer then 1943.

 

[Pzt_Kami]

Considering that now Mech line of techtree now has a sub-tree of amphibious version which adds even more research time ,I think Mech I time should be set to 1938 instead of current 1940 (Mech II to 1940 and mech III can be 42 or 43). Also Germany and Britain should either have their first Mechanized tech already researched by the game start or have an early focus that immediately let them have it researched (or give research boost of 500 or something so they can research it in matter of days).

Besides as other users already mentioned rubber should be removed as one of the resources needed to build them

 

[Anaraxes]

rubber should be removed as one of the resources needed to build them

The rear tracks on many half-tracks -- certainly the American M3/M5 and the German Sd. Kfz. 251 -- were made out of rubber. Usually molded individual pads/links strung together on steel cable. (Tires aren't solid rubber, either.) They're not solid metal, as on most tanks. Look at the length of those tracks, and it doesn't seem to me there's any less rubber there than there would be if there were multiple tires on the rear, as with a truck.

 

[sterrius]

half tracks are on that bad spot in the game where we don´t have 0,5 use of X resource. They would fit perfectly there.
So asking for 1 full rubber is too much, asking for 0 is also too much.

in fact its kind funny as PDX loves to have 0,X of something happening in all their mechanics.

 

[Harin]

In the game, mech is hard to justify when trucks have better off road capabilities than the tracks, until very late game. This is unrealistic, but it is the game we have now.

In 1939, tanks could get away with running ahead of the infantry. This did not last long as leaders learned how to defeat tanks with infantry units. This led to the need of tracked vehicles so infantry could keep up with the tanks to protect them from enemy infantry. Trucks could not do this. There is a reason tanks and IFVs have tracks, to this day. Wheels are not as good cross-country as tracks.

Remember, on the front, roads are for supply movement, not tank and infantry movement. In the rear, motorized units should be very quick, but on the front, everyone walks almost all the time, unless they have tracks (or many wheels) under them. That is true, even today. The single and tandem axle trucks just cannot operate on most ground conditions and are usually slower than tracks, even when they can. Real terrain, even good hard terrain, has so many ravines, cuts, washes, bushes, low spots, erosion, etc.. that truck attrition would be unsustainable. Movement would be slower than foot. I have been in places where it took days for the trucks to catch up to us foot infantry and that was in decent terrain. In bad terrain, they are not even trying and you are on your own.

Even the famous Willey Jeep could not operate off road very well and it was very light, carrying a light load. Once my unit was conducting some large scale training exercise. We had run out of food, because vehicles could not get to us. Our 1st Sgt commandeered a Willey Jeep and spent two days and a night trying to get to us with mermite cans of food onboard. He eventually got close enough that I took a squad and we literally man-lifted the rear of the jeep over obstacles that we could not cut down to help it get the rest of the way. Even when the jeep had a clear enough space to go on its own, it moved slower than we could walk, most of the time. The food was long cold, but much appreciated.

All that said, wheeled vehicles are slower than infantry in many cases. Motorized battalions should operate at infantry speed on the attack. It should take mechanized infantry to keep up with tanks.