It there much point in using armored cars?

[Sledjer]

I understand that they are designed to substitute production for manpower in suppression, but it seems pointless to me. If I have the production to spare and manpower is an issue, shouldn't I use it on making better fighting troops and thus taking less losses in battle?

 

[Mousetick]

Off-map suppression of resistance in occupied territories and on-map battles are completely unrelated. Each incur manpower and equipment losses independently of the other. Reducing losses in one doesn't affect the other, and vice-versa.

Unless your goal is to use a unique division template to use both as a suppressing garrison in occupied territory, and as a fighting force in ground battles. But that sounds misguided. You'd probably end up with something that's good at neither and/or prohibitively expensive.

 

[Mr. Wiggles]

Off-map suppression of resistance in occupied territories and on-map battles are completely unrelated. Each incur manpower and equipment losses independently of the other. Reducing losses in one doesn't affect the other, and vice-versa.

Unless your goal is to use a unique division template to use both as a suppressing garrison in occupied territory, and as a fighting force in ground battles. But that sounds misguided. You'd probably end up with something that's good at neither and/or prohibitively expensive.

Armored cars have some armor and the highest suppression values, this mean they both take less damage from partisan attacks and smaller garrison divisions are required, sparing manpower and equipment.

Plus, they have very high recon bonus and low production cost. Good breakthrough for their cost and supply consumption, on paper they should be good as tanks'substitutes in the african theatre but I never tried em.

 

[Kryndude]

There's absolutely no point to even research the thing. You can occupy an entire continent without much problem by receiving garrison support from your puppets and re-using old rifles for garrison duties. You can very easily have plenty of both, no need to invest precious research and army XP into armored cars.

 

[Harin]

I understand that they are designed to substitute production for manpower in suppression, but it seems pointless to me. If I have the production to spare and manpower is an issue, shouldn't I use it on making better fighting troops and thus taking less losses in battle?

The manpower losses will not stop and often accelerate. Unless you are about to win the game, ignoring those losses and focusing on the battlefront may lead you to a future where you have insufficient manpower for the divisions you have and for the divisions you wished you could build. I believe that reducing manpower losses to resistance is important, but armored cars is not always the answer.

I tend to play different countries as I get bored playing the same one twice in a row. That has shown me that some countries/circumstances do not need the armored cars for suppression, but others most certainly do. Armored cars, MP companies, occupation stance, cavalry battalions, spies, collaboration missions, and that focus on the bottom left of the page that reduces resistance, are all tools to help us get the most out of the occupied territories while losing the least manpower or equipment.

The effect of armored cars is instant and very noticeable, but with so many tools available to reduce manpower loses to resistance, it is not every game that you will reach for the armored car.

*Edit

@Kryndude posted just above another option I should have included in my list of options. There are just so many options to reduce resistance that armored cars is not something you will need every game. Even if you play a game with no puppets, there are still so many options that armored cars will not be needed in many circumstances.

 

[Sledjer]

Off-map suppression of resistance in occupied territories and on-map battles are completely unrelated. Each incur manpower and equipment losses independently of the other. Reducing losses in one doesn't affect the other, and vice-versa.

Unless your goal is to use a unique division template to use both as a suppressing garrison in occupied territory, and as a fighting force in ground battles. But that sounds misguided. You'd probably end up with something that's good at neither and/or prohibitively expensive.

What I was saying was that, if I am worried about manpower, it seems more efficient to worry about reducing losses in the battlefield than to reduce losses in suppression. Obviously my fighting troops aren't suppressing, but it seems as though the only reason to use armored cars is in the event of manpower scarcity, which affects anything that uses manpower.

 

[Harin]

What I was saying was that, if I am worried about manpower, it seems more efficient to worry about reducing losses in the battlefield than to reduce losses in suppression. Obviously my fighting troops aren't suppressing, but it seems as though the only reason to use armored cars is in the event of manpower scarcity, which affects anything that uses manpower.

I think you nailed it @Sledger. If you have the manpower and are ok with the losses due to resistance, then there is little incentive to reduce those losses.

When LaR first came out the manpower losses could be much higher than the battlefield losses. This created a flurry of posts on how to reduce manpower losses to resistance. The developers made changes to reduce the losses and the players learned about the other tools at our disposal to reduce them more, so it is not the issue it once was.

 

[Mousetick]

What I was saying was that, if I am worried about manpower, it seems more efficient to worry about reducing losses in the battlefield than to reduce losses in suppression. Obviously my fighting troops aren't suppressing, but it seems as though the only reason to use armored cars is in the event of manpower scarcity, which affects anything that uses manpower.

Thanks for clarifying.

If manpower is scarce and industrial capacity is not an issue, you can reduce manpower losses in both suppression and battlefield, without armored cars.

Armored cars are not the only means to reduce manpower losses in suppression. The hardness of the garrison division is the determining factor. If you're producing light or medium armor for your fighting divisions, or have them in your stockpile for whatever reason, you can put some in the garrison division template to increase its hardness.

The issue with putting armor* in garrison divisions is that the game currently does not honor the template's equipment settings, so it uses the latest available from the stockpile. It would be more efficient to use obsolete armor for garrison, and reserve the greatest and latest for the battlefield.

(*) This is true with all equipment, not only armor, but armor is the most precious and costly.

 

[Kryndude]

The issue with putting armor* in garrison divisions is that the game currently does not honor the template's equipment settings, so it uses the latest available from the stockpile.

Can this be circumvented by setting garrison priority to low in the Recruit & Deploy tab?

 

[Zauberelefant]

There's absolutely no point to even research the thing. You can occupy an entire continent without much problem by receiving garrison support from your puppets and re-using old rifles for garrison duties. You can very easily have plenty of both, no need to invest precious research and army XP into armored cars.

You cannot force garrisons to use old equipment. It's a bug.

 

[Mousetick]

Can this be circumvented by setting garrison priority to low in the Recruit & Deploy tab?

I don't see how that could reliably prevent new equipment in the stockpile from being used by garrisons.

 

[Secret Master]

What I was saying was that, if I am worried about manpower, it seems more efficient to worry about reducing losses in the battlefield than to reduce losses in suppression. Obviously my fighting troops aren't suppressing, but it seems as though the only reason to use armored cars is in the event of manpower scarcity, which affects anything that uses manpower.

One of the things that skews our discussions on this topic is that experienced players are often good enough to beat the AI with minimal losses.

To give you an example, my first game as Germany in LaR, I lost about 200,000 men against the Soviets before the Soviets capitulated. But I lost 300-400,000 men against partisans in France and the Balkans between the Fall of France and the beginning of Barbarossa. So, from the perspective of my first game as Germany, the partisans were a bigger drain on German resources than the entire freaking Soviet Union.

In that situation, what would you optimize?

 

[Kryndude]

Hmm, okay so I have to factor in garrison when

One of the things that skews our discussions on this topic is that experienced players are often good enough to beat the AI with minimal losses.

To give you an example, my first game as Germany in LaR, I lost about 200,000 men against the Soviets before the Soviets capitulated. But I lost 300-400,000 men against partisans in France and the Balkans between the Fall of France and the beginning of Barbarossa. So, from the perspective of my first game as Germany, the partisans were a bigger drain on German resources than the entire freaking Soviet Union.

In that situation, what would you optimize?

I think that can be a bit misleading because the reason you had such minimal losses against the Soviets is because you didn't divert resources for garrison template. But then 400k is quite a lot, I wonder why I never get that kind of number with my Japan or Italy runs. Usually garrison attrition is so insignificant that I just don't care about it.

 

[Secret Master]

I think that can be a bit misleading because the reason you had such minimal losses against the Soviets is because you didn't divert resources for garrison template.

No, I got those losses because I was lazy and didn't micro the eastern front as well as I should have. 200,000 German losses versus 3 million Soviet losses is only a mediocre game for me against the AI on normal difficulty.

If I had put real effort into it, I could have trimmed those losses down to 150,000 or 100,000.

Due to logistics limitations on the eastern front, I could have easily put more IC into things like armored cars for garrison duty instead of having tanks, trucks, and infantry kits sitting the stockpile doing nothing or in divisions sitting idle in the west since they couldn't be used against the Soviets.

But then 400k is quite a lot, I wonder why I never get that kind of number with my Japan or Italy runs. Usually garrison attrition is so insignificant that I just don't care about it.

It was a previous patch when the mechanics were bit different. I also didn't have 90% compliance upon capitulation due to spamming collaboration government my first game (I only ran collaboration once on France). And I put civilian oversight in place to speed up compliance gain, when a better occupation law could have cut resistance down.

 

[Kryndude]

Due to logistics limitations on the eastern front, I could have easily put more IC into things like armored cars for garrison duty instead of having tanks, trucks, and infantry kits sitting the stockpile doing nothing or in divisions sitting idle in the west since they couldn't be used against the Soviets.

That makes sense, if that's the case investing into cars sound reasonable.

It was a previous patch when the mechanics were bit different. I also didn't have 90% compliance upon capitulation due to spamming collaboration government my first game (I only ran collaboration once on France). And I put civilian oversight in place to speed up compliance gain, when a better occupation law could have cut resistance down.

I barely do collab missions too. For reference, in my current Japan game it's Jan 1940 and I've been occupying all of China for about a year and half and so far my garrison losses are 19k. Because I'm Japan, I can't have enough of IC due to demands on all three sectors, so in this situation armored cars would be a huge waste.

 

[Zauberelefant]

That makes sense, if that's the case investing into cars sound reasonable.


I barely do collab missions too. For reference, in my current Japan game it's Jan 1940 and I've been occupying all of China for about a year and half and so far my garrison losses are 19k. Because I'm Japan, I can't have enough of IC due to demands on all three sectors, so in this situation armored cars would be a huge waste.

To chime in on collab: testing conclusively showed that 2x collab on poland as Germany is always worth it in terms of factory count. Poland is a smaller Industrial power than China, so I say go for it.

 

[Petite]

Extrem short ~ no

 

[Harin]

Extrem short ~ no

Forgive me @Petite, in English I could not help but notice the synergy between your name and your answer. I bow before your elegant use of language.

 

[Petite]

ok. lets talk german or "Plattdeutsch" or "Paradoxish"
Moin

 

[SophieX]

Extrem short ~ no

Without giving any reason those "answers" are pretty useless.

In my opinion there are reasons to go for AC:

- hardness and suppression will significantly lower garrison losses for countries which are to conquer many others.
- AC has the highest recon-stat as a support-unit
AC recon = 2
mot recon =1.5
cav recon = 1