I thought about some strange possible templates and I'm here to ask the opinion of the experts. I compared a 7 mech 2 medium tank division with a 7 infantry 2 super heavy tanks. (I wanted to use self propelled artillery but the comparison tool I used did not have these and therefore I used the tank counterpart). The first one has a production cost 40% higher, 40% less soft attack, half hard attack, almost double defense, 30% less breakthrough and 33 against 21 hardness. But the greatest difference is in speed (8 vs 4 with the 1940 mechanized model). But, if I understood well how the overrun mechanic works, it is worth. Imagine this: a tiny frontline or a very rich country allow to deploy only such units on the battlefield, you win a single battle in a point of the front, the enemy division retreat in the province behind and wait... overrun because my division on the offensive is at least twice faster (considering the province is defended by infantry, if not simply they retreat and keep fighting till that happens in another point of the front sooner or later). what happens next? They support the battle in the adjacent province, battle won, retreat, enemy overrun (of course if I have enough troops to fill all the provinces they can retreat into). Is that worth? Do I have understood correctly the overrun mechanic or is there a point I'm missing?
Mechanised infantry, worth composition?
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If you want to compare Mechs vs Mots, don't mix it up with different kinds of tanks.
no maybe my post was not clear, I wanted to compare an infantry based division with a mechanized based division (practically mech instead of infantry) and since the greatest advantage is the consistent overrun, caused by the great speed (or at least so I think) I have to use different kind of tanks because infantry is not slowed down by SH tanks while with a mech division I must use medium tanks to maintain the speed (of course I mean with variants)
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Infantry will cap the speed of any mot/mech/armored unit added to it to 4mph/walking speed. If you want to compare, use the same tanks, I think.
I would also consider comparing by roll. Not only offense, but which holds the line better? The answers to me seem obvious. Unfortunately, the economy of a country is more likely to dictate division organization than player preference anyway. Though I like mechanized, it's often only a late war option in my games, slowly replacing motorized battalions one at a time. (and in armored units first, motorized units are to me, simply faster-moving infantry divisions and used on the defense or to protect flanks of armored movements only)
I would also consider comparing by roll. Not only offense, but which holds the line better? The answers to me seem obvious. Unfortunately, the economy of a country is more likely to dictate division organization than player preference anyway. Though I like mechanized, it's often only a late war option in my games, slowly replacing motorized battalions one at a time. (and in armored units first, motorized units are to me, simply faster-moving infantry divisions and used on the defense or to protect flanks of armored movements only)
ok I think my question is misunderstood (probably my fault). I know infantry would slow down the division speed to 4 and therefore I am thinking about a division with ONLY mech (so speed 8/10/12), self propelled artillery and tank destroyers and therefore, to maintain the speed I must use medium or light versions.
Of course in a normal infantry division I could use super-heavy versions because they would not slow down the already slow infantry. I used different kind of tanks because the fact that I can use only light or medium version without losing my main advantage (speed) is a limit that infantry-based divisions do not have. Why do I want to maintain such an high speed? Because, if I understood the overrun mechanic, reaching the next province before the retreating units should kill them, allowing you to destroy an army for good. My question is if this tactic is effective, if really I would have an enormous numbers of overrun as I expect, because if it is so, it could be worth deploying such a division, which has a very high production cost, otherwise probably not.
Let's do some reverse engineering here:
What nation are you playing? Is that nation producing or at least having access to tungsten (medium tanks) or chromium (heavy tanks)?
Germany for instance has much easier access to tungsten, while Turkey is producing a lot of chromium herself.
--> If the terrain and logistics aren't an important restriction (like heavy tanks don't work in low infra and certain terrain), then I'd go with the tank category which can be sustained best by your resources.
Medium tanks go with mots, heavy tanks with mechs due to speed restrictions. I wouldn't mix either with infantry, mostly because that completely nullifies the speed factor which is a good chunk of the price difference.
Germany is the premier case for medium tanks because it can pimp their speed with the following factors:
1. mobile doctrine --> huge tank speed bonuses
2. Guderian as theoretician --> +10% tank speed
3. Brauchitsch (I believe) as chief of army --> +10% army speed
4. Hentschel as tank designer --> + some tank speed
5. tank variant +5 engine --> another huge boost
The result are extremely high speed medium tanks that are en par with mots which also benefit from certain buffs. Keep in mind that Brauchitsch's +10% army speed makes a difference if we're talking infantry from 4 --> 4.4 or mots from 12 --> 13.2!
In other words: You can have tank divisions that are so fast and powerful (with SPA for high soft attack) that they will overrun every fleeing unit and won't be stopped by a blanket of one division infantry spread all over the place. Those folks won't delay the tanks long enough.
What nation are you playing? Is that nation producing or at least having access to tungsten (medium tanks) or chromium (heavy tanks)?
Germany for instance has much easier access to tungsten, while Turkey is producing a lot of chromium herself.
--> If the terrain and logistics aren't an important restriction (like heavy tanks don't work in low infra and certain terrain), then I'd go with the tank category which can be sustained best by your resources.
Medium tanks go with mots, heavy tanks with mechs due to speed restrictions. I wouldn't mix either with infantry, mostly because that completely nullifies the speed factor which is a good chunk of the price difference.
Germany is the premier case for medium tanks because it can pimp their speed with the following factors:
1. mobile doctrine --> huge tank speed bonuses
2. Guderian as theoretician --> +10% tank speed
3. Brauchitsch (I believe) as chief of army --> +10% army speed
4. Hentschel as tank designer --> + some tank speed
5. tank variant +5 engine --> another huge boost
The result are extremely high speed medium tanks that are en par with mots which also benefit from certain buffs. Keep in mind that Brauchitsch's +10% army speed makes a difference if we're talking infantry from 4 --> 4.4 or mots from 12 --> 13.2!
In other words: You can have tank divisions that are so fast and powerful (with SPA for high soft attack) that they will overrun every fleeing unit and won't be stopped by a blanket of one division infantry spread all over the place. Those folks won't delay the tanks long enough.
Cost needs to be a huge factor, as mech are so expensive and slow to build that you can never get high numbers of them.
Why not a heavy tank -AT added to an infantry division for front line AT duties?
you wouldn't be suggesting to spend 5x the research time on the AT line? ? I rarely have the research time to bother with walking AT, so am not sure about the stat differential between a heavy TAT and an AT gun.
I was JUST going to ask a similar question, mainly how I should build the heavier tanks. I am looking around to see the opinions of the experienced players, all the interesting posts are back in June & July. Hopefully there haven't been many changes since then.
As a new player, I just reached mechanized units and saw it slows down my light tank division, so I built a medium tank division with them (matching up the speeds). Hardness shoots up, but the unit can't move as fast. I can't afford to build many of them, so I better not need very many of these. People seem to like them, but the light's are just so fast!
So... they are just built for breaking through a front?
As a new player, I just reached mechanized units and saw it slows down my light tank division, so I built a medium tank division with them (matching up the speeds). Hardness shoots up, but the unit can't move as fast. I can't afford to build many of them, so I better not need very many of these. People seem to like them, but the light's are just so fast!
So... they are just built for breaking through a front?
I see mechanized as a defensive unit, I would not put them in an armor template. They are very expensive, but have three advantages over leg infantry. Around twice the defense per combat width, hardness, and speed (but not to the same extent as motorized).
This puts them in a spearhead defense role. Break through with your armor and send these guys into the breach to prevent your armor from being encircled. Basic template is probably 10 mech, no supports (unless you are going superior firepower with integrated support). Loads of defence, org, and HP. They don't need to win, just hold until your leg infantry catches up.
That said, you can do the same thing with motorized divisions for much cheaper. They will be less effective, but should still be able to get the job done.
This puts them in a spearhead defense role. Break through with your armor and send these guys into the breach to prevent your armor from being encircled. Basic template is probably 10 mech, no supports (unless you are going superior firepower with integrated support). Loads of defence, org, and HP. They don't need to win, just hold until your leg infantry catches up.
That said, you can do the same thing with motorized divisions for much cheaper. They will be less effective, but should still be able to get the job done.
I just don't bother to build mech, even Germany doesn't have the factories for it; I'd rather have tanks. I do get the '40 mech tech though, and it makes MOT better.
Mechanized is important to improve the defense stat of your armored divisions. In armor vs armor combat, the attacker has the advantage. A 15/5 medium armored division has 1200+ breakthrough and 400- defense. Meaning that the attacking army has the advantage. Mechanized divisions has double the defense value of regular motorized and infantry divisions. So your 350-400 defense, is now in the 700-800 range. Significantly improving the defense value of your armored divisions.
I don't know if you play vs skilled opponents. But infantry with anti tank equipment, and a planning bonus WILL push armored divisions.
Difference between mechanized and motorized infantry by year and mechanized vehicle. Assume all relevant technologies researched for the respective years.
1940 + lvl 1 = 320% piercing, 200% breakthrough, 193% defense, 500% hard attack, 109% soft attack
1942 + lvl 2 = 260% piercing, 200% breakthrough, 188% defense, 420% hard attack, 109% soft attack
1944 + lvl 3 = 310% piercing, 220% breakthrough, 200% defense, 376% hard attack, 126% soft attack
I don't know if you play vs skilled opponents. But infantry with anti tank equipment, and a planning bonus WILL push armored divisions.
Difference between mechanized and motorized infantry by year and mechanized vehicle. Assume all relevant technologies researched for the respective years.
1940 + lvl 1 = 320% piercing, 200% breakthrough, 193% defense, 500% hard attack, 109% soft attack
1942 + lvl 2 = 260% piercing, 200% breakthrough, 188% defense, 420% hard attack, 109% soft attack
1944 + lvl 3 = 310% piercing, 220% breakthrough, 200% defense, 376% hard attack, 126% soft attack
[Jumping in here]
Cool. I went 6MECH+4MARM because I just modified my light armor template to build my new medium tank template. (Italy's light armor template started with 6 cav/mot and 1 tank, so to save on combat experience early game, I just replaced all cav with mot, and added 3 light tanks to get 20 width).
Now the war is on, combat experience is easy to get so I can switch my new medium tank unit to 5MECH+5MARM no problem... if you think it's better than 6+4.
The question then becomes: better for what purpose and situation? The 6xMEC design is cheaper, has better defense, and depending on your doctrines, likely better org. So it will cost less, defend itself better against counterattacks, and it can hang longer in a fight (higher org). The 5xMEC design has higher breakthrough, higher hard attack and piercing, and better hardness. So it will do better on the attack though not as well on defense, and it will do significantly better when attacking enemy hard targets, like if it used to counterattack enemy armored thrusts.
Which set of advantages better fits your situation? That determines which one is "better".
I alway's try to make one army of 12 pure mechanized devisions and 12 tank devisions. (both 20 combat width)
This army i then use for either forcing a breaktrough somewhere or for plugging purposes. It is realy handy when you get invaded, the mechanized devisions get where they need to be realy fast and can hold/slowdown the invasion until the tanks arrive pretty often.
This army i then use for either forcing a breaktrough somewhere or for plugging purposes. It is realy handy when you get invaded, the mechanized devisions get where they need to be realy fast and can hold/slowdown the invasion until the tanks arrive pretty often.
I've started using 40 width divisions for my armour units, and they are a real blast. 15 Medium tank brigades with 5 motorised brigades and only engineers as support. Absolutely obliterates anything stood in front of it.
It's a good one-two punch tactic. The MEC's get there and hold, defending in place as is their strength. Then the tanks roll into a counterattack and smash the enemy spearhead right in the nose. Then when the enemy retreats before the tanks, you have the option to keep up the skeer and harry them further, or you can shift your armor into a lateral attack sweep, unhinging that part of the enemy's line, and go over to a general attack. I've used that tactical counter, too, though I usually organize the force as two armies instead of one. It costs an extra leader, but it makes the management easier and quicker. And Germany has no shortage of panzer leaders.
Interesting points, and the posts after yours too.
I am playing Italy, went Italy First. Both my faction and the Axis are fighting the Allies, but Germany is grinding it out with the Soviets all alone.
I have the old Roman Empire (except for Brittania), plus Africa and everything East to China. (After clearing out Africa, I pushed east for the rubber and took Singapore.) The China alliance and Comintern block are my border now. I'm getting ready to island hop for the rest of the rubber. Hopefully that will slow down the Americans and Soviets.
My units are doing just fine in this game, but I need to take on England and the Soviets eventually. This is where 6+4 vs 5+5 comes in... I want to make sure I can win. Manpower is shrinking and occupation takes 0.4 political power now.
However I really, really like this idea. It looks like it could be far more flexible. I have like ONE offensive general though, so it's going to be separate 10 mech and 10 tank divisions for the most part.
I could easily hyper-specialize my armies. I have over 300 combat experience to spend now.
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