Mixing ENG with ARM for Urban attack

[ancientsion]

So i have an division of LARM, 2xMOT. They have light to medium disadvantages when attacking Urban.
I mix in an ENG, which in my game reads: Urban Attack + 41 %.

In combat, i hover over the division and it reads Terrain Penalty 40%, which is exactly the panalty my LARM unit reads.
I thought i could mix up units and they average out the stats of every brigade in it.
What am i doing wrong ?

 

[jdavis86]

I'm not sure about your actual question, but in general, the best urban units are going to be INF + ENG, or ART. If there are tanks defending the province, then you need AT.

So INF INF + ART + ENG. You could also mix in gobs of INF + ARTx3, or INF + ENGx3. Send in enough divisions to max out the front, and your enormous soft attack from the art will knock out the city. This also works great on fortifications.

Envelopment and encirclement bonus' are really the key to taking out a city.

 

[thexmassteam]

In TFH (not sure for previous expansions) you can check your attack/move bonus in the division builder of production screen, mouse over the landscape icon.

 

[ancientsion]

TFH.
However in regards to my actual question: Why does my ENG brigade not influence my Terrain Penalty for attacking with LARM into URBAN at all ?
Is that not how it works on division-level ?

 

[Kovax]

Not sure why you're seeing the 41% penalty, rather than a heavily reduced penalty. Normally, ENG lower the penalty for urban or woods attacks, but have very little firepower of their own.

I use one division with ENG per Corps, and they're noticeably more effective against cities, woods, and river crossings, but substantially weaker than my other divisions in the open plains. Just as with AT, they're ONLY effective in certain circumstances, and in any other situation, nearly anything else in their place would be more effective. A 3xINF+ART or 2xINF+2xART will shred a 2xINF+ART+AT in most situations, or a 2xINF+ART+ENG in open terrain, because the unit with the specialty brigade gains practically no Soft Attack from that brigade, and the Hard Attack of an AT brigade is wasted on a completely soft unit. Even most Armor Divisions have several soft brigades, so AT isn't dramatically more effective against those divisions than ART or INF. Use ENG and AT sparingly, position them where they're needed most, and you'll probably find yourself with a far more effective fighting force than if you spam them into every unit.

INF+3xENG might be useful against the Maginot Line (90% fortification penalty), but in any other situation would be pitifully ineffective considering how much you paid for it. The 3xENG give a massive reduction in terrain penalties, but if you don't have a reasonable amount of firepower to modify, what's the point?

 

[thexmassteam]

However in regards to my actual question: Why does my ENG brigade not influence my Terrain Penalty for attacking with LARM into URBAN at all ?

Don't know, check all your fight with ENG, maybe it's just a quirk.

Is that not how it works on division-level ?

Yes it is

 

[Kovax]

One way to check would be to compare a division with ENG to one with another INF brigade. I'm not sure how it's handled in the display, but I guess the question is: does the unit with the ENG brigade show a higher Attack value, despite the lower Soft Attack due to the specialty brigade? If the unit with another INF brigade instead of ENG comes up with a higher final attack value (as would be the case in open terrain), then the ENG obviously aren't offering you a benefit. The bonus, or reduction in penalty, might not be shown in the tooltip bonus/penalty figures, but should still be calculated into the attack values and combat results.

In my games, I often hold off an attack on Forest, River, or Urban terrain until I can bring in an ENG division, because the ENG-equipped divisions seem so much more effective in those situations, despite having less base firepower.