Mixing forces-advice for new guy

[Majorball]

1/Is it better to have just armour or a mixture of motorised and armour?

2/Are engineer brigades better grouped on their own or mixed in with other units?

3/Are engineer brigades for motorised and armour divisions worth building?

4/If I have all my planes split up into groups as fighters, TAC etc will the fighters provide escort if sent to the same area at the same time?

5/ If multiple leaders are present in the one territory under attack is it only the highest ranking in control or are all the leaders special abilties counted in someway towards the battle?

If someone could answer these for me it would be appreciated. Help shorten my learning curve anyhows

 

[unmerged(17709)]

1. I always group by speed. With an attached engineer brigade, a motorized division can keep pace with most light armor. For the most part though I use group by type. Armor to break a line, motorized to fill the gap quickly to defend so the armor can contine on.

2. Engineer brigades can be mixed in with other units.

3. Engineer brigades would be best for armor as they increase their attack values across rivers, but not so good because engineers are primary defensive and armor is clearly an offensive tool.

4. Unless you want to micromanage, the only way to be sure fighters arrive at same time as bombers, particularly if they are based in different provinces, is to group them together. What I do is group them seperately, and base them close together(usually keeping the fighters at the front line to intercept any incoming planes). If the tac or div bombers need help, the fighters are there to help. For strategic bombers, I always send fighters as an escort.

5. The leader with the highest rank commands and offers his skills to battle. I don't believe the other leaders contribute their skills(might be wrong), but if there's a Field Marshall adajcent to the battle province he offers his skills.

 

[unmerged(17346)]

1: I use 'pure' armor groups with accompanying motorised:ENG groups which then exploit the breakthrough. So my attacking armies look something like this:

5~ Pz. under a General/FieldMarshall
5~ Pz. under a General/FieldMarshall
3 Mot. Inf w/ ENG brigade under a General/FieldMarshall x 4

For the initial breakthrough I may or may not wait on the infantry as well to completely overwhelm. After that the infantry follows as able while the armor/mot. E exploit.

2: Engineer brigades are best grouped by themselves if they are pushing the movement rate up. So for light/medium tanks that are already at the movement cap of 10 it doesn't matter, for everything else it does.

3: Engineer brigades are definitely worth building for Mot. divisions, worth it for mec., and good for the heavy/super heavy tanks as well to bump their speed back up. A mot. infantry with engineering brigade moves at the cap, making them the perfect breakthrough exploiters IMO. With the right minister you can get 2 mot. inf with eng. brigade for the cost of 3 Infantry divisions IC/day wise, not too shabby. Some infantry or Mountain divisions with eng. brigade would be good for swamp/mountain terrain as well.

4: I believe so, I usually get my interceptors in the closest province I hold and then use intercept or patrol to clear enemy planes before I send in the TAC bombers.

5: Not sure, they all get experience so I think the 'overall' commander affects all the divisions present and the lower commanders affect their units only, but I'm guessing, I'm sure someone more familiar can clarify.

 

[unmerged(19009)]

A good hint is to create smalle groups who anyway can make a combined attack. When you need more firepower, use a two units, one consisting of three tanks and one of 3 INF with Artillery. When you need to move fast to capture an unguarded province behind the main defensive line, just continue with the tanks and let the INF stay defending the line of supply. And so on...

But remember, an attack with 3 ARM and 3 INF won't get you far in Russia.

 

[unmerged(13909)]

What about some advice out defensive combinations ?

Say if I'm the Czechs trying to hold off the Germans.

I assumed that over reliance on brigaded units are a waste of manpower for the smaller nations ?

 

[Exterous]

Its not so much a waste of manpower as a waste of ICs. The occasional brigaded unit is good, but too many results in a smaller, less flexible army. Finding the right mix depends on IC size and MP pool.

For defensive I use mainly vanilla inf with maybe a brigade or two with a moble reserve to quickly add reinfocements (usually consisting of Arm and Mot/Mech whichever is available)

When my Czech game is done, i think i will have more insight in my AAR

 

[unmerged(13909)]

Originally posted by Exterous
Its not so much a waste of manpower as a waste of ICs. The occasional brigaded unit is good, but too many results in a smaller, less flexible army. Finding the right mix depends on IC size and MP pool.

For defensive I use mainly vanilla inf with maybe a brigade or two with a moble reserve to quickly add reinfocements (usually consisting of Arm and Mot/Mech whichever is available)

When my Czech game is done, i think i will have more insight in my AAR

Yes, good advice, I was thinking along those lines for Czechoslovakia, I also find with small nations you've got to somehow plan for pulling back low org/manpower units out of a province and covering them with a force long enough to allow them to rejuvinate. But, its tricky and have yet to carry it out successfully.

 

[unmerged(17854)]

with the new stat tweaks, as a smaller nation militia are a vialbe option as a static defense or a first line. militia dug in with forts can hold of regualrs for a long time, and if they die or get beaten you have a reserve of regular info or fast troops to counter attack. they can also be used to cover the line while your regulars regroup and then take them back off.

 

[unmerged(13909)]

Originally posted by Drakos
with the new stat tweaks, as a smaller nation militia are a vialbe option as a static defense or a first line. militia dug in with forts can hold of regualrs for a long time, and if they die or get beaten you have a reserve of regular info or fast troops to counter attack. they can also be used to cover the line while your regulars regroup and then take them back off.

Yes, I'll obviously have to give militias a go.

 

[Mediator]

1.) Don't mix hard (armor, mech) and soft targets (all other incl. mot.). Your soft targets will be annihilated when your armor is still in fighting mood. You're gonna loose a lot of division this way.

2.) Besides their obvious benefits (higher HA and defense), they give a river crossing bonus (but only to the unit they are attached to). So you can group them as you like with other units (it's some sort of strategy to mix in different brigaded units in a corps).

3.) Engineer brigades are almost not worth building in the current patch since they do not increase the speed anymore. So it is much more worthwile to build Art. instead. The river crossing bonus is nice, however with the 4 river crossing techs (2 inf. and the first 2 armor) you already offset the penalty and you can easily achive them when the war starts.

4.) Yes they will.

5.) You could have a look at the Leader FAQ, this should answer your questions.

 

[OriginalRafiki]

Originally posted by armyknife
I assumed that over reliance on brigaded units are a waste of manpower for the smaller nations ?

If manpower is an issue, I think you get more return on your manpower investments by using brigades. Unfortunately, I don't have the numbers available to check this, but perhaps someone else has looked more closely at this than me?

What's the status of blitzing these days? Previously, including soft units (non-Armot/Mech) in Armored stacks would degrade/negate the stack's ability to blitz. Anyone done some testing on this?

Rafiki

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Originally posted by rafiki
What's the status of blitzing these days? Previously, including soft units (non-Armot/Mech) in Armored stacks would degrade/negate the stack's ability to blitz. Anyone done some testing on this?

You could and still can blitz with Motorized Inf. AFAIK, this works just the same as an Armored/Mechanized blitz, haven't thoroughly tested this, though.
And I don't think you can blitz with infantry stacked together with your Panzers.

 

[unmerged(576)]

Surely this all depends on when and where you fight. Take Asia, is there much point in investing in tanks or motorised units?

 

[unmerged(19009)]

Engineers with Bulldozers give you a 2+ in defence. Really good. I usually keep off 70 franch div, while attacking in Poland and the Balkan, as Germany with 9 INF with engineers+a rapid reaction force of 3 mot.INF with engineers, divided on 3 provinces without forts. Added som fighters to keep off bombers, that usually does the trick.