Question about a few single tanks in Divisions

[KopiG]

So when I start producing tanks, I usually wait till I have sufficient numbers to make dedicated tanks divisions. Is it better tho till then to use those tanks in Inf divisions? I mean like adding 1 or 2 to a division. What are your experiences with tanks in Inf divisions? Is it better to make a lot less specialized tank divisions or is it better to spread them among your Inf divisions?

 

[Znail]

This question are not as easy to answer as it depends a lot of what you are facing. There are 2 key thresholds that you want to pass compared to the enemy. The first one is that you want more armor then the enemy have piercing. This can require as little as the few LT in the suport Armored Recon. This is the one area where Heavy Tanks and it's variants are usefull as they provide high armor. But you should be able to reach this with a few Medium Tanks normally. The bonus from this is massive and it makes the entire unit much stronger, so doing this is not a bad idea at all and I can recomend that you try it.

The next treshold is to get Breakthrough to match enemy attack. This is what you want in your regular tank divisions. LT actually have decend Breakthrough, so you can use them to fill out your tank slots if you have left overs as regular tank divisions will normally easily pass the Armor requirement due to having many tanks.

 

[KDEstroy]

Actually there is a third threshold: hardness. If your division hardness is higher than the opposition's ratio of soft attack to hard attack, you will take less damage. This is the main reason why people use space marine divisions. Just one heavy TD battalion in a 20 width division increases hardness from 0% to around 30%. If your opponent has very little hard attack, you will effectively reduce damage taken by 30%.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

Depends on whom you're playing really. If AI, then adding just one heavy tank will stop its divisions piercing you due to armour (only UK AI seems to build anti-tank), so you end up with insanely powerful divisions at a low cost. If you're playing other players, then you'll get shredded unless you have 40 width divisions with at least 13 tanks in them, ideally upgraded to a high level.

 

[Jays298]

Generally speaking, you want to have a significant number of tanks for an armored (6/4) or combined arms division (Not tank icon but multiple tanks).

Most nations start out with a crappy but small tank division like 2 tank, 2 motorized. That's a good starting point if you don't have the tanks, don't have the experience to make the division right.

I think limited resources have to be precisely applied. So adding your only tanks to an infantry division would be bad.

Maybe to a Calvary division temporarily. But that's more for a shortage of motorized.

Like others have said the stats matter.

Also you can convert unused tanks sometimes to SPGs. So to me that's better than using obsolete or soon to be obsolete tanks on a half equipped division.

 

[bitmode]

Actually there is a third threshold: hardness. If your division hardness is higher than the opposition's ratio of soft attack to hard attack, you will take less damage. This is the main reason why people use space marine divisions. Just one heavy TD battalion in a 20 width division increases hardness from 0% to around 30%.

I disagree. First of all, space marines rely on the armor/piercing threshold @Znail mentioned.
Secondly, unless your division is tiny, you won't get 30% hardness from any single armor battalion. Hardness is averaged. In a 10 battalion infantry division, you'll get 10% hardness at best from one added armor battalion.
And lastly, in contrast to armor and breakthrough, there is no specific inflection point to hit with hardness. All but the most dedicated tank destroyer divisions have more soft than hard attack. So high hardness when viewed in isolation is always great. But high hardness battalions usually have low org and HP. The division will have ~10% more hardness but also ~10% less HP compared to an infantry battalion in the same slot.

What is worth mentioning though about hardness is its interaction with breakthrough. Breakthrough should ideally match enemy attacks. Armor battalions raise breakthrough directly and indirectly (through hardness) lower enemy attacks (which are a proportional mix of hard and soft attacks). This is what makes dedicated armor divisions so durable, along with their armor buff. With just one armor battalion this synergy is weak though.

Unless you have heaps of army XP, which you probably won't when just getting started with tanks, you should also consider the 25 XP cost of adding an armored battalion to an infantry division. In my opinion they are better spent rounding out the proper armor template or on an initial upgrade to the tanks.

 

[CantGetNoSleep]

I disagree. First of all, space marines rely on the armor/piercing threshold @Znail mentioned.
Secondly, unless your division is tiny, you won't get 30% hardness from any single armor battalion. Hardness is averaged. In a 10 battalion infantry division, you'll get 10% hardness at best from one added armor battalion.
And lastly, in contrast to armor and breakthrough, there is no specific inflection point to hit with hardness. All but the most dedicated tank destroyer divisions have more soft than hard attack. So high hardness when viewed in isolation is always great. But high hardness battalions usually have low org and HP. The division will have ~10% more hardness but also ~10% less HP compared to an infantry battalion in the same slot.

What is worth mentioning though about hardness is its interaction with breakthrough. Breakthrough should ideally match enemy attacks. Armor battalions raise breakthrough directly and indirectly (through hardness) lower enemy attacks (which are a proportional mix of hard and soft attacks). This is what makes dedicated armor divisions so durable, along with their armor buff. With just one armor battalion this synergy is weak though.

Unless you have heaps of army XP, which you probably won't when just getting started with tanks, you should also consider the 25 XP cost of adding an armored battalion to an infantry division. In my opinion they are better spent rounding out the proper armor template or on an initial upgrade to the tanks.

You're right, but I think he meant armour rather than hardness. Made same mistake myself originally (now corrected)

 

[Znail]

I disagree. First of all, space marines rely on the armor/piercing threshold @Znail mentioned.
Secondly, unless your division is tiny, you won't get 30% hardness from any single armor battalion. Hardness is averaged. In a 10 battalion infantry division, you'll get 10% hardness at best from one added armor battalion.
And lastly, in contrast to armor and breakthrough, there is no specific inflection point to hit with hardness. All but the most dedicated tank destroyer divisions have more soft than hard attack. So high hardness when viewed in isolation is always great. But high hardness battalions usually have low org and HP. The division will have ~10% more hardness but also ~10% less HP compared to an infantry battalion in the same slot.

What is worth mentioning though about hardness is its interaction with breakthrough. Breakthrough should ideally match enemy attacks. Armor battalions raise breakthrough directly and indirectly (through hardness) lower enemy attacks (which are a proportional mix of hard and soft attacks). This is what makes dedicated armor divisions so durable, along with their armor buff. With just one armor battalion this synergy is weak though.

Unless you have heaps of army XP, which you probably won't when just getting started with tanks, you should also consider the 25 XP cost of adding an armored battalion to an infantry division. In my opinion they are better spent rounding out the proper armor template or on an initial upgrade to the tanks.

Interesting, despite knowing how it works so have I forgotten to take hardness into account when planing armor divisions. This would make it trivial to match at least the attack of a similar sized division. The big question is how valuable is it to have extra breakthrough beyond that to account for the random spread of enemy attacks peaking above the average? Possibility of enemy entrenchement needs to be considered as well. I have ussually just added as many tanks as I could afford and they are after all decent at attack as well, but if you have more breakthrough then you need then swapping in artillery would be better.

 

[DGuller]

I vaguely recall that there is a 50% hardness threshold for being able to make use of Panzer Leader tactics. Am I remembering correctly, and if so, does it still apply? If it does apply, then it does lead to an inflection point with hardness as well.

 

[HugsAndSnuggles]

I vaguely recall that there is a 50% hardness threshold for being able to make use of Panzer Leader tactics. Am I remembering correctly, and if so, does it still apply? If it does apply, then it does lead to an inflection point with hardness as well.

IIRC, it's >40% to get Panzer Leader XP. Tactics are free to use for any division; the requirement for tactic is, usually, just a trait/research + level difference.

 

[KDEstroy]

I disagree. First of all, space marines rely on the armor/piercing threshold @Znail mentioned.
Secondly, unless your division is tiny, you won't get 30% hardness from any single armor battalion. Hardness is averaged. In a 10 battalion infantry division, you'll get 10% hardness at best from one added armor battalion.
And lastly, in contrast to armor and breakthrough, there is no specific inflection point to hit with hardness. All but the most dedicated tank destroyer divisions have more soft than hard attack. So high hardness when viewed in isolation is always great. But high hardness battalions usually have low org and HP. The division will have ~10% more hardness but also ~10% less HP compared to an infantry battalion in the same slot.

What is worth mentioning though about hardness is its interaction with breakthrough. Breakthrough should ideally match enemy attacks. Armor battalions raise breakthrough directly and indirectly (through hardness) lower enemy attacks (which are a proportional mix of hard and soft attacks). This is what makes dedicated armor divisions so durable, along with their armor buff. With just one armor battalion this synergy is weak though.

Unless you have heaps of army XP, which you probably won't when just getting started with tanks, you should also consider the 25 XP cost of adding an armored battalion to an infantry division. In my opinion they are better spent rounding out the proper armor template or on an initial upgrade to the tanks.

I stand corrected. So this means that space marines are obsolete, and putting one heavy tank into an infantry division hasn't been viable in MP since 2017?

 

[Akela]

There's a lot of good info here, but I'll add a simple rule of thumb for anyone who doesn't want to dive deep into the mechanics: always concentrate your tanks.

There are definitely times when it's good to spread them out, but you need to know a lot more details of how the combat's going to play out to get that right. If you want a one-size-fits-all answer, then concentrate, concentrate, concentrate. It won't always be the absolute best choice, but it will never be a bad choice.

Take whatever tanks you have, design the strongest tank division* you can with them, and then make however many of that division you can actually supply - and if that means you only have one or two tank divisions early game, fine. Once you have them, concentrate again and smash them all into one spot on the enemy lines. When you've got more divisions you can make that two or three spots on the enemy line, but the rule remains the same: better to win fast in a small number of places than try to win slowly everywhere.


* Please don't take this to mean 'build a division that is 100% tanks', though. You need some supporting MOT for org and hp - your end goal should be something like 3 ARM / 2 SP-ART / 4 MOT for 20w or 7/4/7 for 40w. Just make something as close to that as you can.

 

[DGuller]

Yes, unfortunately it's one of those snowball mechanics that usually make for bad game balance. A 40w tank division is much, much better than a 20w tank division. Once your breakthrough falls to the point where defenders' attack is not completely absorbed, you lose equipment and fall into a death spiral. The more equipment you lose, the more equipment you continue to lose as you bleed strength.

I would go even heavier on the tanks, my default tank division is 12 ARM, 4 MOT/MECH (MECH much preferred if you can afford to research/build it), 2 ART (preferably SP), and 2 AA (also preferably SP).

 

[Want0n]

My experience is limited, but I do recall a game where I overproduced LTs massively. I went with armoured recon support on my inf divisions against vanilla AI and it seemed to work well.

The other solutions in this thread sound much better though, especially having 1 or 2 'proper' tank divisions to punch holes in lines early on. Getting into attritional fights is to be avoided, unless you are China or SU and trying to delay/defend against a superior attacker.

 

[Znail]

I vaguely recall that there is a 50% hardness threshold for being able to make use of Panzer Leader tactics. Am I remembering correctly, and if so, does it still apply? If it does apply, then it does lead to an inflection point with hardness as well.

It's not hardness, it's at least 40% of the divisions need to be armor divisions (you can see if they are by the default icon).

 

[desphorin]

I vaguely recall that there is a 50% hardness threshold for being able to make use of Panzer Leader tactics. Am I remembering correctly, and if so, does it still apply? If it does apply, then it does lead to an inflection point with hardness as well.

IIRC, it's >40% to get Panzer Leader XP. Tactics are free to use for any division; the requirement for tactic is, usually, just a trait/research + level difference.

It's not hardness, it's at least 40% of the divisions need to be armor divisions (you can see if they are by the default icon).

Are we talking about how to gain experience for the panzer leader trait? if so, the 40% threshold IS NOT about the number of battalions in a division; it is about the number of divisions your general are controlling.

If your general controls 2 divisions, 1 armoured 1 infantry (so 50% of all divisions are armoured), he will always get experience to panzer leader regardless of which unit is in active fighting. If he controls 1 extra infantry (so 33% of all divisions are armoured), he will always not get panzer leader.

(This ignores the case where General A's units are being commanded by General B in a battle, resulting General A also gaining experience from what General B is gaining)

 

[Znail]

Are we talking about how to gain experience for the panzer leader trait? if so, the 40% threshold IS NOT about the number of battalions in a division; it is about the number of divisions your general are controlling.

Yes, that is why I wrote divisions and not battalions.

 

[Jays298]

My experience is limited, but I do recall a game where I overproduced LTs massively. I went with armoured recon support on my inf divisions against vanilla AI and it seemed to work well.

The other solutions in this thread sound much better though, especially having 1 or 2 'proper' tank divisions to punch holes in lines early on. Getting into attritional fights is to be avoided, unless you are China or SU and trying to delay/defend against a superior attacker.

This worked for me as well once fighting the Japanese as USA. Gets some bonuses without all the terrain penalties that tanks would suffer in Asia.

In Europe however I don't think it would work. But that's where I'd send my actual medium tank divisons. The light tanks are ineffective against massed infantry especially after 1942ish when infantry anti tank and defensive abilities start improving.