Yeah but most people don't bother to build it, so maybe mech 1 should have its hardness nerfed and be made cheaper to encourage actual use.
Shouldn't Mechanized be cheaper?
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Yeah but most people don't bother to build it, so maybe mech 1 should have its hardness nerfed and be made cheaper to encourage actual use.
If you are fine with lower hardness then you should just stick to MOT.
The problem is, at least from my POV, less the price and more the fact that it's a 1940 tech.
It enters the game too late for anyone but SOV or USA (and SOV doesn't really have the capacity in 1940 to make good use of it). Plus re-designing divisions during the war isn't exactly a grand idea and quite a bit of micromanagement.
However, moving it to 1939 carries the risk of making GER a lot stronger. I'd guess a fully mechanized Panzer IV + MECH I division would be utterly unstoppable with anything that the allies (or SOV) can muster at that point. Even if GER has just a handful of these, it could be a serious balance problem.
...although nothing is stopping you from trying that out. It's literally one number change in the related tech file.
I don't think anyone is suggesting giving MECH high breakthrough. Middle of the road is fine. Right now MECH is situated midway between LTanks and MTanks in terms of cost and gives virtually no breakthrough. I'd give them roughly 2/3rds of LTank breakthrough which is roughly 1/2 of MTank breakthrough. Building a MTank + MOT would still therefore give the same breakthrough as 2 MECH for significantly less cost even after a moderate reduction in MECH price. The MECH build would paying for a minor hardness advantage and more HP while still losing out on any armor or piercing. Plenty of advantages and reasons to still build tanks, I think. In terms of division composition I think players wouldn't go for 100% MECH, but instead turn 40-width MOT/ARM divisions into 20 width MECH/ARM and 20 width into 10 width since the overall better breakthrough could compensate for a smaller division size.
Historically countries on both sides produced mechanized in fairly comparable numbers to tanks. Ideally anywhere from 20-40% (guessing, I'm sure someone has better numbers) of IC you are currently investing in tanks in your games should instead be going into MECH. As it is right now tanks are fully replacing mechanized, that should objectively be considered no less wrong than if it were mechanized replacing tanks. The ideal is to get them used together.
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The problem is MECH is NOT incredibly powerful. That is what this whole discussion about. When mech is compared to med tanks they are very weak for almost same price. The point is if you were gonna make mech, why didn't you just make a tank? For the same price you can have a 40width pure tank division with the required minimum 5 mot. Or you can have it reversed, all Mech except 5 medium tanks but this division is MUCH WEAKER compared to the full tank division but they cost the same.
Maybe give us more utility to mech with variants like mech anti-air, anti-tank, arty, and rocket arty. They all have historical precedent.
also you could merge motorized and mech into one tech so mech will auto replace motorized. This would make the conversion cheaper and more streamlined. And than we can use your new equipment conversion to convert old motorized into variants to fit our needs
also you could merge motorized and mech into one tech so mech will auto replace motorized. This would make the conversion cheaper and more streamlined. And than we can use your new equipment conversion to convert old motorized into variants to fit our needs
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I was actually doing a similar thought experiment. I was wondering to myself whether MECH would be worth the rubber and oil required in 1938 and 1939.
As easy as it is to build and sustain synthetic plants, it might be a poor idea to make MECH available in 1939.
I'm confused. Please debate this but I propose mechanized infantry have the following traits:
1. High speed, slower than mot in good weather but faster than mot in bad weather
2. Lightly armored, enough to force infantry AT weapons (1943 tech) or a support AT company
3. High cost. These units were pricey and rare
4. Have very similar stats to regular and motorized units on the defense. They're just infantry in armored and armed transports after all.
5. Have superior stats by a pretty hefty margin while on the attack. They're infantry in armored and armed transports afterall!
6. Not replace tanks in the assault role but absolutely compliment tanks. A mixed column of tanks and halftracks has far more tactical flexibility on the assault for rather obvious reasons than tanks and trucks.
1. High speed, slower than mot in good weather but faster than mot in bad weather
2. Lightly armored, enough to force infantry AT weapons (1943 tech) or a support AT company
3. High cost. These units were pricey and rare
4. Have very similar stats to regular and motorized units on the defense. They're just infantry in armored and armed transports after all.
5. Have superior stats by a pretty hefty margin while on the attack. They're infantry in armored and armed transports afterall!
6. Not replace tanks in the assault role but absolutely compliment tanks. A mixed column of tanks and halftracks has far more tactical flexibility on the assault for rather obvious reasons than tanks and trucks.
The purpose of MECH is to replace the MOT brigades in your divisions. You build them because your tanks need something that provides HP and DEF.
Their main advantage over MOT is the significantly higher hardness. Since most division templates have much higher SA than HA, increasing hardness is an excellent way to reduce the amount of damage (and thus losses) that your tank divisions will take. Depending on what the enemy INF fields, using MECH over MOT will equal a 20-50% damage reduction. That's what you are paying for.
Aside from that main effect, they also grant a nice extra chunk of HP and DEF, some extra HA, armor and pierce, plus better mobility in forest, jungle and marsh terrain (since they do not have the movement speed penalty).
So MECH are more or less combined arms anti-infantry brigades. Is it worth to equip all your tanks with them? Probably not (unless you have plenty of IC - like SOV, USA or conquest-fed GER). But you can use MECH to create a bunch of fearsome elite divisions that can only be stopped by strong AT assets.
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The problem is that AT is cheap, and paying so much production for that extra bit of hardness just makes an enemies' AT heavy strategy even more attractive. The amount of factories required for one mech division is enough to equip 4 AT divisions, and that's not counting the huge amount of resources required for mech.
It's just way simpler and quicker to build more tank divisions with motorised than having less with mechanised, also the speed advantage really isn't there, first mechs move at a pitiful 8km/h, often dragging down your faster medium tanks.
The problem is that while those "AT divisions" are somewhat effective versus a Mechanized Tank division in theory ( Your probably going to need TDs to be honest ), they are going to do absolutely nothing against the other 95% of the army that isn't super hard Tank + Mechanized divisions. They will lose miserably to standard infantry + artillery even in advantageous situations.
AT does 30 HA and cost 6 Industry to build compared to Artillery doing 40 SA and costing 4.5 Industry (according to wiki), so it's always going to be way more expensive to get high HA numbers then high SA numbers. So not only will the AT divisions need to be applied with pin point precision against a faster target, they are also going to end up way more expensive then the other infantry will.
A Tank division with Mechanized however is going to be pretty effective against pretty much everything it encounters since Tanks got both high HA and high SA, and since they got the mobility to pick who they want to fight and run away from or around those who they don't want to fight.
Yes but you will have 4 of these AT divisions to 1 mech armored division. The 4 can be distributed across the front line as reserves for countering tank breakthroughs, they don't need to do anything against the rest of the army. Oh and this 4 to 1 ratio is ignoring resource costs, which is far higher for mechanised, in realistic situations it can be 6-1, since oil and rubber is less available than Tungsten.
Also, when these two divisions clash, even with equal losses one on one, the reinforcement costs for the mech division would be 4 times higher.
It just seems much easier to go mot+tanks, which are significantly cheaper, gives you more divisions, and less vulnerable to heavy AT counters.
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This is just a matter of fighting properly. You don't invade mountains with SHARM, you don't cross rivers without Marines, you don't shoot infantry with AT.
Not really worth comparing it that way. You build divisions to beat other divisions. HA is more expensive, but hardness is *way* more expensive. It's also notable that you can physically fit more HA into a division than SA, since the former is 1-width and the latter 3-width. So a theoretical 100% Hardness division facing an AT-focused division actually takes more damage than a 0% Hardness division facing a ART-focused division. Yikes.
Also wouldn't say that pin-point precision is needed. In most instances you know roughly where tanks are coming from. Hint: Germany isn't crossing the Maginot line with them. Keep them in reserve in the area, the enemy tanks might break through but they'll be decimated if they move a province further. Of course, Russia has more room to play in, but also a lot more equipment to work with.
The best way to be effective against pretty much everything when facing a prepared (i.e. competent MP) foe is to have your hardness around 50%. More or less opens you up to counters. Of course in realistic scenarios 60% or so is probably more ideal thanks to SA being generally more present, but actually paying significant amounts of production to get lower hardness is just not a good deal.
I do.
You cross where the enemy is weak and unable to defend. MAR is nice, but you don't have to have it to cross rivers.
The opposite is also true: a properly defended river isn't that much more vulnerable to MAR.
It is on the Eastern Front. There's many places an armored offensive might go. You can't all routes with sufficient numbers of specialized anti-hardness divisions.
That's one reason I like air power. Planes could care less about your hardness values. I suspect the popularity of CAS for Soviet players is related to this.
Only if the enemy knows enough in advance what you are doing.
You can make some kinds of educated guesses by looking at trade and how many synthetic plants Germany has built, but nothing stops a German or Soviet player from hiding key forces from prying eyes.
Many of the production costs needs a look over. My gut feeling is that mech should be cheaper, roughly half, art/at/aa more expensive. New equipment should be more expensive(or rather, the ic gain from tech should be nerfed).
Then we also have numbers of equipment in batallions, mech/mot should have 100-120 units per bat. But this is true for almost all bat unit numbers except MT(where a tank bat generally had ~50 tanks). Or that one art bat has the guns of a full regiment.
For me adding mech is a late game addition just to put all the excessive mic to use. I wish it was favourable to add 1-2 bats to tank divs prior to barbarossa/dday.
Then we also have numbers of equipment in batallions, mech/mot should have 100-120 units per bat. But this is true for almost all bat unit numbers except MT(where a tank bat generally had ~50 tanks). Or that one art bat has the guns of a full regiment.
For me adding mech is a late game addition just to put all the excessive mic to use. I wish it was favourable to add 1-2 bats to tank divs prior to barbarossa/dday.
I think countries like the US, which already has a large automotive industry and a lot solid experience manufacturing cars should be much better at producing mechanized than Germany, which didn't really have a lot of automotive industry pre-war. I mean, Canada alone produced more cars than Germany.
Mechs could be a little cheaper (But not much, me and friends already faced full mechanized divisions to know they are very hard to stop with pretty much anything outside of air superiority or another mechanized).
Another way to make it cheaper is to need less of them per batallion.
A good price in my book would be 470-500 IC. Less than a light tank batallion but still expensive enough to not spam all divisions as mechanized in 39.
they are very worth it when you can manage the price tag. That extra hardness is really hard to break. Also the piercing can be the difference beetween fighting a heavy tank or just dying to it. (PS: Also need rifle tech of course).
About the tech year.
Germany can rush mechs in 38. (Army innovation 3 if im not mistaken). Of course it does come at a cost but if you manage it no amount of defense will hold france or el alamein if you have the airforce to back you up.
USA does need a NF that makes you able to rush it.
But thats kind problematic also.
While most allied troops where mechanized after the D-Day. It only happened in 44. In most games it happens in 42, 2 years before history.
Holding a D-Day on germany is very hard when you're fighting the USSR. So kind problematic if germany starts to deal with this even earlier.
Another way to make it cheaper is to need less of them per batallion.
A good price in my book would be 470-500 IC. Less than a light tank batallion but still expensive enough to not spam all divisions as mechanized in 39.
they are very worth it when you can manage the price tag. That extra hardness is really hard to break. Also the piercing can be the difference beetween fighting a heavy tank or just dying to it. (PS: Also need rifle tech of course).
About the tech year.
Germany can rush mechs in 38. (Army innovation 3 if im not mistaken). Of course it does come at a cost but if you manage it no amount of defense will hold france or el alamein if you have the airforce to back you up.
USA does need a NF that makes you able to rush it.
But thats kind problematic also.
While most allied troops where mechanized after the D-Day. It only happened in 44. In most games it happens in 42, 2 years before history.
Holding a D-Day on germany is very hard when you're fighting the USSR. So kind problematic if germany starts to deal with this even earlier.
dont underestimate how 'slightly' my 'slight' increase was poised to be. currently for 1940 regiments, infantry has 4.6 breakthrough, mot has 4.6 breakthrough, mech has 9.8, and medium tanks have 60. i was proposing something along the lines of increasing mot to 6 and mech to 11(all final numbers are not final TM)
Mechanized is not something you are going to use for everything and they are not really ment to replace motorised. They are useful whenever you need a super infantry unit as mech is the only super infantry available in the game, motorised in comparison is pretty much infantry with light tank speed.
Mechanized have about twice the amount of defence of any other infantry for the same width which is a huge deal, especially for offensive divisions who can not entrench themself and also want can not afford many infantry battalions. Each attack taken above your defence is worth like 4 "defended" attacks. As already said they also are much harder than any other infantry. Sperhead divisions are perhaps whose that are most exposed to attacks from enemy divisions so here mechanized could be as important as tanks.
One of the best counters to tanks is to attack them with tanks. Tanks have pretty much nothing on the defence and we can assume it is full planing vs no entrenchment and both sides can pierce each other. Motorised will likely lead to enormous losses while mechanized will see much less losses.
Divisions with tanks and other expensive stuff is going to be expensive no matter what and going from motorised to mechanized wont increase the cost/HP ratio much but can in certain situation greatly reduce casulties meaning going from motorised to mechanized may actually be cheaper in the long run because mechanized reduce casulties for the whole divisions.
Overall they are much like marines, something that is useful in specific places but not effective everywhere.
Mechanized have about twice the amount of defence of any other infantry for the same width which is a huge deal, especially for offensive divisions who can not entrench themself and also want can not afford many infantry battalions. Each attack taken above your defence is worth like 4 "defended" attacks. As already said they also are much harder than any other infantry. Sperhead divisions are perhaps whose that are most exposed to attacks from enemy divisions so here mechanized could be as important as tanks.
One of the best counters to tanks is to attack them with tanks. Tanks have pretty much nothing on the defence and we can assume it is full planing vs no entrenchment and both sides can pierce each other. Motorised will likely lead to enormous losses while mechanized will see much less losses.
Divisions with tanks and other expensive stuff is going to be expensive no matter what and going from motorised to mechanized wont increase the cost/HP ratio much but can in certain situation greatly reduce casulties meaning going from motorised to mechanized may actually be cheaper in the long run because mechanized reduce casulties for the whole divisions.
Overall they are much like marines, something that is useful in specific places but not effective everywhere.
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Mech doesn`t make sense for Germany given the current doctrine tree that focuses tanks and it`s variants far more than mech or mot.
Why go Panzer IV + mech when you can go Panzer IV + mot and have the resources to field a greater number of those divisions ?
And how much hardiness does it provide ? A division with Panzer IV + mech can`t be countered by a division with a proper battalion of AT ?
I highly doubt that.
If anything, in my opinion anyway, making it available in 1939 would make the mot+mech branch of the doctrine tree viable.
What?
Here are the ratios of SA vs HA for some typical units that normally makes up 95% of anyone's army:
Infantry without AT: 90% SA
Infantry with sup AT: 85% SA
Infantry with sup+1 line AT: 80% SA
Infantry with sup+2 line AT: 75% SA
Motorized Infantry with SPG (7+2) and sup AT: 85% SA
AI/Basic Tank division (6ARM+4MOT): 65% SA
Tank division with SPGs (4ARM+3MOT+2SPG): 75% SA
So to be able to reduce damage optimally from your average enemy divisions except very special AT or TD focused ones, your going to want a hardness of between 65% and 90%.
It's folly to believe that defending infantry moving at 4km/h ( and relying on dug in to be effective ) will get to dictate how, when and if they get to fight against tank divisions moving at 10km/h, especially at the chaotic east front. In theorycraft sure, but in practice much less so.
Last time I checked mountains didn't move at 10km/h and activly tried to catch your SHARM divisions! ( good luck avoiding them if they did
)
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