Special forces: are marines really worth it?

[Munin]

I was considering playing Italy and looking at the special forces tree, I wondered why Marines would be worth it? The problem is you invade and then you only get bonusses from riverattacks. Which isn't as usefull it seems as mountaineers.


The only viable reason I see for marines is if you are going for Japan & only fighting an Island hopping strategy. Then you could use it, but even then they seem like a one trick pony: invasions, but as soon as they are landed and become "normal troops" for most of the game fighting with your normal forces are they really still that usefull?

For Italy would it not be more usefull to have mountaineers? (Italy Alps, fighting France in mountains, fighting youguslavia in mountains)

Marines = one trick naval invasion pony?

 

[Gerhard Lindt]

Try invading the UK without marines for example. Also the river attack bonus is helpful. And the pefrorm much better in jungels. Marines are usefull in certan sitsuations but can still change the fights outcome.

 

[Sharp163]

If you're fighting in the pacific theater (given it isn't broken again) then marines are a must.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Special forces are situational of course. Countries like Switzerland, Austria and Italy will benefit greatly from mountaineers if defending for example. The UK, USA and Japan basicly need marines, since they will do alot of naval invasions. Some marines can and will be usefull for the Italian army, since you can, if you manage to get naval supremacy in the mediteranian, do some naval invasions to cut off enemy troops in africa or, more importantly, take the Suez and Gibraltar to lock out, or lock in, parts of the royal navy.

Special Forces cost more than regular troops of course, but they are usualy better than those aswell. Paratroopers for example have better organisation than regular infantry and can of course be paradropped.

Marines are essential for naval invasions or if you attack over great rivers like the rhine for example, which are extremely usefull defensive positions for the enemy.

Mountaineers of course fight best in, well, the mountains. Countries like spain or italy for example have an natural defensive line in the mountains at the border to france for example. Mountaineers combined with the fortifications will make it extremely hard for the enemy to push through there, especially without mountaineers from themself.

 

[Immortal88]

I suppose they are a one-trick pony. They do naval invasions better than anyone else, which is why you should recruit them if you want to do some naval invasions, and not recruit them if you don't want to do naval invasions - as it should be.

 

[Munin]

Special forces are situational of course. Countries like Switzerland, Austria and Italy will benefit greatly from mountaineers if defending for example. The UK, USA and Japan basicly need marines, since they will do alot of naval invasions. Some marines can and will be usefull for the Italian army, since you can, if you manage to get naval supremacy in the mediteranian, do some naval invasions to cut off enemy troops in africa or, more importantly, take the Suez and Gibraltar to lock out, or lock in, parts of the royal navy.

Special Forces cost more than regular troops of course, but they are usualy better than those aswell. Paratroopers for example have better organisation than regular infantry and can of course be paradropped.

Marines are essential for naval invasions or if you attack over great rivers like the rhine for example, which are extremely usefull defensive positions for the enemy.

Mountaineers of course fight best in, well, the mountains. Countries like spain or italy for example have an natural defensive line in the mountains at the border to france for example. Mountaineers combined with the fortifications will make it extremely hard for the enemy to push through there, especially without mountaineers from themself.

I wouldn't go as far as saying they are essential, Daniel shows here that even with garrison troops with the worst equipment you can use them

& I m not really sure they are worth it for only 1 attack: yes 25% bonus is nice but worth spending all that tech? Considering most marines will only do 1 or 2 naval invasions ...

 

[LordOfWar16]

I wouldn't go as far as saying they are essential, Daniel shows here that even with garrison troops with the worst equipment you can use them https://www.mca-marines.org/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_photo_image/public/importedFiles/files/Photo 1.png?itok=mTQnu-pc

& I m not really sure they are worth it for only 1 attack: yes 25% bonus is nice but worth spending all that tech?

you are forgetting that marines speed up naval invasions significantly, which means you suffer much less losses. In the landing phase they cant fire back and are taking damage from the enemy. Only if they are landed on the beaches they actually fight back. Highly researched marines actually are essential for an successful d-day or operation sealion aka "the memel thingy".

Btw, wrong picture

 

[paranoidsteve]

didn't one of the devs say in passing that marines have higher org then standard infantry?

 

[Bane5]

I would assume they take less supply as well since they have less heavy weapons.

From the WWW stream, it is very apparent that supply problems are common and deadly. That makes them not just useful for naval invasions but also in establishing any new front or colonial venture.

 

[Caesar15]

Depends. If you expect a lot of resistance then you kinda have to. Your infantry will not be able to meet positions that are even somewhat fortified. And you'll them for islands in the pacific theatre too, low supplies will mean you can only send a single division at most and just one infantry division will have a hard time fighting in a fortified Iwo Jima.

you are forgetting that marines speed up naval invasions significantly, which means you suffer much less losses. In the landing phase they cant fire back and are taking damage from the enemy. Only if they are landed on the beaches they actually fight back. Highly researched marines actually are essential for an successful d-day or operation sealion aka "the memel thingy".

Btw, wrong picture

You won't need marines for D-Day. They didn't use marines in real life, did they? I mean granted these guys had a lot of training for the invasion but they weren't really marines. Thing with Normandy landing is that it wasn't super well defended, the Allies made sure of that with a bunch of espionage operations that pointed to other landing zones. So defenses were light enough for regular infantry to do the job, there weren't exactly marines available at the time.

 

[Daddl]

You can always just use standard infantry. If your opponent is too dumb to guard its ports (like it has always been in HoI3), there is no reason why you shouldn't do that as well.

However, if fighting in the pacific, or if the AI is finally capable to defend against naval invasions or at great rivers, than you see how Marines become increasingly important as they make the difference between a won and a lost fight.

You probably never need specialised troops if you outnumber and outtech your enemy anyway, but if you really need to defend this mountain or attack above this river, you will see how specdialised troops come in very handy.

 

[LordOfWar16]

I would assume they take less supply as well since they have less heavy weapons.

From the WWW stream, it is very apparent that supply problems are common and deadly. That makes them not just useful for naval invasions but also in establishing any new front or colonial venture.

Paratroopers Infact take up more weapons but have higher organization than regular infantry in return. They cost more, have better organisation and can be paradropped and other than that act like regular infantry.

You won't need marines for D-Day. They didn't use marines in real life, did they? I mean granted these guys had a lot of training for the invasion but they weren't really marines. Thing with Normandy landing is that it wasn't super well defended, the Allies made sure of that with a bunch of espionage operations that pointed to other landing zones. So defenses were light enough for regular infantry to do the job, there weren't exactly marines available at the time.

yes, but hindsight will cause atleast an human german player to defend the beaches well enough to repell invasions and have enough reserves in the back. Thats why you want to take the invasions as little time as possible, to reduce the number of reserves the enemy can bring in. You might get away with regular troops, but will suffer heavy unnessesary losses, which atleast i am certainly not going to take just to save a few extra weapons and wasting a quatermillion men in the progress.

Atleast in my oppinion there is little to no reason to dont send an first wave of marines to clear the beaches and then send in the rest of the army with little risk of being intercepted or heaviely damaged during the progress. I want my tanks to fight the enemy tanks, not to get shot up by the coastal guns during the landing or to get sunk by submarines near the coast.

It is not like marines and paratroopers are useless after the initial naval/airlanding aswell, since you can use them just as any regular infantry that actually even fight better in some terrain than regular ones.

 

[Secret Master]

You're missing the obvious from HOI3.

The terrain advantages of MAR meant that you could attach other brigades to an amphibious invasion and really wipe them out. Adding ARM to a 3xMAR division might seem stupid, but the better terrain bonuses of MAR counteract the penalties of the ARM, while the division still gets the benefits of ARM (armor and penetration). Taking Tokyo in 12 hours was never so easy. And what are you going to do when the Marines take Normandy? Counter-attack with your ARM? So what? The Marines brought their Shermans with them. Who cares if Hitler holds the panzers back at Calais?

In HOI3, MAR also had bonuses for rivers, swamps, and jungle, so there are plenty of places where they could be used effectively. There were German players who would have MAR/ARM/whatever divisions for crossing the 500 rivers in the Soviet Union. There were other options, of course, but it was certainly viable.

In HOI4, from what I've read, we'll probably not be able to drop armored battalions with our Marine forces, but I expect that with the new invasion mechanics, you will really want the best forces possible for an invasion. Even if its a small invasion.

 

[LordOfWar16]

i skipped through most of the WWW videos again to find some examples for paratrooper, marine and infantry divisions that match in number of battalions. Note that some of them are from older episodes and might have changed by now. Also, the support companies dont match up aswell.

Spoiler: Paratroopers

Spoiler: Infantry Division

Spoiler: Marine Division

Even tho they dont quiet match up they should give us some idea to what to expect. Also note that those are without any of the additional research you can do for marines and paratroopers.

 

[Munin]

You're missing the obvious from HOI3.

The terrain advantages of MAR meant that you could attach other brigades to an amphibious invasion and really wipe them out. Adding ARM to a 3xMAR division might seem stupid, but the better terrain bonuses of MAR counteract the penalties of the ARM, while the division still gets the benefits of ARM (armor and penetration). Taking Tokyo in 12 hours was never so easy. And what are you going to do when the Marines take Normandy? Counter-attack with your ARM? So what? The Marines brought their Shermans with them. Who cares if Hitler holds the panzers back at Calais?

In HOI3, MAR also had bonuses for rivers, swamps, and jungle, so there are plenty of places where they could be used effectively. There were German players who would have MAR/ARM/whatever divisions for crossing the 500 rivers in the Soviet Union. There were other options, of course, but it was certainly viable.

In HOI4, from what I've read, we'll probably not be able to drop armored battalions with our Marine forces, but I expect that with the new invasion mechanics, you will really want the best forces possible for an invasion. Even if its a small invasion.

That is interesting, I hope that they will enable to get light tanks on your paratrooper divisions & on your marine divisions. Medium/heavy armour on marines? Not sure if that wouldn't be abusing the template , but if it works then why not :-D

i skipped through most of the WWW videos again to find some examples for paratrooper, marine and infantry divisions that match in number of battalions. Note that some of them are from older episodes and might have changed by now. Also, the support companies dont match up aswell.

Spoiler: Paratroopers

Spoiler: Infantry Division

Spoiler: Marine Division

Even tho they dont quiet match up they should give us some idea to what to expect. Also note that those are without any of the additional research you can do for marines and paratroopers.

I think those templates are no longer accurate, I saw in one of the later templates that marines, mountaineers, ... have less slots

 

[LordOfWar16]

I think those templates are no longer accurate, I saw in one of the later templates that marines, mountaineers, ... have less slots

you can put as much battalions into your divisions as there is room up to 25. You can have divisions consisting of 1 battalion or of 25 battalions. For this comparision i specificly looked for divisions that consist of the same amount of battalions, even tho i couldnt find compareable support companies attached.

In this example of the WWW japan SP stream the japanese start with an different layout for their troops. Their main infantry uses 12 instead of 9 infantry battalions for example, while their marines start of with 6 battalions of marines. You can add and remove down up to 25 and down to 1 battalions.

 

[Munin]

you can put as much battalions into your divisions as there is room up to 25. You can have divisions consisting of 1 battalion or of 25 battalions. For this comparision i specificly looked for divisions that consist of the same amount of battalions, even tho i couldnt find compareable support companies attached.

In this example of the WWW japan SP stream the japanese start with an different layout for their troops. Their main infantry uses 12 instead of 9 infantry battalions for example, while their marines start of with 6 battalions of marines. You can add and remove down up to 25 and down to 1 battalions.

Why in this video does it seem like you have less? Look at 26:00

 

[trionwolf]

my take on it is that marines are great at landings, after that they turn into light infantry. Now marines for most nations have always been "elite" troops. WW2 American marines were really good at combat, if you look at landings such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Peleliu. They took the beaches easy then had to slog through the rest of the defenders. I don't see why they wouldn't just act like normal infantry once they get off the coastal province. Although with the scale of the game it might lead to some credence for it affecting them in the long run. Marines take landing zones then big army mops up after all (on a side note i was in the US Army 11B so there might be some branch rivalry at play) .

So i see a normal infantry division comparable to a marine division where as the Marine division gets bonus on amphibious landings. once they are off the coast they should be comparable in combat.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Why in this video does it seem like you have less? Look at 26:00

the plus symbols let you add battalions. The locked ones get unlocked once you placed an battalion in the previous one. You can only start a new line if you put atleast one battalion in the previous one, you cant have empty space between battalions.

Watch at 19:10. Daniel explains the division designer a bit.

 

[Nelfe]

In HOI4, from what I've read, we'll probably not be able to drop armored battalions with our Marine forces, but I expect that with the new invasion mechanics, you will really want the best forces possible for an invasion. Even if its a small invasion.

I asked once this, and a dev (can't remember if it's Johan, Podcat or Da9L) answered me that yes, you can attach armored battalions to a Marines division, but it will greatly lower their chance to make a successful landing.