Upgrading infantry equipment

[PanzerMan7]

So I always go with inf1 now over basic but I can never in my head justify getting inf2 or 3. Okay okay if I play dispersed I might and I might get a small line going for Panzertroops/elite forces. Since infantry just holds the line, what's the point? Or can masses of inf2 and 3 push against inf1? (I expect air meta to be fixed in new patch so lets not discuss the "well CAS do everything anyway")

Should I be more open to mass producing inf2 and 3?

 

[Reimad]

Pre-patch, as china, I remember the inf2 gave me *just* enough extra hard attack to pierce the Japanese Light tank I's without having to build anti-tank guns.

Not sure now. But I always have a small line of advanced infantry weapons for my elite troops, like Tank divisions and marines.

 

[pdstanbridge]

This is still the case - I was wondering how infantry only divisions were piercing light tanks.

 

[Reman]

I'm going to assume you're doing research for the guns anyways, even if you're not using them. Doing so allows you to get the techs that give a flat bonus which are worth it, so there's no essential savings in research time.

Here's the stats for infantry divisions with Weapons 1 and Weapons 3, all flat bonuses to infantry researched but no doctrines or anything else. Assuming 40 width.

Weapons 1

• 1000 IC
• 138 soft attack
• 30 hard attack
• 528 defense
• 72 breakthrough
• 12 piercing

Weapons 3

• 1400 IC
• 276 soft attack
• 60 hard attack
• 816 defense
• 120 breakthrough
• 30 piercing

The most relevant stat is soft attack, where you get a 100% increase for a 40% increase in industrial cost. Moreover, Weapons 3 doesn't have a higher supply usage than Weapons 1 either. I'd say it's definitely worth it to upgrade to better guns.

If you have large misgivings about wasted industrial potential you can skip Weapons 2 and go directly from Weapons 1 to Weapons 3. I still think Weapons 2 are worth it though.

 

[Celdur]

If i don't need infantry equipment right now, i consider it an opportunity to change, if i'm in a deficit then no way of course you have to evaluate if you can go a few months with decrese production or if you don't need new divisions in the very near future.

It does help to make your infantry units "push" against the enemy.

 

[dave1233]

Upgrading is now more worthwhile than it has been in previous patches as the soft attack of virtually everything except infantry equipment has been nerfed. This means that the inf equip provides a larger chunk of your soft attack so upgrading the inf equip gives a bigger proportional boost to your divisions than it would have in previous patches

 

[PanzerMan7]

I'm going to assume you're doing research for the guns anyways, even if you're not using them. Doing so allows you to get the techs that give a flat bonus which are worth it, so there's no essential savings in research time.

Here's the stats for infantry divisions with Weapons 1 and Weapons 3, all flat bonuses to infantry researched but no doctrines or anything else. Assuming 40 width.

Weapons 1

• 1000 IC
• 138 soft attack
• 30 hard attack
• 528 defense
• 72 breakthrough
• 12 piercing

Weapons 3

• 1400 IC
• 276 soft attack
• 60 hard attack
• 816 defense
• 120 breakthrough
• 30 piercing

The most relevant stat is soft attack, where you get a 100% increase for a 40% increase in industrial cost. Moreover, Weapons 3 doesn't have a higher supply usage than Weapons 1 either. I'd say it's definitely worth it to upgrade to better guns.

If you have large misgivings about wasted industrial potential you can skip Weapons 2 and go directly from Weapons 1 to Weapons 3. I still think Weapons 2 are worth it though.

Huh. That's...bigger than I thought. The extra defense will go a long way when defending tanks too. But we still need to number crunch with artillery, nerf or no nerf. But assuming 14-4 with art 2/3, how do inf2/3 stack up to inf1?

 

[Wasted Shampoo]

This is still the case - I was wondering how infantry only divisions were piercing light tanks.

Infantry level includes AT grenade, bazooka and stuff like that

 

[Reman]

Huh. That's...bigger than I thought. The extra defense will go a long way when defending tanks too. But we still need to number crunch with artillery, nerf or no nerf. But assuming 14-4 with art 2/3, how do inf2/3 stack up to inf1?

That's two different questions. If you're wondering if Weapons 3 is worth it over Weapons 1, the answer is yes no matter what infantry design you have, either 14/4 or pure inf.

If you're wondering if artillery is worth it post-nerf, the answer is probably not. When comparing a 14-4 to pure inf, the 14-4 only gets about 10% more soft attack per supply point. The only place artillery really shines now is soft attack per combat width. I use SPART on my tank divisions for cracking open enemy lines, but I no longer use line artillery in my generic infantry template (unless I go superior firepower).

 

[Reimad]

I'm going to assume you're doing research for the guns anyways, even if you're not using them. Doing so allows you to get the techs that give a flat bonus which are worth it, so there's no essential savings in research time.

Here's the stats for infantry divisions with Weapons 1 and Weapons 3, all flat bonuses to infantry researched but no doctrines or anything else. Assuming 40 width.

Weapons 1

• 1000 IC
• 138 soft attack
• 30 hard attack
• 528 defense
• 72 breakthrough
• 12 piercing

Weapons 3

• 1400 IC
• 276 soft attack
• 60 hard attack
• 816 defense
• 120 breakthrough
• 30 piercing

The most relevant stat is soft attack, where you get a 100% increase for a 40% increase in industrial cost. Moreover, Weapons 3 doesn't have a higher supply usage than Weapons 1 either. I'd say it's definitely worth it to upgrade to better guns.

If you have large misgivings about wasted industrial potential you can skip Weapons 2 and go directly from Weapons 1 to Weapons 3. I still think Weapons 2 are worth it though.

Keep in mind the extra iron cost though. As Germany this isn't a problem, but for a lot of countries it means having to import.

 

[WildMarker]

That's two different questions. If you're wondering if Weapons 3 is worth it over Weapons 1, the answer is yes no matter what infantry design you have, either 14/4 or pure inf.

If you're wondering if artillery is worth it post-nerf, the answer is probably not. When comparing a 14-4 to pure inf, the 14-4 only gets about 10% more soft attack per supply point. The only place artillery really shines now is soft attack per combat width. I use SPART on my tank divisions for cracking open enemy lines, but I no longer use line artillery in my generic infantry template (unless I go superior firepower).

Soft attack per combat width is still massively important, more so than supply IMO. There's also Soft Attack per IC, where artillery is still very much worth it.

 

[PanzerMan7]

It doesn't look like artillery was nerfed as hard as my impression thought. I'm referencing the HoI wiki statistics here, which are valid for patch 1.3 (and I think 1.4 changed nothing). Art 1 was slightly buffed from 24-25 SA. Art 2 was nerfed from 32-30. Art 3 was nerfed 40-34

 

[Reman]

Keep in mind the extra iron cost though. As Germany this isn't a problem, but for a lot of countries it means having to import.

Steel is hella abundant though. Every major has tons of it, giving you easy access throughout the entire game. The steel problem is a theoretical concern more than a practical one. I don't think I've ever imported more than 2-3 factories worth of the stuff outside of games in South America.

Soft attack per combat width is still massively important, more so than supply IMO. There's also Soft Attack per IC, where artillery is still very much worth it.

Soft attack per combat width is important in the context of focusing fire at a specific point, i.e. for breaking through enemy lines. It's less important for generic infantry where supplies will be a bottleneck quicker than combat width will be.

In terms of IC artillery is about 20-30% more IC efficient than pure inf. That's noticeable, but somewhat less useful than you might initially think considering artillery adds another degree of freedom to industrial management. It's much easier not to be inefficient if you only have to supply 1 type of good (infantry weapons) as opposed to two (infantry weapons AND artillery). Moreover, artillery has FAR less HP than an infantry battalion, leading to higher reinforcement costs.

It doesn't look like artillery was nerfed as hard as my impression thought. I'm referencing the HoI wiki statistics here, which are valid for patch 1.3 (and I think 1.4 changed nothing). Art 1 was slightly buffed from 24-25 SA. Art 2 was nerfed from 32-30. Art 3 was nerfed 40-34

There was also some nonsense where artillery had a hidden 25% boost to soft attack for some reason. That got removed as part of the nerf as well, but it won't show up if you only look at base stats.

Furthermore, the way soft attack functions means each additional point of soft attack is better than the one that preceded it. Inverting this statement, the first few points of soft attack are less important than what follows. So the 15-30% nerf to SA is probably closer to a 40-50% nerf in total effectiveness since skimming SA off the top likely cuts the unit's attacks that were exceeding enemy defense/breakthrough and doing quadruple damage.

 

[PanzerMan7]

Soft attack per combat width is important in the context of focusing fire at a specific point, i.e. for breaking through enemy lines. It's less important for generic infantry where supplies will be a bottleneck quicker than combat width will be.

In terms of IC artillery is about 20-30% more IC efficient than pure inf. That's noticeable, but somewhat less useful than you might initially think considering artillery adds another degree of freedom to industrial management. It's much easier not to be inefficient if you only have to supply 1 type of good (infantry weapons) as opposed to two (infantry weapons AND artillery). Moreover, artillery has FAR less HP than an infantry battalion, leading to higher reinforcement costs.

I wonder if space marines will be allowed again. Crazy artillery divisions have simultaneously become a lot less useful and far more imperative for breaking lines. I might have to get creative with my templates now. And adding a couple marines to assault divisions is suddenly a lot more attractive since I have a conservative number of marines.

There was also some nonsense where artillery had a hidden 25% boost to soft attack for some reason. That got removed as part of the nerf as well, but it won't show up if you only look at base stats.

Yeah I just saw that in the game files. I'm going to normalize the values of artillery to 2 width.


So art1 is 25 SA *2/3 = 16.7 SA per 2 combat width. 20 for Art 2. 22.33 for Art 3 (which is suddenly so much less attractive).

Normalized to 2 width, there's 24 guns in an arty battalion. For art1/inf 1, 84 units of production/50 units respectively. Supply cost is 0.134 and 0.07 respectively.

So, we have 3.34x SA for 1.94x supply and 1.68x cost. 1.72SA/supply and 1.99 SA/IC. That's absolutely still worth it, but I can see some room to eschew it now.

 

[Secret Master]

I go back and forth on the issue.

In raw IC and resource terms, it's worth it. You pay more, but the infantry do far better.

But...

The opportunity cost is not negligible.

You have to research it, first. Research slots are finite and valuable. You may find yourself having to choose between better rifles or better RADAR, CAS, NAVs, ART, AT, SPART, computers, resource extraction, synthetic plants, doctrines, rockets->jets, better amphibious invasion techs, strategic bombers, or nukes. (Oh, and special forces for those who care.)

Then there's the production efficiency loss. With 15 MIC on kit I, I can just keep that line going forever and supply plenty of troops. It will be efficient and stay that way. (181 rifles a day will be plenty for most countries) If I jump to kit II or III, I lose the production efficiency, and I will need more IC on that equipment to keep numbers up. So, while the cost to performance ratio is good, I have to decide whether it's worth adding MIC or swapping lines or both to make use of this technology.

There's also the issue that support weapons techs do not require infantry weapon techs. I can get some nice bonuses for infantry from those techs without messing with production lines.

 

[PanzerMan7]

I think when we upgrade things might change however. These are both for art 1. (I'm assuming no support weapon techs because I assume they are researched regardless and we're comparing ratios here)

For inf2, our cost is 60 but our SA is 9. So we have 1.98SA for 1.4 IC and 1 supply. Or 1.41 SA/IC gain.
Inf 3, 70 cost, 12 SA. 1.39SA for 1.2 IC or 1.16 SA/IC

But with lower reliability, defense, and HP, we're not taking into account casualties and artillery will take quite a bit more! Still, artillery still is superior if you have the IC even if you don't upgrade your artillery.

But should we upgrade artillery? 25-30-34SA but 3.5-4-4.5 cost. Art1 is 7.14 SA/IC and Art2 is 7.50 SA/IC and Art3 is 7.55 SA/IC.

But then I have to do the numbers for production loss from changing the line and ugh. I'll do this over spring break and finish my production simulator.

You have to research it, first. Research slots are finite and valuable. You may find yourself having to choose between better rifles or better RADAR, CAS, NAVs, ART, AT, SPART, computers, resource extraction, synthetic plants, doctrines, rockets->jets, better amphibious invasion techs, strategic bombers, or nukes. (Oh, and special forces for those who care.)

I usually research em anyway because I research support weapons

I think the better question to ask is: Are we breaking the enemies' defense/breakthrough? Really it's our excess SA that is doing all the killing. An extra 10% might be marginal but it might double or triple the excess!


With inf1/art1 and all the infantry and artillery techs up to and including 1942, a standard 14-4 has 422 defense. Unfortunately the best I can do with a 14-4 that has inf3/art3 is 378 SA (and a whopping 643 def!)

So 14-4 won't be breaking any lines. Interesting a 7-2 with equipment 3 could resist a 14-4 with equipment 1.

Let's try a compromise assault division: the 11-6. Teched to the max, this baby can put out 424 SA and break that infantry defense...barely...with tech. Eh.

9-8? With equipment 2, it can put out 409 SA. Crap, it can match but not exceed the 14-4 with inf1. If it has both inf3 and art3, it can output 483 SA. Okay this can do the job but the breakthrough is so bad...

We're going to need tanks.

 

[Secret Master]

I think the better question to ask is: Are we breaking the enemies' defense/breakthrough? Really it's our excess SA that is doing all the killing. An extra 10% might be marginal but it might double or triple the excess!

Or you double up on CAS and TAC, and let them do the heavy lifting. Stukas don't give a damn about enemy breakthrough or defense.

Or you take the tech and IC savings and build more and better tanks.

 

[PanzerMan7]

Or you double up on CAS and TAC, and let them do the heavy lifting. Stukas don't give a damn about enemy breakthrough or defense.

Or you take the tech and IC savings and build more and better tanks.

Yeah I crunched some more numbers and came to that conclusion. Even against inf3/art3, inf1/art1 can do the job of holding the line.

I expect, if hosts loosen up the rules, we'll start seeing more creative play with divisions. A battalion of at least light tank 2 suddenly seems essential for any infantry that plan on attacking.

 

[Reman]

I go back and forth on the issue.

In raw IC and resource terms, it's worth it. You pay more, but the infantry do far better.

But...

The opportunity cost is not negligible.

You have to research it, first. Research slots are finite and valuable. You may find yourself having to choose between better rifles or better RADAR, CAS, NAVs, ART, AT, SPART, computers, resource extraction, synthetic plants, doctrines, rockets->jets, better amphibious invasion techs, strategic bombers, or nukes. (Oh, and special forces for those who care.)

Things like AT and strat bombers aren't worth building or researching outside of roleplaying. The AI isn't good enough with tanks to justify dumping tungsten, research, and IC into AT. Strat bombers are in the same category as mechanized in that they simply cost too much for what they give. Nukes are pretty worthless now too since they don't help enemy surrender %.

Researching special forces is an absolute joke now with their limited numbers. They weren't even that great to begin with.

Infantry equipment is worth the research.

I go back and forth on the issue.

Then there's the production efficiency loss. With 15 MIC on kit I, I can just keep that line going forever and supply plenty of troops. It will be efficient and stay that way. (181 rifles a day will be plenty for most countries) If I jump to kit II or III, I lose the production efficiency, and I will need more IC on that equipment to keep numbers up. So, while the cost to performance ratio is good, I have to decide whether it's worth adding MIC or swapping lines or both to make use of this technology.

The efficiency loss is the biggest knock against upgrading infantry weapons, but you could say this for any equipment upgrade. Upgrading to Fighter III's loses any efficiency built up from making Fighter I's, but it's still worthwhile to switch.

Inf Weapons III has double the soft attack of Weapons I while not using any more supplies. Such a massive upgrade to your most common frontline troop type is absolutely, 100% worth the efficiency loss.

 

[PanzerMan7]

The efficiency loss is the biggest knock against upgrading infantry weapons, but you could say this for any equipment upgrade. Upgrading to Fighter III's loses any efficiency built up from making Fighter I's, but it's still worthwhile to switch.

Inf Weapons III has double the soft attack of Weapons I while not using any more supplies. Such a massive upgrade to your most common frontline troop type is absolutely, 100% worth the efficiency loss.

Assuming a 14-4 and 1942 infantry tech, the damage by the 14 infantry and 4 artillery break down as follows:

inf3: 202
inf2: 151
inf1: 101
basic: 50

art3: 177
art2: 156
art1: 130

Clearly the share of SA is way way up for the infantry from previous patches. However, a 14-4 will always have at least 400 defense. Any SA absorbed by a defense have a 90% miss chance compared to a 60% chance for excess SA. That doubled SA from your infantry? Yeah it's doing a quarter of what it could be doing if it were CAS or tanks or something.