US army composition for Europe?

[Commander-DK]

Going to play as USA for the first time (ever!). Read a lot about the need to conserve manpower and use plenty of support brigades in Europe, but what sort of unit composition to you usually use? (armor/infantry)

Is it realistic for the armies in Europe to be all mot/mec with no leg infantry? Or will that kill my advance due to supply logistics?

 

[marxianTJ]

You want some normal infantry purely for the very earliest phases of the invasion and for holding ground after you secure France/Italy - but you want your low MP divisions to be available for most of the heavy lifting due to lack of MP.

it depends on where you intend to invade and how early you intend to do said invasion.

I would avoid having a *ton* of mot if you're going into Nor/Ita because it'll hurt you in the bad terrain and questionable infra. Supply *will* be a problem if you were to go exclusively mech/mot, but it would also be exceedingly expensive for too small of a payout.

going for something in the ball-park of ~20 arm or mech divisions and at least 1-2 armies of 2xINF+attachments should be sufficient and doable, with any excess MP going into mech/arm or even HARM. If you use your navy and air forces effectively and make sure any major resistance is met by arm divisions you shouldn't have too many MP related problems.

If you were wanting to invade much earlier (say early 41' or earlier) you would need more tank divisions because you'll meet much higher resistance from Germany.

 

[Commander-DK]

Thanks for the reply!

One more question about the European theatre, if you don't mind: How does the AI handle the UK forces, when you play USA as a human player or vice versa? Does the AI always give you its armies as Expeditionary forces or will it be a total cluster f*** of uncoordinated Allied armies fighting their way across France and the Low Countries?

 

[marxianTJ]

You've got 2 ways of dealing with your buddies.

1. Assign an objective and sit around and wait for them to do something with it (you accomplish this by selecting the tile on the map and hitting the arrow at the very bottom right of the province window that pops up when you click on the tile). Eventually they'll do something and you can use that as a distraction or help it not fail catastrophically - this is likely to result in something "interesting" or "fun" happening *or* nothing at all.

2. Make your own landing and *then* assign a port you've captured as an allied objective - they should start dropping expeditionary forces off for you to use - the UK usually gives MAR/MAR/MAR/ENG (or pure 3xMAR) divisions and sometimes regular INF divisions if it's later in the war and they've not had some disaster.

Once you get vision (or if you use some old submarines or something) of Europe you can watch the UK - if it suicides relentlessly into German occupied territory they will be of little to no help later - especially if they get crushed in North Africa to boot.

If they don't do a bunch of bonzai attacks on German territory and don't get trounced by the Italians in North Africa you can expect at least 5-10 extra divisions with more pouring in once you really get some momentum going (say 3-4 weeks after your landing).

Another tidbit is if you see that Norway is basically unguarded, and that only the very biggest ports in FRA are occupied that means the German AI thinks it's losing on the Eastern front and has sent stuff Eastward. If every or nearly every port is garrisoned that means the German AI thinks it's winning in the East (or isn't at war yet) and that will be a *lot* more difficult (but not insurmountable).

I would also advise against landing in Sicily (I know it was historical) or Copenhagen - the German AI will flip its lid and you will see a precipitous wave of failure take over the Eastern Front - along with exposing you to a tremendous amount of air attack lol.

 

[Commander-DK]

I would also advise against landing in Sicily (I know it was historical) or Copenhagen - the German AI will flip its lid and you will see a precipitous wave of failure take over the Eastern Front - along with exposing you to a tremendous amount of air attack lol.

So, how are you supposed to do the invasion of Europe without screwing up the German AI? Can you land on mainland Italy, just not Sicily? I am playing TFH with the latest patch - is the AI still that bad?

 

[marxianTJ]

If you land in Sicily a HUGE portion of the German army will immediately vacate their positions on the Eastern front and head down to Italy.

The best way to do it is to simultaneously land in Sicily (for the VP) and simultaneously Southern Italy - because if you don't it will be impossible due to 2-3 German armies marauding in Italy lol.

It's actually a popular tactic for "gaming" the system because you cut the Germans and Italians down there off from the capital and starve out 30+ divisions.