What is a good marine and mountaineer division?

[Spelaren]

As for marines, in earlier threads they came to that they are best employed as the main naval invasion force against a port, while you have like 3 other divisions around the port to circumvent it and to encircle the port garrison while the marines work their way through it. But what is a good marine division? Do i just make it like a regular infantry division or as a deluxe infantry division with heavy tank artillery or obsolete tanks to bring up armour and piercing + softpower?

And what about mountaineers? Regular infantry division setup? I have came to some kind of result after using 20 width infantry with support artillery and engineer paratroopers against an equal enemy that they are useful on their own, but are best used in conjunction with naval invasions to absolutely SHATTER any garrisons and possibly encircle stuff if done in narrow straits. But they can also capture ports on their own if they are like width since they can split of and take ground, then encircle, then attack as good as a single 10 width division if you put two on the same tile.

Thoughts? Also, all this is speaking as a minor nation like Poland or Turkey, or Greece.

 

[Kryndude]

They're for breaking through tough terrain so you'll want 40W to maximize damage concentration. Something like 14/4 ENG ART. You can also consider adding in a tank or two for breakthrough but I'm not sure how cost-effective that would be.

 

[SophieX]

Mountaineers get attack, defense and movement-boni in mountain-terrain and smaller boni in hill-terrain.
Marines get attack bonus in marsches and by rivercrossing and of course for amphibic assault.

Mountaineers:
hills = {
attack = 0.2
defence = 0.05
movement = 0.1
}
mountain = {
attack = 0.35
defence = 0.1
movement = 0.2
}
Marines:
marsh = {
attack = 0.3
}
river = {
attack = 0.3
}
amphibious = {
attack = 0.5
}

 

[Cavalry]

If you just need defense in mountain then infantry is enough and less costly because of higher HP. For any attack, add 1-4 tank to a 40w is good, but any movement in mountain will lead to tank attrition. So if you don't want attrition cost, 14-4 is good enough.

 

[SophieX]

When putting artillery-battalions into the mountaineer template, you loose the speed bonus, because the ART will slow you down; question of balancing.

 

[Spelaren]

When putting artillery-battalions into the mountaineer template, you loose the speed bonus, because the ART will slow you down; question of balancing.

Support artillery slows you down?

 

[SophieX]

Support artillery slows you down?

No , but an artillery battalion does. ( I reflected on the proposal to use 14/4 )

 

[Gefallener_Held]

You need two artillery for attack with mountaineers. I have wondered if light tank artillery recon for support would work well...

 

[SophieX]

You need two artillery for attack with mountaineers.

ART looses 60% of its attack and 20% of its speed in mountain-terrain....I don't need them

 

[Cavalry]

ART looses 60% of its attack and 20% of its speed in mountain-terrain....I don't need them

It is averaged out and still have more attack than pure mountaineer.

 

[Gefallener_Held]

It is averaged out and still have more attack than pure mountaineer.

Especially with mountaineer leader, right?

 

[SophieX]

It is averaged out and still have more attack than pure mountaineer.

Art: normal soft-attack 25.... mountain-debuff 60% = soft-attack 10
InfEquip_1 normal soft attack 6..... mountain buff 35% = soft-attack 8
so 14/4 has 14x8 + 4x 10 = 152 soft-attack
20/0 has 20x 10 = 160 soft-attack and more speed.
EDIT: deleted due to wrong calculation; see pots below

 

[Cavalry]

Art: normal soft-attack 25.... mountain-debuff 60% = soft-attack 10
InfEquip_1 normal soft attack 6..... mountain buff 35% = soft-attack 8
so 14/4 has 14x8 + 4x 10 = 152 soft-attack
20/0 has 20x 10 = 160 soft-attack and more speed.

It is not calculated like that. Mountain has a starting -60% att for ALL battalions.. There are another division modifier for terrain. Arty has 0% modifier, Mtn has +35% att modifier. Tank has -20% (but they can give armor bonus). There will be averaged out between battalion, then add with Engineer.

a pure 40w Mtn will have division terrain modifier +35%, mean -25% after mountain modifier
a 14 mtn/4 art will have division terrain modifier + 27%, -33% after mountain modidfier.

From an in game save, the 14/4 will have 36% more soft attack than pure Mtn.

These bonus will reduce if you have less strength, but the penalty remain full. If you have half the Mtn battalion, the terrain bonus is halved.

Sometime there is a little funny bug. I have pure Mtn in Spain attacking into a hill province. The hill has -30% att, the pure Mtn has +20% so the terrain penalty is -10%. But then enemy attack into the pure Mtn. The penalty in attack was remove by a bonus for hill defense at +5% for both battles. Also the defense battle remove the weather penalty in the attack battle. It looks like if one division is in 2 battles at the same time, they use the terrain and weather modifier of the latter.

 

[SophieX]

There will be averaged out between battalion

Just finished a test. One 20/0 and one 14/4 standing in the Alpes.
You are right:
Those states are averaged.

And this belongs to all stats; even speed.
( I always thought a unit couldn't move faster than its slowest part.... ok, so what)

 

[Harin]

It is not calculated like that. Mountain has a starting -60% att for ALL battalions.. There are another division modifier for terrain. Arty has 0% modifier, Mtn has +35% att modifier. Tank has -20% (but they can give armor bonus). There will be averaged out between battalion, then add with Engineer.

a pure 40w Mtn will have division terrain modifier +35%, mean -25% after mountain modifier
a 14 mtn/4 art will have division terrain modifier + 27%, -33% after mountain modidfier.

From an in game save, the 14/4 will have 36% more soft attack than pure Mtn.

These bonus will reduce if you have less strength, but the penalty remain full. If you have half the Mtn battalion, the terrain bonus is halved.

Sometime there is a little funny bug. I have pure Mtn in Spain attacking into a hill province. The hill has -30% att, the pure Mtn has +20% so the terrain penalty is -10%. But then enemy attack into the pure Mtn. The penalty in attack was remove by a bonus for hill defense at +5% for both battles. Also the defense battle remove the weather penalty in the attack battle. It looks like if one division is in 2 battles at the same time, they use the terrain and weather modifier of the latter.

That sure blew my expectations of special forces mountain units. Thanks for the information @Cavalry.

 

[Beagá]

I have more doubts about the support specially on the attack. What are the best choices?

 

[Gort11]

I have more doubts about the support specially on the attack. What are the best choices?

Engineers, artillery, rocket artillery.

 

[Hemothep]

When it comes to Marines or Mountaineers I find it best to "overequip" them. The damage they do is balancing act between soft attack and their terrain modifier, while they do need lots of breakthrough to not take huge losses.
This is why my Alpenjäger currently look like this:
11 Mtn
4 Art
3 LArm
Eng/Art/AA/Log/Rec

They are around the sweet spot for soft attack and mountain attack modifier, while also having a decent amount of breakthrough. They have just enough tanks to be considered a light tank division and get the corresponding bonusses from leaders. The only thing they are weak in is their armor rating, which gets pierced every time. You're going to need heavy armor if you want to get that to a meaningful level, but then you'll hurt your terrain modifier.

 

[sekelsenmat]

The stats averaging is actually very interesting, I always though that mathematically averaging would bring the same result as calculating for each part, but it is not true:

Artillery 25 soft attack, 4 battalions, -60% on mountain
Mountaineer 6 soft attack, 10 battalions -25% on mountain

If it wasn't averaged, the soft attack would be: 85 (=6*10*0.75 + 25*4*0.4)

But in reality it is 104, because the average debuff is -35%, so the "mountaineer" terrain bonus spills over to artillery.

Basically if you have Special Forces you can add non-special forces battalions, but make sure to add good battalions, like Artillery or Tank. Just adding something weak will dilute the terrain bonus and you could end up with even worse SA then you started with.

And this belongs to all stats; even speed.
( I always thought a unit couldn't move faster than its slowest part.... ok, so what)

Well, the speed is the one of the slowest unit before applying the terrain debuff.