Optimal Unit confiugrations

[wargameplayer]

As Germany, in the past i have tended to really pile on armor and neglect infantry and Artillery.

My question is, where is the diminishing point of returns for adding artillery when going on the offensive. Say if i have 5 units attacking vs 10 or 15 units. How much artillery to tanks/infantry should I have to get the best results. What's a good air ratio in terms of fighters?

I'm basically looking for hard/fast ratios for an invasion of Russia. i.e. 4 armor for every fighters. Then no more than say 1 artillery per 5 units.

Also how would the ratios change if the soviet player builds no infantry at all and just build tanks and air.

[christian brown]

IMHO, art is only useful for Germany to give the the combined arms bonus (except in the west for coastal defense.)  A good thing to try is to always keep 2 artillery coming out of production every turn, like this you can just keep moving a few east every turn.  Reality is that after the initial phase you will probably only be making 2 major attacks per turn, so all you need are 2 ARTs to get you that Combined Arms modifier.

Armor, a total of 15 are about right, making sure to put some more in the queue as they are destroyed.

Keep enough INFs around for the same reason as the ARTs, you need them for the CA bonus and are cheap for garrisoning partisan areas, again 15 are enough.

As for the air situation, this is much more complex, it comes done to style:
Do you plan to hit factories?  Take out lots of rail?  What are you willing to spend on tech for fighters, tair, HBs?  There is no formula for this........much also depends on the Russian builds, if you see them building a bunch of fighters, it may even be best to let them own the skies, as long as they do not have much tacair, they don't matter....

Don't neglect militia, again, great for the large partisan areas, though oftentimes those coming from the minors and Italy will suffice.

Just as a total, generic formula I would say a decent mix would look something like this (but depending on tech levels, you could throw this in the can:
1 ARM, 1 INF, 1/3 Art, 1/4 Militia, 1/4 Fighter, 1/5 Tacair/HB
or in total: 15 ARM, 15 INF, 5 ART, 4 MIL, 4 fighter, 3 TAIR/HB
and lots and lots of supply (the real killer-you need 40 per turn just to operate, this is the equivalent of 4 INFS just spent out each turn.......!
Try it yourself, you need to tweak everything to match your own style......

If you run the numbers, this is very expensive, you will need to neglect other areas (u-boats, etc) in order to have this force assembled for an on-time invasion of Russia.......Summer 1941....good luck!

[wargameplayer]

Very interesting. Thanks

Given the population issues for germany what do you think about having fewer infantry to armor ratio then delay the invasion slightly?

[christian brown]

Clearly, better, tanks are more efficient for the pop (as you already have seen.)  The trouble is that initially you have to wait forever to get the armor out of production and end up losing lots of pop early on, a delicate balance indeed......the time to switch to almost pure armor is one of the most interesting choices to make.

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: christian brown
Clearly, better, tanks are more efficient for the pop (as you already have seen.)  The trouble is that initially you have to wait forever to get the armor out of production and end up losing lots of pop early on, a delicate balance indeed......the time to switch to almost pure armor is one of the most interesting choices to make.

Yeah, not wasting pop early on is the challenge.

Personally, I don't let a single German pop point fall off unused. Very body gets stuffed in a machine. I do sometimes "waste" 1 or 2 Germans in militia, however, since they are useful for W Poland before you get the militia producing minors.