Army Organization and Unit Compliment

[Westheim]

What's with all these plans anyway. No fixed unit composition survives the first battle anyway. What does Westheim put into a unit?

Infantry Division - 30xInfantry
Tank Division - As much tanks as it needs
Artillery Division - As much artillery as I can collect + 10xInfantry + trucks
PAK Division - 3-5 PAKs + 10xInfantry + trucks (Oh, by the way, PAK is a german abbreviation for anti tank gun [:'(])
Engineering Division - Up to 100xEngineers + trucks

There really isn't any system in it. There are also mixed infantry divisions everywhere in my armies.

By the way, so far I only used the Supreme HQ with sub-HQs ("corps") for medium sized front parts. Haven't build an intermediate HQ (army HQ) so far. These sub-HQs all contain up to 20 divisions, which are spread out as far as as many hexes, if it's necessary.

I just don't see the need for fixed settings like f.e. Banquet. What happens, if one of your divisions suffers heavy losses? Won't you create new divisions just because that old division needs to be filled up again? [&:]

I'm much more "liberal" there. What's torn most of the time IS torn. Ripped apart divisions with 4 rifles and a truck can always be reserves or guide cities far behind against paratroopers or be the 2nd or 3rd unit in a front hex or something like that.

[Ande]

yes flexibility is the name of the game, you should always be prepared to counter anything the enemy throws at you, I just have a rule of thump that infantry is keeping the front with some med tanks and tankdestroyers in the back and ofcourse flak and/or fightersupport, the actual size of units is really a matter of frontsize vs production even though I prefer units in the 100-200 power span since most AI units are 50-100. It keeps the juggernaut rolling

[Westheim]

Tankdestroyers? Never built them so far. The AI doesn't use much tanks. Some AT guns at the front do almost the same job.

[Warspite3]

My forces vary greatly. My last game, I had many simple divisions like this...

30x-40x rifle
3x-6x at
3x-6x horse (depending on how many gun pieces I have)

Basically these were anti tank divisions. I had several of these to help fight back the AIs tanks and armored cars. Later I made similar divisions like this but put in IGs or mortars instead of ATs once I was able to beat back those tanks. Westheim, the AI was rolling in the tanks on me one after another. I never noticed any huge tank divisions but many tanks and enough where I had to completely change my cheap infantry strategies. Oh I build alot of horses, especially in the beginning. Anyone else build many horses? I have not seen too many people mention it. Its a poor man's truck and you can get alot of them really quick.

[Westheim]

ORIGINAL: Warspite3
Anyone else build many horses? I have not seen too many people mention it. Its a poor man's truck and you can get alot of them really quick.

Exactly, they're poor mens' trucks ([:D]), so I build them especially in the beginning, when trucks just cost too much to build them en masse, while you still need rifles and engineers and other things. They are better than trucks in mountain terrain, so I always have some of them stored somewhere to quickly deploy a mountain anti tank gun division at a gap or something like that. But later in the game it's mostly trucks.

I have seen the AI build only few tanks, but those are usually quite good. It's around turn 55 in the game I made that small AAR of, and the AI carries a few (really a few) light tanks III, medium tanks III, and I saw one or two heavy tanks (II?), while I'm still stuck with light II, medium I, and no hard ones at all. I never saw a division of more than 4 tanks on the AI side.

[seille]

AI tanks are good until you come with some divebombers and finish them off [;)]
That´s my AT weapon.....

[Grymme]

Here is what i aim for. Please critizise.

Mechanized Division (for mobility, allround, for attackíng enemy infantry units)
30 Rifle
10 Mortar
10 Bazooka
5 Machinegun
1 light tank
2 armoured cars
2 halftracks

Armoured Division For attack
2-4 Heavy Tanks/Tankdestroyers
3-4 Medium tanks
1-3 Light tanks/armoured cars (for a total of 10 units)
30 Rifle/SMG
10 Mortars
10 Machinegun

Artillery Division
6-8 Artillery
10 Rifle
Enough halftracks

Engineer Divisions
40 or 60 Engineers
2 or 3 Trucks/halftracks

Mountain Divisions I mainly defend in mountains, try never to attack through them
40 Rifle
10 Mortars
10 Machinegun
6 Horses


Please come with suggestions. I am not so happy with performance of mobile divisions for example. Right now i play against 7 AI+ on a 60-60 map with 45 level 3 cities.

[miral]

Interesting topic. The argument is basically between the WWII USA and German systems. The Americans tended to use same size, interchangeable units (though the Armored Division Combat Command units were somewhat an exception to this). The Nazis, though they had a supposed set size for infantry or armor divisions ect., used the system of forming units individualy tailored in size and composition to the task at hand. The German system is the more flexible but needs greater skill. The Nazis had a deeper pool of experienced officers than did the Americans so each sides system was probably best for them. Indeed, as many military historians and sociologists have pointed out, a nation's army is a microcosm of that nation.

In AT the organization will probably be based on the players aesthetic preference, I would think. Some people have the type of minds that want standardized units, others like the creativity of specially composed units. You can make a good argument for either type of organization.

Same for HQ's. I think few or many is aesthetic preference rather than provable effectiveness and either can be good or bad; depends on the generalship.

Oh, once when trying to create a HQ I got message that I had too many HQ in chain of command. What did this mean? Has it happened to anyone else?

[Twotribes]

You can only have a chain of 4 headquarters, Meaning a senior headquarters with the next level, then the next, then the next.... each of the 3 lower levels have no limit as far as I know.

So

Supreme Headquarters

Army Headquarters ( any number)

Corps Head Quarters (any Number)

Division Headquarters ( any Number)

you can not then have a new Headquarters assigned to the "division" level Headquarters.

[Widell]

It seems this subject depends on if you play random setups compared to historical (or semi-historical as in what-ifs) scenarios. For example, in a Barabarossa scenario, it would not "feel right" to play with a very flat organization, while this make sence on a random map where you control your initial OOB as a player to a much larger extent. Any comments to that bold statement from those that have more experience from the game?

[Twotribes]

I was under the impression real large formations are actually counter productive. The game begins penalizing you if you have to many stack points together on the attack.

[Herode_2]

Yes, that's a point and it would be the main critic I would give to Grymme's OOB : his units are very heavy. I favour light to medium units ranging from 40 to 60 stack points. By exception, second line units as artillery can stack much more, as they are not supposed to go in close combat, this is seldom a problem.

Also, having more light units gives more flexiblity on the line front (breakouts, reserve moves, concentric bonus etc.)

[SKY6A]

Hi All,

Late-comer to this topic, but I just bought the game last week. One of the things I particularly love about it is precisely this ability to tinker around with troop mixes and command structures, but I still find myself wanting to recreate historical equivalents as much as possible--just an aesthetic thing, I guess.

So has anyone figured out what each strength point represents? One strength point of "Rifle," for example; is that a platoon? A company? What? I'd imagine it may be different for each subformation type, but if anyone has some general rules of thumb, it would make it easier to recreate historical units and test them out.

Thanks!

[Josh]

Not sure if I'm qualified enough to answer this. But a strength point doesn't have a "fixed" strength... if you know what I mean. It depends on the scale of the scenario, so in a very large scenario one strength point could indeed mean one soldier because in that scenario each counter/unit would represent a platoon/company, whereas in other scenarios a "strength point" would represent a company because each counter/unit represents a corps/division.
So, 1 point does not equal 1 tank/soldier/gun, but it can vary depending on what the scenariowriter wishes.

Whatever the case though, the max unit density penalties stay the same. So Überkiller stacks are prevented. More than 100 points in an hex gets you a penalty, and attacking with more than 100 from one or two hexes gives you a penalty too.

Discussion of "historical" units has been discussed before (ofcourse) Some scenarios have outstanding units in them. Just check the Fall Blau AAR by Grymme.
For random scenarios I use Inf units, that is slow foot or horse soldiers with some mortars/ Mg's/ AT guns, and fast moving armoured units (tanks, tankhunters, vulnerable in woods though), and some recon units (armoured cars with some Inf). Remember each armoured unit (each tank-point) can carry 5 Inf points without becoming a "foot-unit"... put six soldiers on a tank and it becomes a foot-unit. (probably overweight soldiers [:)] )

[SKY6A]

Hi Josh,

Thanks for the reply. After doing some more searching, I did find a pretty in-depth discussion of this very topic, and it seems to be the consensus that the strength points are purely abstract and do not correspond to units at all--not even in a relative way.

I have to say that this is my only real disappointment with AT. I mean, I understand that the designers wanted to keep the scale unspecified in order to allow a variety of scenarios. But it would have been nice if RELATIVE strengths of different types made more sense. In a random game, for example, a Rifle point seems to represent about a company, while a Tank point seems more like a regiment. This gives infantry some "granularity" as it takes losses, since each point represents a smaller unit. But with armor, it is much more an all-or-nothing situation, since each point seems to represent so many tanks.

Oh well, I'm sure there were considerations of which I am unaware. And third parties have produced some much more proportionate relationships in individual historical scenarios. I just wish I could use Capt Cruft's Ostfront masterfile to generate random games. That would be cool!

[Josh]

"I just wish I could use Capt Cruft's Ostfront masterfile to generate random games. That would be cool! ..."

Yeah that would've been something eh? That would add something to the game.

You're right about abstract strength points, but apart from thinking of one "tank-point" as a "tank-company" or whatever, the same with Inf-strengt points.... *one thing* stays the same all the time; the max size of an unit in a hex, or the max size of an attacking unit, without getting a penalty. So me personally I don't ever make units of say 10 tanks, or an Inf. unit of 80 points, smaller units are the key of the game. Smaller and much more flexible.

I don't know what the status is of Victor's next game(-s), maybe in AT2 we will be able to get random games with historical maps and units and leaders.

[Jeffrey H.]

Yeah, it would be interesting to say the least to see the AI navigate it's way through the various detailed units. I would not expect the results to be all that 'real' but it should be interesting to see.