What formations do people like to use?

[BlueTemplar]

Since trucks/soft arty are backline and APCs/(and mechanized arty ??) frontline, I guess there are situations where trucks and soft arty are going to survive much better than their hard armored versions ?

Also, laser small arms are still only 30mm, you're going to lose a LOT of firepower against thick plating...

[Mina]

Do people use the automated MGs/Turrets? Thinking about throwing some up to cover some of my more remote borders, or at least ones I'm not interested in starting offenses on in the event of war.

[Uemon]

ORIGINAL: Mina

Do people use the automated MGs/Turrets? Thinking about throwing some up to cover some of my more remote borders, or at least ones I'm not interested in starting offenses on in the event of war.

Not really, by the time i unlock / design those, there is little need for them as i dont leave borders open, there are always some units at least 2 or 3 turns away.

[newageofpower]

Automated stuff uses my most short supplied material; HiTech. The advantage of being able to slap 400mm armor on is nice, but I never have enough HiTech to afford Automated systems.

[BlueTemplar]

There are OHQ formations with dedicated spots for automated MG/turrets ??

[yutowap33]

Yeah, back to the original question my order of battle generally reflect what the situation at hand i.e. what I have, want and can afford at the time. Over time I end up using a mix formations on different fronts e.g. right now I'm still using one 'MG Infantry Brigade' because I can't afford to push on that front.

Overall, We need something like this for the different units:

MG Infantry Brigade

- Available early.
- Cheap.
- good Soft Defense
- good for Rough terrain.

Buggies Battalion:

- Available early.
- Cost half in term of manpower, but 5 times more in terms industry ( same as full MG Infantry Brigade)
- high Recon.
- high Movability (particularly on road)
- Low supply use.
- unable to pass mountains (unless AI build a road there)

[nathanebht]

ORIGINAL: Mina
Do people use the automated MGs/Turrets? Thinking about throwing some up to cover some of my more remote borders, or at least ones I'm not interested in starting offenses on in the event of war.

Those automated turrets can't move except by having them on a road and using strategic move. So I'm not really sure when they would be useful? Build some for a city or choke point that was constantly under attack?

[yutowap33]

I don't have much experience with more advanced formations. Anyone want to try their hand at the pro/cons of

Infantry:
Grenadier, Siege Grenadier
Heavy MG, motorized/mechanized Heavy MG

Armor:
light/armor/heavy/destroyer
light grenadier/assault/Infantry

[nathanebht]

ORIGINAL: yutowap33

I don't have much experience with more advanced formations. Anyone want to try their hand at the pro/cons of

Infantry:
Grenadier, Siege Grenadier
Heavy MG, motorized/mechanized Heavy MG

Armor:
light/armor/heavy/destroyer
light grenadier/assault/Infantry

You'll lose motorized trucks frequently in any serious battle. I don't bother researching those formations.

Mechanized Heavy MG are terrific. You can push back an enemy with them and they can dig in. Useful in brigade and corp size.

I would say that RPGs become obsolete when you get laser MGs. Unless you are going to start using nuclear RPGs.

Light armor howitzer brigades are useful and cheap. Not sure they are worthwhile in corps size.

Armor formations that are 50% Howitzer Assault Gun and 50% non-Howitzer Medium tank are a really effective multi-purpose assault.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: yutowap33

I don't have much experience with more advanced formations.

>Machine gun formation
Pro: Lots of Machine Gunners. Can wreck lots of infantry if defending on entrenchable terrain.
Con: Machine gunners are bad at offense, especially early on and when cost is considered.

>Heavy Machine Gun
Pro: More machine guns = more anti-infantry defensive power
Con: More cost, even worse at offense

>Grenadiers
Pro: Mixing RPGs and MGs gives good all-around defense.
Con: Worse than pure MG OOB vs infantry, worse than pure RPG OOB vs tanks

>Heavy Grenadiers
Pro: Like all heavy formations, less Light Infantry "filling" and more specialist subtypes.
Con: Costs more, generally weaker at offense... But your not looking to attack with grenadiers.


>Motorized formations
Pro: Early game they're your first manouver units, and they can hit max move modifier with a sub-100 engine roll. With a decent mobile tactics commander its trivial to encircle the AI, which lets you conduct Motorized Light Infantry assaults with minimum casualties.

After you get Light Tanks but before you can make pure light tank OOBs, Motorized MG/Grenadiers can pocket the opponent, cutting off their retreat, letting your attached Light Tank battalions collapse the pocket and exterminate them, instead of letting them run away.

Cons: Early game their metal and IP cost is non-trivial. Late game they're a waste of recruits since the unit doesn't do anything in combat and is pretty fragile, compared to the APC which is an active machine gunner plus armor plating.

Tank Formations:
I -strongly- prefer pure tank formations for offense. Some MP competitive players tell me tank destroyers + infantry (using tank-infantry OOBs) is very strong defensively, but I'd expect mixing Tank Destroyer OOBs with attached Assault Guns to work just as well, lol.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: yutowap33

I don't have much experience with more advanced formations. Anyone want to try their hand at the pro/cons of

Infantry:
Grenadier, Siege Grenadier
Heavy MG, motorized/mechanized Heavy MG

Armor:
light/armor/heavy/destroyer
light grenadier/assault/Infantry

For Foot Formations:
All foot infantry is better in defense then offense. Usually the defense Combat value is twice. And Infantry can entrench like no other type of unit!
That being said, they tend to be cheap enough and have a strong enough offensive that you can use them on the attack. Into hard terrain, they migh be your only offensive option even.

Infantry - the unit with the lowest Metal and IP footprint. Also very cheap in ammo consumption too. It's main downsdie is that that they are recruited in bulk, so they are relatively "expensive" in Manpower and Food.
MG - they are like infantry, just way more focussed on soft defense then even them and a lot higher ammo consumption. They are expensive to deploy on offensives. That being said, with Automatic weapons and better armor the price differences mater less and less and they do have slightly more soft attack as well. So if some MG's get swept up in my attacks, I will not hesitate to use them for that. They do still fight somewhat better then infantry.
RPG - they are a bit like MG, except for Hard Targets and less heavily focussed on defense. High Hard-Attack and Hard-Defenses, with a high effective calibre for calibre calculation. Add that most Vehciles have lower HP vs infantry too.

Grenadier is Infantry with MG and RPG specialist units. This is the closest to a "universal" formation:
- high numbers of cheap Infantry
- MG for extra soft defense, but not so many you would worry to use them in a offense
- RPG to defend or attack against hard targets

Siege Grenadier adding Artillery to a Infantry unit is a wierd thing to do. If you use the Artillery for ranged attack, you can not use the Unit to attack with anymore - but I think the infantry parts can spend AP and save readiness for defense. They also bring a high calibre, but that one is cut by 3 in ranged attacks.
Artillery that you diffuse throug the units, is intended to be used in the actuall direct combat. Their biggest strenght is volume of fire and bringing a surprisingly high calibre to the fight. Both make them a lot more usefull during defense then offense. At the same time, as backline units they are unlikely to die in offenses. The main issues are ammo consumption and collerteral damage in offense.

Heavy MG shifts additional subunits from Infantry to MG. So it can give you a lot of additional Soft-Defense. If you have no issuse throwing MG's into offenses, it can even give you extra soft-offensive power. But really, defense sounds like it's intended role.

Motorized Heavy MG being motorized means the unit can travel further and keep more AP and Readiness for defense.
At the same time it looses any ability to move into high mountains without roads, one of the things Infantry is needed for.
The biggest issue is that for now, Motorizsation doubles the manpower needs for all Infantry formations.
Unless you need the motorisation to keep up with Tanks or use maneuver warfare, why not just make 2 units that can be in 2 palces at once instead?
It costs less fuel, a bit more ammo but is propably still cheaper in IP.

Armor:
One of hte biggest weaknesses of Infantry, is that their guns count as only 20mm for Callibre Calculation. So any armor starting with 25mm will given Infantry some level of callibre calculation penalty.
Even the better infantry armors give a relevant calibre calculation penalties to the weaker weapons. Wich means agaisnt better armor, you need Artillery or tanks with Howitzers.
A light tank with high callibre Howitzer and decent armor, can propably slaugther every infantry in any terrain it can drive into - combat penalties be damned. Unless they got RPG's, AT guns (infantry onr on Tanks).

Antitank-Tanks are genereally better left to bigger Tanks. They can carry a higher callibre and more armor, wich is much more usefull in Tank v Tank fighting.
Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers are less-offensive/more defensvie minded and cheaper versions of baseline tank the are based on.

Mixing Tanks into Infantry really helps with having them around in defense. But at the cost of preventing the unit from maneuvering well in hard terrain. Nevermind the huge fuel and ammo consumption.

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: nathanebht
You'll lose motorized trucks frequently in any serious battle. I don't bother researching those formations.

You start with Motorized Light Infantry pre-discovered and operational.
You're forced to discover *and* operationalize the Tanks + Motorized OOBs to be able to discover the Tanks + Mechanized OOBs.

I would say that RPGs become obsolete when you get laser MGs. Unless you are going to start using nuclear RPGs.

Light laser MGs are still only 30mm...
RPGs also have two upgrades between RPG and Micro-Nuke.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Laser infantry can fight 25 or 50mm armor tanks (and not getting their ass completely handed to them by those is still a massive boost to effectiveness compared to pre-laser infantry), but for infantry formations to hold up against ones with serious armor, the higher penetration value of RPGs is going to be necessary.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: nathanebht

ORIGINAL: yutowap33

I don't have much experience with more advanced formations. Anyone want to try their hand at the pro/cons of

Infantry:
Grenadier, Siege Grenadier
Heavy MG, motorized/mechanized Heavy MG

Armor:
light/armor/heavy/destroyer
light grenadier/assault/Infantry

You'll lose motorized trucks frequently in any serious battle. I don't bother researching those formations.

How do you loose your trucks?

They are automatically in the backline. Same as artillery
The only thing that can attack the backline, are Artillery or units that broke through
Sounds like your issues were either enemy artillery - or the enemies breaking through