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Hi.
Is there any data about the good number of support units in armies to maximise commitment during battle ?

The manual is quite vague about it.

What i know from manual :

- Max number of support units outside urban committed in combat : 6. But can be 9 for "special commitment phase" for arty support unit. I have no idea what trigger this "special phase".

- Commitment triggered by initiative check of the army leader. (OK).

- Once the leader successfully commit a support unit, the support unit must succeed some others tests to be really committed. Not sure what impact the success of this test. (XP ? Morale ? Leader ? Supply ? Weather ? ).

- HQ that have not moved have a bonus for commit support units. (how much ? no idea).

- More support units is good : More unit have a chance to be commited (one init check each).

- More support units is bad : Once a support unit is committed by leader, the support unit have fewer chance to succeed the additional checks required if there is too much support units in the army. (But how much ? Leader dependant ? Any data ? ).

The balance between the 2 last points is difficult to guess.

ORIGINAL: Stelteck

Hi.
Is there any data about the good number of support units in armies to maximise commitment during battle ?

The manual is quite vague about it.

Dug up and old post by an active player, since I was wondering the exact same question. Share your experiences on fiddling with support units! I was actually thinking about an improvement to the way support units are committed: it should be affected by support unit "size" (ie. company=1, battalion=2, regiment=3, brigade=5-6?). So the maximum amount you could commit would be for example 15 points = 5 regiments or 7 battalions + a company. That way building and using also battalions would be more reasonable and realistic.

Well anyway, back to the points:

- Max number of support units outside urban committed in combat : 6. But can be 9 for "special commitment phase" for arty support unit. I have no idea what trigger this "special phase".

- Commitment triggered by initiative check of the army leader. (OK).

- Once the leader successfully commit a support unit, the support unit must succeed some others tests to be really committed. Not sure what impact the success of this test. (XP ? Morale ? Leader ? Supply ? Weather ? )

- HQ that have not moved have a bonus for commit support units. (how much ? no idea).

AFAIK the "special phase" is just an extra commitment for ART/MRT/RCKT/AT-type units, 3 of them can be committed on top of the normal limit.

I'd expect the SU itself makes checks against xp and fatigue at least after the HQ leader has passed the preliminary check. Would be interesting to know what else affects it. Could actually the SU size be one factor?

- More support units is good : More unit have a chance to be commited (one init check each).

- More support units is bad : Once a support unit is committed by leader, the support unit have fewer chance to succeed the additional checks required if there is too much support units in the army. (But how much ? Leader dependant ? Any data ? ).

The balance between the 2 last points is difficult to guess.

This is an interesting question. In some of the scenarios certain HQs have huge amounts of SUs attached. Is that an efficient setup? I guess you should have at least 9 SUs (at least 3 artillery/AT for the special commitment) for each HQ to have the possibility to commit the maximum amount in a standard field battle.

I was wondering if the 18 SU limit in urban hexes applies to the attacker too?

Then a thing I've noticed, the SU limit seems to be per HQ! If you make a combined attack with for example two armies, both HQs can bring their own SUs up to the limit. So is it actually beneficial to bring multiple assisting units from nearby HQs to add their support power to the equation? Which is better, 3 divisions with a single HQ support, or 3 divisions with a small -10% HQ penalty but support from 3 HQs? I'm guessing it becomes increasingly difficult for the HQs to commit the extra SUs after the normal limit is passed.

I made a small test on Operation Mars opening turn:

First made attacks with 5 rifle divisions + tank brigade from 31th army against X95,Y43 south of Rzhev. Results ranged from 1:2 to 1:10, SUs committed were generally around 5-9.

Then another experiment set, exchanged the tank brigade to be from the 20th, and one rifle div to be from the 30th. So essentially the same unit setup, but with 3 armies' spoons in the soup. The combat results were more consistently in the 1:2-1:4 area, one battle with GE moto reserve activated was 1:3.33! The number of SUs committed was quite constantly around 10, with the record being 10 art/rckt/mortar regiments, 4 rocket battalions and a sapper battalion. So that's considerably more than one HQ could field to the battle.

What do you think, is this a bit cheesy tactic or a realistic approach on support and HQ structure? In the end, the SUs actually take a hit while attacking and get fatigued, it's not like you're bringing magic extra support out of thin air. It just feels like this combined HQs method wasn't quite intended.