What's the value of attaching lower level formations to the next higher?

[Tachobill]

Is it worth it to attach divisions and brigades to corps, corps to armies, and armies to army groups, or is it fine to leave all of the ground forces in the Med directly under AFHQ and in GB under SHAEF, thus neglecting the lower level HQs?

I've been attaching all of my divisions to corps, corps to armies, and so on up the chain of command, but I'm not sure if this actually makes a difference in the long run. Thanks!

[cfulbright]

There are several advantages to doing in the game what armies have been doing for over two hundred years:

1. You want artillery support for your battles, and the best way to deliver that is by assigning field artillery support units to corps, which you have many more of, and which can be within the required five hex range of the battle in order to provide support.

2. There are command and morale checks for each unit before battle. That check happens first with the commander of the HQ that the unit is assigned to, but if that first check fails, it goes to the commander of the next higher HQ, etc. If you have all units assigned to AFHQ, it's a one-roll-of-the-dice check.

3, Support units recover best when assigned to the highest-level HQ's, sitting on the highest-level depots, ideally national supply depots like Oran, Birmingham, or Sheffield. If you keep AFHQ, SHAEF, and UK Home Forces on those three cities, you can send damaged support units back to them for the fastest recovery.

4. If you're the Axis player you want AA support of your land units, so you need to assign AA units to corps HQ's to get the widest AA coverage. Less of an issue for the Allies, but sometimes the Axis AI gets frisky and it's good practice to have AA assigned to Allied corps HQ's and close to the front lines.

5. Though I lock my HQ Support, I know other players don't, and they assign combat support units such as tank battalions to corps HQ's, which the game may auto-assign to a ground combat unit during battle.

I know they're more, but this is what immediately comes to mind.

Cary

[Tachobill]

Thanks for the reply! I especially like your idea of sending support units back to SHAEF to recover.

[Tachobill]

On a kind of related note, how many field artillery units can be assigned to a Corp without penalty? I tried to find this in the Living Manual but couldn't locate the information. Thanks.

[loki100]

limitless in theory, but only so many will be used in a given combat. US Corps are particularly effective at this.

To pick up on the leadership values from Cary's answer.

This table shows how the checks are passed up the chain of command - for convenience it assumes every relevant leader is a #6 for that attribute but the key is at a single level you have a 60% chance to pass a check (& leadership checks affect everything from MP, clearing fatigue to the commitment of SUs in combat), with a chain of command that is up to over 75%: