managing large front?

[misterprimus]

How do I manage a large/long front? What sorts of formations are best? Some MG and AT guns?

[newageofpower]

If on open ground, the real answer is to use Tanks. Break through and bulldoze [s]trash[/s] enemy stacks into little pockets, then [s]compact the garbage[/s] collapse the pockets next turn and annihilate them.

Covering a long front can be absurdly manpower/resource intensive and oft plain impractical. Just delete the enemy's units and they can't push your border anymore, duh.

[Twotribes]

For defense use MGs or if a static front you don't expect to move much use auto turrets.

[zgrssd]

"The management of a large force is the same as the management of a small force - all a mater of the organisaiton" - Tsun Tzu

Some things to look up in the handbook for a idea about units
5.12.3.4. CalIbre modIfIer
5.12.3.5. weaPon tyPes versus armor tyPes matrIx
5.12.3.7. oPeratIonal stats, starting wiht "Attack Scores"

As a hard and fast rules:
all forms of infantry are there for defense.
If it only needs to defend, you can leave the job to infantry. Just make sure you have some MG, AT and AA weapons mixed in as nessesary. They are the cheap masses to hold the front with.

Meanwhile vehicles are there for attack. And particulary a light tank with 60mm howitzer and maximum armor can be incredibly deadly to infantry without AT weapons - even in hard terrain. Even the games onw predictions severely undervalue the callibre modifier.

[misterprimus]

ORIGINAL: Twotribes

For defense use MGs or if a static front you don't expect to move much use auto turrets.

Where do I get auto turrets? I assume these don't consume manpower? That's my problem currently: manpower shortages, so I basically can't have the front covered in infantry just because it eats up too much manpower and (eventually) food.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Auto-turrets are deep in the right-side branch of the tech tree. They require high-tech components to build, making them rather expensive, but they indeed don't require manpower. They used to be bad because being immobile led to them being killed upon suffering a retreat hit, but that was fixed in one of the recent patches.

[zgrssd]

To be more specific:
- automated Turrets and MG are late game Robotics Technology. Cost indeed 0 manpower, but need some Energy upkeep
- they can only be moved via strategic redeployment not he move oder. That also means can not initiate combat, only be in the way if attacked
- someone pointes out they always have ~250 Entrenchment, even if the terrain would normally not support more then 50. I could not fully confirm it yet
- Robots have a combat penalty, but only on attack. So they work perfectly for this role
- if you are the first Major Regime to get a unit into or near any free town or hex assets, you can find stuff - including Automated Defenses

Earlier, my advise to save manpower when you just wanting something to put on the front, used to be "Independant MG Batallion." 500 Manpower, still cheap gear, high defense.
"The thoughest thing in the game is a MG unit in Hihg Mountains."

However a recent Beta Patch saw Manpower for Vehicles changed and 60 Buggies only cost 200 Manpower now. But they also are a lot more expensive.