Concerning Combined Arms Theory...

[Mudman]

A question for all the WAW veternas out there please.

How important is the combined arms theory in this game? Should infantry be supported by armour, artillery, air defense, and close air support while on the attack or defence?

During many Axis and Allies marathons, I remember some players would research a particular bonus and then produce overwhelming numbers of the fortified units. The reason I bring this up is that there are so many types of units and only so many reasearch points to spread around. I should think that a mix of units would be the way to go.

Any comments? How do you like to setup your Army groups? Any particular ratios....example, 3 infantry per armour etc.

Thanks a bunch for the input. This game rocks.

[ratprince]

Hey Mudman;

I wouldnt classify myself as a veteran, but I have logged about 40 gaming hours since the games release....so, on to my answer to your question.

I think it depends on several things first off.
1) what side you are playing
2) what terrain you are in
3) what you have researched
4) Population limits


I will tackle each one:

1) The side determines a few things such as defense or attack and existing numbers of troops. If I am playing Germany, I already have a significant air force and armor force so I tend to focus on those in production. As for actual army groups, if you have an armor or an infantry...choose the armor. No question. tougher overall. If you are playing as Russia, well then you are armor light and milita heavy, so there is not much choice. As the russians it is, in my opinion, wise to combine your armor into a single unit for a serious punch in one location.

2) As for terrain; If you are fighting in the flat open lands of south-west Russia, then use tanks and more tanks! If you are in the rugged middle east, use infantry as the extended move is irrelevant.

3) Research plays an important role as well. I find it only rational to go with what you are good at already. For example; the german fighters and armor are tough to begin with - why not stay that route instead of re-inventing the wheel. In other words, dont waste research on a new "breed" of weapon when the others exist already.

4) Population limits are a HUGE factor as well. The nations that are limited in population want to concentrate their production on tough, expensive units like naval, armor and air units. Leave the infantry to the nations with vast manpower reserves.


To sum up and give some examples:

Germany Army Group East:
Few infantry
Many Armor
Front line fighters/rear tac and hvy bmbr
Arty

German Army Group Mid-East:
Many infantry
Arty
Air not necessary unless countered

Russian West Front:
MILITA
Arty
FLAK



The other nations are hard to describe as they tend to be naval (WA) or all infantry (chinese)


One last tip: Always have Artillery - at least one - in every army group. It is invaluable!! Of course if you dont have air superiority, then you need flak to cover it.

Hope this meager strategy helps answer your questions....

Later!

Prof. Mike

[Mudman]

Excellent...heaps of info. Thank you.

I never considered the population pools to be alimiting factor until now. W and E Germany are light on population but have good railroads and factories...I'll use them to produce tanks and aircraft. I'll leave it up to the satelite territories to produce the infantry or supply wagons.

Thanks again for such a detailed answer.

Cheers!
Mudman Wayne

[ratprince]

Glad to help Mudman!

This is what makes Matrix great! A lively, and helpful forum for their games! I was a convert once I saw the great support of the developers, publishers and friendly gamers!

Later!

Mike

[Uncle_Joe]

What I like about 'Combined Arms' is this game is that its not 'forced'. There are no additional modifiers or bonuses for having 'Combined Arms'. Using a bit of everything is its own reward and I think its fantastic the way they encourage it through the combat system rather than through arbitrary bonuses and penalties.

[Graymane]

How important is the combined arms theory in this game? Should infantry be supported by armour, artillery, air defense, and close air support while on the attack or defence?

Any comments? How do you like to setup your Army groups? Any particular ratios....example, 3 infantry per armour etc.

Thanks a bunch for the input. This game rocks.

I'm no expert at all, but it IS useful to use combined arms in this game at a "larger" level. In other words, it isn't so useful or not useful (it doesn't matter really) mixing inf/armor. There IS an advantage of mixing air, arty and ground troops, however.

First, there is the attack order. It goes Air to Air, anti-air to air, air to ground, arty to ground and then ground to ground. Firing on a single unit more than one time gives a modifier on subsequent attacks making them easier to hit. There is also a rule that tends to make similar units fire at each other (inf will fire at inf first, for example) until every unit has been shot at once.

These rules suggest that CA tactics are important both to get the correct units firing at each other as well as to perserve your high value assets like arty. So, I plan like this:

1. Strong AA and/or fighter coverage. The point of these guys is to protect against enemy tac/str attacking my arty and ground forces.
2. Enough inf/armor covering forces to soak up at least one attack from each opposing inf/armor. Militia may figure into this as well to produce enough covering force. This tends to ensure that my arty never gets attacked except by enemy arty counter-battery fire.
3. More arty than he has (to ensure I get arty shots on inf/armor since arty has good odds against those).

[Paul Vebber]

I have found a good mix to be 3-1-1 Inf to arty to Flak. Keeping equal numbers of flak to arty means that an attacker will at least lose a plane damamged if he comes after your arty with air. If an enemy has no flak then you always want to hit him with 1 more air than he has arty and you will gernarly get rid of several. Then you can attack withour arty hitting inf or tanks at long range rather than dueling with enemy arty. For teh Germans 6 attack dice in ground combat means flak is decent killing round units too.

So A typicall stack of mine might have 9 inf 3 arty and 3 flak. - less flak and more arty in Russia if the SU is not using air much - I might have 9-5-1 in that case or 9-4-2 as the Allies once the Luftwaffe is knocked down... Agaist the WA, who always are air heavy 9-3-3 works pretty well (increasing multiples as is neceeary - but that ratio does me well agaisnt the AI. I have yet to be disciplined enough in pbem to carry it out religiously...[:o]

armor early I've found is good at exploiting to cut areas off and then hot them so they can't retreat and get eliminated. later It is often useful to keep them 'back an area" where they are less prone to attrition,a nd then move up and through - or to "hit and run" attacking into an area and then pulling back.

I doubted teh usefullness of lots of flak in the mid game of many games, but then as the Axis IF you find yourself getting compressedinto smaller and smaller territory having 6 or 7 flak in West germany at the end can make it ROYAL pain fo the Allies to take out. If you can get a force of like 25-30 inf, 7 or 8 arty, and 7-8 Flak, it can hold out a long time and cause a LOT of casualties, thaks to the "rock papaer scissor" aspects of the way combined arms is portrayed.

[Graymane]

I doubted teh usefullness of lots of flak in the mid game of many games, but then as the Axis IF you find yourself getting compressedinto smaller and smaller territory having 6 or 7 flak in West germany at the end can make it ROYAL pain fo the Allies to take out. If you can get a force of like 25-30 inf, 7 or 8 arty, and 7-8 Flak, it can hold out a long time and cause a LOT of casualties, thaks to the "rock papaer scissor" aspects of the way combined arms is portrayed.

Flak is the number 1 pain in the ass for me as WA. There is just no good way to kill it cept on the ground where you are already at a disadvantage. What I do is just keep sending in all tac/strat until they actually kill the flak. That can take a LONG time because Flak isn't targetted as much as arty.

[aletoledo]

Flak is the number 1 pain in the ass for me as WA. There is just no good way to kill it cept on the ground where you are already at a disadvantage. What I do is just keep sending in all tac/strat until they actually kill the flak. That can take a LONG time because Flak isn't targetted as much as arty.

flak is a big pain when attacking europe early game and late. I've found that you can go without fighters as the WA, since if you do an airfield attack with your bombers, they bomb with their land attack the second round. so sure you miss with your air-to-air attack, but then devastate their air force with the follow-up land based rolls. on the otherhand the flak never seems to get targeted in a large infantry stack.

As far as combined arms, I think the answer is 'sorta'. I think arty has an advantage in any land attack and thus if you created a force of 100% artillery you'd be very powerful. however artillery is very weak in its defense and its air attack. you could upgrade these attributes, but it starts far behind other units in these areas, so you would be wasting a lot of points to get to where these other units simply start.