• remember how you had to built the best fleet for 150 ipcs. while this is the same exept for land units. heres mine without aircraft. What do you think of a  an army ratio of 2inf/1art/1tank?

    20/10/10=150ipc
    infantry: 20X3=60
    artillery: 10X4=40
    tanks: 10X5=50


  • I personally prefer slightly higher initial punch ratio without loss of “cannon fodder”

    A ratio of 3-2-1 INF/ART/ARM

    With 150 IPC that would be 6 complete sets at the above ratio with $18 remaining, for an additional 2 INF, 3 ART.

    Total Force:
    20 INF, 15 ART, 6 ARM

    Offensive Punch:  83 (just shy of 14 hits the first turn)
    Punch Loss:  First 5 hits only drop attack to 58, next 30 hits only take 2 points each.


  • your sort of right with (yours)3/2/1:45/30/15=330ipc and 90units  and (mine)2/1/1:44/22/22 and 88 units=330 ipc mine would have a punch of 176 and yours 180. this is only a differnence of 2/3 of an piece or 2 ipc of an infantry. when will you ever have two forces with 330 ipc each, so there is no real defferencee in punch and a differnce of 2 units. with 2 units thats 2 tanks at 6punch. that would lead to an extra unit killed per round. this can lead to the differnence of winning and lossing. if you talk about defence yours still has a higher punch of 3. 198 to 195.


  • I can’t take credit for it…

    Darth is the one who introduced me to the 3:1 ratio.  All I did was play with the numbers using the Revised units to get a slightly better bang for the buck.

    Take every advantage you can get :-)


  • @cyan:

    remember how you had to built the best fleet for 150 ipcs. while this is the same exept for land units. heres mine without aircraft. What do you think of a  an army ratio of 2inf/1art/1tank?

    20/10/10=150ipc
    infantry: 20X3=60
    artillery: 10X4=40
    tanks: 10X5=50

    I didn’t like that last “fleet for 150 IPC”  post, and I’m afraid I have to say I don’t like this one either.

    Why don’t I like the posts?  Because I believe that brute force is only a PART of the game; a great deal of the game is also logistics - how to get a force to a point where it will be effective.


  • I agree that logistics are critical to winning.

    However, once you offload those troops, they have to be able to be Timex forces… take a licking and keep on ticking.

    Just trading over and over is a recipe for failure.  You have to take and HOLD.

    That means maximizing force, punch, and holding power.

    So, while $150 value armies and navies may be unrealistic, they still force folks to consider the concepts of force, projection, and holding power.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Sides, you know 150 IPC is gunna be over 3 rounds, so much of that’s moot information.  What if you lost all your infantry?  What if you want to do nothing but tank waves?


  • As I said, 150 IPC is probably a moot point as far as actual numbers.  But the ratios and CONCEPTS are valid at all levels


  • @ncscswitch:

    As I said, 150 IPC is probably a moot point as far as actual numbers.  But the ratios and CONCEPTS are valid at all levels

    I humbly disagree.

    Say Germany drives all-out to take the Caucasus, and succeeds, after which Japan flies in fighter reinforcements on its turn.  Just there, you have an example of using a multinational force to defend a crucial territory; a concept that the “150 IPC ultimate army” approach does not encompass.

    Now say that Russia wanted to maintain an attack against Germany AND Japan, so used fodder infantry on both fronts and mass tanks to provide a serious threat, so that Russia has infantry and tanks massed.  Say also that Russia saw the attack on the Caucasus coming, so built mass artillery for a round.  In other words, say that Russia’s early builds and logistics may have been maximized, but that those early builds must have affected the later total army composition, so that Russia might be stuck with a sub-optimal force in the present, because of early optimization.

    Now say that there is an ideal offensive-defensive infantry-artillery-tank ratio - I think it clear that the “ideal ratio” would change after a single round of combat, as infantry died.  (The most optimal force for attacking is a 1:1 infantry-artillery force, but after a single round of combat, there would be more artillery than infantry, so the attack power would no longer be optimized.) You could then say that the “ideal ratio” of the attacking forces would have to depend on the composition of the defending force, so you could estimate the initial casualties from the attacking force, but by doing so, you abandon the concept of an “ideal ratio”, favoring instead a scenario-specific calculation to estimate optimal chances.

    Above are three good reasons why trying to calculate an “ultimate 150 IPC army” is not a profitable endeavor.  Too much depends on the situation at hand.


  • That is why you aim for the BEST punch you can get on the first round of battle, and for the slowest LOSS of punch in sunsequent rounds.


  • @ncscswitch:

    That is why you aim for the BEST punch you can get on the first round of battle, and for the slowest LOSS of punch in sunsequent rounds.

    Was that in reply to my post?  Because I don’t understand how your post would apply to mine.

    1.  The composition of your force is likely not going to be ideal for its IPC cost for that turn, because you would have tried to optimize your forces for IPC cost for earlier turns.  Therefore, the current composition of your army would only be customizable by 20-45ish IPCs; potentially far less due to logistical issues.

    2.  You cannot calculate for loss of punch in subsequent rounds without knowing the composition of the defending force.

    3.  Logistics.

    You can have any “balanced” 150 IPC attack/defense force you want in Germany, and I can have a 150 IPC force of 50 infantry in Western Europe.  If you attack, you can’t overcome the cost-effective defense of infantry.  If you split your force lightly between Germany and Southern Europe, I will smash one of those forces and gain the advantage.  If you do not attack at all, we can both continue to build, at which point the “150 IPC” goes out the door.

    No matter how you balance your attacking force, a solid defense combined with good placement will beat it.


  • It was in reply to you Paint, because you said that you disagreed with the concept.

    True, as you advance, your force balance will shift, unless you are able to get additional units to the front (which can be done, it is simply a slightly slower advance, and requires better advanced planning and determining what forces you are most likely to lose on each turn of combat so that you can plan ahead on replacement buys, staging, and moving them forward in your supply lines).

    You are also correct… 150 IPC’s of INF is a heck of a defense, and you are not going to punch through it with ANY combination of $150 IPC’s worth of attacking forces.  But 150 IPC of Infantry is pretty pitiful on attack, so if you go all INF, then you are playing a game of attrition, and trying to outlast your opponent.  Good for Russia, but not very effective for USA or UK.

    To win you have to attack.  So the trick is to maximize your punch and sustainability of your Armies to get the best gains for the least cost, and to be able to maintain your offensive.  And the 3:1:1 ratio for land units (with some potential substitutions if you have available air power, though better to just add the air on top of your ground units) is a ratio that has been born out over time to be a good solid army copmosition format for both offense and defense.

    Fore purely defensive, you are correct, you can;t beat pure INF in terms of “bang for the buck”

  • Moderator

    In order to defeat a defending army worth ~150 IPC, you’d need to spend ~200 IPC.  I generally find this to be the case is for larger battles, say minimum of at least 10 defending units.  Of course it varies by players aggressiveness or risk factor or a couple of other things.

    This is true b/c it is extremely easy to defend.  As you both point, Infantry are unmatched it that department.

    So attackers need to outspend defenders ~4:3 in order to take.  You need more if it is a combined attack, for example a UK-US 1-2, or perhaps less depending on how much you want to take with, or if you have lots of air, tanks can really move 2 spaces, or something else.

    I look at it as simply an easy guideline, like usind a LL method to see if I have “avg” shot at taking, not a hard hitting “must play by” rule.  I think of the same thing with the 3:1:1 army.  It’s a nice guideline but rarely do I ever actually have that in games.

    As for my army for 150, I’d probably have something like:

    26 inf
    8 rt
    8 arm

    Units:  42
    Att:  74
    Def:  92

    Or

    23 inf
    9 rt
    9 arm

    Units:  41
    Att:  77
    Def:  91

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