How much does artillery help?

[U-505]

Murraymoto,

We are just using the sims to get a “firepower/unit cost” value assessment. Nobody here would make those kind of attacks unless desperation called for it. Unfortunately, desperation seems to call for it much more often than I would like.

[frood]

I guess you could also use the sims to do calculations on an attack one might actually launch, to see what units generate a better result.

Examples: Attacker: 5 Inf, 5 Art, 3 Fig, 1 Bom. v. Defender: 10 Inf, 2 Arm.

or
Attacker: 5 Inf, 4 Arm, 3 Fig, 1 Bom. v. Defender: 10 Inf, 2 Arm.

In this example, we see that the first attack with 5 Art has a 90% survival rate, while the same attack with 4 Arm instead has an 82% survival rate. However, to illustrate my point about mobility: if you have been building all Art, what you’ve got for the attack is what’s in the territory. That’s easy for the enemy to see and to prepare against. But if you have some Armor floating around the back, you can add more.

Suppose just 2 more Arm are in range. Throw these into the attack and suddenly you have a 98% survival rate. With artillery that’s just not an option.

The reason D-Day worked is that the Germans didn’t know where the Allies would land - so they had to spread out their coastal defences. Having a bunch of Armor does the same thing - you could potentially strike a number of places, so the enemy has to choose between spreading out their defence, or selecting a few territories to just sacrifice.

Tanks add a huge dynamic element and introduce a lot of tactics. It’s a completely different war if the enemy isn’t sure where you’ll attack. If you have 5 Art in the Balkans, they can hit Ukraine and that’s about it, and the enemy knows it. If you have 4 Armor there, they also have the option of hitting Karelia. And some opponents might not realize that your tanks in the Balkans and your Infantry in Germany (with baltic transports) and your tanks in Germany and Ukraine can all hit Karelia. You might have a defensive force in Eastern Europe that they’re not so worried about, but add in all that other stuff and you can rout them.

Sure, the Allies might take EE and Ukraine from you, but if you kill 50 IPCs of gear in Karelia for a cost of only 18 IPCs yourself, those few IPC territories are nothing in comparison - especially as your tanks can swoop back down from Karelia to retake Ukraine or whatever and kill whatever the hapless allies happened to put in their, thinking you were now way far away up north.

[DarthMaximus]

I don’t even really follow my ratio thing, it was just something I worked on to figure out the cheapest and most effective way to build an army that is good on off and def regardless of what you are attacking or what is attacking you.

In reality, I’ll buy an rt here or there early if I have the extra 1 ipc, otherwise it is inf with maybe 1-2 arm (for ger or rus), all inf (for jap), inf + air (uk and us).

For Rus, I like arm b/c you can threaten a lot from Wrus or Cauc, and if I need some quick punch as Ger or Jap approaches then I can buy a few rt if I think they may help in a strafe or something.

For Germany, I like being able to get from Ger to Ukr in 1 move and threaten WE from EE so I need the 2 move of the arm.  Plus I can load up on Rt if I take Cauc and quickly double some of my inf power.  I usually have about 3-4 rt, so one purchase of another 3-4 puts me at 6+ and I’ll usually be overloaded with armor but it seems to work.

For UK and US - I like inf + air early then depending on how income shapes up I’ll start going 5 inf, 3 arm (or rt) for UK and 6 inf, 2 rt (or arm) for US + air.

For Japan, I go inf early, unless I have the extra IPC, then once I get my IC’s I throw in 2 arm per IC b/c I like to be able to move form Man to Sin in one move and then Sin to Cauc/Mos in one move.

[DarthMaximus]

@froodster:

Tanks add a huge dynamic element and introduce a lot of tactics. It’s a completely different war if the enemy isn’t sure where you’ll attack. If you have 5 Art in the Balkans, they can hit Ukraine and that’s about it, and the enemy knows it. If you have 4 Armor there, they also have the option of hitting Karelia. And some opponents might not realize that your tanks in the Balkans and your Infantry in Germany (with baltic transports) and your tanks in Germany and Ukraine can all hit Karelia. You might have a defensive force in Eastern Europe that they’re not so worried about, but add in all that other stuff and you can rout them.

Sure, the Allies might take EE and Ukraine from you, but if you kill 50 IPCs of gear in Karelia for a cost of only 18 IPCs yourself, those few IPC territories are nothing in comparison - especially as your tanks can swoop back down from Karelia to retake Ukraine or whatever and kill whatever the hapless allies happened to put in their, thinking you were now way far away up north.

Yeah, tanks in a good enough supply and in the right places can really force some good deadzones, for Germany in particular.

[johnny]

@ncscswitch:

They are land unit build/combat ratios.

First number INF, second ART, third ARM

I know it’s obvious, but what is ARM?

[U-505]

Armor. or tanks.

[General_D.Fox]

So for Japan, if they are going to assault Moscow, would it be better to have some art along with the stack of inf and arm?  Or should I just have enough inf to screen my large stack of tanks?

[OutsideLime]

A few Art are always beneficial in any assault involving a stack of Inf.  You get more bullets on the target that way - a supported Inf is TWICE as likely to hit than an unsupported one.  Killing the enemy faster leaves more of your units behind to defend against the counter.

~Josh

[Baghdaddy]

@General_D.Fox:

So for Japan, if they are going to assault Moscow, would it be better to have some art along with the stack of inf and arm?  Or should I just have enough inf to screen my large stack of tanks?

All the calculations we have done up to this point have ignored the questions about whether IPC, Factory Space, or Transport Space is the choke point in getting combat power to your front line.

Are you IPC limited or Factory Space limited?

If the limitation on production is a maximum number of units, ARM is a good deal and it adds mobility.
If the limitation on production is IPC, ART and INF in ~ 2/3 ratio is great bang for the buck.

If sea transportation is the choke point for you, your ratio is pretty much locked at 50% INF so if you can afford it ARM is the way to put some punch on the battlefield.

There are no easy solutions.  If there were, it would not be as much fun as it is.  8-)

[ajgundam5]

I usually build 2 ICs on the mainland and go purely tanks in those and then my extra money i turn into inf and art and transport them to various places. I have found out that it isn’t a common thing  :mrgreen:

[rjclayton]

Wouldn’t it be better to build your armour at japan and build your artillery at your mainland complexes?  That way your armour (more movement) will be the unit travelling further.

[ajgundam5]

Well I guess it would but as Japan you can build 6 Arm in Japan and Trn them over but then there is wasted space on the Trns because you can only build 8 units in Japan. But now if I have just 4 Trns I can fill them every turn if I have the income and I can still build 6 Arm in Asia

[Guest]

You never want to build pure ART and ARM anyway (ART is a waste w/o INF)

So you build ARM, INF on Japan to TRN capacity, then ART/ARM and INF at mainland IC’s

[General_D.Fox]

So how much art should you have if you want to assault Russia, for example.  Let’s say you have 20 inf.  Should you have 10 art and leave the other 10 as meat shields?  Or should you have slightly more or less?  Because if Russia is just stacked with US and UK men and fighters, you have to do some major hacking and slashing!  :|

[General_D.Fox]

Anyone?  I’m just curious as to what you do when faced with the fact you could potentially take Russia - or any other capital/land for that matter.  How much arty do you build up for your assault in comparison with/the ratio to your inf?

[NoMercy]

if you have 20 Inf, probably about 5-8 Art, all of them will be your meat shields for your good stack of tanks + some fgts for those big punches of 3

[cyan]

@General_D.Fox:

Anyone?  I’m just curious as to what you do when faced with the fact you could potentially take Russia - or any other capital/land for that matter.  How much arty do you build up for your assault in comparison with/the ratio to your inf?

okay i would do 14 artillery for the 20 infantry( assuming you have no tanks) so 6 or 7 artillery per 10 infantry. just to note if you did 15 artillery it would cost as much a 20 infantry. don’t know if thats a bad thing or not.

[cyan]

@NoMercy:

if you have 20 Inf, probably about 5-8 Art, all of them will be your meat shields for your good stack of tanks + some fgts for those big punches of 3

if you have tanks then. 20 infantry, 7 artillery and 6 tanks.

[Guest]

For a Moscow assault, I want my INF/ART combos to be at least half of Russia’s INF (more if possible), with enough additional infantry to EXCEED Russia’s total of INF and ART.
Then I want ARM/FIGs/BOM that exceed Russian ARM/FIGs by 2 to 1.

[frood]

I just want enough Inf to absorb all the hits I might take in Round 1, and for me to have enough Art/Arm that I have enough punch to wipe out all of Russia’s Inf in Round 1.

Basically, I just don’t want to run out of Inf before the other guy.