ART

Artillery is the King of the Battlefield  :lol:

I mainly use artillery as Russia.

I build one AA first round, by R2 I  swap the 3 frontline territories and place one AA gun in each of them.

I try to build at least 3 artillery per turn and swap using thoses.

I call that ''The Iron Curtain". It rarely failed me since i rarely saw a German player risk his fighters each turn to swap thoses territories in such conditions. It forces the german to commit tanks most of time at first and building artillery too thereafter. Which is normally not included in his gameplan.

I give myself an option to bring Uk troops trough Norway to help russians maintain karelia if i feel Russians are commiting too much troops while i’m building up allies forces.

I’m not saying it’s fool proof but it sure does beep germany by denying them easy swapping and changing their production plans.

Artillery is the key here.

:-)
I have been expounding this very thing in a previous thread. Of course the purchase of a tank in every build is reasonable and useful, the majority of your IPC should go to a 2/3 Infantry and 1/3 Artillery. Some Allies will need to invest in ships and air units of course, but when it comes to ground units this is still a good buy policy. I don’t always adhere to it myself I confess, but it is still a good economic strategy.  :wink:

I generally like to build mostly infantry and artillery with Germany and then, once I start pushing out, I switch to tanks and infantry. That’s because tanks can race up to the front to support the infantry and artillery.  It’s harder to move artillery from Germany into the front since they cannot skip over open terrain like tanks.

And yes, I feel artillery can be a strong asset, especially for Germany but also for England and America.

Artillery is a very useful unit.  They are great for a defensive Russia; after building enough stacks of infantry and some artillery, you can wait for German to reach the front before collapsing on them.  With Germany I alternate builds between inf/art and inf/arm.  Every 2 rounds I have a pretty powerful attack force against Russia.  UK and US I really only build artillery if I don’t have a dollar to spare to buy a tank.

I believe that Russia building Artillery should be a break out maneuver.  If you have the units in Caucasus or Russia and the Axis are not very strong, a one round build of 6-8 Artillery (assuming you have the cash on hand to afford that many) can significantly increase your offensive punch while not overly effecting your unit count. (Sure, 6 artillery is the same cost as 8 infantry, but it’s only two units you are short.  Meanwhile, assuming you have a large stack of infantry; and you do, don’t you?; it’s increasing your attack punch by 3 for each Artillery) may convince the axis to back off instead of pressuring your further.

Honestly, however, I see it more often used in Germany.  Germany gets a bad defense in W. Europe, the allies throw units in, Germany fails to liberate it, and next round they have a stack of infantry and fighters, but buy artillery.  That way they don’t have to pull back tanks just to kick the allies off W. Europe.

Just a scenario I thought of.  I’m sure there are plenty other similar scenarios you can think of.

@LT04:

I don’t know as I would ever think to use ART how you are saying.  ART is an offensive unit.  It has the same defence as INF so why spend the extra IPC to have a glorified buffer unit?

ART pays for it self when its on the advance escorting INF.  When you employ it as a defensive unit you are making an econimic pit fall for your self.

LT

I agree 100% with you LT.  Jen, I also agree with you that art should be used as a “breakout manuver”.  Especially as Russia when I use art I usually hold it back a round or two to make sure I have plenty of inf to protect the art and arm with.  Then, about R3 or so I start taking some territory with it.  Even though its not a very costly offensive unit, I still want to protect it as much as possible.  Russia especially doesn’t have enough resources to waste even 1 IPC.  Just in my opinion.  Thanks.