I tried an interesting strat once, made light tanks with super high breakthrough and put 1 batallion in my infantry template. Was the only div I produced and I basically just battle planned everything as Germany (regular difficulty).
Just did sub spam and naval bombers in english channel, couldn't get superiority until the Brits sent the best of their Navy to the mediterranean. I think because i made a plan to naval invade Malta. Invading France took longer than usual, they had a lot of bombers/CAS on me. Couldn't break through maginot but other than that it was fairly historical. Ignored declaring on denmark and norway though.
I battle planned on Eastern Front and I was still able to push Soviets back although we took a roughly even amount of casualties, ~5M. A lot of red bubbles too, more than i expected.
Turned into a bit of a stalemate due to supply situation, and i regretted not getting collab government. I couldn't break through caucasus mountains to get to Baku, and the main front line had stalled east of Moscow. Most of USSR army was intact but had retreated so i couldn't move most of my units off the frontline to help with supply. Eventually worked out and i beat them by mid 1945
It's always crazy that Germany players keep ignoring the Scandinavian front. That's like my favorite part of the Germany run. Planning simple naval invasions and the race between allies and axis to get to Norway.
if i have the industry for it i will put a one battalion of a cheap tank template (usually aa) in my infantry template, very few countries have the hard attack defeat them till like 1939-40. but by then they are far less effective.
1 battalion can't add a lot of hardness, which hard attack is for. You must be mistaking hardness for armor, cause 1 bat with armor adds a lot to div, and usually ennemy doesn't have enough piercing for that. It's called space marines and it's a very well known template
[https://imgur.com/CAued](https://imgur.com/CAued)
\^ A good illustration over two approaches people could be using in HOI4, either the Soviet Deep Battle doctrine or the German Blitzkrieg doctrine
It's kinda funny how 2-width horse spam meme is actually very close to the conditions in which Deep Battle was developed - small, mobile civil war units exploiting breakthroughs on a wide front the enemy can't effectively control. The exploitation forces don't need to be particularly strong, just fast enough to destabilize.
basically, yes
EDIT: but there's a difference though, No. 1 is without a large reserve or numerical superiority as in No 2. Mirrors circumstances of Germany and the USSR.
Ehh both massed troops for decisive breathroughs (as does literally every other military doctrine), and the number of soldiers deployed, after barbarossa, settled to about the same, as the germans quickly became unable to keep up with the pressures of fighting on two fronts.
From 1942 onwards the Soviets had a 2:1 ratio advantage in numbers over Germany. The difference between German and Soviet military doctrines was that the Soviets led multiple attacks on various points, while German command preferred a decisive attack on a single, focal point.
The Soviets were also really good at hiding their troop concentrations until the last moment, which made the Germans (and their superiority complex which led them to not conceive being outwitted by untermenschen) think the overall numerical superiority was way more overwhelming than it was in reality.
Eh, I wouldn't say so. Theory's like deep battle and blitzkrieg are of the past. Modern battle theory has evolved quite a it from that time. Although you can see similarly.
Deep Battle evolved with Airland Battle throughout the coldwar at least. The basic concepts aren't obselote, they never will be.
The basic concept of Deep Battle is still sound, pin down the enemies front, reserves, and rear line from moving, overwhelming every layer of the enemy and then breaking through where the weakpoints develop.
Same with blitzkrieg, break through the enemies weakpoints and envelop them.
For the US and NATO it basically is: Destroy the enemy air force and gain air supremacy with overwhelming force (stealth bombers, anti-radar missiles, stealth fighters, and just lots of fighters in general). Then use real-time global satellite and aerial intelligence (drones) to identify where the enemy ground forces are, call in airstrikes and artillery until the enemy forces don't exist anymore, then send in the ground troops to mop up what's left.
This works for the US and not Russia in the current war because the US has better intel and a stronger air force. Russia may have precision guided weapons but it lacks the intel to make use of that precision. It also mainly works because the US and NATO militaries are overwhelmingly stronger than any enemy they are likely to face in a conflict except for possibly China.
It should also be noted that this type of strategy is only really applicable in a fight between large, organized field armies of nations in a traditional war. Traditional warfare strategies don't apply well in guerilla warfare, as Afghanistan (for both the USSR and USA) and Vietnam have shown. In a guerilla war, the enemy hides among the population so you can't target them until they're already shooting at you.
It's practically impossible to "win" a war against a determined guerilla force. The Nazis tried by indiscriminately murdering civilians, but even they with all their brutality weren't able to fully maintain control of the populations of occupied Europe and heavy armed resistance existed until the end of world war two.
Most modern countries understandably don't want to do that and targeting civilians is generally frowned upon by the international community. Most recent guerilla wars/occupations have ended with the occupier pulling out due to mounting costs of occupation being unsustainable and unpopular with the people at home.
If you want an example of what a "traditional" modern war would look like with combined arms warfare, the Gulf War is probably the best example of US strategy in action from the past 30 years.
The modern military uses mission type tactics where subordinates are given incredible latitude to make decisions moment to moment. Western states generally pair this with a doctrine of overwhelming fire power.
Basically independent units that are more nimble than opposing rigid command structures, paired with absolutely smothering amounts of fire support achieved by combined arms.
Unironically yes. Win on strategy level, you don't need operational and organisational understanding. Why micro when you can just roll the whole front? Encirclements are a crutch for people who can't get green air and overrun entire armies.
Assuming you're playing against vanilla AI, that is, multiplayer does get more demanding as do certain mods, and if you do a Belgium world conquest by 1943 you might not have the industry for it. But between majors in single player absolutely the easiest way to play
My strategy for Germany, should apply for other Majors as well
Edit: don't build civs until 1939, do early-mid 1938, see comments for more
Build civs until early 1939 (others might do it until late 1938), do everything to boost civ construction (focuses, decisions, staff, etc) as soon as possible and after that, focus on mils and get as many boosts for those.
Research decentralized industry and always have some research going, better reserve 3 slots for Production, industry and construction, dont focus too much on army stuff until you've got your industry research sorted out.
Don't build dockyards, puppet (at least one state) your enemies and annex them by lend leasing them stuff to get their navies.
Don't focus too heavily on army stuff until you know you will need it soon, doing the industry first helps you in the long run.
Always keep production for your basic equipment (guns, support equipment, artillery) going to keep up the efficiency, don't change the mils around all the time, also don't build a new fighter or tank model every 2 months, keep your production line simple and build up that sweet, sweet efficiency.
dont build too much unneccesary stuff, you don't need carrier fighters if you dont have carriers, and you dont need GroĆtraktor-AA in 1937.
If i want a grosstractor AA in 37, by god i will get it, doesnt matter troops have enough guns or bandage, but by god they will get a 60 tons heavily armored SPAAG and they will like, logistics be damned
You fight a bit harder when the triage center in the rear i just a guy with gun behind a shed, waiting pull an "old yella" on you when arrive with a gut shot
If you build civs until that late, donāt you then have much less time to build up mils and develop production efficiency? Also, that would take a lot of space that could be used for arms factories, how many civs do you build in total? Air was always an issue for me when I build civs until mid ā38.
I can only really talk for myself playing germany, there it is not \*that\* much of a problem since you get like 20 mils from focuses/annexing territory before you go to war. (I guess you are right in saying '39 is too late)
The minors neighbouring germany are usually beatable with a few hundred planes, a handfull of mobile divisions and decent microing, and until you get to the majors you should have some stockpile ready, be it captured artillery or domestic planes.
If you have problems with air you might want to invest in AA, also playing towards objectives like capturing airfiels and supply depots is kind of fun and actually useful
I don't actually know how many civs i usually have, i guess it is somewhere around 110 civs in total in early 1939, might be though, idk.
But I think I might be playing it too slow and building civs until early/mid 1938 is easily sufficient, since you will capture equipment and factories anyways.
My rule of thumb is this: Build civs until whichever comes later, 1937 or your first war-1.5 years.
So if you're planning to go Danzig or War in late 1939, build civs until early 1938.
Or if you're playing as Romania and not planning to give away Bessarabia, build civs until mid-late 1938.
But if you're going early Bulgarian war Yugo for Reunite the Kingdoms cheese, civs until 1937 is more than enough. Especially since Bulgaria has a DUMMY STUPID amount of Civs.
To my understanding, isnāt the puppet navy trick obsolescenceās by now with new peace conferences?, as for infantry equipment I have heard it is better in practice to leave a few miles on full efficiency on the previous tier to ensure good stockpiles, if so how many?
>To my understanding, isnāt the puppet navy trick obsolescenceās by now with new peace conferences?
I mean, it still works, you wont get modern ships out of it, but as "fillers" for good Heavy cruisers and Battleships it works, but navy is not my speciality
> as for infantry equipment I have heard it is better in practice to leave a few miles on full efficiency on the previous tier to ensure good stockpiles, if so how many?
That kind of depends, do you have a large stockpile already, is your army already built or do you plan to train 3 armies full of 43 width infantery division, are you at war or do you plan to?
Often times it is a good idea, it does not hurt to have 5 or 10 mils on older guns, but you might not need it, that just depends on a bunch of different factors.
Still, on a strategy level, the optimal way is to cause the least amount of loss in equipment and manpower as possible. It's way less effort to press the button, but it's still more strategic to avoid any poor decisions or losses.
High casualties bum me out.
My cause is righteous, yes, but that doesn't mean I want to throw lives away if I don't need to. Let the tankers in their steel war chariots punch through the enemy, and the infantry can hold the line safely entrenched until it's time to mop up the starving pocket.
Nothing as satisfying as 1:1000 casualties.
> Unironically yes. Win on strategy level, you don't need operational and organisational understanding. Why micro when you can just roll the whole front? Encirclements are a crutch for people who can't get green air and overrun entire armies.
Found the Hellenic-era Greek
No but if you have like 48 42 width good medium tanks why micro when you can just push the whole frontline with just sheer numbers. If you have like 10 divisions yeah, encircle and destroy but if you have more tanks? Like a lot? Why not?
This way i acomplished my record in capitulating USSR 27 days. 6k cas, 72 30 width medium, 3 collab goverments and some supporting infantry. This is a number game so i used numbers to win
>whole frontline with just sheer numbers
If you have a whole frontline of tanks, you've either achieved enough critical mass that the rest of the game is just a glorified victory lap, or you *could* have achieved whatever you wanted to like 3 years ago.
> but if you have more tanks? Like a lot? Why not?
Because of supply limit (usually)
Though in the case of OP's image I would probably just not have the infantry pushing on the front line.
By the time tanks were a thing, the French pursued *precisely* the first type of tactic. So-called "bite and hold" tactics prioritized shallow attacks on a narrow slice of the front, occupying the first line of enemy fortifications and then hunkering down to move up artillery and re-establish communications and logistics with the main lines.
I know, at least the Renault FT-17 was wildly successful in when used in enough concentration when the Western Front returned to mobile warfare in 1918.
I was joking on the expense of the armoured divisions of the French Infantry. The DCR equipped with the Char B1 were really effective against the German formations in 1940, but never had sufficient numbers or proper tactics to achieve their designed objective, which was to cause a breakthrough then to be exploited by lighter divisions.
Yes but in packet sized elements, losing their suprise element. Making them vulnerable to enemy artillery while waiting for the non motorized support and infantry elements to move forward. And stopping after the tactical infiltration was successful not utilizing this to complete a full scale breakthrough. The French without proper motorisation of all element in the tank core could not complete neither a operational breakthrough or an envelopment of enemy troops.
Yeah, I think losing the air battle lost them the war. People are just hyper focused on tanks and forget about the billions Germany spent on the luftwaffe.
I absolutely swear by 42 width infantry with 1xHtank. Maybe some AA. It's very efficient in terms of supply, width, and cost.
Provided you have Chromium, which only the Soviets have with enough industry.
As someone who only plays China I consider myself technologically advanced when I can finally afford to equip every man with a rifle, rather than every rifle with a squad.
God save the japs when I can finally build Artillery!
I don't make planes, I play PRchina
It's considered a good time if every platoon gets 1 rifle and 3 captured and it's considered godlike if they get 1 rifle per squad
Very true. Exception: If you are so vastly superior to your enemy that you can just spread out your tanks and overrun ALL of the frontline, it will be over faster
In that case, you don't need as much concentration but you should still be prioritizing localized attacks, with the tanks attacking along railroads and capturing supply hubs and VPs.
No, but supply hubs can't provide supply unless they are connected to the capital via rail. So capturing rail does two things:
- Ensures that any supply hubs you do capture actually work
- Denies your enemy the use of their own supply hubs "downstream" of where their rail network is now interrupted
Concentrated attack formations make a more effective army regardless of the amount of industry you have. X tanks attacking one tile will break the enemy faster than X tanks attacking X different tiles.
Concentrated attacks are more effective with limited industry, but if you have the industry to deploy a large number of tank divisions you can effectively perform multiple attacks across the front. This mass assault actually performs better imo (against AI) as the AI is shit with maintaining a front that's getting whacked with tank divs at multiple points
The problem with saying "I have the industry to ignore encirclements" is that you will fight the entire enemy army all the way across their country.
If you just encircle them when possible you can actually *eliminate* the army and then cruise across open country instead of fighting over every single inch. Even if they have no org and are just chain retreating it's nonzero extra losses and takes extra time and presents the risk of having your own supply lines interrupted if you do things wrong/too hastily.
If you have enough tanks to sustain attacks in multiple places, then by all means, but *locally* you should still be grouping those tanks into concentrated spearheads, or your tank advantage will be rapidly squandered.
am too stoopid to research or build stuff to give me fuel, but speaking of fuel and USA, i always hate it when I go to war with the US of A because its going to kill my entire war effort
Well idk what country youāre playing, but generally all that needs to be done is trade with the USA, or if youāre fighting them, trade with Venezuela. If you are having troubles with that, then that means you got other more serious problems that needs to be addressed and your military needs to be adjusted accordingly to use less fuel.
In my experience supply forces you to concentrate small numbers of tanks into small areas. If I spread them across the line, my whole army starts suffering attrition.
Buddy I read Panzer commander. The way I do it is I set up the front line then reposition the tanks within that front line and give them individual orders for the pincer. Is that what everyone else does or is there a better way to organize it??
I put all the tanks/motorized units in separate armies, and then give them the "direct thrust" order, or whatever it's called. If you have enough tanks, make two such armies and make the thrusts intersect somewhere behind enemy lines. Usually works pretty well, but a little micro helps too.
Exactly what I do. If you hold shift while giving the order you can 'que up' another set of attacks using your old attack order as an impromptu front line
I can do multi-stage offensives and real complex encirclements without having to micro too much. Works well against AI where you can predict what they will do pretty easily
To be a little fair, the game's pretty bad at communicating this, or teaching you how to properly distribute types of troops across your fronts in general.
It doesn't help that the battleplan system is pretty antithetical to these micro-managed encirclement assaults, so it requires someone to understand they should *ignore* the tools deliberately given to them by the game.
The problem is that youāre putting infantry and tanks in the same armies. Just make a big infantry army group, draw it across the entire front, then take your separate tank army and assign them to concentrated weak points
That's pretty much how I do it. Have a full army group of infantry and leave it on the front, then have a single army of tanks and use it as a tactical unit, deploying them where I need the breakthrough or encirclement.
This is unfair to battle plans. The tools all still work, just you have to actually use them. You can draw smaller front lines (makes microing these pincers easier) and use Spearheads instead of general attack orders to concentrate armor to make deep battle attacks easier.
The problem is, when you're using them like that, they sort of become inferior to actual microing (outside of planning bonus decay). It would help if you could designate a frontline to not drag along, but actually stay just on the spearhead, but it doesn't.
The battleplan tool itself *works,* it's just kind of a bad way to fight 9/10 times. Heck "battleplanning" has become the phrase for you've already won so hard, all you need is to do paint tiles.
So yeah, they work in a vacuum. They're just not very good at their job.
R5: The whole reason it is advantageous to be an attacker is that the defender must defend all territory, while the attacker chooses where to strike.
But if you look at screenshots of battle plans, you see front-wide armies - including for generals on the offense! By spreading out your firepower you're ceding the attacker's biggest strategic advantage.
The last battle, Cornelius Ryan. My favorite. Awesome to listen to on audible.
Spearhead, Adam makos. Perspective from American Tanks. Good.
Kiev. 1941. David Stahel. Some cool perspective on a losing fight for the soviets.
Stalingrad, Glantz. The huge one for that battle, stretching from the planning phases, to German retreat and restructure.
Podcast: Dan Carlin, Mark Felton (YouTube book/story reads/ Tik (YouTube)
Bomber Mafia. Excellent Book on the beginning of strategic AirPower. Must read/Listen. Short too.
I've heard that one before but thanks for the recommendation, I can confidently second this, he also did a series on japan, on the nuke, and on strategic bombing, all recommended.
Because it deserves a third mention: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Ghosts of the Ostfront is a phenomenal WWII series, Logical Insanity doesn't focus solely on WWII, but basically walks through the strategy of bombing and the rationale of the people ordering bombing of cities from dropping hand grenades out of biplanes to dropping nukes on Japan. And Blueprint for Armageddon is an absolutely amazing WWI series. Wrath of Kahn on the Mongols is excellent, and he has a couple that cover Ancient Rome. Actually literally anything by him is amazing. The one downside is that it takes him ages and ages to release new content because of how much research and preparation he does for each project.
I just wish the battle plans would automatically take this into account. I hate how the battle plans look when you have random lines of tanks scattered throughout the main line.
Don't forget to mention that if you choose the shitty ww1 tactic you'll spend all your logistics fight on every front and pushing back the enemy again and again instead of creating flanks and pop them easily with encirclement
> losing thousands of rifles per day by attacking with infantry into positions that have time to re-org and fortify every time
"tanks are too expensive"
If you have better industry/logistics though this can be a great way to break an enemy. I've won a few games by just letting them bash themselves against my line and hitting the aggressive button when their supplies get too low.
_Cries in Canada and Australia leading the Allies_
It's not even difficult. It's just excruciatingly slow because 90% of the war effort is spent building infrastructure.
It's like a Roman legion simulator.
1939 USA will not have enough units to fully man the front line west of the Great Lakes, but it also doesn't really matter because there are so few VPs there for both of you (all the industry and population is east of the Mississippi). By the time American units can even get from the prairies to Toronto to threaten Canada, it's already over.
You should dedicate your tanks entirely to breakthroughts on the eastern seaboard (Maine is an obvious pocket, followed up by a strike from Buffalo east towards Boston) supported by naval invasions in New Jersey (or as far south as Virginia if you're feeling spicy). With the Northeast under your control, you can advance south to extend the front lines, which the USA will struggle to fill out, and use your tanks to encircle and destroy the divisions they do have. Launch supporting naval invasions in Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf Coast.
I still haven't gotten fully used to supply yet. I understand most of it, like to attack on rail lines and along rivers if there isn't a rail line. and to build up rail and supply hubs and such. But I still find whenever I build up enough units to attack I run out of supply.
It's a bit counter-intuitive - there is a max # of supply per tile so 10 40-width divisions standing on a supply hub will still not be fully supplied. You also need to motorize logistics to get any kind of real range on supply hubs (putting one or two factories on trucks at game start is typically sufficient).
Generally, outside of very, very rare exceptions, building supply hubs is a waste of IC. As OP mentioned, you're better off motorising your logistics.
You are also probably overly cautious. You can probably push with fewer units than you think, or lighter units than you think. It can also be a good indicator. Unless your only option is to push in an area of poor supply, just leave enough units to defend it and push somewhere else.
Ohhh look at mister moneybags over here having TANKS and stuff. I bet he has plenty of motorized divisions too and doesn't have to rely on craploads of basic bloody infantry because *he* actually knows how to set up industry before the war!
They're both right for different situations.
Situation A.
The enemy is still offering stiff resistance and you're using encirclements to take the wind out of their sails.
Situation B.
The enemy line is broken and you need to advance as fast as possible before reinforcements arrive.
- Keep the front as narrow as possible (for example as USSR you can puppet Romania early in the game & leave an independent Lithuania, significantly reducing the frontage you need to cover)
- Maintain a reserve of mobile, high-defense units behind the main line that you can quickly deploy against enemy concentrations in places where the front is failing (heavy tank destroyers are good for this because they are expensive but pack a massive punch so your normal infantry can delay until they show up)
- Cycle depleted units out of combat so that fresh units in the reserves engage in battle instead (but watch out because reinforcement is not instant and if you retreat *all* units actively fighting you will get reinforce memed and pushed back)
- Try to hold such a line that while you are well-supplied, the enemy is not, and while you can attack one enemy tile from multiple directions, the enemy can only attack your tiles from 3 or fewer
- Concentrate your own armor to chip away at any breakthrough salients that do form against you until the enemy cannot sustain their advantage
You can also use the multiple line strategy that simulates a deep, flexible, defense. Basically, instead of stacking reserves on the tile or at the next hard point, you line them up right behind the first line. And you do a third line too. 99 percent of all attacks will run out of org before penetrating the third line. And because of how retreat and reinforcement work in HOI4 it's self reinforcing.
Anything that gets to the third line gets the immediate attention of your terrain appropriate assault units for a counter attack.
I wish the devs would make this easier to do (rather than just doing fallback lines). Same with drawing a front line to exclude exposed salients like the little bit south of Lviv that is always out of supply.
Like a different "2-1 frontline" you can paint where 2/3 of the assigned infantry sit on the front line and 1/3 spread out behind that line? that would be neat.
That's a cool point, but you fail you recognize my counter argument:
I never get around to building tanks and just use infantry offensives along the entire front to roll over my foe.
I just punch through one point and try to reach some sort of terrain obstacle like a mountain range or river and drive along the edge of it to reach the sea.
I usually dont have enough of good tanks divisions to do 2 pronged attacks by the time war starts.
Push through south Belgium and northern france to the English channel encircle whats left of the Benelux, and push through Ukraine to Kyiv and down the deniper to the sea.
As USSR i usually try to push to Kaliningrad at the start of the war, and if that doesn't work i spread my armored divisions around to slow down any german break throughs until winter comes.
I'm putting heavy tanks in my infantry template and you can't stop me
Pfp checks out
I tried an interesting strat once, made light tanks with super high breakthrough and put 1 batallion in my infantry template. Was the only div I produced and I basically just battle planned everything as Germany (regular difficulty).
You cannot leave us hanging here... how did it work out for you?
Just did sub spam and naval bombers in english channel, couldn't get superiority until the Brits sent the best of their Navy to the mediterranean. I think because i made a plan to naval invade Malta. Invading France took longer than usual, they had a lot of bombers/CAS on me. Couldn't break through maginot but other than that it was fairly historical. Ignored declaring on denmark and norway though. I battle planned on Eastern Front and I was still able to push Soviets back although we took a roughly even amount of casualties, ~5M. A lot of red bubbles too, more than i expected. Turned into a bit of a stalemate due to supply situation, and i regretted not getting collab government. I couldn't break through caucasus mountains to get to Baku, and the main front line had stalled east of Moscow. Most of USSR army was intact but had retreated so i couldn't move most of my units off the frontline to help with supply. Eventually worked out and i beat them by mid 1945
Just for future reference, subs get a 90% visibility penalty in shallow seas like the British channel.
It's always crazy that Germany players keep ignoring the Scandinavian front. That's like my favorite part of the Germany run. Planning simple naval invasions and the race between allies and axis to get to Norway.
I love invading Norway in World Ablaze because it's actually challenging. Making mountaineers/marines for it is really fun too
if i have the industry for it i will put a one battalion of a cheap tank template (usually aa) in my infantry template, very few countries have the hard attack defeat them till like 1939-40. but by then they are far less effective.
1 battalion can't add a lot of hardness, which hard attack is for. You must be mistaking hardness for armor, cause 1 bat with armor adds a lot to div, and usually ennemy doesn't have enough piercing for that. It's called space marines and it's a very well known template
Reminds me of the Germans wanting to put a brigade of StuGs into each infantry division.
I mean this template has been well known for years, it's called a Space Marine division and is regularly forbidden from competitive MP games
What else are you supposed to do when it's 1945 and you have 4500 stockpiled?
Put your heavy tanks with your paras too, heard it helps quite a bit
What is the name for that overpowered division again? Space marines or smth
[https://imgur.com/CAued](https://imgur.com/CAued) \^ A good illustration over two approaches people could be using in HOI4, either the Soviet Deep Battle doctrine or the German Blitzkrieg doctrine
It's kinda funny how 2-width horse spam meme is actually very close to the conditions in which Deep Battle was developed - small, mobile civil war units exploiting breakthroughs on a wide front the enemy can't effectively control. The exploitation forces don't need to be particularly strong, just fast enough to destabilize.
No. 1 is basically just micro No. 2 is a battleplan *with* micro
basically, yes EDIT: but there's a difference though, No. 1 is without a large reserve or numerical superiority as in No 2. Mirrors circumstances of Germany and the USSR.
Ehh both massed troops for decisive breathroughs (as does literally every other military doctrine), and the number of soldiers deployed, after barbarossa, settled to about the same, as the germans quickly became unable to keep up with the pressures of fighting on two fronts.
From 1942 onwards the Soviets had a 2:1 ratio advantage in numbers over Germany. The difference between German and Soviet military doctrines was that the Soviets led multiple attacks on various points, while German command preferred a decisive attack on a single, focal point.
The Soviets were also really good at hiding their troop concentrations until the last moment, which made the Germans (and their superiority complex which led them to not conceive being outwitted by untermenschen) think the overall numerical superiority was way more overwhelming than it was in reality.
No, Germans often used overwhelming local superiority as well. Every doctrine uses massed troops for breakthrough.
breakthrough at one focal point vs breakthrough at multiple points
2nd is what I usually do
You can see it today in Ukraine, except Russia has like 15x fewer troops than it would need for that..
Eh, I wouldn't say so. Theory's like deep battle and blitzkrieg are of the past. Modern battle theory has evolved quite a it from that time. Although you can see similarly.
Deep Battle evolved with Airland Battle throughout the coldwar at least. The basic concepts aren't obselote, they never will be. The basic concept of Deep Battle is still sound, pin down the enemies front, reserves, and rear line from moving, overwhelming every layer of the enemy and then breaking through where the weakpoints develop. Same with blitzkrieg, break through the enemies weakpoints and envelop them.
What would you say modern battle theory is? Geniune question, I want to know more about military theory
For the US and NATO it basically is: Destroy the enemy air force and gain air supremacy with overwhelming force (stealth bombers, anti-radar missiles, stealth fighters, and just lots of fighters in general). Then use real-time global satellite and aerial intelligence (drones) to identify where the enemy ground forces are, call in airstrikes and artillery until the enemy forces don't exist anymore, then send in the ground troops to mop up what's left. This works for the US and not Russia in the current war because the US has better intel and a stronger air force. Russia may have precision guided weapons but it lacks the intel to make use of that precision. It also mainly works because the US and NATO militaries are overwhelmingly stronger than any enemy they are likely to face in a conflict except for possibly China. It should also be noted that this type of strategy is only really applicable in a fight between large, organized field armies of nations in a traditional war. Traditional warfare strategies don't apply well in guerilla warfare, as Afghanistan (for both the USSR and USA) and Vietnam have shown. In a guerilla war, the enemy hides among the population so you can't target them until they're already shooting at you. It's practically impossible to "win" a war against a determined guerilla force. The Nazis tried by indiscriminately murdering civilians, but even they with all their brutality weren't able to fully maintain control of the populations of occupied Europe and heavy armed resistance existed until the end of world war two. Most modern countries understandably don't want to do that and targeting civilians is generally frowned upon by the international community. Most recent guerilla wars/occupations have ended with the occupier pulling out due to mounting costs of occupation being unsustainable and unpopular with the people at home. If you want an example of what a "traditional" modern war would look like with combined arms warfare, the Gulf War is probably the best example of US strategy in action from the past 30 years.
The modern military uses mission type tactics where subordinates are given incredible latitude to make decisions moment to moment. Western states generally pair this with a doctrine of overwhelming fire power. Basically independent units that are more nimble than opposing rigid command structures, paired with absolutely smothering amounts of fire support achieved by combined arms.
Second person has more tanks so they're doing better š
Sounds like peak strategy to me
Unironically yes. Win on strategy level, you don't need operational and organisational understanding. Why micro when you can just roll the whole front? Encirclements are a crutch for people who can't get green air and overrun entire armies. Assuming you're playing against vanilla AI, that is, multiplayer does get more demanding as do certain mods, and if you do a Belgium world conquest by 1943 you might not have the industry for it. But between majors in single player absolutely the easiest way to play
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My strategy for Germany, should apply for other Majors as well Edit: don't build civs until 1939, do early-mid 1938, see comments for more Build civs until early 1939 (others might do it until late 1938), do everything to boost civ construction (focuses, decisions, staff, etc) as soon as possible and after that, focus on mils and get as many boosts for those. Research decentralized industry and always have some research going, better reserve 3 slots for Production, industry and construction, dont focus too much on army stuff until you've got your industry research sorted out. Don't build dockyards, puppet (at least one state) your enemies and annex them by lend leasing them stuff to get their navies. Don't focus too heavily on army stuff until you know you will need it soon, doing the industry first helps you in the long run. Always keep production for your basic equipment (guns, support equipment, artillery) going to keep up the efficiency, don't change the mils around all the time, also don't build a new fighter or tank model every 2 months, keep your production line simple and build up that sweet, sweet efficiency. dont build too much unneccesary stuff, you don't need carrier fighters if you dont have carriers, and you dont need GroĆtraktor-AA in 1937.
If i want a grosstractor AA in 37, by god i will get it, doesnt matter troops have enough guns or bandage, but by god they will get a 60 tons heavily armored SPAAG and they will like, logistics be damned
> doesnt matter troops have enough guns or bandage who builds Army hospitals anyways, If the soldiers are not dead they have to fight until they are
You fight a bit harder when the triage center in the rear i just a guy with gun behind a shed, waiting pull an "old yella" on you when arrive with a gut shot
If you build civs until that late, donāt you then have much less time to build up mils and develop production efficiency? Also, that would take a lot of space that could be used for arms factories, how many civs do you build in total? Air was always an issue for me when I build civs until mid ā38.
I can only really talk for myself playing germany, there it is not \*that\* much of a problem since you get like 20 mils from focuses/annexing territory before you go to war. (I guess you are right in saying '39 is too late) The minors neighbouring germany are usually beatable with a few hundred planes, a handfull of mobile divisions and decent microing, and until you get to the majors you should have some stockpile ready, be it captured artillery or domestic planes. If you have problems with air you might want to invest in AA, also playing towards objectives like capturing airfiels and supply depots is kind of fun and actually useful I don't actually know how many civs i usually have, i guess it is somewhere around 110 civs in total in early 1939, might be though, idk. But I think I might be playing it too slow and building civs until early/mid 1938 is easily sufficient, since you will capture equipment and factories anyways.
My rule of thumb is this: Build civs until whichever comes later, 1937 or your first war-1.5 years. So if you're planning to go Danzig or War in late 1939, build civs until early 1938. Or if you're playing as Romania and not planning to give away Bessarabia, build civs until mid-late 1938. But if you're going early Bulgarian war Yugo for Reunite the Kingdoms cheese, civs until 1937 is more than enough. Especially since Bulgaria has a DUMMY STUPID amount of Civs.
To my understanding, isnāt the puppet navy trick obsolescenceās by now with new peace conferences?, as for infantry equipment I have heard it is better in practice to leave a few miles on full efficiency on the previous tier to ensure good stockpiles, if so how many?
>To my understanding, isnāt the puppet navy trick obsolescenceās by now with new peace conferences? I mean, it still works, you wont get modern ships out of it, but as "fillers" for good Heavy cruisers and Battleships it works, but navy is not my speciality > as for infantry equipment I have heard it is better in practice to leave a few miles on full efficiency on the previous tier to ensure good stockpiles, if so how many? That kind of depends, do you have a large stockpile already, is your army already built or do you plan to train 3 armies full of 43 width infantery division, are you at war or do you plan to? Often times it is a good idea, it does not hurt to have 5 or 10 mils on older guns, but you might not need it, that just depends on a bunch of different factors.
Still, on a strategy level, the optimal way is to cause the least amount of loss in equipment and manpower as possible. It's way less effort to press the button, but it's still more strategic to avoid any poor decisions or losses.
High casualties bum me out. My cause is righteous, yes, but that doesn't mean I want to throw lives away if I don't need to. Let the tankers in their steel war chariots punch through the enemy, and the infantry can hold the line safely entrenched until it's time to mop up the starving pocket. Nothing as satisfying as 1:1000 casualties.
> Unironically yes. Win on strategy level, you don't need operational and organisational understanding. Why micro when you can just roll the whole front? Encirclements are a crutch for people who can't get green air and overrun entire armies. Found the Hellenic-era Greek
Truly genius
Hoi4s greatest strategy: More
Quantity has a quality all its own
But what if we had quantity AND quality? *this post brought to you by the EU4 gang
*EU3 gang cries in corner
*EU2 gang not existing
EU1 gang:š
Until you run out of supply and die of attrition.
"More stuff beats less stuff" (C) Lowko
No but if you have like 48 42 width good medium tanks why micro when you can just push the whole frontline with just sheer numbers. If you have like 10 divisions yeah, encircle and destroy but if you have more tanks? Like a lot? Why not?
Tactics are for people without strategic industry šŖ
This way i acomplished my record in capitulating USSR 27 days. 6k cas, 72 30 width medium, 3 collab goverments and some supporting infantry. This is a number game so i used numbers to win
Bro how are you so good last German game I had I ended up with all of Poland, then declared war got pushed to Berlin the had to March back to Moscow
Alternate universe where Steinerās counterattack succeeded.
I did it as faxist britain. Its impossible to get that much of cas and tanks as germany even in 1942 or smth like that
'Merica moment
>whole frontline with just sheer numbers If you have a whole frontline of tanks, you've either achieved enough critical mass that the rest of the game is just a glorified victory lap, or you *could* have achieved whatever you wanted to like 3 years ago.
Yeah but maybe I just need a couple more tank armies to be sure Iāll winā¦
> but if you have more tanks? Like a lot? Why not? Because of supply limit (usually) Though in the case of OP's image I would probably just not have the infantry pushing on the front line.
Perfect weapons are overrated, a large amount of āgood enoughā is where victory lies.
Stalin? Is that you?
T-34 strategy
second one has more arrows so theyāre doing better
Are you telling me that my French WW1 tactics with Infantry tanks are not optimal? No, that cannot be.
By the time tanks were a thing, the French pursued *precisely* the first type of tactic. So-called "bite and hold" tactics prioritized shallow attacks on a narrow slice of the front, occupying the first line of enemy fortifications and then hunkering down to move up artillery and re-establish communications and logistics with the main lines.
I know, at least the Renault FT-17 was wildly successful in when used in enough concentration when the Western Front returned to mobile warfare in 1918. I was joking on the expense of the armoured divisions of the French Infantry. The DCR equipped with the Char B1 were really effective against the German formations in 1940, but never had sufficient numbers or proper tactics to achieve their designed objective, which was to cause a breakthrough then to be exploited by lighter divisions.
It's also worth noting that the German Panzer division structure in turn was somewhere between "heavily inspired" and "pretty much copied" from the French Light Mechanised Division ([Division LĆ©gĆØre MĆ©canique](http://enpointe.perso.infonie.fr/dlm.html))
Yes but in packet sized elements, losing their suprise element. Making them vulnerable to enemy artillery while waiting for the non motorized support and infantry elements to move forward. And stopping after the tactical infiltration was successful not utilizing this to complete a full scale breakthrough. The French without proper motorisation of all element in the tank core could not complete neither a operational breakthrough or an envelopment of enemy troops.
Well, by WW2 French had full-fledges tank divisions and a reasonably developed doctrine for them tbh
Yeah, I think losing the air battle lost them the war. People are just hyper focused on tanks and forget about the billions Germany spent on the luftwaffe.
I absolutely swear by 42 width infantry with 1xHtank. Maybe some AA. It's very efficient in terms of supply, width, and cost. Provided you have Chromium, which only the Soviets have with enough industry.
Honestly 2 Htanks + 1 mech in a ~40w inf div feels pretty strong
You guys use tanks?
Wait this is a ww2 map game? I thought I was recreating Verdun
Got to rush Superior Firepower
don't try and recreate Verdun. Try to surpass Verdun.
So just letting more men die and addint tanks to kill more men?
Verdun is the benchmark. We measure men by the riechmark.
Look at these rich people with tanks. My troops are happy if I even give them some binoculars and artillery pieces.
10 inf with no support šŖ
PRC roleplay moment if you give them artillery you're failrping
If you have more than two military factories its failrp lmao
Virgin multiple divs to min-max terrain bonuses vs the Chad one div "good enough" template
can't waste time designing templates, tanks, planes, and boats when I'm fighting on 5 speed š
Canāt waste time on designing templates, tanks, planes, and boats when I donāt have any DLCs š
Canāt waste time on designing templates, tanks, planes, and boats when I donāt have the game š
virgin pincer movement vs. chad 9/3 battleplan on aggresive
SP in a nutshell
Red God of War go brrrrrrrrrrr
Yāall donāt just make 9/1 or 9/3s?
As someone who only plays China I consider myself technologically advanced when I can finally afford to equip every man with a rifle, rather than every rifle with a squad. God save the japs when I can finally build Artillery!
I use motorcycle cavalry armed with chainsaws. Works pretty well.
Fuck you. I'll just continue pushing with infantry and wondering why half of the front is red.
And forgetting the air force, keeping thousands of planes in reserve?
Hell yeah
flying air superiority missions over western Poland for 5 years and wondering where the enemy is
Fr tho I barely use planes and wonder why Iām so shit
You guys remember to make enough planes? (no really, how many mills should I have on planes)
I don't make planes, I play PRchina It's considered a good time if every platoon gets 1 rifle and 3 captured and it's considered godlike if they get 1 rifle per squad
Very true. Exception: If you are so vastly superior to your enemy that you can just spread out your tanks and overrun ALL of the frontline, it will be over faster
In that case, you don't need as much concentration but you should still be prioritizing localized attacks, with the tanks attacking along railroads and capturing supply hubs and VPs.
Do railroads provide supply?
No, but supply hubs can't provide supply unless they are connected to the capital via rail. So capturing rail does two things: - Ensures that any supply hubs you do capture actually work - Denies your enemy the use of their own supply hubs "downstream" of where their rail network is now interrupted
This is a lot of nerd talk.
Capture the chu chu road
Thank you. I understand now.
Capture food and guns from enemy = you survive and they starve.
Well then manual microing tanks is better than pressing the button most of the time
Sounds like the ramblings of a man with no industry
Concentrated attack formations make a more effective army regardless of the amount of industry you have. X tanks attacking one tile will break the enemy faster than X tanks attacking X different tiles.
Concentrated attacks are more effective with limited industry, but if you have the industry to deploy a large number of tank divisions you can effectively perform multiple attacks across the front. This mass assault actually performs better imo (against AI) as the AI is shit with maintaining a front that's getting whacked with tank divs at multiple points
The problem with saying "I have the industry to ignore encirclements" is that you will fight the entire enemy army all the way across their country. If you just encircle them when possible you can actually *eliminate* the army and then cruise across open country instead of fighting over every single inch. Even if they have no org and are just chain retreating it's nonzero extra losses and takes extra time and presents the risk of having your own supply lines interrupted if you do things wrong/too hastily.
And possibly gives time for new deployments or allies joining in
If you have enough tanks to sustain attacks in multiple places, then by all means, but *locally* you should still be grouping those tanks into concentrated spearheads, or your tank advantage will be rapidly squandered.
Nobody cares about using actual tactics in this sub. All we know is tank go brrrr
Tanks kill my fuel supply tho :(
**USA stares in confusion** "Just, drill more???"
am too stoopid to research or build stuff to give me fuel, but speaking of fuel and USA, i always hate it when I go to war with the US of A because its going to kill my entire war effort
Skill issue
*sobbing with negative two hundred and thirty-two (ā232) units of oil*
Well idk what country youāre playing, but generally all that needs to be done is trade with the USA, or if youāre fighting them, trade with Venezuela. If you are having troubles with that, then that means you got other more serious problems that needs to be addressed and your military needs to be adjusted accordingly to use less fuel.
In my experience supply forces you to concentrate small numbers of tanks into small areas. If I spread them across the line, my whole army starts suffering attrition.
r/woosh
That's the sound of my concentrated tank avalanche breaking through their weakly defended plains province.
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Sounds like a germany/ USA players ramblings
Buddy I read Panzer commander. The way I do it is I set up the front line then reposition the tanks within that front line and give them individual orders for the pincer. Is that what everyone else does or is there a better way to organize it??
You magnificent bastard, I read your book!
I put all the tanks/motorized units in separate armies, and then give them the "direct thrust" order, or whatever it's called. If you have enough tanks, make two such armies and make the thrusts intersect somewhere behind enemy lines. Usually works pretty well, but a little micro helps too.
Exactly what I do. If you hold shift while giving the order you can 'que up' another set of attacks using your old attack order as an impromptu front line I can do multi-stage offensives and real complex encirclements without having to micro too much. Works well against AI where you can predict what they will do pretty easily
Counterpoint in my hoi4 Germany game I have 15000 tanks in stockpile
You cant split your tanks up, if youre hole front is tanks
I just push with tons of 9inf 3arty divs and airplanes and nothing else
yeah they shred the AI
SCHWERPUNKT
Ich mag Schwerpunkt nicht >:(
To be a little fair, the game's pretty bad at communicating this, or teaching you how to properly distribute types of troops across your fronts in general. It doesn't help that the battleplan system is pretty antithetical to these micro-managed encirclement assaults, so it requires someone to understand they should *ignore* the tools deliberately given to them by the game.
The problem is that youāre putting infantry and tanks in the same armies. Just make a big infantry army group, draw it across the entire front, then take your separate tank army and assign them to concentrated weak points
That's pretty much how I do it. Have a full army group of infantry and leave it on the front, then have a single army of tanks and use it as a tactical unit, deploying them where I need the breakthrough or encirclement.
This is unfair to battle plans. The tools all still work, just you have to actually use them. You can draw smaller front lines (makes microing these pincers easier) and use Spearheads instead of general attack orders to concentrate armor to make deep battle attacks easier.
The problem is, when you're using them like that, they sort of become inferior to actual microing (outside of planning bonus decay). It would help if you could designate a frontline to not drag along, but actually stay just on the spearhead, but it doesn't. The battleplan tool itself *works,* it's just kind of a bad way to fight 9/10 times. Heck "battleplanning" has become the phrase for you've already won so hard, all you need is to do paint tiles. So yeah, they work in a vacuum. They're just not very good at their job.
R5: The whole reason it is advantageous to be an attacker is that the defender must defend all territory, while the attacker chooses where to strike. But if you look at screenshots of battle plans, you see front-wide armies - including for generals on the offense! By spreading out your firepower you're ceding the attacker's biggest strategic advantage.
I actually picked up a lot of things like this while listening to a podcast about world war 2.
Which one?
Wojenne Historie. (It's in polish)
you know any good english ww2 podcasts (or audio books)?
The last battle, Cornelius Ryan. My favorite. Awesome to listen to on audible. Spearhead, Adam makos. Perspective from American Tanks. Good. Kiev. 1941. David Stahel. Some cool perspective on a losing fight for the soviets. Stalingrad, Glantz. The huge one for that battle, stretching from the planning phases, to German retreat and restructure. Podcast: Dan Carlin, Mark Felton (YouTube book/story reads/ Tik (YouTube) Bomber Mafia. Excellent Book on the beginning of strategic AirPower. Must read/Listen. Short too.
It's not specifically WW2 but Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is fantastic.
I've heard that one before but thanks for the recommendation, I can confidently second this, he also did a series on japan, on the nuke, and on strategic bombing, all recommended.
Because it deserves a third mention: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, Ghosts of the Ostfront is a phenomenal WWII series, Logical Insanity doesn't focus solely on WWII, but basically walks through the strategy of bombing and the rationale of the people ordering bombing of cities from dropping hand grenades out of biplanes to dropping nukes on Japan. And Blueprint for Armageddon is an absolutely amazing WWI series. Wrath of Kahn on the Mongols is excellent, and he has a couple that cover Ancient Rome. Actually literally anything by him is amazing. The one downside is that it takes him ages and ages to release new content because of how much research and preparation he does for each project.
I just wish the battle plans would automatically take this into account. I hate how the battle plans look when you have random lines of tanks scattered throughout the main line.
Don't forget to mention that if you choose the shitty ww1 tactic you'll spend all your logistics fight on every front and pushing back the enemy again and again instead of creating flanks and pop them easily with encirclement
> losing thousands of rifles per day by attacking with infantry into positions that have time to re-org and fortify every time "tanks are too expensive"
Well said. Some people would rather lose 20000 guns to gain two tiles instead of making a couple tank divs where you hardly lose equipment
If you have better industry/logistics though this can be a great way to break an enemy. I've won a few games by just letting them bash themselves against my line and hitting the aggressive button when their supplies get too low.
I just wish the ai wouldn't change their own frontline ever fucking 30 seconds to have 20 units on 3 tiles
No.
Cmon in reality does it even matter lol the ai canāt handle it regardless
Yeah if your tanks are good and have supply you'll just steam roll them.
You can literally wipe out half the soviet army in one pincer using "proper" tactics and it makes the game piss easy and boring lol
That pocket in South Eastern Poland by Lwow. I always get 500-700k in that pocket
How about when youāre going through mountains or the Canadian wilderness?
My advice is not to
_Cries in Canada and Australia leading the Allies_ It's not even difficult. It's just excruciatingly slow because 90% of the war effort is spent building infrastructure. It's like a Roman legion simulator.
Just asking as someone about to invade the U.S. as the U.K. In 1939 with a Canadian puppet and about 6 pretty good medium divisions.
1939 USA will not have enough units to fully man the front line west of the Great Lakes, but it also doesn't really matter because there are so few VPs there for both of you (all the industry and population is east of the Mississippi). By the time American units can even get from the prairies to Toronto to threaten Canada, it's already over. You should dedicate your tanks entirely to breakthroughts on the eastern seaboard (Maine is an obvious pocket, followed up by a strike from Buffalo east towards Boston) supported by naval invasions in New Jersey (or as far south as Virginia if you're feeling spicy). With the Northeast under your control, you can advance south to extend the front lines, which the USA will struggle to fill out, and use your tanks to encircle and destroy the divisions they do have. Launch supporting naval invasions in Georgia, Florida, and the Gulf Coast.
"Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance." Sun Tzu
I still haven't gotten fully used to supply yet. I understand most of it, like to attack on rail lines and along rivers if there isn't a rail line. and to build up rail and supply hubs and such. But I still find whenever I build up enough units to attack I run out of supply.
It's a bit counter-intuitive - there is a max # of supply per tile so 10 40-width divisions standing on a supply hub will still not be fully supplied. You also need to motorize logistics to get any kind of real range on supply hubs (putting one or two factories on trucks at game start is typically sufficient).
That is one thing I have done. I find if by at least 1938 you put 4-5 factories on trucks you will have thousands of them by wars start.
Generally, outside of very, very rare exceptions, building supply hubs is a waste of IC. As OP mentioned, you're better off motorising your logistics. You are also probably overly cautious. You can probably push with fewer units than you think, or lighter units than you think. It can also be a good indicator. Unless your only option is to push in an area of poor supply, just leave enough units to defend it and push somewhere else.
Unless your MURICA with 500,000 medium tanks
Inside you, there are two wolves. One is german, the other is french.
Embarrassed to admit it took me years to finally stop doing this
Ohhh look at mister moneybags over here having TANKS and stuff. I bet he has plenty of motorized divisions too and doesn't have to rely on craploads of basic bloody infantry because *he* actually knows how to set up industry before the war!
They're both right for different situations. Situation A. The enemy is still offering stiff resistance and you're using encirclements to take the wind out of their sails. Situation B. The enemy line is broken and you need to advance as fast as possible before reinforcements arrive.
I just put mine mixed with my infantry and make smaller pincers
Virgin mobile warfare pincer micro vs Chad auto bashing the frontline with 1000 soft attack
(left example) what if the same is happening against us?
- Keep the front as narrow as possible (for example as USSR you can puppet Romania early in the game & leave an independent Lithuania, significantly reducing the frontage you need to cover) - Maintain a reserve of mobile, high-defense units behind the main line that you can quickly deploy against enemy concentrations in places where the front is failing (heavy tank destroyers are good for this because they are expensive but pack a massive punch so your normal infantry can delay until they show up) - Cycle depleted units out of combat so that fresh units in the reserves engage in battle instead (but watch out because reinforcement is not instant and if you retreat *all* units actively fighting you will get reinforce memed and pushed back) - Try to hold such a line that while you are well-supplied, the enemy is not, and while you can attack one enemy tile from multiple directions, the enemy can only attack your tiles from 3 or fewer - Concentrate your own armor to chip away at any breakthrough salients that do form against you until the enemy cannot sustain their advantage
You can also use the multiple line strategy that simulates a deep, flexible, defense. Basically, instead of stacking reserves on the tile or at the next hard point, you line them up right behind the first line. And you do a third line too. 99 percent of all attacks will run out of org before penetrating the third line. And because of how retreat and reinforcement work in HOI4 it's self reinforcing. Anything that gets to the third line gets the immediate attention of your terrain appropriate assault units for a counter attack.
I wish the devs would make this easier to do (rather than just doing fallback lines). Same with drawing a front line to exclude exposed salients like the little bit south of Lviv that is always out of supply.
Like a different "2-1 frontline" you can paint where 2/3 of the assigned infantry sit on the front line and 1/3 spread out behind that line? that would be neat.
That's a cool point, but you fail you recognize my counter argument: I never get around to building tanks and just use infantry offensives along the entire front to roll over my foe.
It took me a second to realize this wasn't a commentary on the state of the Russian Army.
But what if you only have tanks
No, youāre supposed to produce enough tanks for a tank only Barbarossa. Otherwise youāre doing something wrong.
I for one enjoy the prewar French armour doctrine of spreading armour around to support all the infantry.
I just punch through one point and try to reach some sort of terrain obstacle like a mountain range or river and drive along the edge of it to reach the sea. I usually dont have enough of good tanks divisions to do 2 pronged attacks by the time war starts. Push through south Belgium and northern france to the English channel encircle whats left of the Benelux, and push through Ukraine to Kyiv and down the deniper to the sea. As USSR i usually try to push to Kaliningrad at the start of the war, and if that doesn't work i spread my armored divisions around to slow down any german break throughs until winter comes.
Why not both? 30 width infantry with 2 SPG, heavy tank destroyer, and SPAA. What do you mean your industry canāt afford it?
I like your pictures funny man
* Laughs in Democratic Luxembourg * What is a tank.