Ideal Red Division Composition

[MajorMayhem]

So, making the assumption that you have an abundant supply of money, conscripts and war supply, what is the "ideal" make-up of a Red infantry division that can be built in a reasonable space of time (say, 3 or 4 turns)?

I'm assuming you want to stack the benifits of units, so:

- 1 Cheka Line unit (or use sailors and have a commisar at corps level?)
- 1 tchanka
- 1 armoured car/tank (if war supply or time allows it)

That uses 3 of the 9 unit slots.

The question then is what else to include.

Is it worth including artillery part of a division, or keep artillery loose at the corps level?

What about cavarly?

[Durk]

This is the best advice I have ever seen and used.

Infantry divisions: obviously the main component is infantry. The second most important is artillery. In principle, the more artillery the better. However frontage limits the number of guns that can engage at once (in open terrain frontage is wider, in mountains, swamps, hills or woods smaller). From a certain point onwards more guns don't help. Moreover a division needs a sufficient number of infantry to absorb damage. During battle resolution infantry and cavalry take damage first, artillery last. It is not unusual to see the entire infantry component of a division wiped out while the artillery escapes without a scratch. Therefore I would advocate for 2 artilleries per division as minimum and 7 as maximum, all the while observing a ratio between infantry and artillery of at least 3:1.
Useful supplements:
- tanks: not more than one per division, anything more is a waste, pure tank divisions are stupidity (the Germans get one in the Drang scenario for example, split it up!). The tank doctrine in RUS is that of WW I rather than WW II. Tanks have the armoured support ability which grants infantry within the same division an initiative bonus (higher chance to fire first) and improves their combat effectiveness by +10%. Moreover there is a bug that seems to change the movement rules for infantry divisions if they contain a tank element. Basically such a division moves about as fast as cavalry. Never leave tanks on their own - it is a waste of the armoured support ability; never put them in a cavalry division since the ability only affects infantry.
- armoured cars: basically these are a poor man's tanks in RUS. The only important difference is that there isn't a bug affecting the movement of the entire division.
- engineers: I sometimes put them within a division but they are fairly soft and tend to suffer from it. The important thing is to have one per stack (entrenchments are built a lot faster), my impression is that it is more beneficial to leave them outside the divisional structure.
- cavalry: having a single element of cavalry per division improves its detection value (it will deliver more precise intelligence on opposing forces)
- tachankas: 1 per division (not more) is useful. They provide fire support (+1 initiative bonus). Common sense seems to indicate that this weapon was invented to support cavalry but they are just as useful combined with infantry.
- specialist infantry: mountain infantry for the Siberians, Cheka Line infantry for the Reds. Their special abilities affect the whole division. More than one per division is a waste.


Cavalry divisions: Everything that could slow down such a division has no place in it. This leaves three incrediants: cavalry, horse artillery and tachankas (1 per division, more is a waste).

Please find further discussion at http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?571687-Who-put-the-stranded-Admiral-in-charge-Siberian-White-Short-Campaign-PBEM&p=13161471&viewfull=1#post13161471

[MajorMayhem]

Thanks Durk.

I've actually read Bornego‎'s excellent AARs over at Paradox a while back: I must have missed this on the first read-through!

[Durk]

Yeah, Bornego kicked my tush in so many games. He really understood the division and corps structures.

[Orel]

Yeah, Bornego kicked my tush in so many games. He really understood the division and corps structures.

Does he still play? I haven't heard from him at least for a year.

[Durk]

Not for now. Hopefully in the future. You must know, priorities sometimes change.

[James D Burns]

- tanks: not more than one per division, anything more is a waste,

The rollover says the tanks bonus applies to the stack, is this incorrect? If so it needs to be changed, as the difference between stack vs. unit bonus' are huge in this game.

Jim

[Durk]

Actually it says armored bonus. This provides the bonus as stated. The tank bonus additionally helps with reducing the effect of enemy trenches.

And it applies to the unit and also to the entire stack the unit is in.

[James D Burns]

Yeah I’ve always treated Tanks (armor) as stack buff units for entire corps+ sized stacks (1 per stack). I think it’s a mistake to put them into an infantry division as that subjects them to a lot of damage they normally wouldn’t see if they were separated out of the big divisions that draw most of the fire.

That said the trench assault ability applies to just the individual element, so in a case where you want to assault a large stack that is dug in to level 6-8, the idea of an all armored division stuffed full of dozens of individual tank elements might be a good one. Though I’ve never tried it and am just speculating.

Jim

[James D Burns]

I’m bumping this old thread because I noticed the roll-over text for the different armor buffs has been changed. It now refers to benefitting divisional elements. This is new language for an AGEOD game. In the past it has always been ‘stack’ or ‘unit’, the term ‘divisional’ is new and implies no benefit is given unless the elements are operating as elements within a division container. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this behavior/restriction in an AGEOD game before.

So my question is, has the bonus actually been changed from helping an entire stack to now only helping elements contained within the same division container?

Is this possibly just a lost in translation issue due to English not being the authors primary language?

Jim

[andatiep]

I’m bumping this old thread because I noticed the roll-over text for the different armor buffs has been changed. It now refers to benefitting divisional elements. This is new language for an AGEOD game. In the past it has always been ‘stack’ or ‘unit’, the term ‘divisional’ is new and implies no benefit is given unless the elements are operating as elements within a division container. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this behavior/restriction in an AGEOD game before.

So my question is, has the bonus actually been changed from helping an entire stack to now only helping elements contained within the same division container?

Is this possibly just a lost in translation issue due to English not being the authors primary language?

Jim

Abilities still have the same 3 main categories like in other Ageods games :
#1) The ones which apply to the whole stack
#2) The ones which apply to the whole stack IF commanded by a leader with this ability
#3) The ones which apply to a unit (i.e. to all the elements this unit is made up with)

Since Division units are also units (made up with a leader and at least one other unit), division units which have an element with the ability #3 will have all their elements impacted by this ability.

If some tooltips of the abilities are not understandable, please propose us texts corrections, this is very simple to update in a later patch.
Losses in translation happen of course in our Beta team which is really "international".

[James D Burns]

[ATTACH]33990[/ATTACH]

I would change this text to read one of the following ways.

Option one if all bonuses apply to all element types:

The unit possesses a defensive and mobile firepower that impedes enemy reaction: +1 Initiative bonus in battle and a bonus of 15% to the fighting value when it is under attack. This element is also protected against cavalry charges.
These bonuses apply to the unit or all elements contained in its division.




Option two if only armored elements are protected from cavalry charges:

The unit possesses a defensive and mobile firepower that impedes enemy reaction: +1 Initiative bonus in battle and a bonus of 15% to the fighting value when it is under attack. These bonuses apply to the unit or all elements contained in its division.

All armored type elements of this unit or its division are protected from cavalry charges.


Jim

[andatiep]

These bonuses apply to the unit or all elements contained in its division.

The sentence "This ability applies to all elements o the unit that this element is in" is an automatically added text which comes when the ability is from the above category #3. It change if the ability is from #2 or #1.

I can't change it since there is units which are not divisions and which have elements with such abilities or others.

But in the manual, it is said that division units are units. Special kind of units but still units.

Maybe like this : "These bonuses apply to all elements contained in its unit or division unit."

[James D Burns]

Maybe like this : "These bonuses apply to all elements contained in its unit or division unit."

That'll work too, much clearer and far more concise and doesn't sound as awkward as what it has now.

Jim