your armies

[istol]

what kind of armies people here use against human players i pbem games?

what kind of armies u have experience in ?

like paradrop army or tank army or all infanry army or mass helicopter army (like 40 of helicopters+inf+apc+arti+air defense or something)

[Skirmisher]

Use a mixture of gear for maximum effect.

[iCaMpWiThAWP]

Make use of the combined arms, buy some units of each type, like, infantry, get scouts, snipers, at, mgs, FOs, some light infantry to avoid losing expensive troops, medium infantry should be the bulk of your infantry, heavy infantry can engage successfully ANY unit type, armor, APCs, CS tanks, infantry tanks, medium tanks and TDs, those are the most common units in most forces

[PanzerBob]

Good day Istol,

Hopefully this will be of some help. Of course this is just my view and over time you will develop your own style of recruiting for your Battle Groups (BG).

My tactics and strategies are based on Battalion sized units or larger in a Campaign

First off, always bear in mind the following when recruiting your Force:

-Playing a real commander will be different than AI.
-Make allowances for the dates in history you are playing, things that work well in future combat may not in the 1960’s for example.
-Remember while SP MBT is a game of Armoured Warfare, Infantry are the force which takes and holds ground, all other Arms are supporting this goal.
-Speed while important, concealing your forces and intentions are more so important against a real Commander.

When recruiting, I usually try and stick to ¾ of my points going to my main body and the other ¼ going to my support elements.

Now thing to keep in mind is that your BG needs to be able to mount attacks take ground and be able to defend as well. No less than a third of the main body points need to be Infantry and no more than ½. Whatever is left should be your Armored Force. Judge your purchases carefully, depending on the enemy, top of line weapons cost and you may not need your whole force to be equipped with them. Again this depends on the timeframe and the enemy you are fighting. As with Infantry, having everybody with Night/Thermal Vision Devices (NTVD) really makes them expensive. Judge accordingly.

Support Elements can include your Recce, AA, and Artillery.

Recce, I usually don’t recruit a large amount of. A few sections and maybe a few HELOS. Buying Recce with NTVD maybe worth it here, especially if your Main Body has none or few NTVD devices. Recce tend to get hit bad and often better purchased with your support points, this way you can conform your Recce elements to the type of battle ahead.

AA, My thinking here is stay way from Area Weapons, SPAA, SPSAM and MANPADS are cheaper and more versatile. With SPAA, spending for radar etc is worth the expense.

Artillery, If it’s not off-board arty, SPA is good if you have the points. Again hi-tech Arty may not be worth the cost. Remember artillery has two main jobs suppressing the enemy and smoke. If I’m short points I will try for large caliber Arty as they with experience with make good counter battery weapons, on board or off board.

To end this off, you had mentioned Airmobile and Airborne Forces make-ups, well personally these are HIGH Risk OPS and I would never commit Core Forces to them. However if I had to I would change my force make up this way. The ½ Infantry Core Force would now be Airmobile, if really good Attack Helos are available I would use some of the Armoured Force point to by some, Recruit a Sqdrn if you can, 6 Birds with a good mix of weapons not just ATGM’s.

Buy a fighting Recce Force to accompany your remaining Armoured Force. The rest the same.

If you have the support points to go Airmobile use the same rules as above. Remember, all your forces should be geared to take advantage of the Airmobile Forces successes.

Any questions do not be shy.

Bob out

[istol]

i personally like to gamble much with my army

once i bought some apc:s couple of cheap tanks and infantry in foot and to apc:s mmg's sams inf at etc and went quicly to middle in meeting and defended there against the opponent who had expensive apc:s tanks etc and managed there somehow with lower points than the attacker defending the middle victory hexes made couple of attacks too i had about similar nubmers but cheaper troops and then about 5 turns before end game i dropped 5 paradrops (and in game i destroyed his air defenses too) or was it more than 5 and took the hexes in his back and won because of it i had like 2/3 of the hexes or more enemy had like 5-7 when the game ended that was succesful and opponent did not suspect the drop because i fought hard in the middle and i managed to keep my line that he cannot go to my rear even it was close for many times


my last succesful army were helicopter army infantrys cheap apc:s mmg and stuff and i advanced fast with helicopter drops and apc:s following and my tactic was again defend the middle and i had cheap helicopters like cost 30 or something withn no weapons and mmg helicopters and then 1 alligator and 2 hind with atgm:s sam etc both and 2 area sam i did make an assault to a forset which was bad idea and not in my original plan and it backfired but i managed to survive though with my helicopters those helicopters were for defense i have cheap copter then fly it high altitude if it is not shot i fly high my atgm copters and shoot everything that can be shot with atgm the opponent got quickly almost all his apc:s destroyed by them and he feared the atgm so much (oh i had inf atgm:s too waiting) that he didnt use his expensive tanks it worked really well and my opponent said it was the cowardies army i have ever played and in late game i went throught his line in under part of the map with infantry + apc + arty + helico support and last rounds of combat i was destroying his artillery and supply line with helicopters in his back if i managed to get there earlier it would have been devastating and i could drop infantry there too to occupy hexes but a single m113or something american apc took like 10 sabot hits with value of 8 from autocannon i think and 3 atgm heat 100 or something hits (it had a aaa gun) and almost singlehandedly kept my helicopters in my end of the map oh and i had 2 paradrops too other were destroyed other held a hex

i was planning in my current game to take all ground army so the opponents air defense points would be a waste because he was a same opponent and was terrified for the helicopter atgm:s i was sure he would get more air defense in next game to counter that and we chat between the games and while we play and use psychological warfare to get an upper hand in game so "con"'s like that are even more effective with a little pressure made by boasting or some cunning talk

[Koh]

It depends a lot on the battle type.

If I'm fighting an advance or assault battle, I usually go for mech infantry supported by tanks in a roughly 3:1 or 2:1 ratio. That is, a platoon of tanks supporting a mech infantry company or a company of tanks supporting two companies of mech infantry. This fighting force would be ideally supported by armored recce units, AA units, a company of heavy mortars and heavy offboard artillery. Also if the nation I am using has PGM equipped fighters, I might concider using some. However I tend to go light on the air forces as most of the time the enemy has more than enough AA to destroy the precious fighters. And naturally if I'm fighting an assault, I'll also buy engineering assets.

If I'm fighting a meeting engagement, I tend to go for a more armor heavy force. Depending on the map, I usually go for either equal numbers of tanks and infantry or two tank companies, one infantry company. This fighting force would be supported by ATGMs, AA, a heavy mortar company and possibly some artillery. Again, if PGM equipped airplanes are available, I might buy a few of those. And also if the nation I'm using has ATGM equipped helos, I might buy a few of those for highly mobile AT defence.

If I'm fighting a defence or delay, I'll go for a leg infantry only force supported by heavy artillery and mortars as well as AA. Depending on the map features, I'll either buy a moderate amount of ATGMs or ample amounts other AT weapons. If I'm on the defence, I'll also buy enough mines to create a few speedbumbs for the enemy force. Depending on the enemy I'm facing, I might set up a few false defencive lines with trenches, dragons teeth and barbed wire and very few troops manning the positions. As those are visible to the enemy from the start, he might think that's a strongly defended position and divert his forces to other more heavily defended areas.

- Koh

[istol]

many people here are using lots of tanks my armies almost never includes tanks i almos everytime play without them because i concider them as a point loss 500pts tank lost to a 7pts rcl group is just too much or atgm:s etc there is just too many nasty things to kill an expensive tank

though sometimes i use tanks that cost like 35 or something as an "apc"

and when i try tanks i almost never destroy enough units with them to their point values and sometimes i kill none and get killed with expensive tank (mostly by infantry)

any thoughts ? or am i just so crappy using tanks or my opponent so good hunting them ?

[Skirmisher]

I use the best tanks availible but in small quantity. My view is that tanks are backup units in case your opponent manages to break through your lines. Use alot of scouting elements so you always know what your opponent is up to. Use on map rocket artillery(w mobile ammo carriers) in modest quantity. This artillery is way more effective than regular artillery.

[istol]

i personally find on map rocket launchers (expect bomblet) too inaccurate for the cost and not too powerful

same kill ratio as 120mm mortar which is more accurate and concentrates the fire in smaller area and you can bomb every turn with it while rockel launchers need to reload couple of turns

if many infantry units is running at open then rocket launchers might do

i personally like bomblets and cluster artillery

grad cm nona mortar with cluster ammunitions strix and amos from sweden and some 70-90 costing cluster 152mm field guns

what you think of ordance section ? you use armored ammo carriers with machine guns or ammo trucks ammo dump or bunker ? what about ammo container ? have anybody made an airdrop with ammo container ?

[Skirmisher]

Originally Posted by istol

i personally find on map rocket launchers (expect bomblet) too inaccurate for the cost and not too powerful

same kill ratio as 120mm mortar which is more accurate and concentrates the fire in smaller area and you can bomb every turn with it while rockel launchers need to reload couple of turns

When I said rockets I meant the fancy highly accurate mobile missle launchers that are availible for most upscale countries. But even if I was usuing a low scale countries,I'd still by cheap mobile or stationary rocket launchers.
Enless your using the cluster ammo as you mentioned regular artillery isn't good for much in the game except basic surpression. Personaly I want artillery that's going to ruin my opponents day,not just surpress him.

I got outstanding results in the last PBEM using 3 batteries of French Missle launchers. With each battery of three missle launchers use 2 mobile ammo carriers with them.