What is the best unit ratio for the best results in attacking and defending?

[Avkin3g]

In other words, how much infantry (tanks, arty) relative to other units do i need in order to maximize their efficiency for either close and "long" warfare?

[Atraphoenix]

In other words, how much infantry (tanks, arty) relative to other units do i need in order to maximize their efficiency for either close and "long" warfare?

SR will not give if what you expect is a combined tactical units. AI has tendency to build tanks for land, Caps for sea no idea on air.

A normal NATO Brigade should consist 50/50 % tanks and mech infantry + support art and logistics battalions.
AI will spam its hordes of tanks so it is best to build cheap AT bats than expensive and useless tanks (if played on 36). When AI is out of steam that means it used and lost all of its units. You can torture it however you take pleasure.

I have played SR series for years and mechanized engineer spam still rules if you want a cheap answer.

On strategical level: Send your spies to sabotage AI's unit production facilities, outproduce your enemies that is the only logical way to conquer the world. If you like allied vics disable diplo merchant marines.

Sun Tzu says "Know your enemy and know yourself and in supreme ruler mechanized engineers will win 100 battles for you". I wish that had been changed but in 1936 map they steamroll any enemy they met on battlefield in my no fow tests.

[Avkin3g]

Will you not mind me asking you (a tonne, literally) more questions via Steam? Pls?

[YoMomma]

Just take full control of your army. Entrench like 7 infantry and 7 artillery/AA in a border city, preferable a big one. You can even go as far as 18 with entrench, but your troops will get stuck if they need to go past, so 17 entrench is fine, too. Then entrench some in other border cities (dont use garrisons, they useless in SRU). If you have spare infantry left get them, with tanks, next to main road crossings with the big border city. Ofcourse you can put spare arty and aa behind the front line.
Now declare war, take a piece of land by the main crossing and return to position. The AI will send 90% troops eventually here, just need to kill as many as fast as possible and war is over in no time, with no infantry and tanks left for the ai. Just need to make sure you have enough airbase to control the air.
Thing is if you go defensive this way, the AI will always hit the town and they get hit by multiple other positions. If you are in a city and AI is also in a city, just retreat to another city and hit them in the open again. You will notice the AI patrolling 1 hex from your entrenched city after they got their butt kicked, so now it's time to finish them off with your spare troops and return to position again. After a while you will see the AI suicide their AA and artillery at the city, then you know they are out of tanks and inf.

This way there is no need to loose any troops, besides by your own mistakes or garrisons trained by the AI when you captured a city. I feel like cities give like 100% defence bonus (especially the big ones in Asia), mountains 50% and dense territory 20%. Use that to your advantage, and you can easily kill countries like Russia with a small region, because there aren't many cities, so very powerfull if you use them.

Yes i play very hard military difficulty. I think main difference on very hard is AI doesnt make stupid mistakes, but you are still dealing with a computer. He might spread a bit more, and maybe even try an attempt somewhere else if there is another good crossing, but a human should be able to counter that easily. If you think you will get overrun then trap them in 2 places. Pick 2 spots take land return and let them come to you.

[Avkin3g]

Ok, what stats do i need to look at when building various units? Id figure close attack and strength are good for infantry, long attack for tanks, hard and soft attack for arty, hard for AT. Anything else?
Dont garrisons serve as a unit that needs to be destroyed before the city is taken?
And by 17 units stacked and entrenched did you mean the total amount of units of each type, as long as there are two types?

[Avkin3g]

"...just need to kill them as fast as possible.."
Yeah, just.
Could u screenshot what that looks like, ive done everything youve told me but i am forced to run the game at Very Slow, "just" control my entire army, which requires me to press "attack unit" for every little unit there is, if low on health, send to reserve etc.. Very annoying to find my tanks being shot at with no orders.

Could u also screenshot what your ROE looks like for different units? Whats the most effective unit to kill the fastest, aside from THE MECHANISED ENGINEERS OF DOOM!!1!1!!1????

[Atraphoenix]

Your answer changes according to each different campaign. Each campaign has different strong and weak units. Modern Maps Leopard and Merkavas and PUMAS are good enough for 36 special units - paras - spetnats etc.

For ROE many may have different tastes mine is mostly low or no loss tolerance to keep my units alive and under my direct control. In ROE I give my units high initiative but in general unit setting none.

Also creating strong units namely just spliting them into two then merging these 2 half sized units into a normal sized unit you may have 50% stronger units. Beware though not all units can be strenghtened unfortunately. It basically increases manpower and amno of your units. AI does not do this so it is an unfair advantage for human players.

SR is a world conquest game you should either spam your enemy with cheap units if you play with a large nation that has lots of reserves or focus on a small but elite army that can wipe out 4-5 units like green berets.

If you like micromanaging never allow your minister to have a control on army - a bit hitlerish but if you combine your air and land units together AI has no chance to survive. I just build subs in 36s AI caps has no defence against them so my naval operation is just hunting enemy caps and patrols as we have no missile capable ships in 36 campaigns building non missile capable ships just waste of resources. I just build cargo ships for amphibious operations to conquer the islands other than subs.

[YoMomma]

I look for cloose combat and defence. So specialised foot infantry in the cities mec infantry in woods, tanks in grasslands.. For the rest, well best tanks you can get ofcourse, AA with high range if you are playing modern campaigns, so you can spread them arround the cities. Always look for ways to counter the AI, if missles are a threat obviously you want infantry arround that can intercept them.

I dont have problems with units shooting the enemy lol. I dont change much if anything in RoE. If i really want to micromanage, ill turn of autodeploy missles, else they prolly a waste, but other then that just use your brain.

The only thing i have issues with is controlling my planes in this blur of units, so make them battlegroups.

I dont play '36 cause in my opinion you can use less tactics. Bombers/fighters are pretty much useless, and dont like mentioned ship combat in above post .

This are units i use in modern campaigns:

Green berrets - use them in city's as your garrisons, with +-5M maintance (depends on GDP) they are pretty much free. I also prefer a cpl on standby in transport heli's like Yak, Hallo, old good Russian made with big capacity to take abandon cities from the enemy.

M2Puma - Obviously no explaining needed, hard to destroy and deals tons of dmg.

A shoutout to the FutureRapidAttackSystem, the mec infantry of UK in SR2020, you can still get it, but have to play as UK and fiddle arround with the designs. So kinda annoying lol. But if you ally uk you might get lucky to buy some. They are very good and kill the enemy before they get the change to run.

LAV-IV Timberwolf, a unit "multiple" regions can research, very cheap and very good, wtg you would say, but i have some mixed feelings, i saw them surrender alot of times.

XA-360 AMV- OP unit for eastern europe, rest they got is all trash but this infantry can do wonders, and also very cheap.

Vodnik light infantry - only 11 days to build and also very cheap, they might seem weak, but i use them in positions where the enemy wont attack, or let the enemy attack city and then move in my vodniks. Very fast damage and low consumption. You cant have enough of those, cause you can simply entrench 1 and continue attacking without being worried about a counter offensive from the enemy with like 1 inf or recon, they can stay till the green berrets arive. The vodnik will take that role till then.

I usually use the Leopard2A5 (later on the dutch can get a very nice cheap tank called gaulais)

Artillery is just preference i guess. I use a combination of the 9k62, panzerhaust2k and M270. M270 obviously for missles, 9k62 damage supply to unit a bit before enemy reaches the frontline, and panzerhaust2k for dps when they attack the city. Note that artillery damage other artillery first and inf/tanks damage the least defendable unit first.

AA everything i can get my hands on, again Russia has very nice designs and you can go for the more expensive western vairants. Any will do really, enemy has to come low to attack your units so the old variants are still usefull. Just have to use those at the right places where you let the ai come to you.

With the right interceptors you dont need much AA, as you wont need much interceptors with the right AA, but ofcourse it always helps. Pelegrine and Shearwater are some nice examples. If you look for Russian designs you can prolly find some good ones with bigger range then the F16 for example. Mig-25P is an example, you wont even get attacked by other planes unless you engage because you fly to high.

Fighters, well i would say i used the F16-C to great effect many times. But again, you can go for more expensive variants like F-111G aardvark and again Russia has some nice designs.

Multi role, eurofighter vs JSF, not much difference, but JSF is better and cheaper. Japan, India and Russia, you can find some nice designs and look for yourself.

This is what i aim for:
70 Green berrets
70 vodniks
70 mec infantry
70 tanks
70 artillery
70 AA
14 interceptors
50% fighters 50% multi rol, as much as i can get.
about 20 transport helis will do, but you can use more if you want for backup and supply duties.
a couple of transport planes which can supply my units (4-5 is enough, but ofcourse you can have more if you want to use them in paradrop missions).
Obviously you want to get B-2A strategic bomber, but there are also some nice Russian and Japanese designs, but thats usually more for late game, unless i play Japan, US or Russia.

Then later on i expand in green berrets, i can always use them as garrisons where needed. Further it depends on the threat since the last patch. I have been fighting Germany a cpl of times where they took pretty much whole europe, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, while i was micromanaging in Asia, killing all the threats against China (Japan, S. Korea). Then when you play Russia and have this huge frontline, you can use some more troops haha. But my point is with this ammount of troops you should be able to kill every ai from the start. I think it takes me 2 years to accomplish playing Netherlands starting with 1 land barrack.

Make sure you have your planes sorted by battlegroups, so you can easily get control on them. Reparing units i dont have issues. Only unit getting damage is in a city.
Obviously you want to kill/hurt the interceptors first so they are of the battleground, then you have all the air to bomb the hell out of them and use your transport planes to drop your green berrets in abandon cities to get supply up fast without issues, domestic approval will rise (depends how big/important the city is) so taxes will rise, why not take the capital last.

The tactic i was showing in the other post helped me to understand the game, just go passive, entrech bunch of troops, capture land, wait for enemy to arrive, retreat and lure them to your trap city full of AA, ART and INF. When they attack the city, you move your troops next to them, they still hit the city but you hit them from multiple sides. Then you can encircle them depends what you have left or just kill them with your bombers.

But again i see you prolly play '36, but thats to borring, tactics still apply tho, foot infantry on 36 is OP especially in cities. Go passive, have bunch of arty entrenched in the city and behind frontline and enjoy the slaughter.
Thing is you lure the AI once, they will send troops, battle going on, ai sends help and the loophole starts..

[Avkin3g]

Thanks a lot for such extensive guides. I am playing 1936 as USSR.