Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

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ArthurDesmond
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Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by ArthurDesmond »

I tend to use foot Infantry (with tractors for quick movement) for mountain and jungle areas. I see that the special forces are smaller units but have higher stats. My question is if I should mix regular infantry into the specfor operations or if Specfor can handle taking and holding on their own. Obviously infantry is cheaper but does it have any other practical advantages over the special forces type units?

Also if I am in rough terrain should I be deploying mountain artillery, howitzer, or what? I usually deploy the big towed pieces or SPArt but I am not sure if that's suboptimal for harsh terrain.
Rosalis
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by Rosalis »

I love special forces, but their best use is when you have transport helis and planes that can transport them easily. Land them in cities, entrench them so they stay there and they can handle almost anything given the supply (cloose combat is deadly). They are good early on as long term investment. Besides that i would go for tracked/mechanised infantry. The basic infantry is just a slightly upgraded mobile garrison in my opinion. As soon you get a infantry design with hard target trait, you can protect yourself more easy against artillery attacks. Before that i would advise to just let the enemy come to you, so you can easily slaughter them with tracked infantry backed with supply. I wouldnt waste time and resources on tanks in the earlier scenarios, or planes for that mather. Infantry and AA with some artillery is all you need in GW/WW2.

Rough terrain prolly got some hidden effects, like sooner out of supply, so if you want to fight there just use transport units for supply. I dont think there is any difference for artillery. Tanks can easily move on mountains so yeah. The artillery have a bigger range on mountains i think, if this isnt removed/broken. Weather, well for one you cant easily see it, besides that the effect is not worth to worry about it.
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sparky282
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by sparky282 »

if the country you want to take has alot of close combat hex's special forces can be a fantastic thing a stack of them with air surport can make a right mess of a country :D
ArthurDesmond
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by ArthurDesmond »

I have used airborne troops with FTR and helicopter support recently, and paradrops take a bit of setup but are great. Dropping elite forces in the forests to cut off enemy units is worth the effort.
Rosalis
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by Rosalis »

As long the ai cant do it, it should take a bit of effort. Enough youtube videos on HOI exploiting with paradrops.
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CertainDeath
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by CertainDeath »

i dont build special forces... for the same training time (or less!) i get a way more versatile mobile unit (mech inf), with better stats, for which i dont need helicopters or planes to micromanage unit manouvering.
Rosalis
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by Rosalis »

Maybe for your playstyle they are better stats. No mech inf got cloose combat comparable to special forces of that time period and cloose combat is what kills enemy units, if used correctly. You dont have to use 1 or the other. You could worry about repair and stuff, or just drop a couple of special forces in the city and be done with it in seconds. The only comparable thing time wise is B2 spirit, and often they dont even fully kill the units.

If your playstyle is drag and click the capital with capital victory, sure there is no use for them. If you entrench them on the border cities, you got tons of time to respond if the enemy declare war on you. Infact in 1 save of mine after 5 years i managed to stop every single nation from being annexed with high world volatality. So yeah, it depends more on the AI that they are not needed. Anyway like said they can greatly speed up the process of annexing.
ArthurDesmond
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by ArthurDesmond »

The issue would be that drag and click on the capital works, and it really shouldn't. The AI often can't even hold off a totally uncoordinated human wave attack. You need a lot of units, but as a player you can easily defeat this by concentrating arty and air to kill everything that comes at you with WW1 rolling barrages. That's not even a very complex technique, just entrench, fortify and shoot.

SpecFor and towed arty require management but can work quite well. The problem is that even though it can be more efficient resource wise it's often not easier as a player. So you're only going to do it if you like managing operational warfare and specialist troops in the first place. I do, I wish I had more use for defensive tactics and tank destroyers, too. But Mech offensive with mass air support seems to always work, assuming you're not outgunned totally.

That's not totally unrealistic, in many situations dropping literal tons of shells, bombs and armored units is super effective. But the AI and maybe game rules could use more nudging to create special tactical situations where specialist troops is needed, rather than just a novel option.

A big problem is that the people who can deploy all the specialist equipment and troops are usually rich and powerful enough to just drop gigatons of Mech infantry on you, even if it's inefficient on an engagement level it's pretty easy from the player management point of view.
Rosalis
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Re: Special Forces v. Foot Infantry

Post by Rosalis »

I mean try drag and click against US 2020 complete victory mode. Ofcourse you could just annex all the smaller regions first. I like to defend Poland against Russia, or Italy against Mega Germany playing as smaller region with not even 100 units. My most fun game Cuba against US. Was way easier then i expected. But yea its pretty worrying i never lost a war.

SR2020 has a great counter against that. Only 7 units can be in 1 hex 3 more can pass. You would loose so much troops with drag and click... i guess complaints got too much.
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