Artillery vs tanks vs SPGs?

[Kaida]

Can someone explain to me what the differences are? What's the point of making artillery if you can make tanks? AA if you can make planes? If you have tanks, what's the purpose of making SPGs?

I decided to go down the Artillery tree, but tanks seem a lot more useful. Any advice?

[Harbaugh]

Your divisions will travel at the speed of their slowest componet. I don't think "support" companies impact this, but if you put towed artillery in a tank division, it's going to slow your division way down. SPGs add that artillery punch to soft attack while still maintaining your mobility.

[RecTRo Early]

some spgs also have better soft attack than regular artillery

[Harbaugh]

To answer your other question (what's the point of artillery if you can make tanks) - Regular Artillery is what gives infantry it's teeth. Infantry has very little combat power on it's own (but lots of staying power). You build regular artillery to put in your infantry divisons, which should be by far the biggest part of your army, even if you're the Germans. You use SPGs in your tank divisions, which is what you'll use to punch holes in enemy lines for pincer movements and encirclements.

[Ryan]

This may help in determining the difference between tanks and artillery. Artillery has soft attack while tanks have hard attack. Tanks also have armor which negate soft attack damage. http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Attacks

[Kaida]

Originally posted by Ryan:

This may help in determining the difference between tanks and artillery. Artillery has soft attack while tanks have hard attack. Tanks also have armor which negate soft attack damage. http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Attacks

but what about AT artillery?

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Mousie:

Originally posted by Ryan:

This may help in determining the difference between tanks and artillery. Artillery has soft attack while tanks have hard attack. Tanks also have armor which negate soft attack damage. http://www.hoi4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Attacks

but what about AT artillery?

Things like the PaK 38 and other towed anti-tank weapons make for good measures against tanks if you're too poor to build your own. Infantry with a support AT brigade or an AT brigade or two outright will let them hold against tanks much better than without, which is pretty crucial if playing some weak nation that has to contend with the big boys like say, Finland, as they absolutely do not have the industrial capacity to pump out sufficient amounts of their own armor.

[Sohei]

It is a balancing act in the division designer between various stats and terrain modifiers. It is complicated by the fact that some units have different widths and 20 is a good target width. Some units are more useful than others.

[Aleksi134]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Originally posted by Mousie:

but what about AT artillery?

Things like the PaK 38 and other towed anti-tank weapons make for good measures against tanks if you're too poor to build your own. Infantry with a support AT brigade or an AT brigade or two outright will let them hold against tanks much better than without, which is pretty crucial if playing some weak nation that has to contend with the big boys like say, Finland, as they absolutely do not have the industrial capacity to pump out sufficient amounts of their own armor.

Well that depends if you are playing multiplayer or singleplayer. Multiplayer is gonna be alot harder so tanks are basicly out of question unless you go commie and take swedens industry if the server allows such things. And singleplayer if played right you can take sweden out months before start of 39 and start preparing to build tanks. Bu the backbone will still always be the artillery of course.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Aleksi134:

Originally posted by Daliena:

Things like the PaK 38 and other towed anti-tank weapons make for good measures against tanks if you're too poor to build your own. Infantry with a support AT brigade or an AT brigade or two outright will let them hold against tanks much better than without, which is pretty crucial if playing some weak nation that has to contend with the big boys like say, Finland, as they absolutely do not have the industrial capacity to pump out sufficient amounts of their own armor.

Well that depends if you are playing multiplayer or singleplayer. Multiplayer is gonna be alot harder so tanks are basicly out of question unless you go commie and take swedens industry if the server allows such things. And singleplayer if played right you can take sweden out months before start of 39 and start preparing to build tanks. Bu the backbone will still always be the artillery of course.

In my example it was actually me and a friend of mine playing Sweden, and we split Norway between us. It was still hell to hold the border, even with (not super high level but still) forts and AT support, but we managed. Would've probably ended worse if the Russian tanks had gotten the whole "enemy divisions can't pierce your armor" bonus.