Attack is not progressing at all!

[Macho3000]

Hey guys so I'm a new HoI player. On my third play through and while I'm no where near even considering myself good, I feel I have a decent understanding of the game. That being said I'm at war with the Germans, playing as the US. They have about 1,500 divisions and I have about 250. However in one of the fronts I outnumber the Germans at least 5-1 and it's been over 2 years in game and I've pushed them back only one section. Now going into the third year they are pushing me back. I'm unable to push forward with 25-30 attackers to 1-2 defenders. The battle starts off with me crushing them, the notification says "battle will end in less than a day" then at 80-95% complete I start to lose and all my guys retreat! I've been struggling with supplies, have over 1,000 convoys and 90% of my navy is in the Atlantic "Escorting Convoys". Hope this makes sense and I know I'm missing something here...just can't figure it out. I posted a screenshot of the front to my profile. OH and how do I drop nukes? sorta want to just nuke them for fun! haha

[AdahnGorion]

How you make your division and use them are essential to winning. Also planning will be very good.

Do you have any support for your troops ? (air) Are your eq up to date? etc.
Sometimes its better to let them attack you and then counter and cut them off.

You can do alot to get the supplies better as well.

[Macho3000]

OK yeah some of my equipment is probably dated but the majority is rather modern (I thought of that). When they attack me I was typically winning, now I'm getting 25-30 defenders pushed back by 4-5 attackers! (I would figure even if I had sticks and stones as weapons we could hold off such a small force)

What constitues a good division in your opinion?

As for the supplies I am churning out convoys and escorts non-stop, my Navy dominates every section between the US east coast and Western Europe. SO you think I need more than a 1,000 convoys?

[ocean pollen]

well, are your troops well supplied or not? we can't see from your screenshot. since you're talking about numbers of convoys instead of about whether supply is a problem, I think you're probably missing something.

take a look at the individual battles, too.

[Macho3000]

Sure, yeah I lnow I'm missing something. Most of my troops have 50%+ Supply. I'm seeing a few that are less than 20% and some that are over 80%. Other than convoys what can I do to increase supply?

[Smash]

If you have any relevent screenshots, that might help. Various factors that might be at play:

- Front width. There is only room to attack a certian amount of divisions into any one province. You might outnumber them 5 to 1, but if there's only room for a fifth of your troops to be attacking then you're on even odds.
- Research advantages. Germany could be ahead on tech.
- Poor division design. All divisions aren't equal. It's possible to design divisions which are several times more powerful than others as well as the different doctrines focusing on different kinds of troops.
- Poor supply. You could have overloaded your front and your troops are all starving and out of ammo.
- Defensive terrain. The enemy could be entrenched on mountains with fortifications. The enemy usually gets a good bonus

That's just a few issues off the top of my head, air superiority, concentrating on provinces from multiple fronts, not producing the right equipment, etc, etc could all be issues too.

From what you've said supply is a problem at a minimum and lack of supply is a BIG problem. The solution is to make staggered attacks. Attack and capture a region, then halt and build up the rubbish infrastructure so enough supplies can get through that your troops are ready for another assault. Make good use of the supply mapmode.

[Scope1986]

Originally posted by Macho3000:

Sure, yeah I lnow I'm missing something. Most of my troops have 50%+ Supply. I'm seeing a few that are less than 20% and some that are over 80%. Other than convoys what can I do to increase supply?

1. Every province provides a cirtain ammount of Supply.
2. A Harbour can only supply a certain amount of troops. This depends on its throughput.

It dosent matter how many convoys you got becaurse you ned a Habour which has enough throughput or you need more Habours. So you got to estimate how much lokal Supply you got and how much throughput your habours have.
That is the ammount of troops you can supply.

[hottwiz]

OK first off ALWAYS make sure yuor troops are fully reinforced because if not they act like 5year olds tell they get "a toy" and any toy will do.aka i dont care what gun i get as long as its a gun.
secondly make your divisons stronger not your army bigger. 1 maxed out divison can take on 2-3 hell maybe more if done right IE 5x4 infantry and last row all arty plus all five support units and you got 30 units that can beat almost 100 if dont properly.BUT AGAIN i stress make sure you have all you current troops fully reinforced or they REALLY suck at fighting.also make sure you dont do 4-6 differnet divison types,i mostly use 2 tanks (either light or med never heavy as i use them for speed) and infantry so i have a standardized army and can limit how many products i make making better use of my factorys aka 6x15 factroys making 1 tank type is better the 6 tank types.

FINALLY!!!!! provences can only hold so many people on them so throwing 300 men in a provence is just going to reduce there organisation to ZERO meaning they last 30min in game in a fight if your lucky and will never attack.some times its better to use 60 good men then 300.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by Scope1986:

Originally posted by Macho3000:

Sure, yeah I lnow I'm missing something. Most of my troops have 50%+ Supply. I'm seeing a few that are less than 20% and some that are over 80%. Other than convoys what can I do to increase supply?

1. Every province provides a cirtain ammount of Supply.
2. A Harbour can only supply a certain amount of troops. This depends on its throughput.

It dosent matter how many convoys you got becaurse you ned a Habour which has enough throughput or you need more Habours. So you got to estimate how much lokal Supply you got and how much throughput your habours have.
That is the ammount of troops you can supply.

also there is a supply map mod.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by Macho3000:

OK yeah some of my equipment is probably dated but the majority is rather modern (I thought of that). When they attack me I was typically winning, now I'm getting 25-30 defenders pushed back by 4-5 attackers! (I would figure even if I had sticks and stones as weapons we could hold off such a small force)

What constitues a good division in your opinion?

As for the supplies I am churning out convoys and escorts non-stop, my Navy dominates every section between the US east coast and Western Europe. SO you think I need more than a 1,000 convoys?

a good divison is a simple one as in 5x4 infantry and the last row all artiliary giving you LOTS of soft attack but if your going against tanks or foes with air superiorty it might be wise to make anti-tank/air part of the divison instead of support units unless you have a good amount of units.
also dont mix your motorized and tank division with other types of the same thing as SPEED is one benefit they give you and putting light tanks with heavy tanks gets rid of that advantage.

[Frenetic]

you can setup your divisions even more heavily on artillery. artillery is just so good in this game. 3 rows of infantry and 2 rows of artillery is great along with superior firepower doctrine (imo the best doctrine in the game)
as with tanks, i go with 2x2 normal tanks and 2x2 artillery versions of the tanks and another row of 4 motorized or better mechanized infantry to boost up the organization.
in the support section i pretty much always go artillery, rocket artillery, recon, and logistics. last slot either engineering for better defending or field hospitals for increased xp gain (you lose less xp as your troops get reinforced)
i dont need maintenance on my tanks because i always make variants to my tanks to make them 100% reliable.
set reinforcements to highest priority.
the AI division designs are really horrible. in the midgame they dont stand a chance at all.
its really disappointing to see when the AI comes up with something <50 soft attack sometimes when my troops have 1000++.
i played as netherlands in my last game and stayed with the allies and by 1940 i conquered all germany. by 1943 i conquered whole soviet union.
i dont know. the game is a bit too easy for me when you design your troops properly. the biggest issue i still have is with invading countries like japan or england without a superior navy. but ground combat is bit of a joke in this game when you do it right.

[Aedile]

Just to mention that the artillery and infantry are kind of great, they are not particularly great against hard targets. You really really need something to kill the tanks. If you don't have the piercing and hard attack...

Also when you are attacking you really want something with good breakthrough (defense when attacking). Tanks with moto infantry are far better in attack than anything else. Tanks have pretty low 'morale' or organisation as this game calls it.

[Frenetic]

if you have enough production tanks are definetely superior. they dont need as much combat width to have the same combat power. just make sure you add enough artillery modications of the tanks in your divisions so they can crush regular troops too.
imo normal tanks have more than enough hard attack already, no point to research specialized anti tank modifications of them.
the thing is, the AI usually only comes up with alot of light tanks and just sometimes some mediums. and light tanks, they are only like 70% hard and get 30% soft damage too. and if you keep your infantry weaponry up to date, and if possible research better weaponry and the anti tank infantry equipment with research boosts ahead of time, even my infantry artillery squads can pierce everything but heavy tanks just fine.