Motorized Infantry

[Perfectly Valid School of Magic]

What is their purpose? Is there a time to use them versus regular infantry, and a time to use them versus tanks? Is mixing them into tank templates viable? I've never really understood the point of them.

[[HPC] Crplsteve]

Tbh I think they are only faster than regular infantry. Will have to check if they have any other benefits

[Waavy_Cookie]

Essentially you use motorized infantry in tank templates to add additional organization and hp. Tanks on their own have low org and hp which is why you want some motorized or mechanized infantry in the template to make up for it. I personally go for 12 mediums and 9 motorized or mechanized infantry to get 42 width, you can replace some motorized for SPAA. On their own, motorized and mechanized can be viable, but not encouraged. They are much faster than regular infantry, generally have better stats overall, and provided a marginal amount of hardness, but the amount it gives is so small it doesn't really give you a benefit. However, motorized is expensive and less efficient than regular infantry and suffer from horrible terrain negatives. Mechanized infantry on the other hand, is much better than regular motorized infantry and can be used to great effect in certain situations. They have much more hardness that allows them to basically steamroll an infantry division like a tank. They are, however, very expensive basically late game. Infantry is the safest option as they will do good in almost any situation. Really you should only be making infantry and tank divisions but if you want to do something else, you can make mechanized divisions. Otherwise stay away from pure motorized divisions.

[CaptainSpacetime]

is mixing them into tank template "viable"? it's literally what you're supposed to do.

are you making all tank tank divs op??

[Citizen X]

Motorized Infantry is Mobile Infantry. Their purpose is to exploit Breakthroughs.

I feel like theres alot that needs to be explained here. You need to understand the role of Infantry in the game and how the role of each unit is reflected in the stats. Infantry is for Defending, while units like Tanks have whats called "breakthrough", and are good for Attacking. This is why you will see that Infantry has high "Defense" stats, and Tanks have high "Breakthrough" in the game.

In modern WW2 warfare, you dont need to fight your enemy for every single tile all the way to their capital until you win. You use Tanks to target a key spot in the enemy line, and "Breakthrough" it. Once you have Broken-through, you will need men who can follow behind the tanks and into this breach.

The best way to get Infantry that can keep up with your tanks, and who can move beyond the enemy Infantry, is if they were in Trucks, which can drive 3x faster than the enemy can walk.

This is the role of Motorized Infantry. Its Infantry that is mobile. Use them to Defend your Breakthrough. Victory in WW2 is won by Speed and Maneuver rather than combat. You really want to try and defeat your opponent with as little actually fighting as possible. (unless you are grinding ofc)


Yes, you need to add some to your Tank Divisions, because the Tank Divisions themselves need "Defence" as well, which Tanks do not have.

[kenzie apple puppy love flower]

You need to add them to your tank divs so they are not too squishy when in fights. They are generally, something you use as support in your division.

[Darp]

Originally posted by Perfectly Valid School of Magic:

What is their purpose? Is there a time to use them versus regular infantry, and a time to use them versus tanks? Is mixing them into tank templates viable? I've never really understood the point of them.

Faster and more supression

[6ap6apblckaAa]

As kyleperry19 said:
1. You block your frontline with infantry.
2. You break a point in enemy line with tanks.
3. You pour in mot in this hole and surround a chunk of enemy.

So mot needs to be for defence as inf, but faster to quickly surround enemy before they can reform the line.
And don't forget to take supply hubs also in step 3.

[TasteDasRainbow]

They have higher stats than basic inf, as well as much higher move speed.

It is absolutely necessary to have at least 3 battalions in your armor divs, for purposes of basic div defense and organization for assaults. Most people will run 5-10, however I use only 3-5 for armor org and instead pair a motorized division with every armor div so that armor can outright specialize in only offense, and mot can specialize in defense, as well as allowing mot divs to sit back during encirclements while armor divs finish the encirclement.

Outside of that, motorized divs/armies can be effective in small amounts as flanking forces, quick reaction/defense forces, and outright breakthrough (not stat wise but strategically) toward VPs, airfields, supply hubs, etc.

[Perfectly Valid School of Magic]

I appreciate the answers. Still relatively new to the game and the wiki doesn't really explain the point of MI, or if it does I'm too dense to get

[velvetcrabman]

TDR as usual is pretty much on the nail.

I build tank divisions with a base of 5 tank and 5 motor/mech battalions, motor/mech divisions with 7 battalions plus 2 arty and 1 AA (support companies to taste) and run them in armies with with 5 each tank and motor.

Kyle has the role spot on. Tanks breakthrough line, motor hold jaws open and expand.

In use the art is to keep them fast (that's where motor are better than mech until late war). The AI can't react to well to fast units and even if it could footslogging divisions can't reform a line fast enough. That speed allows you take supply hubs, airfields (often overlooked), towns/cities, ports, etc, as mentioned above. Never be tempted to add anything to motorised troop templates that will slow them down and never stop looking for gaps that they can exploit.

The thing is they're an expensive division though, so never use them to routinely hold the line, always combine their efforts with armoured div's if you have them. They can operate on their own if you can't afford to build tanks, but it's sub optimal in many cases.

It's also possible if resources/factories are tight run them with cavalry taking the role they normally have and giving the motor div's the role the tanks normally perform, this also works well in poor supply areas.

How many do you need? As usual it's down to how you play, to be effective imho you need enough mobile troops to create and exploit 2 breakthroughs which can act as jaws for creating an encirclement. A single small mobile army of 10 divisions can do this for a small breakthrough, 2 armies allows much larger cauldrons and if you can get four out of the door you can some very impressive ones with multiple encirclements. To get the most out of them and to snake efficiently around the enemy it's pretty much essential to heavily micro tho'. If you don't like to micro I'd stick to tank divisions and not bother to make them fast tbh.

A little oddity....motor divisions with no trucks still move at 12kph, something of a cheese factor for minors that can be exploited.

You got such good answers above I feel a bit like I'm teaching my Granny to suck eggs, lol, but reinforcing good advice is seldom a bad thing, as ever best way to really understand it tho' is experiment, then experiment some more, see what works for you as a player, then see if you can make it work better.

Apologies for wall of text, insomnia makes me do schizz like that..............................

[[HPC] Crplsteve]

If you use just tanks in a tank division they will have no org and low HP and will struggle to make a breakthrough since they can't stick around long enough. a 5 Tank 5 Moto split means that you don't sacrifice speed as pure infantry would slow down the tanks and you gain org and HP letting your tanks stay in battle longer to do damage and breakthrough.

Pure moto division are there for when you need to defend the neck of a spearhead from counterattack or having fast infantry is a requirement. It helps prevent your tanks getting cut off due to leg inf taking too long to move into the breach. Normally you would have a small army for the moto to cover the area of the front you are trying to breakthrough, plus the regular infantry to reinforce them

(So you have your main infantry line that covers the full front, you add tanks to a section of line to either micro a breakthrough or set up a spearhead to encircle units. Then add moto to cover the area near the tanks so they follow them in.)

Hope that helps, its easier to show than tell tbh.