Pioneers v Rangers

[Potätr]

I was wondering if it would be worth putting a pioneer support company on a mountaineer divisioin so I can fight in both hills and have a little jungle bonus, or should I put rangers on a marine division and have marines with some mountain and arty bonus.

[HappySack]

I don't think so, Rangers are only specialized for mountains or snow and can be used with normal infantry or mountaineers (when specializing for snow it's fun to combine them with winter logistics companies if you're playing a Nordic country.)

But Pioneers are way too specialized to be used with anything but marines unless you're in South America otherwise their only purpose is to increase the naval invasion bonuses of your marines.

[DerRitter]

Originally posted by HappySack:

I don't think so, Rangers are only specialized for mountains or snow and can be used with normal infantry or mountaineers (when doing the latter it's fun to combine them with winter logistics companies if you're playing a Nordic country.)

But Pioneers are way too specialized to be used with normal infantry and unless you're in South America their only purpose to increase the effectiveness of your marines.

Rangers get some boosts in forests too

[Mack]

Rangers replace Recon.
Pioneers replace Engineers.

So you can use both eventually.

Rangers should take Rough Terrain -> Mountain Artillery -> Backbone of Forces. The Cold Weather specialisation isn't really that useful compared to Mountains, which are more common terrain.

South America and Asia there's an argument to make to use mixed Mountain/Marine units, instead of all Marine/Mountain. If that's the case, you would take Jungle Specialists for the Marine Pioneers, and the mixed units (say, 5 Marine, 5 Mountain) with Pioneers & Rangers as that unit will be better at fighting through the jungles, mountains and rivers common in SA & Asia.

Majors using Marines are likely going to focus on Marines ONLY doing naval invasions for the Pacific or DDAY in Europe or Japan. So you take Pioneer Shore Parties -> Expeditionary Units, Blowtoch, Task Forces. Marine Commandos are micro heavy and fiddly so avoid that path unless you have Man The Guns AND are going to use Amtracs & Amphib Armour. for heavy mechanised marine units.

[captain403]

Originally posted by Mack:

Rangers replace Recon.
Pioneers replace Engineers.

So you can use both eventually.

Rangers should take Rough Terrain -> Mountain Artillery -> Backbone of Forces. The Cold Weather specialisation isn't really that useful compared to Mountains, which are more common terrain.

Backbone of the armed forces is, in most situations, inferior. It gives 10% SA to mountaineers vs shared instructors 10% attack of all types to all special forces. And, unless your army is quite small, instructors will give more special forces than backbone will.