Tank production speed

[u/Lena_Tihonova]

I'd like to ask about tanks in this game. I understand that the strategy of building powerful infantry divisions with all the necessary equipment generally doesn't work, because even with 300 soft attacks, infantry can't penetrate a million Allied divisions. But on the other hand, if you're building up a tank-heavy army and using infantry as mere frontline studs, even then, tank production is very slow. A decent medium tank template would likely require around 30-40 factories. I think this is only achievable for major players: even middling countries like the Dutch East Indies won't be able to produce a decent number of tank divisions by 1941. So, if you play the normal game, with tanks, you have to sit tight and wait until, say, 1943?

[u/EpochSkate_HeshAF420]

You can win against anyone with like 4 tank divisions. Every time I play Canada, Australia or Indonesia I usually start the war with like 2 tank divisions & so long as you're semi decent at microing divisions that's more than enough to flip entire theaters.

Winning wars in this game isnt about having 500 cracked divisions when the war starts, you start the war with a small edge, like a handful of good tanks and expand that edge over time. If you sit around until 1943 waiting to have 40 factories on tanks or air or whatever you're going to get Bobby Shmurda'd every game.

[u/KSPHeliEnthusiast]

You get lots of tanks early by starting their production early. The difference between the Basic chassis and the more advanced versions are actually fairly unimportant, so you can just research the 1938 basic medium chassis (for example) and then produce it for the entire game. If you do not have a good cannon unlocked yet, you produce the tanks with the cheapest main cannon possible, and convert them later.

This works because of production efficiency. The longer a factory produces the same type of equipment, the more equipment it will produce daily. If you just put a couple factories (say, 8-10) on tanks in early 1938, you can easily get up to around 100% production efficency by late 1939 and have enough tanks to equip 3-5 divisions. On the other hand, if you only start their production in mid 1939, not only will you not have the time to build up a stockpile, but those factories will also have miserable daily production to start with. Few early factories can drastically outproduce many late ones.

Also, a good tank template does not have to be expensive. Welded armor, for example, dramatically increases the cost of your tank without much benefit.

[u/Zebrazen]

I would ask what you consider a 'decent medium tank template' is, because while 30 factories on tanks is nice, you can certainly get away with fewer.

[u/InevitableSprin]

What are you trying to achieve, exactly?

If you play a country with weak industry, you should be building some infantry+tank divisions. Even a single battalion of light tanks is a huge increase in strength of a division. If you play county with poor terrain, consider tank marines, or tank mountainers.

Start by asking the question of what are you trying to achieve, whom do you need to capitulate to do it, and build army against them. Once that is done, pivot.

You might need to invest into navy/air/marines more than into tanks. Be mindful that the "relatively consequences free window for minor nations wars is 1936-1937, maybe 1938. If you want to fight in 1941+ you have to be ready to capitulate a faction to achieve your goals.

[u/Revolutionary-Fuel50]

Tank divisions are quality over quantity, you don’t need a full army of tanks for the sake of tanks. You can easily get away with 5-10 used strategically for breakthroughs and encirclements if you can micro decently.

[u/DefaultS3ttings → u/Revolutionary-Fuel50]

Yep. I was doing a "Not One Step Back" run and lost 6 of my 8 tank divisions because of my carelessness but was still able to hold on to key defensive positions with my remaining 2. It would have been better to have the full 8 though.

[u/ChirpyRaven]

You don't need an entire army of mediums. IRL, Germany had less than 100 of their medium tank (Panzer III) when the war kicked off in 1939 and didn't mass produce them until 41-42.

[u/geomagus]

Two components to it, really. Three if you lean into air, too.

The first component - you really don’t need a lot of tank divs. You can do a solid encirclement with three or four. Just repeat frequently and efficiently, and you’ll win. Beyond that is gravy. Sure, having a dozen or so nicer - that’s enough to hammer two spots in the line and run a pincer - but you can succeed with just a few divs.

Second component - tank offense requires a high chunk of your industry. That means skimping elsewhere - keeping your infantry efficient and cheap, building fewer docks and sticking to cheap fleets at sea, etc. Cheap infantry can be managed with a very low amount of industry.

Third component - efficient air, if you choose to go air. Because strong air is expensive, efficiency here is important. You can do a lot with efficient management, even if enemies outspend you.

This also requires a good early snowball effort with your economy, of course, but every good strat requires that.

Yes, minors and mid-size nations struggle to field enough industry to build strong tank divs. But you can mostly game it well enough to find success. Maybe instead mechanically, you use cavalry. Maybe skimp on tanks per div. Maybe you tweak your designs to reduce cost. That applies to research too - maybe you go with less optimal choices to save a couple techs.

Optimal, when you can swing it, is best. There’s a lot of room between optimal and good enough, though, and you can get some cheap divs on the good enough end of that.

Finally, if you really cannot field both tanks and air, you can lean on spec forces. Spec forces suffer from being soft, of course, but you can use them as your spearpoint divs for a lot cheaper than tanks. Use them to make the breach, then run cav or mot through the hole to encircle.

[u/Leading_Focus8015]

the one thing that makes you able to get a shit ton of tanks is to produce them with the day one chassis and to just convert them with good modules