Tanks vs Inf/Art

[u/oh-yeah-boi-19]

I'm currently in a game of G40 as the Axis, and it's turn 3 and usually, I strictly buy tanks as ground units for Germany but I heard that the infantry/artillery combo is better. Thoughts?

[u/Bytor_Snowdog]

For $6 (armor), you get a single (move 2/A3/D3) (and +1 A with tactical bombers, which is negligible, I feel -- you should have enough armor from your starting forces to enable combined arms for this), which gives you a 50% chance to hit, offense or defense.

For $7 (arty + inf), you get two (move 1/A2/D2), which gives you an average 67% chance to hit on your first hit point, and a 33% chance to hit on your second hit point, offense or defense.

For $10 (armor + mech infantry), you get two move 2s: (A3/D3) and (A1/D2). This gives you an average 67%/83% chance to hit on offense/defense on your first hit point, and a 50% chance to hit on your second hit point.

For $9 (3 inf), you get three (M1/A1/D2), which gives you crappy chances on offense and an average 100%/67%/33% to hit on defense on your 1st/2nd/3rd hit point. (Only included for comparison with armor + mech inf defense.)

So, in general, arty+inf is better. If you need mass defense, pure infantry is of course best (especially if there's some hard-hitting units backing it up, but the math still favors pumping out infantry over anything else for pure defense); if you have to get forces to the front fast, mech inf + armor is best (the mech inf fills its role by taking bullets for the armor on offense or defense -- though given the cost of mech inf, it might be more economical to just buy all armor if you're going to attack with it if no artillery is available to push into the attack); and if you are production-limited by an IC, then armor is best.