Making Infantry Company More Infantry-Centric

[MenciusMoldbug]

I've been thinking about this doctrine a lot and how it's role is compared to other specialized doctrines and I find it a bit-too multi-purpose for my liking. I've been thinking about how most people 'correctly' play infantry company and it has very little to do with infantry at the end. More to do with a lot of 105s, 76mm AT Emplacements, M10s, a few Jumbos, and some Infiltration Rangers late game with Long-Tomming any heavy tank they see.

So I've been thinking about how to make this doctrine more specialized towards infantry, and I've made a few changes that aren't too big and some that could be big.

Changing Improved Fuel Supply to Manpower Supply (Call it 'Improved Logistics')

I've been thinking about the role of the 'Improved Fuel Supply' upgrade in the supply yard for infantry company and it doesn't fit their style at all. Infantry Company is usually floating 350 fuel because all their tanks except the jumbo are very cheap in fuel to build. Their real problem is not having enough manpower to have an infantry advantage over its enemies. This also encourages people to shift away from building infantry and going more 'tank-heavy' because of how much fuel they have and you end up with an infantry-company that looks very much like armor doctrine without the heavy armor (exception being jumbo). So I thought infantry company should be a bit more fuel-starved in exchange for having a manpower advantage. By having the Improved-Fuel Supply in the supply yard that gives you +5 fuel be replaced with a manpower supply upgrade gives you +40 or +50 manpower. Why that number in particular? Because vehicles have a x7, x8, or x9 factor in how much fuel is equal to manpower, and +5 fuel seems to be around +40 in manpower.

Changing The Late Mass Production Upgrades

Now that US infantry are no longer acting like a mass-wave of conscripts being repeatedly thrown at the enemy. The mass production upgrades that goes from top left to top right in infantry company's tree looks out of place. US player are no longer getting +5 Riflemen squads and so the CP unlock to get cheaper weapon upgrades is not as useful anymore. Neither is the cheaper infantry that comes after as infantry company now encourages to keep your remaining squads alive compared to just having a buttload of then It is also far easier to micro a fewer squads than to make the US player have to get 'more' squads to compete against it's enemies (it also helps against game-lag too).

So instead of having a CP unlock for cheaper weapon upgrades, it should be changed into one that makes using infantry abilities cheaper. Stastically, I have found infantry company, even before Riflemen and Rangers were changed to be having their munition sink be their abilities and not their weapon upgrades. As in 100-150 munitions going down the drain towards grenades and stuff. A CP unlock this far in the tree should cut down the price of all infantry abilities by around 40% (or maybe even 50%). So a Rifle-Grenade ability from Riflemen that costs 35 should become 21 and etc. This will further help encourage more infantry-centric plays rather than relying on HE vehicles as being the more 'cost-efficient' option to take on enemy infantry.

The last unlock after this, should give you the incentive to keep your remaining squads alive with a few buffs added to them rather than make a ton-more of them. As infantry company is less-reliant on mass-infantry charges. This upgrade can be changed to give a vet and experience buff like other infantry-training unlocks for units like Rangers, Stormtroopers, Commandos, Fallshirmjagers, etc. Without the damage reduction. So the last unlock instead of making some units cheaper, will make units (exception being Rangers) have enough experience for them to get veterancy 1 and they will get experience 25% faster.

More Infantry AT Squads

If you count how many dedicated AT-infantry squads infantry company has, that number is a max of 2. With whatever number increasing that limit is thanks to being able to pick up dropped AT weapons (bazookas, shrecks, etc.). This forces infantry company to rely heavily on units like M10's not because their infantry-AT suck, but because they can't get enough of them to deal with late-game mass/heavy tanks. Airborne players at least have 82nd airborne that come with 2 bazookas, and the 101st who are given recoiless that you can stack on a single squad if you wanted to get a 'pure-AT' squad. While the Infantry company is left on only 2 AT-Infantry Squads in the barracks.

What I would propose to change this is to have the Ranger Truck be able to deploy a Ranger-AT Squad. With the compensation being that infiltration Rangers will no longer come with a bazooka but 6 thompsons instead. I find the infiltration Rangers with their weapon slots all being occupied, having the bazooka Ranger survive in the battlefield becomes a RNG-experience. As when the bazooka man dies, the other soldiers cannot pick up his bazooka as they all have their weapon slots being used by thompsons. Adding to this is I find using Infiltration Rangers as part-AT and anti-infantry splits their role too much, and they should just be pure-anti infantry with anti-emplacement abilities like their current satchel-charges to go do their thing.

On the Ranger-AT Squad, these guys will be 4 men, 450 manpower, come with 2 bazookas and whatever other Ranger-like modifiers they should have. With the last CP unlock after Ranger-Truck (Ranger Training) they will be able to crawl (evasive maneuvers) so infantry company can set-up nasty ambushes for tanks if they are not careful with them. They will be limited to 2, and this will increase the limit of AT-infantry squads infantry company can field to a max of 4 and the last 2 will be very special in the way they can surprise enemy tanks if axis do not have good spotters around.

Improved 76mm AT Emplacement

This is probably the worst AT emplacement in the game and it has to do with it being a pure-AT emplacement and having very little penetration power against heavier tanks as they don't get 'first-strike' ambush bonuses since they can't camouflage. I would make these emplacements have an HE ability like the 17 Pounder Emplacement does. So they are not completely useless if some infantry decide to charge in their faces while the normal 76 AT gun can lob HE shells at those guys.

That's about it, this is more of a brain-storming of ideas put together than a coherent doctrine-tree. The over-all idea is to have Infantry Company less reliant on its tank depot and more reliant on its infantry barracks (I left the Jumbo out because I don't know what changes will come to it now).

[Walderschmidt]

I need to think more about this, but I really like this idea.

Wald

[The New BK Champion]

I agree with all the points

[Warhawks97]

I've been thinking about this doctrine a lot and how it's role is compared to other specialized doctrines and I find it a bit-too multi-purpose for my liking. I've been thinking about how most people 'correctly' play infantry company and it has very little to do with infantry at the end. More to do with a lot of 105s, 76mm AT Emplacements, M10s, a few Jumbos, and some Infiltration Rangers late game with Long-Tomming any heavy tank they see.

true

Changing Improved Fuel Supply to Manpower Supply (Call it 'Improved Logistics')

I've been thinking about the role of the 'Improved Fuel Supply' upgrade in the supply yard for infantry company and it doesn't fit their style at all. Infantry Company is usually floating 350 fuel because all their tanks except the jumbo are very cheap in fuel to build. Their real problem is not having enough manpower to have an infantry advantage over its enemies. This also encourages people to shift away from building infantry and going more 'tank-heavy' because of how much fuel they have and you end up with an infantry-company that looks very much like armor doctrine without the heavy armor (exception being jumbo). So I thought infantry company should be a bit more fuel-starved in exchange for having a manpower advantage. By having the Improved-Fuel Supply in the supply yard that gives you +5 fuel be replaced with a manpower supply upgrade gives you +40 or +50 manpower. Why that number in particular? Because vehicles have a x7, x8, or x9 factor in how much fuel is equal to manpower, and +5 fuel seems to be around +40 in manpower.

Not bad, thing is fuel can be used for one thing: tanks, MP boost for everything. If they boost MP by 40 per min combined with upkeep reduction this doc will be able to spam more shermans than armor doc or just as many.

The only thing that makes this doc too much tank doc is jumbo.


but generally i dont like to make docs doing just one very same thing and prefer combined arms capabilities.
We had this "only inf" thing in the past and got very lucky when M10 and 76 shermans finally got some sort of usage outside of armor doc.

So this "MP cash" is dangerous in my opinion.

So docs can be focused on something, but shall not throw the idea of combined arms over board.

Realism bash: US inf divisions fielded more tanks than many german tank divisions:D

Changing The Late Mass Production Upgrades

Now that US infantry are no longer acting like a mass-wave of conscripts being repeatedly thrown at the enemy. The mass production upgrades that goes from top left to top right in infantry company's tree looks out of place. US player are no longer getting +5 Riflemen squads and so the CP unlock to get cheaper weapon upgrades is not as useful anymore. Neither is the cheaper infantry that comes after as infantry company now encourages to keep your remaining squads alive compared to just having a buttload of then It is also far easier to micro a fewer squads than to make the US player have to get 'more' squads to compete against it's enemies (it also helps against game-lag too).

So instead of having a CP unlock for cheaper weapon upgrades, it should be changed into one that makes using infantry abilities cheaper. Stastically, I have found infantry company, even before Riflemen and Rangers were changed to be having their munition sink be their abilities and not their weapon upgrades. As in 100-150 munitions going down the drain towards grenades and stuff. A CP unlock this far in the tree should cut down the price of all infantry abilities by around 40% (or maybe even 50%). So a Rifle-Grenade ability from Riflemen that costs 35 should become 21 and etc. This will further help encourage more infantry-centric plays rather than relying on HE vehicles as being the more 'cost-efficient' option to take on enemy infantry.

The last unlock after this, should give you the incentive to keep your remaining squads alive with a few buffs added to them rather than make a ton-more of them. As infantry company is less-reliant on mass-infantry charges. This upgrade can be changed to give a vet and experience buff like other infantry-training unlocks for units like Rangers, Stormtroopers, Commandos, Fallshirmjagers, etc. Without the damage reduction. So the last unlock instead of making some units cheaper, will make units (exception being Rangers) have enough experience for them to get veterancy 1 and they will get experience 25% faster.

Nice idea, was thinking about similiar stuff.
I even thought about making the cheaper weapon upgrade to be a WSC upgrade, esspecially as its value has dropped with new infiltration squad and 7 men rifle squad meta. Its not worth spending this much CP just to have perhaps 2-3 upgrades purchased cheaper if any (perhaps no new inf squad is build at the time this upgrade gets unlocked).

But having abilities cheaper is a pretty good idea. 10 ammo for nades, 30 ammo for satchels etc.

I would also prefer a to boost the units on the field rather than dropping the cost, esspecially as i doubt that in late game anyone will build normal rifles for slightly cheaper cost when he can get the 7 men squad for 300 MP and rangers which arent affected anymore.

More Infantry AT Squads

If you count how many dedicated AT-infantry squads infantry company has, that number is a max of 2. With whatever number increasing that limit is thanks to being able to pick up dropped AT weapons (bazookas, shrecks, etc.). This forces infantry company to rely heavily on units like M10's not because their infantry-AT suck, but because they can't get enough of them to deal with late-game mass/heavy tanks. Airborne players at least have 82nd airborne that come with 2 bazookas, and the 101st who are given recoiless that you can stack on a single squad if you wanted to get a 'pure-AT' squad. While the Infantry company is left on only 2 AT-Infantry Squads in the barracks.

What I would propose to change this is to have the Ranger Truck be able to deploy a Ranger-AT Squad. With the compensation being that infiltration Rangers will no longer come with a bazooka but 6 thompsons instead. I find the infiltration Rangers with their weapon slots all being occupied, having the bazooka Ranger survive in the battlefield becomes a RNG-experience. As when the bazooka man dies, the other soldiers cannot pick up his bazooka as they all have their weapon slots being used by thompsons. Adding to this is I find using Infiltration Rangers as part-AT and anti-infantry splits their role too much, and they should just be pure-anti infantry with anti-emplacement abilities like their current satchel-charges to go do their thing.

On the Ranger-AT Squad, these guys will be 4 men, 450 manpower, come with 2 bazookas and whatever other Ranger-like modifiers they should have. With the last CP unlock after Ranger-Truck (Ranger Training) they will be able to crawl (evasive maneuvers) so infantry company can set-up nasty ambushes for tanks if they are not careful with them. They will be limited to 2, and this will increase the limit of AT-infantry squads infantry company can field to a max of 4 and the last 2 will be very special in the way they can surprise enemy tanks if axis do not have good spotters around.

Honestly i dont like it.
The part with the infiltration ranger might be true, but i am against crawling squads with two hendheld AT weapons that allow crawling towards a vehicle or tank and blow it up. In return recon squad limit would need to be increased.

Also vs PE it would be a no brainer... you crawl arround, see a krad coming and you blow it up. You didnt kill the tank you wanted but you kill a krad more or less for sure... thats too much no brainer i would say.

That inf doc can get more AT squads, ok, that they can build them at the ranger truck, fine, but not crawling arround with two zooks.

At the end i would perhaps keep the current zook distribution perhaps.


Also if infantry with hendheld AT cant do the job, no ammount on earth of them would do it.
Simple increase of one type of weapon/unit doesnt makes it working better at the end, we saw it in the past.... no super spam overcomes the counter weapons.


Also its not that i would say the M10 is better or something, i just like diversity, not matter what i play. So even if i could get 4 squads, i dont see how it would help me. My mix is always a combo of guns and infantry rocket lauchers bc both have their own advantages. Currently i use a mix of one AT squad, rangers with zooks and pairs of M10 and that wouldnt change so much just bc i could get 3 AT squads.

Improved 76mm AT Emplacement

This is probably the worst AT emplacement in the game and it has to do with it being a pure-AT emplacement and having very little penetration power against heavier tanks as they don't get 'first-strike' ambush bonuses since they can't camouflage. I would make these emplacements have an HE ability like the 17 Pounder Emplacement does. So they are not completely useless if some infantry decide to charge in their faces while the normal 76 AT gun can lob HE shells at those guys.

That's about it, this is more of a brain-storming of ideas put together than a coherent doctrine-tree. The over-all idea is to have Infantry Company less reliant on its tank depot and more reliant on its infantry barracks (I left the Jumbo out because I don't know what changes will come to it now).

I thought about it for a pretty long time but i am not sure. It would almost only be killable by artillery units. The fact that it is a emplacmant means that you can in theory shoot many shots against a tank before that tank kills the emplacment (exception perhaps KT or jagdtiger).





Let me add something:

1. Remove Jumbo
2. Increase 105 sherman limit to two
3. Change captain in inf doc or idk so that its a three men squad with cool suportive abilties (eg the ability to call VT or something) for direct frontline support like Bk stormtroopers. Currently the only effective way to use captain near front is by putting it into a halftrack but even there it often ends in a sudden death.
4. The upper doctrine tree needs a change and i would like to make it the way you proposed. Cheaper abilties and 25-50% faster exp gain rate or 25% exp gain rate and slight HP buff or suppression resistance or something.

[MenciusMoldbug]

I would like to add an example of Infantry Company late game build looks like:

My MVP unit is a single jumbo sherman in that unit list. I had to get 3 M10's because infantry company has no other mobile AT but this tank after you finish building 2 AT squads from the barracks.

Although it might not be a good idea to have another AT Squad for Infantry Company that can crawl to tanks. I would still like it if there was another infantry AT option as sometimes getting M10 as your only other mobile AT unit makes Infantry Company predictable. They start flailing against stuff like tank-hunter doctrine in PE thanks to this. It leaves Airborne Company in a better position infantry-AT wise to take on numerous axis armor spam. Thanks to their AT pickups that come along with their airborne squads.

[Warhawks97]

I would add a 4 men at squad to the truck that receives buffs like the normal rangers. So in total can get 4 squads and deployable with the truck that receives the buff of other rangers after the cp unlock.

But I am afraid about crawling at squads in the game.

[Shanks]

Improved 76mm AT Emplacement

This is probably the worst AT emplacement in the game and it has to do with it being a pure-AT emplacement and having very little penetration power against heavier tanks as they don't get 'first-strike' ambush bonuses since they can't camouflage. I would make these emplacements have an HE ability like the 17 Pounder Emplacement does. So they are not completely useless if some infantry decide to charge in their faces while the normal 76 AT gun can lob HE shells at those guys.

That's about it, this is more of a brain-storming of ideas put together than a coherent doctrine-tree. The over-all idea is to have Infantry Company less reliant on its tank depot and more reliant on its infantry barracks (I left the Jumbo out because I don't know what changes will come to it now).

this emplacement is a garbage now, only with a discharge of maultier or 105 mm you can destroy it, although its drilling is improved, it does not make sense to build it, not in the current state .... I had already mentioned to markr that all emplacement are totally obsolete right now, with the exception of the bunker or mortar bunker 120 mm ... the panterturm too, it does not make sense to build it

Note:Obviously if the emplacement is improved again, everyone will complain again that they are indestructible, etc etc etc ... so I propose that in all the doctrines where this is some of
these emplacement (76 mm, 88mm, AA, panterturm, etc etc etc) in the tree of doctrine, be replaced by any new skill and that the emplacement are natural of those doctrines (like for example def or inf doc, I mean you do not need to unlock CP for it), and maybe that they have a reduction of price in fuel and MP

[Warhawks97]

Improved 76mm AT Emplacement

This is probably the worst AT emplacement in the game and it has to do with it being a pure-AT emplacement and having very little penetration power against heavier tanks as they don't get 'first-strike' ambush bonuses since they can't camouflage. I would make these emplacements have an HE ability like the 17 Pounder Emplacement does. So they are not completely useless if some infantry decide to charge in their faces while the normal 76 AT gun can lob HE shells at those guys.

That's about it, this is more of a brain-storming of ideas put together than a coherent doctrine-tree. The over-all idea is to have Infantry Company less reliant on its tank depot and more reliant on its infantry barracks (I left the Jumbo out because I don't know what changes will come to it now).

this emplacement is a garbage now, only with a discharge of maultier or 105 mm you can destroy it, although its drilling is improved, it does not make sense to build it, not in the current state .... I had already mentioned to markr that all emplacement are totally obsolete right now, with the exception of the bunker or mortar bunker 120 mm ... the panterturm too, it does not make sense to build it

Note:Obviously if the emplacement is improved again, everyone will complain again that they are indestructible, etc etc etc

i was just about to say. Not long ago we had huge complains about sim city games.

... so I propose that in all the doctrines where this is some of
these emplacement (76 mm, 88mm, AA, panterturm, etc etc etc) in the tree of doctrine, be replaced by any new skill and that the emplacement are natural of those doctrines (like for example def or inf doc, I mean you do not need to unlock CP for it), and maybe that they have a reduction of price in fuel and MP

I would perhaps not remove the upgrades themselves but perhaps combining a few. The 76 mm AT emplacment could be unlocked along with this first unlock that unlocks this "emplacment" you build arround ressource points.

For example a flak 88 gun shouldnt be a default gun since it can also be used as arty and it would simply come way too early.
That brits have emplacments at default is a faction design and should not get spread just like that.

Inf doc could perhaps get a unlock that makes the emplacments a bit more sturdy. Not as much as def doc but a bit more sturdy when 76 mm AT pit is put together with that ressource point emplacment unlock.

[Henny]

Infantry doctrine does need a revamp. I support all your points

[Walderschmidt]

+1