Break Down Battalions or No??

[Zemke]

Just wondering what the prevailing opinion is out there amoung experienced players. According to the manuel, battalions that fight as battalions take on less fatigue and thus hold their moral better, and when they do fire, get more kills. The down side is they cover less ground, can get isolated if used alone, more company units get more shots. With the few games I have logged, I have noticed that a lot of players tend to break their battalions down, more often than not. What are the thoughts of everyone out there on this?

[Ricky B]

I use a combo myself, depending on the situation. I NEVER worry about fatigue differences, outside of feeling free to breakdown a 4 company battalion into a single company and treating the rest as a normal battalion. This has been argued over many times, but overall the average fatigue for the battalion units are going to be approximately the same whether combined or separate - if a combined battalion takes fire that causes 100 fatigue, or right at the yellow level, using separate companies with one company taking the same fire would result in the one company having 300 fatigue, and thus max, while the other 2 would still be at 0. So there are trade offs there between having 2 low and one high fatigue companies vs one moderate fatigue battalion, vs the chance of losing one company while the others are still fresh, which is a permanent loss.

If you group the companies and fire at once, you will get the same basic firepower as if they were combined - although I do believe the separate companies might have more chance to disrupt the target as each fire is treated separately, but I am not sure there as John Tiller normally tries to make things as equivalent as possible, from what I have seen.

So I will frequently break them down to cover more frontage, but if in one hex I will normally try to keep combined unless something calls for breaking them down, then I don't worry about it.

Rick

[James Ward]

I find the number of units to be overwhelming if I breakdown all my units. I do find it useful to breakdown German A morale units and assault isolated and disrupted enemy units. Usually this will allow you to wipe out a full strength C morale unit in short order. You can always recombine after all assaults and fire has been completed.

[Volcano Man]

Just to add to what has already been said:

I also think separate attacks for each company (one at a time) does have a higher chance at causing disruptions than attacking with them all combined as a battalion (simply because there are more "checks"), but if you fire with all the companies in one shot then the probability seems to be identical since it is still one combined check (or so it seems). I say that because there is a drawback of firing with companies, one at a time for more chance of disruptions, and it is that when you do so you invoke more enemy return fire which can be devastating.

Also, lets not forget everyone's trick of stacking several companies and a battalion (of like units) in one hex, and then putting the battalion on the bottom of the stack. What you should do in this circumstance is, if you fire on units in the stack and see that one is gaining high losses and/or putting out effective fire, then chances are it is a combined unit and you should concentrate fire on it.

There are other advantages to having units combined though; combined units are either completely low on ammo or not, where as broken down units can have some of the companies in the battalion low ammo at times sine more checks are occuring. Combined units also put out far more effective opportunity / defensive fire than a single company ever will on your opponents turn.

I would say that the main advantages of breaking units down are, obviously, that you can cover more ground with ZOCs as the first, and the second is that individual companies do seem to hold objectives longer since you have more units to disrupt, although a good assault can dislodge non disrupted companies as long as most of them (in the stack) are disrupted.

Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages depending on the circumstances.

[Mr Grumpy]

Excellent thread this....:)

I tend to keep my battalions combined especially when they are A/B quality as the chance of a single disruption shot on the whole unit is lower, if i am worried about losing a vital hex i will detach one company and as long as it is 100+ men, it will show up as XXX strength to the attacker just the same as the rest of the battalion, in this formation the attacker needs two disruptions and if you are lucky his fire will be on the larger unit! ;)

I have had single companies taken out of a game in a single turn by heavy arty fire, so if i can avoid it (and sometimes you cant) i keep my units combined.

[FLG]

Generally I will divide for defense, especially if my forces are spread thin, and stay combined for attack. The larger punch and the lower chance of disruption helps to make an offense or counter stroke less uncertain.

Also I have experienced more than a few occasions when a well rested company fails to take and enemy position held by a disrupted battalion. They sometimes a single company just doesn't pack the punch required.

[Krak]

Bunkers. If you are trying to hold a bunker with an 'A' unit keep it together. As it will not disrupt. If lower than an 'A', divide. Its harder to disrupt 3 'B' units than 1. If trying to hold a string of bunkers see below.

The 'trick' is to break down an 'A' unit and stack it with as many lower quality stacks as possible. As a stack of 'c' or 'd' units will get the bonus (20%) an 'A' unit gets when defending in an assault. From the manual:

"For the defenders, the highest unit modifier of all the defenders is applied to the total defending assault value."

[Vaevictis]

When playing with quality fatigue modifier, I have no problem keeping A units broken down because they have fatigue gain at same level as battalion size units when no QFM is in effect. I feel that is a reasonable amount of fatigue gain.

[von Waldenburg]

Well, in fact I try to have regiments or brigades together not just batallions :) I only break bns down when there's a need for cannon fodder somewhere in my lines (in the defensive basically) or when exploring a territory with certain speed (the case that comes to my mind is Sicily as the allies you need to advance in company sized groups in many places at the begginning specially).

Nice thread
Artur

[Zemke]

Well I am pretty new to this game, but learning fast. I have found that I prefer to keep my Battalions intact unless it is absolutely necessary to break them down. I find this particularly the case in a Danube 85 Campaign game I am involved in. The Soviets or WP forces seem to have so much fire power, that if they want, they can just wither a Company really fast, but a US or German Battalion will hold it's own, and if a tank battalion, will really return some hard hitting licks back. In the attack I try to always have battalions doing the hard hitting, using companies to cover flanks or "exposed" areas while attacking. I break down battalions when I am doing more economy of force missions, or want to maintain a robust reserve.

I sort of felt a bit out of place asking this question, because in my team game I see a lot of both, so I wanted to know what others thought.