Marines template and line-artillery (2024)

Crixus said:

I see alot of suggestions for a meta-marine template with 14 marines & 4 artillerys(and some support companys).
Thou, wouldn't the line-artillery give a naval penalty for naval invasions; Amphibious -40% for artillery, aswell as Amphibious landing: -70% to attack/defense.?
Sure, you lose soft attack from not using line-artillery, but they just seem to make naval landings worse for this templates anyway.
Wouldn't it be better to have pure marines battalions to skip the penalty?

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you can check if the attack stats after penalty still bigger than no artillery? Marine has some amphibios bonus that neutralize the penalty of artillery. But I probably prefer 1-2 medium tank than artillery, to give them armor bonus.

Crixus said:

I see alot of suggestions for a meta-marine template with 14 marines & 4 artillerys(and some support companys).
Thou, wouldn't the line-artillery give a naval penalty for naval invasions; Amphibious -40% for artillery, aswell as Amphibious landing: -70% to attack/defense.?
Sure, you lose soft attack from not using line-artillery, but they just seem to make naval landings worse for this templates anyway.
Wouldn't it be better to have pure marines battalions to skip the penalty?

Click to expand...

Pure marines plus engineers (50%+25%) over-compensate the amphibious penalty (-70%), so it's fine to put a few other things in there. Not having your stats reduced by terrain is great but not very useful if the stats are bad to begin with. If 4 artillery is too much, I'd at least add two artillery or one/two tanks.
The few percent of added penalty are made up by the much better base stats, it saves some special forces battalions, and the division remains more effective after it has landed.

xtfoster said:

Most importantly, the artillery doesn't count against your special forces cap, so you would have 30% less pure 20w Marine Divisions than you would 7/2 Marine Divisions.

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Why not heavy tanks then instead of arty?
Sure that's ridiculous, but wouldn't it work in the game? Dont recall the amphibious modifiers for heavies though.

My marine template:
- 5 marines
- support: eng, arty, AT, AA, hospital/log

Could likewise be done with 10 marines if you prefer the org bonus over the higher support density.

I prefer armour.

I mean, main thing your marines are doing is establishing beachheads, right? So if you're gonna decrease your amphibious bonus anyway, better to do it with something that gives you armour (since most garrisons don't really have piercing) and breakthrough.

bitmode said:

Not having your stats reduced by terrain is great but not very useful if the stats are bad to begin with.

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This.

Your terrain abilities matter not a whit if your base stats are crap.

Also, most people forget that in many amphibious situations, width is the limiting factor, not supply or terrain. So, you want plenty of firepower in the landing so you can overcome the defenders.

Personally, I prefer giving MAR divisions firepower in the form of either tank battalions or self-propelled battalions. Giving MAR divisions HSPART as Japan can make effective use of Japan's meager natural resources while providing plenty of firepower. For the US, I'd prefer ARM and SPART since the US has to import chromium, has domestic tungsten, and is probably spamming Shermans anyway.

One thing a lot of players forget is that the divisions guarding ports in rear areas tend to be lower quality divisions without a lot of piercing. So, even a few points of armor from some tanks or SPART can give you the armor benefit against them on top of everything else. Also, Japan, the Raj, Malaysia, DEI, and the Chinese are not famous for their anti-tank capabilities even in front line units, so landing against these countries with some armor in the divisions really does a number of them even in bad terrain.

I'm putting a single batallion of heavy tanks (no variant) to my 20w marines, works fantastic, adding lots of much-needed breakthrough, plus significant armor (AI usually doesnt pierce it)

Naval penalty is still acceptable.

Probably wouldn't work against well-defending human player, but I'm finding it optimal for sp.

seattle said:

Might be a tad cynical: I actually want my marines to be engaged in prolonged fighting in order to pimp my invasion expert general.

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Eh, he'll get it eventually or you just win the war.

Then again, I've gotten Manstein the invasion trait several times by having him spend months trying to take Malta in continuous invasions or failing to take Crete. Manstein "The Butcher" his men call him. But it's never intentional. I'd rather just win and beat the British.

If you are using 20 or 40w marines, using pure marines is not advisable because your SA per width is too low even with your very low terrain penalties.

You CAN use pure marines and get all your SA from support companies if you are on SF and use 10 width (or lower) marines but that has the downside of requiring more time to prepare invasions and naval invasion division cap. It's also harder to micro if you are playing MP.