Splitting units

[Emren]

There was no thread treating this topic, so here goes...

How often do you guys split units in scenarios? In WWII scenarios, say a Div/Reg game, you often have artillery, recon, AT, engineers, RR or other "special" assets as separate units. How often do you guys split these support assets into 2 or 3 sub-units? And how about regular combat units, how often do you split these units?

Obviously there can be no generalized answer to this, so I'm interested in hearing you guys' observations. At least, we can treat combat units and supporting units differently:

Combat units:

When on the offense, usually I find that keeping the units coherent is fine, because it gives me a more effective (i.e. concentrated) use of the equipment.

On the defense, sometimes it's better to fan out a regiment into two or three units to better cover the approach routes to whatever it is I'm defending, and sometimes it's best to keep the units coherent and stack defenders into solid, fortified positions.

Support units:

The purpose of these units are to provide different kinds of support for the regular combat troops, but here I'm very much in doubt as to what might be best: To split that AT regiment into three and stack each battalion onto my three infantry regiments, or to place the combined AT regiment onto the infantry regiment guarding the primary target? To split my engineers to cover more ground vis-a-vis creating fortified positions, or to keep them coherent and thus work faster, one position at a time?

The only units I regularly split are recon units...

Enough ramblings from me, I am very interested about YOUR observations! :)

[Xandamere]

As you might imagine, there are a variety of factors to be considered.

The main factor is that when a unit splits up, the proficiency of the sub-units is lower than that of the full unit...I think 20% lower or so (so from 70% to 54%, not 50%). This is restored if the unit is recombined.

Proficiency matters a whole lot in TOAW, so I rarely split units. I only really do it in three instances:

1) covering more ground, either on offense of defense. Sometimes on defense you just won't have enough pieces to make a solid line, so this can help. On offense, splitting fast-moving units can help you to claim territory more quickly (but those recon units are more vulnerable to disengagement penalties if they're split up).

2) Suicide defenders. In a scenario where I'm heavily on the defensive, I'll build a line, with plans to fall back to another line when the first is breached. In between the two lines I'll leave some broken down units fortified along roads, on hill/mountain hexes, etc. to slow the attacker down and give me time to withdraw to my next line, get my troops dug in, and rest them a bit. Fortified units are very difficult to overrun, even if they're fairly small (just keep them over 1/10th the strength of whatever you anticipate will be attacking them and they probably won't be overrun).

3) To help complete encirclements of enemy troops, sometimes you need to divide a unit. This also helps when you're on the defensive but you have the chance to encircle a unit that stuck its head out a bit too far, but whatever units wrap around behind the enemy unit are likely to be stuck out in front of your line and destroyed the next turn. You can complete the encirclement using a broken-down recon battalion or AT battalion, and lose that to bag a division or two. Quite a nice trade :)

[Menschenfresser]

Actually if you recombine split units they don't completely regain their former proficiency. I don't have the % on hand, but it should be in the help file.

It is a useful tactic in both attack and defense. It is a good way to create artificial reserves if you lack the number of units to do so.

[Kraut]

Actually if you recombine split units they don't completely regain their former proficiency. I don't have the % on hand, but it should be in the help file.



No, they DO regain their full proficiency, that was a change in one of the latest COW patches (1.03 or 1.04), in earlier versions the unit did indeed lose proficiency after it was recombined but than somebody reminded Norm that the germans regularry used smaller units (Kampfgruppen) and therefore this was changed.

Another use for split up units: in a game with lots of open space player two can use many small units to block player 1's supply line.

[Siberian HEAT]

From an old post by Jamiam;

Units lose 20% proficiency when they are split into sub units.

When recombined, the weighted average of the individual pieces is taken and multiplied by 1.25 to nominally regain the original unit proficiency. --Jamiam

So, as long as none of the 3 broken down units suffers any catastrophe during the ensuing turns...recombining the 3 again should result in a similar proficiency. In general, you could probably say the quicker you recombine a unit, the better chance it has of getting back to its former proficiency.

[Menschenfresser]

News to me!

Thanks

[Emren]

So the proficiency loss is temporary, but affects the sub-units for as long as they remain sub-units.

So it remains a tactical decision, whether to split units or not. Does anyone split engineers or units with bridging equipment?

[Menschenfresser]

Yea, I have split Engs if I want to make multiple crossing of a superriver but don't have enough units. Keep track of the fording % so you don't split them down and you lose benefits of a higher %.

[Kraut]

also, if your eng or railrepair unit has a 99% repair probability it makes sense to split it up in two subunits, if every subunit has a >60% probability to do the job aswell you can repair more hexes every turn than if using the united unit (of course it will sometimes happen that both units will fail)

[Becker]

I split up everything to split my opponent open