Interesting idea. In the game, the Conflict of Nations has this function, since all slow units have their means of transportation to increase their speed.

Sounds like self propelled artillery - available day 16.

I actually kind of like this idea, artillery anti-air and anti-tank could all be able to be towed by motorized infantry I supose. But then of course 1 motorized regiment can only tow 1 other. Sound interresting, it would make troop distributing logistics more of a part of the game then it is now without ruining current game play. Yes I like it!

Its not like SP artillery at all, that has a different armor class. Its just a way to make slow units faster so that they can compete with the mechanized tree gaining a lot of speed throughout their upgrades. Making them depend on another unit for their speed brings some tactical planning, doing research differently perhaps and balance to the game. Its quite different from SP artillery.

I like this idea and think the reasoning is very sound. However, I would wonder how damage would be affected? Would the damage be distributed equally or would one part of the device take more damage than the other? If that was the case could you target one component? For example could I target the armored car to take damage.

Well in all cases of possibly towed material I think the only unit that should be able to do it would be motorized infantry (any other one unit gaining this skill would also be fine though). They would just form 1 single division, but travel at a speed between artillery and motorized infantry (the tow unit could have a 'tow speed') that might or might not increase as they are upgraded. Also as 1 unit should be able to tow 1 other, so 1 motorized infantry can tow only 1 artillery, anti-tank or anti-air. When 2 artillery are in a division with 1 tow unit the whole division would just move at the speed level of the slowest unit in the division.

But to answer your question, no you should not be able to target components. You can not do this in any division in the game so I see no reason to implement it to be able to shoot at a tow unit.

I don't like this idea as it would make forced march a negated effect to a certain extent. If this is implemented then it should receive damage to the unit as it's technically not produced or manufactured for traveling at accelerated speeds........Therefore practically making it a forced march command just with added units. This in the end will just cost more resources to research AND produce!

Well in all honesty I think forced march is a bit unneeded anyway. Losing HP for not planning ahead is what it is really, worst way to use units in my opinion.

The towing would only be between certain units. This would make it more of a strategic/logistical challenge. So it would in no way replace forced march.

You would need a lot of units to tow others so it would be a limited thing to make use of. Comming back to the planning and strategising.

But I would not worry to much, don't think this is anywhere near the priority list for the devs

If you were going to make the guns to be towed units, you don't need them to be towed by other units as suggested.
You just need to have them shown as loaded/unloading (similar to when becoming transports) , couple hours to load, couple more unload.
Of course this causes its own problems with the move command.
Maybe a extra button will be needed called Transit.

but every time you go investigating and leveling up, the unit goes up, right?

The only way something like that should be done is by creating real Railroad Lines for transport of non mechanized troops. the tracks would be vulnerable and the units at convoy strength.

Yes I know Infrastructure speeds up things, but non one builds up infrastructure everywhere do they?

Personally SPAA and Artillery are relative deals. Once you go mechanized, it's hard to stop.

The following way would be both strategically / tactically interesting and realistic (but for sure a bigger change with development and balancing effort):
* Remove unit motorized infantry.
* Invent new unit called "truck" (icon may be the same, cause might also be jeeps or even motorbikes for infantrymen in practice):

I think this idea is quite good. Every combination with the transport unit could just ad some extra HP by the transport unit being there. The production cost and time would be a major factor into how it balances into the game.

It would surely meant that players don't just mechanize everything just for the sake of speed. Early on made infantry based divisions would be useful throughout an entire game. Indeed very strategicly and tacticly interesting because of spending resources for more speed.

Pretty sure the development work for this feature would probably be a major reason not to implement this though.

I think I was not clear enough. What I meant with everyone going mechanized is that a lot of players only built troops from the armor tech branch later on in the game. I don't think mechanized infantry should be removed from the game.

Yeah, neither Edepedable nor me thought of removing mechanized infantry - please read properly.
The idea was to replace the current motorized infantry with a unit representing transportation vehicles (primarily trucks).

Regular Motarized infantry are one of my favorite units, they are super fast, pack some power, decent enough AA and can take cities easily unlike light tanks.

You just have to think long range with non motorized stuff and send them way beyond what the current front lines are later in the game to be useful

The transported infantry should have infantry attack/defense values (not mot inf).

Yes, that would make for some interesting choices and be a fun addition.