Currently, used by the game engine to calculate the influence of garrisoned troops on the risk of a province to rebel successfully, is the so called "unit strength". Which if I remember correctly equals the highest attack value the unit has.
Consequently, the most cost efficient way to secure a province from rebelling is placing a AA unit (ideally level 3 or higher, because then one unit is sufficient to reduce rebellion risk to 0%) in it. I very often find myself building a AA gun in a newly conquered province to solve this purpose on first day change of my ownership (while of course planning to use it somewhere else afterwards).
Now can you imagine Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini saying "Generals, we have to keep the population in our conquered territories quiet. Let's either build more AA guns or [i]withdraw some AA guns from the front line![/i]"
??
Of course that's far from realistic. In fact, rebels are non-armoured land targets, in a way "attacking" the garrison. So the calculation should use the defense value against non-armoured targets of the garrisoned unit instead.
Result: You'd then usually use infantry (one of the four types) or, in more seldom cases tanks or armoured cars to suppress rebellions. That would be perfectly realistic.
Consequently, the most cost efficient way to secure a province from rebelling is placing a AA unit (ideally level 3 or higher, because then one unit is sufficient to reduce rebellion risk to 0%) in it. I very often find myself building a AA gun in a newly conquered province to solve this purpose on first day change of my ownership (while of course planning to use it somewhere else afterwards).
Now can you imagine Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini saying "Generals, we have to keep the population in our conquered territories quiet. Let's either build more AA guns or [i]withdraw some AA guns from the front line![/i]"
??
Of course that's far from realistic. In fact, rebels are non-armoured land targets, in a way "attacking" the garrison. So the calculation should use the defense value against non-armoured targets of the garrisoned unit instead.
Result: You'd then usually use infantry (one of the four types) or, in more seldom cases tanks or armoured cars to suppress rebellions. That would be perfectly realistic.
. 
