Tank Warfare

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    • Tank Warfare

      This guide is for those of you who don't know how to use their tanks effectively, or just don't know what tanks are anyway.
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      What is a tank?

      Your average everyday tank is the most iconic unit in warfare. They've been in use since WWI and will continue to be used until the world realizes how useless war really is (in that case, until the end of time). They're armored units with much more health than the troops in the infantry branch, but can be much more vulnerable in some areas. Tanks strive in flat plains but are extremely vulnerable in urban provinces. This makes them an unreliable troop type (not including mechanized infantry).

      How do I use my tanks?

      They're called tanks for a reason, they tank damage, absorb it, this is why they're usually a front-line unit, while they can also be used defensively, they're arguably more useful on the offensive end. The main difference between infantry and tanks is that infantry dies easily, and while tanks do a good amount of damage to infantry, infantry can't do as much to tanks. They're best used as an anti-infantry team, especially against Militia, which is really, really bad against tanks. When in a tank-against-tank situation, the winner is the one has a bigger stack, higher leveled units and a more diverse stack. However, tanks are extremely vulnerable against 2 units, the fearsome Anti-Tank, and airplanes. Both can do a LOT of damage to tanks, this is why you should never, ever make tank only stacks.

      So what should I do when facing Anti-tanks and Airplanes?

      To face both of these Dilemmas you need a diverse unit stack, by diverse I mean Anti-air and infantry. Usually, a tank stack combined with some mot. (motorized) infantry and SPAA (self-propelled-Anti-Air) is best. Mot. Infantry for the Anti-tank, SPAA against pesky tactical bombers. You'll need to get some reinforcements every once in a while though, this stack is usually meant for blitzkrieg tactics, and isn't meant to last a long time.

      One more unit you don't want your tanks to face are rockets. No, not the level 1 rockets that can easily be shot down. I'm talking about level 2 (and up) rockets, every gold-whales favorite nuisance. While they can be easily avoided by moving your units, a stack sitting still will become easy prey for an enemies rockets. No matter how much Anti-air you got, these type of rockets will always hit a still target. While not as much damaging at lower levels, these pests are really annoying at higher levels, especially nuclear ones, but by that time you'll probably have your own too. The key to avoiding rockets here is to keep moving, even if you don't see a rocket headed your way, keep moving your stack around, even in circles.

      How many tanks are there?

      There are 5 main armored units, and 2 support units:

      Armored Car

      The simplest form of an armored unit, you usually start off with two in most games. These Speedy Wagons are very good for capturing enemy provinces early for their sheer speed compared to infantry. At the start of the game you usually send them to an unguarded enemy city to destroy it's infrastructure, it can also be used in plains as a defensive unit for their health (which is a bit higher than infantries). Even though they're cheap, they become worthless mid-late game since they're outclassed by many other units including the much better light tank. Very vulnerable to other tanks and airplanes, average against infantry

      Light Tank

      This is the second Armored unit you can unlock in the research tree. overall, it's an average unit, much better than the armored car, but only really dangerous at level 4 and upwards of that. They're best used to capture enemy provinces quickly, just like you would with an armored car. Although they can also be used in the front-line as an attack unit, best paired with infantry and anti-tanks. They can be mass produced due to their relatively cheap price and production speed, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know your enemy doesn't have a lot of anti-tank units. Decent against infantry, Decent against tanks, vulnerable against airplanes.

      Medium Tank

      The Medium Tank is an all round unit for all your attacking needs. They come in between light and heavy tanks. they deal a good amount of damage to infantry and a bit more damage to tanks, making them effective against both. Very useful as an attacking unit due to their damage values and best paired with infantry, anti-tanks and anti-air. While still being very vulnerable in urban provinces, they're very powerful in plains. While their speed isn't on par with the light tank, a battle between the two would easily result in the medium tank winning. Good amount of damage to both infantry and tanks, vulnerable against airplanes.

      Heavy Tank

      This unit is the gold-standard in tank-warfare. Combine an immense amount of health points with one of the highest damage values in the game and you'll get the heavy tank. A slow moving fortress of a tank. Heavy tanks do an unholy of damage to both infantry and tanks, while doing more damage to tanks than infantry. They have much more health points than most other units in the game, and are usually used as either a defensive unit, or an offensive one. While on defense, they're best put in plains, where they can do an extreme amount of damage to any tank or infantry unit unlucky to get in it's way. Just one heavy tank unit can hold off a horde of units long enough for backup to arrive. While as an offensive unit, they do pretty much the same thing, obliterate any enemy unit in their way. Although still vulnerable to anti-tanks and airplanes, that can easily be swayed off by accompanying your tanks with other support units. The only downside of this unit is that it's very costly, if you're not an oil-producing country, you probably won't be producing much of these units. I also wouldn't advise moving with this unit in an urban province unless they have some infantry to accompany them, they're very vulnerable in those areas. Great amount of damage to infantry, even greater damage to tanks, vulnerable against airplanes.

      Tank Destroyers

      This unit is the armored version of an anti-tank. They're very damaging to other tanks, but vulnerable to both infantry and airplanes. These are defensive units, not meant for attacking due to their low attack values. While they are seen as the best anti-tank units. They're outclassed by both the regular anti-tank, and the heavy tank, which both do a better job really. Bad against infantry, Great against tanks, vulnerable to airplanes.

      Self-Propelled Anti-Air

      These are one of the best support units in the game. If you're ready to march on enemy territory, and fear your enemy might try and counter with planes, these are the units for you. Speedy, double the health of the original anti-air, and very damaging to Airplanes that try to attack (especially at higher levels). While they're very weak against infantry and armored units, they're a support unit, which means you should always accompany them with other troops. The urban province penalty still applies to these units, which means they're much weaker in cities, but the plain bonus (which adds 50% to damage, and defense values) outweighs the urban penalty. Best used in an army on the move. Bad against both infantry and tanks, Great when defending against Airplanes.

      Self-propelled Artillery

      The best support unit in the game, they're just like normal artillery, but a bit more damaging and have double the health. While at first glance you may think that this unit is just an artillery with wheels, they're actually very, very dangerous in numbers. Just 10 of them can reduce any stack to ashes. Combine about 5 self-propelled artillery with an equal number of Self-propelled anti-air and you'll have on of the best combinations in the game. These units are best suited to pounding enemies from a safe distance since they can easily be destroyed by any unit in close range. put these units in the back, launch your initial stack forward and watch your enemies fall. Good against tanks and infantry, vulnerable against Airplanes.

      Mechanized infantry

      An armored version of the standard infantry unit. These units have no disadvantages while in urban territories (and also no advantages while in plains) so these units are best suited to accompany other armored vehicles into cities where normal infantry usually has an advantage. While they aren't so great at attacking other tanks, and still vulnerable to airplanes and anti-tank, they pack a punch against any sort of infantry unit in the game. A bit expensive but useful late-game. Great against infantry, decent against tanks, vulnerable to airplanes.

      When should I produce tanks?

      Produce them if your country has a lot of oil, and preferably, a lot of plains. For example let's compare between Libya and Poland.

      Libya: lots of oil, very flat, perfect for tanks to strive.

      Poland: much less oil than Libya, relatively hilly, not as good for tanks to be useful.

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      Conclusion

      Diversify your stack, watch the anti-tank and airplanes, don't mass produce tanks unless you know you've got enough oil. Tanks can cause a real problem to anyone who isn't prepared, use them tactically and efficiently, and your enemies won't stand a chance.
      "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." -Sun Tzu

      - Leading officer of the Training Alliance

      The post was edited 4 times, last by Vamaw ().

    • Misc Comments and constructive feedback:

      - Tanks don't exactly absorb damage. Slower units in a stack will most often take more damage than fast units. Then I'm pretty sure the units "Size" is taken into account. (Tacs are "bigger" than Ints and slower", so they soak up damage for INTS.) So in a stack of mixed Infantry and Light tanks, the infantry can act as the damage soakers for a bit.

      - Competitive matches do not use militia - No competitive player uses them, and the viability of tanks isn't exactly against militia. More akin to early game infantry infantry and other forces in lower numbers. It's that it is fast, easily spammed(Takes less manpower to produce than infantry), fast production times, and early game if you set up your queues right, you can easily get a good stack out that can easily wreck a opponents early game stack.

      - The winner is not really the most diverse stack. It's the more spammable, cost-efficient stack. A diverse stack of lower numbers of X amount of each unit will lose out against a specific, spammed stack of more. Though the defender can always do the split trick to increase their defensive strength for a bit.

      - Most competitive matches will be over or decided before you can start using a lot of the "Fun" units, specifically Alliance games. In bigger matches you can probably afford to spam other unit types, but diversity loses out versus pure spam on average. The name of the game is speed and cost efficiency,not diversity, pairing tanks with slower units will negate some of their advantages. Which is namely killing enemy stacks piecemeal before your opponent can mass their forces at one point. That's early game to mid game. Terrain/Positioning/etc does matter as well.

      - Constantly moving is good. You need to be regularly active, or at least consistently using Delay and add target while inactive to fake your activity in combination with auto-talkers for messages or chat.

      - Armored Cars are useless from day 0. If you have them already prebuilt due to the event/map type, use them. Otherwise don't waste resources on them.

      - Light Tanks are probably still one of the better units in the original version of the game, even after numerous nerfs. Stacks at 6-7 minimum are what I go for. It's pretty easy to crank out three stacks of seven as a minimum baseline very early game. More difficult with the resource tweaks, AI changes, and market changes, but still viable.

      - Medium tanks are alright, but cost more and most games will be over by then before you can start building them at higher numbers. At a certain point you need to realize: Should I be able to build a smaller number of X Medium tanks, or can I spam light tanks in greater numbers? Depending on your resources, the latter can be more cost efficient to build. You are sacrificing speed as well here.

      - The heavy tank is not the gold standard in "Competitive" CoW Play. In very long term games, they can make excellent mobile forts - Or for players that prefer the slower SP1914 Style Arty gameplay, can be pretty good to place in your frontier stacks.

      - Artillery is a pretty nifty unit. You shoot n scoot them and a few other tricks to maximize damage. Take into account your 15% bonus, forts, etc.

      - A disadvantage of mechanized infantry is a -25% strength in mountains, oil upkeep, etc.


      The other units are more akin to "Fun units". Not viable in competitive match play or smaller maps. More viable in casual or large map types/Events(Already have, use what you got) if/Once you get big and can afford them - but diversity is more expensive and less efficient on average than specific spam. So in larger maps, you'd be replacing the X/Y/Z spam with a different X/Y/Z spam instead of diversity. And on larger maps, Tacticals can still easily overwhelm everything in high numbers once you can get the spam going.
    • CzarHelllios wrote:

      Display Spoiler
      Misc Comments and constructive feedback:

      - Tanks don't exactly absorb damage. Slower units in a stack will most often take more damage than fast units. Then I'm pretty sure the units "Size" is taken into account. (Tacs are "bigger" than Ints and slower", so they soak up damage for INTS.) So in a stack of mixed Infantry and Light tanks, the infantry can act as the damage soakers for a bit.

      - Competitive matches do not use militia - No competitive player uses them, and the viability of tanks isn't exactly against militia. More akin to early game infantry infantry and other forces in lower numbers. It's that it is fast, easily spammed(Takes less manpower to produce than infantry), fast production times, and early game if you set up your queues right, you can easily get a good stack out that can easily wreck a opponents early game stack.

      - The winner is not really the most diverse stack. It's the more spammable, cost-efficient stack. A diverse stack of lower numbers of X amount of each unit will lose out against a specific, spammed stack of more. Though the defender can always do the split trick to increase their defensive strength for a bit.

      - Most competitive matches will be over or decided before you can start using a lot of the "Fun" units, specifically Alliance games. In bigger matches you can probably afford to spam other unit types, but diversity loses out versus pure spam on average. The name of the game is speed and cost efficiency,not diversity, pairing tanks with slower units will negate some of their advantages. Which is namely killing enemy stacks piecemeal before your opponent can mass their forces at one point. That's early game to mid game. Terrain/Positioning/etc does matter as well.

      - Constantly moving is good. You need to be regularly active, or at least consistently using Delay and add target while inactive to fake your activity in combination with auto-talkers for messages or chat.

      - Armored Cars are useless from day 0. If you have them already prebuilt due to the event/map type, use them. Otherwise don't waste resources on them.

      - Light Tanks are probably still one of the better units in the original version of the game, even after numerous nerfs. Stacks at 6-7 minimum are what I go for. It's pretty easy to crank out three stacks of seven as a minimum baseline very early game. More difficult with the resource tweaks, AI changes, and market changes, but still viable.

      - Medium tanks are alright, but cost more and most games will be over by then before you can start building them at higher numbers. At a certain point you need to realize: Should I be able to build a smaller number of X Medium tanks, or can I spam light tanks in greater numbers? Depending on your resources, the latter can be more cost efficient to build. You are sacrificing speed as well here.

      - The heavy tank is not the gold standard in "Competitive" CoW Play. In very long term games, they can make excellent mobile forts - Or for players that prefer the slower SP1914 Style Arty gameplay, can be pretty good to place in your frontier stacks.

      - Artillery is a pretty nifty unit. You shoot n scoot them and a few other tricks to maximize damage. Take into account your 15% bonus, forts, etc.

      - A disadvantage of mechanized infantry is a -25% strength in mountains, oil upkeep, etc.


      The other units are more akin to "Fun units". Not viable in competitive match play or smaller maps. More viable in casual or large map types/Events(Already have, use what you got) if/Once you get big and can afford them - but diversity is more expensive and less efficient on average than specific spam. So in larger maps, you'd be replacing the X/Y/Z spam with a different X/Y/Z spam instead of diversity. And on larger maps, Tacticals can still easily overwhelm everything in high numbers once you can get the spam going.


      Thanks for the feedback :D . While I also agree that spamming units is a good tactic, spamming the same unit is not. All units have a weakness, light-tanks are vulnerable to anti-tanks, anti-tanks are vulnerable to infantry, infantry is vulnerable to tanks. For example, let's imagine three units, unit X, unit Y, and unit Z. Unit X is vulnerable to unit Y, and unit Y is vulnerable to unit Z, while unit Z is vulnerable to unit X. if you spam unit X alone, someone else can spam unit Y to counter it. While if you Combine Unit X with unit Z, unit Y won't be as effective against unit X because it's vulnerable to unit Z. This way you'll have a reliable stack, and not have to spam a different unit every now and then. A diverse army doesn't require 4 diverse cities, but 4 cities each specialized in one sector, while spamming requires 4 diverse cities to keep producing different spammable units. That is why at least some diversity is good, a stack of two types of units is usually better than a stack of one type.
      "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." -Sun Tzu

      - Leading officer of the Training Alliance
    • I always try to stack LT's, Infantry, AA, and artillery (preferably SP). Works really well for me ... :) ... P.S. Tanks don't work well in cities and mountains.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by gusv: added ... P.S. Tanks don't work well in cities and mountains. ().

    • Nice one, as I said in the alliance forum:

      Anti Air



      Anti Air is technically in the armoured branch but not a tank. You can add self propelled anti air to a attacking unit to protect them. Point out that they are not used to attack, they are normally used to defend your troops. They cannot attack planes because anti air cannot fly into the sky and come back down, they can only defend. You can change your title to armoured unit.



      Armoured Car


      I agree with your points in this paragraph. You normally use it to attack enemy territories in the beginning of each game. (Day 1 -3) After that, you can use motorized infantry and light/medium tanks. They are easy to build but too basic so I suggest that you start with light tank and try not to produce armoured vehicle/car.




      Light Tank



      You have to research Armoured Vehicle to research light Tank. I recommend that you research light tank in Day 1 so that you can produce this in provinces that have infrastructure and industrial complex other than armoured vehicle because this is generally better and stronger. But if you think that it is vulnerable against airplanes, you can also add in anti air.



      Medium Tank



      I agree that it is very helpful. They are very helpful against crashing through enemy lines. Once again put in anti air. Please note that the heavier/more armour there is, the unit will generally be slower. If you want to speed it up, you can add motorized unit to speed up the tank. Yes, the heavy tank will win the medium and the medium will win the light and the light will possibly win the armoured vehicle but each of them are stronger but slower



      Heavy Tank



      I personally do not use heavy tank because I think that you will not go to the point of using it. They are really slow and can be researched in a late time period where your medium tank already rules. You can use them in plains because they are weak in urban territories. They are really expensive to produce and I do not recommend you to mass produce it. Well, technically, you cannot do it.



      Tank Destoryers



      It comes to mind that they destroy tanks easily. But how do you desotroy tank destroyer when they are near your tanks? For me, I will send forward a couple of infantry units and maybe some mechanized/motorized infantry under the infantry tech branch. After the destroyer is finished the tanks will continue. So always accompany some other units with your tank.



      Self Propelled Artillery


      I agree that they are very powerful and almost twice as powerful as the not self propelled one. But just 10 will reduce a stack to ashes. You cannot get 10 easily without removing your tanks and infantries our of the way. Producing a couple of these will be enough.



      Mechanized infantry



      This unit is pretty good because it has no disadvantages in some terrains but it does not fall into the infantry category.



      For Poland, you can produce tanks after you conquer other provinces that have plains and border with other countries.
      BeaveRyan
      Moderator
      EN Community Support | Bytro Labs Gmbh


      Training Alliance United Leader
    • A good point to remember about heavy tanks, while they may be powerful, are extremely slow and use a inordant amount of oil. I don't like to waste research on medium or heavy tanks, but I build them occasionally for fun. Medium tanks aren't bad for pushing infantry though.
      General Nightman

      Retired Hero


      "War is fought in three ways. Helping your enemy to lose, helping your allies to victory or helping yourself to win. Any way you take it, you are always helping someone."