Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

I'm beginning to think divisions with good artillery decks are king

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Steel Division: Normandy 44 2266 Please link&sync your Paradox account to Steam Steel Division - Let's Plays and AARs!
L

LegioX

Second Lieutenant
May 2, 2017
189
0
Playing against 2ID (who plays the division good) i see no way to counter the arty spam that comes with that division. Inf pushes, phase A tank pushes, AT pushes, can all be stopped by mortars and then phase B 105m Howies or anything on axis side resembling it. Anybody at the higher levels of play know any good strategies to combat this?
Air would seem the logic step, but they can just counter with AA placement in good areas and then the points you just used are useless.
 
Spot their arty with recon or even *gasp* recon planes and counterbat it. Axis AA sucks more than allied, so maybe not recon planes.

Or use more armored vehicles that can shrug off the shells for fire support.

Or werf that shit. 105s struggle to escape from burning love.

Phase A 2ID mortars are a stone cold bitch to deal with and other than tracked mortars (which the heavy ones can stun silly) I haven't found a good counter. I'd love to see their heavy mortar moved to B aka removed from the game.
 
Only some divisions can keep up the artillery battle with 2nd ID. If you try and play to a divisions strenght you are fighting a losing battle. Instead of countering your opponents strenghts you can also look for exploiting their weakness.
 
Fussel said:
Only some divisions can keep up the artillery battle with 2nd ID. If you try and play to a divisions strenght you are fighting a losing battle. Instead of countering your opponents strenghts you can also look for exploiting their weakness.
Click to expand...
What do you recommend? I tried pushing against 2ID in early phases, but have issues with the mortars and shermans.
 
2nd ID is really strong in A and B. It would help if you told us what division you like to play for specific counters.

Otherwise larger artillery pieces that outrange his mortars and eventually his 105s.
2nd ID 105s aren't vetted and are vulnerable to hummels and other SP artillery.
 
LegioX said:
What do you recommend? I tried pushing against 2ID in early phases, but have issues with the mortars and shermans.
Click to expand...
Depends which division you are and what kind of map you are playing. 352nd for example can win the mortar battles and are pretty safe against their vehicles as well. Keep in mind that besides the Rgr teams which come in low availabilty 2nd ID's inf is not the best so you can also grind them out even in close range engagements with infantry based divisions. Rgr assault are not the gods they once were but still dangerous.
Armour of 2nd ID also looks not realy scary. Once you are in B you should have the right tools to beat them up. Only keep an eye out for the vetted M10's late in the game. Look for obvious ambush spots were the Marauders could hide in. Other then that their infantry doesn't posses at weapons and the bazooka card comes in B and I suspect most people don't take it. So light vehicles will eat them up if you make sure you can keep them alive.
I will say that 2nd ID feels pretty strong especially early in the game but as long as you hang in there you can always turn the game around because they don't have any superior equipment that lets you say " oh, shit thats it, I can't beat this".
 
Dianno5741 said:
2nd ID is really strong in A and B. It would help if you told us what division you like to play for specific counters.

Otherwise larger artillery pieces that outrange his mortars and eventually his 105s.
2nd ID 105s aren't vetted and are vulnerable to hummels and other SP artillery.
Click to expand...

I really like the 21st Panzer, but those 2 HT mortars in phase A I used were always surpressed.

Also the problem I was having against 2ID was that his mortars were owning me in phase A. I had to keep sending units in to replace those lost. By then it was just a snowball effect because when phase B hit he started using p-47 bombers on top of mortars/105s just kept everything I had nearly suppressed.
 
A more comprehensive strategy would be:

2nd ID is strong in A and early B. You probably won't beat them in a straight fight. You need to contain. Either by defensive posture or by flooding the entire field with cheap infantry (91st LLD is really good at that, takes a lot of micro). The big weak spot is his tanks. He has jack all to stop panthers at range. Even Tigers or StugIVs will present issues to the M10 or 76mm.

The key is 2nd ID works really well as a combined arms division. You take away one of their elements and they fall apart. Example: if you're 12th SS you neutralize his tanks with panthers or Whitman in B-C and his arty will be overwhelmed with trying to scare both infantry and tanks. Leaving his infantry with less support for engagements.
Another example would be like 3rd Falls. You don't have tank advantage but you have infantry advantage. Use your support teams to overwhelm his infantry and aggressively use your infantry to drive him off. His tanks will be voided by AT guns.
 
21st.

I'll have to refresh my memory on their exact load out. However they work similar (imo) to how 12th SS deals with them. In A and most of B you contain his pushes and use your artillery to scare his mortars or infantry assaults. The big thing is the Konigstiger. If you pop that out right away in phase C, you'll have twenty minutes of him having dick to stop it. You have plenty of infantry to facecheck hedges so you won't get ambushed by AT. I think 21st gets Lorraines? Just remove part of his combined arms and he will falter.
 
Dianno5741 said:
21st.

I'll have to refresh my memory on their exact load out. However they work similar (imo) to how 12th SS deals with them. In A and most of B you contain his pushes and use your artillery to scare his mortars or infantry assaults. The big thing is the Konigstiger. If you pop that out right away in phase C, you'll have twenty minutes of him having dick to stop it. You have plenty of infantry to facecheck hedges so you won't get ambushed by AT. I think 21st gets Lorraines? Just remove part of his combined arms and he will falter.
Click to expand...
I would even say the biggest threat 21st can throw at them is the Brummbär. He should have a lot of soft targets and penetrating him is tough. Also vet 2 222's :) can wreck in A.
 
Light vehicles mug 2ID pretty easily. You do have to watch out for the veteran M5s, but you can still pretty easily melt Rifles and anything else that comes into LoS with any AC units you may have.
 
I agree with Fussel. Brumbars can really screw them up. That'll force a tank fight. Light vehicles are risky but if you get the drop on his ATG you will ruin his phase A. Just watch out for marauders (don't drive 222s within 200m of a hedge you haven't checked). DD Shermans only have 9 armor and he can only have two in A. (It'll take two minutes of income to get one or a lot of his starting points). I think 21st gets the weird pak40 halftrack? That'll chew them up in A. Remember you're no trying to win in A, just contain. B and C is where you'll do your damage.
 
21 has the 1.2km 13ap/3fav vehicle (I think an s307 variant). It is slower off road than the marder and very vulnerable to bombers and even arty. I recommend against using it except when you have good air control as even light bombs can kill it and 2ID has some great light bombers. It has a ~42% CTP against 9fav, but will get rekt if the Sherman gets anywhere near range. Which it can safely by smoke dancing. 87D used to be able to one run stun it.

21pz JU87D and cat A werfer can kill the mortars. Lots of autocannon support tab vehicles and iirc vet 2 222 in that deck, which is very powerful for bumrushing especially when coupled with JU87D for AT. Not as good as they used to be, but still very good against rear assets.

21pz also has hordes of cheap light French tanks which can easily bully 2ID from 300m.

Infantry fight for towns with 21pz against infantry deck especially before cat b is waste of time and resources.
 
tank pushes can be stopped by mortars

image.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back