National Characteristics?

[Blackcloud6]

In my thread on taking towns and entrenchments Peter said with Americans you use firepower and that is a national characteristic of the American Army in WWII.  It was a firepower army so cool, PG replicates that.  

To me at times, the various armies in PG can appear to be somewhat generic.  So what are the nuances that make the armies different in PG and what are their effects?  How should the armies be played?  What are their strengths and weaknesses? 

[joe_oppenheimer]

A lot of the characteristics are represented by things like morale, number and character of leaders, and amount of OBA. There are a few national rules for folks like the Finns, Japanese, Gurkhas, or commissars for the communists.

[Blackcloud6]

I'm thinking more along the lines of tactics. What tactics make the nations' armies different?

[plloyd1010]

I know this is turning in to a dissertation of sorts. This isn’t exactly a tactical guide, but it may help you decide what sort of tactics to use.

I tend to break armies down along 3 categories, then arrange those in order of relative to the force. I don’t really compare armies at this point because thing like budget, and national militancy mess with the relative concepts. So, make the baseline first.

The 3 categories for me are assault, attrition, and maneuver. In PG, I start with the historical concept, then modify as experience and scenarios dictate. Then I consider other national influences. For example; I think of the U.S. Army as an attrition/assault/maneuver army. As Fred noted in a different post, the green National Guard units are not so good in assaults (low morale), so the attrition aspect becomes more important. The Germans on the other hand, begin the war as a maneuver/assault/attrition army, but morph to an attrition/maneuver/assault army. Even so the U.S. Army is almost always have a better attrition army than the Germans. This because the Americans have so much more stuff (for shooting) than the Germans do.
My categories work like this.

Assault This is about closing and killing quickly, or closing and fighting and fighting and fighting some more (endurance). These armies tend to have high morale & low fire power, and/or a lot of bodies. Leaders have lots of morale modifiers, but are a little short on tactical skill (combat modifiers). Examples would be Japan and Russia.

Attrition This is about trading shots and coming out on top. These armies have lots of artillery, lots of support weapons, balanced but not outstanding leadership. Americans are on top of this pile, British and late war Germans are here too.

Maneuver Lots of transport (often APCs), light to medium armor support. Leaders tend to have more combat modifiers. The concept is drive around, concentrate quickly at a critical point, win or run. These are brittle forces, so I am not so sure there is an army like them. Early war Germans and Peruvians are probably the best examples.

Keep in mind that this is all relative and somewhat subjective. Japan in my mind has an assault/maneuver/attrition army. Assault modifiers and high morale are obvious. They also run formations through jungle/woods/rough terrain better than anyone. Trade shots, can’t beat hardly one.

[Blackcloud6]

Thanks Peter, excellent post.