AD/AT/Recon Bargains

Do You Ignore AD/AT/Recon Bargains?

I find AA to be the least useful ground class but I find the often criticized AT/AD/recon to be very useful and often underpriced already (even in stock efiles).

• I quickly won Berlin without using any aircraft by buying nothing except recon.
• I also won Poland in 3 turns by buying nothing but recon.
• Update 7/20/10: I won the Pskov scenario (exceeded campaign Major Victory conditions) and almost took all 6 of 6 German cities/airfields by buying nothing but $60 AD/AT/recon (AG-PGF v1.00).

It is easy to win many scenarios with ATG and towed AD if they have a defensive component. SP AD are excellent on attack. Recon and TD are excellent on attack for covering flanks, preventing enemy builds at cities, changing ownership of hexes, and many other jobs.

Underpriced units include:

• $60 AD
• Soviet 76mm ATG
• Jgpz IV/70
• M10

The exceptions are that I usually disbanded towed ATGs on the first turn of an attacking scenario to free slots (although I might have replaced them with TD/AD/recon) and I usually did not buy AT/AD/recon for core simply because I usually bought mid-priced units for core.

• Recon is often superior to tanks/planes when considering bad weather usage (planes cannot attack in rain), capturing/holding territory (planes cannot capture/hold ground), fuel (planes burn fuel when standing still away from an airfield), time (planes have to return to base to resupply), risk (recon does not disappear if it runs out of fuel), spotting, speed (tanks are usually slower than recon), and cost.
• AD in the front line backed by artillery defends the artillery from both air and ground attack while the artillery defends the AD. That versatility frees main units for the main attack. A fighter over the artillery leaves the artillery open to ground attack and the artillery does nothing to defend the fighter. In some situations, a fighter costs more, does less, and then has to leave before it crashes. In some stages of the war, AD is a better "fighter" than the fighters available to you.
• AT is simply cost effective in the many roles where cost (including replacements) is more important than the initiative penalty, situations where an expensive tank would be worse.