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Starting playing HOI2: Doomsday recently, and I was wondering how people go about organising their armies?

I'm currently playing as Germany, and I've been organising into corps of 3 divisions each. Armoured divisions get engineer brigades, motorised a mixture of SP Art and Engineer Brigades, and Infantry a mix of Art/SP Art/AT brigades. When possible, some HQs get thrown into the mix of some corps.

I usually avoid motorized divisions - just armored, regular infantry, and mechanized once I get it. Plus Marines if I'm playing as the U.S. If I'm playing as someone who doesn't have to worry about manpower, the U.S., U.S.S.R., or China, I don't build brigades. You get more bang for your buck with vanilla units than with brigaded ones.

As for organizing my army as Germany, I go with 9-division spearhead units (mostly armor/mech with engineering-brigaded infantry) and 3- or 6-division corps of just infantry to complete encirclements and defend the flanks. The one rule of fighting the Soviet Union - pincers are your friend. Poland and the Western Allies can be steamrolled, the Soviets require more finesse.

Yeah I've found out all about the Soviet Union.

They declared war on me in Mid 1942 and advanted to Kustrin(next to Berlin) before I could puch them back to Warsaw, but they've come as far as the Danzig-Lodz area again. In the south though I've advanced to Kiev.

Picture the front line as being from Danzig direct south to Hungarian border, then direct east to Kiev, then south again till the Black Sea. I've got the opportunity to cut off their divisions in poland by driving to the baltic from the Kiev area, but the marshland just north of the Hungary-Kiev line is playing havoc with moving divisions to form a breakthrough.

I've been using a form of mobile defence, when they attack in numbers greater than mine, I'll withdraw before my units org/morale gets too low, then counter attack. I've got a good amount of armour, (47 divisions) so trying to pincer 10-20 Soviet divisions at a time has been my goal with the counter attacks, usually I'll net ~8divs at least.

I usually use three division groups, with one armor and two mechanized as the optimum arrangement. I find that provides a good deal of flexibility without too many individual divisions laying around. Equipping a mechanized with heavy armor is expensive, but gives you a unit which can usually outfight 3 infantry divisions on the defensive, and sometimes on the offensive if the mechanized is of higher tech and the infantry has no brigades. The best thing though is to not neglect the airforce. Build CAS and hit his line with ground attack and some interdiction missions. This won't break units by itself, but it utterly anihilates retreating enemies. If you can break the line and force the enemy to retreat, even a much smaller force can kick ass against big armies in this way. The CAS will do all the killing, especially when you get more advanced versions. It's good to mix in some fighters or intercepters as well with the CAS in case the enemy sends someone to shoot them down. Your aircraft and air generals will also get obscene amounts of xp and skill.

Edit: you need at leat 6-8 CAS for this to be effective. Also concentrating all of your airforce assets to attack units in one province works better than spreading them out. If the computer used its airforce properly, The game would be a lot more difficult. The Ai usually builds obscene numbers of intercepters and respectable numbers of tactical bombers, but doesn't do anyting usefull with them.

OK, a couple of things.

#1: Motorized, Mechanized, and Armoured Divisions: In Hearts of Iron 2, corps get a "Combined Arms" bonus when you mix armour and soft infantry. The ratio must be no less than 1:2 armoured-infantry. Therefor, the optimum mobile Corps is 2 armoured divisions and 1 motorized division w/engineering brigade (none on the armour, use SP-ART instead.) This force will have a movement of 9 (only 1 less than a lone armoured division's 10,) and will gain a 5% bonus while attacking, and a 15% bonus while defending! Simply marvelous. Mechanized divisions count as armoured divisions for this equation (weird, but true.) Basically, Mech Inf is just a cheaper, weaker armoured division- not a true infantry division, unlike Motor Inf, according to the game engine.

Armoured and motor divisions are huge drains on supplies, oil, and most importantly, TC. Huge 47-division armoured forces are more cost than their worth- you can cut through any infantry defense in the game with half that number. My optimum number for Barbarossa is no more than 20.

#2: Infantry rules. It is cheap, and is by far the best bang for your buck in terms of IC->effectiveness- the ONLY advantage of armour is it's mobility, statistically speaking. The reason your Barbarossa is going so smoothly is becaue you have insufficient infantry, in all likelyhood, to hold your lines while the armour makes encirclements.Your TC might be skyrocketing while all your armour moves around, making your units less effective as your infrastructe strains to supply huge armoured formations.

#3: Weather. Check very carefully for weather- the number one cause of defeat in Barbarossa is the Russian Winter- and the following mud, and the rains, and the other shitty weather which can make the northern Leningrad-Moscow marshes and forests an impassable mess. There are a number of lightly-wooded routes through this region through which you can drive armoured columns and cut up Uncle Joe.

I'll give a rundown of my forces:

Infantry - 196 divs
Cav - 3 (left over from the beginning of the game, 1936 Scenario)
Motorized - 6
Armored - 47
Garison - 35 (needed due to lots of uprisings in the balkans and in the UK.)
Total 309 (total includes para, marine divs etc)

As GER i organise my spearheads into 3 unit blocks, these being 2 ARM & 1 MOT (normally all brigaded with SP ART) to gain the combined arms bonus (where ARM and MEC are Hard units, MOT and HQ are soft).

I normally dont bother with ENG brigades because i find my spearheads are fast enough..

My INF groups start out as 3's, but as i build more and prepare for Barbarossa they get combined into 9 unit groups (or 8 + HQ). I never brigade my INF as it's a waste of IC for what you get.

My MAR groups are all in groups of 3, brigaed with ART, as are any PAR i might have..

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As SOV it's even simpler. Keep all your starting ARM and MOT divisions and group them together (with a HQ as well), and disband everything else as they'll just eat resources early in the game...

Tech rush INF 41 starting in 1939, and when it's finished start spamming INF and HQ's, and CAS planes...

Defend the river line in Latvia to the province next to Smolensk, and the river line to the south of Smolensk down to Kiev, and the river line just to the south-west of Kiev (around Odessa i think) with 24 INF + HQ in each province. When war starts you can bomb the crap out of the germans before they get close to your lines, then when they arrive next door give them a love-tap to send them running again and bomb the crap out of them some more. Rinse and repeat until they've ground themselves into oblivion then let the Red horde roll...

Oh, and dont forget to build some troops for the Winter War..