How to Get Good at Defending- Steel Division 2 

Nice. Maybe it's a bit nitch, but the use of return fire hidden units to hold front line is something I have seen lots of pro players use.

You need combined arms warfare in defence a well as in attack. You need artillery support and enough reconnaissance, preferably air reconnaissance. I prefer a 120 mm mortar battery, because mortars bring much fire power in a short time. They have the range and with 120 mm sufficient effect. Use a battery of 2 or better 3 of them. If you see enemy infantry concentrating and approacing just shel them. If the enemy inf is moving, just place the shelled area a bit in front of them in their direction of moving then they ll move directly in the kill zone. Try not let your infantry do the heavy lifting of the fighting because otherwise it will suffer too heavy casualties. Try to support your infantry as much as possible with support weapons, such as artillery, airforce, tanks. The same is true in attack. Bring your inf in position near to the area to be attacked by you. Shell that area with your 120 mm mortars so that enemy inf is stunned, then after the barrage is stopped move your infantry in immediately. Then your infantry fights ideally only against stunned enemy troops. As long as the enemy inf is not firering back, keep your inf moving,close to theirs and make the enemy inf surrender. That way you can defeat easily much superior groups of infantry without commiting at one spot too much of yours. If you commit less infantry at one point your infantry makes a less compelling target for enemy artillery. In attack, it should be not the firepower of your infantry that makes the breaktrough but your artillery ( an artillery type which brings in much fire power in short time, like 120 mm mortars but not howitzers ( they are good for killing single strategic targets, not for inf support) / air force support, because conventional infantry fights take too long and will make your infantry take losses. In attack you want your infantry to overwhelm the ( stunned !) enemy infantry as fast as possible ( ideally by just surrendering them by keeping pushing) and keep your infantry quickly moving forward in covered terrain into the rear lines of the enemy in order to avoid being shelled ( moving targets are a bad target for artillery) and in order take out valuable soft targets like flak, anti-tank guns etc. By killing valuable targets in the rear the enemy position is sustainably weakend. Thus, your infantry attack must break the enemy line quickly (no long fire fights, keep your infantry in close position to the area to be attacked in order to use the stunning effect of artillery fire immediately after shelling is finished)) and without own losses ( at least as low as possible ) in order to give the opponent less time to bring in reinforcements and to press forward to kill valuable targets quickly without the need for reinforcement which would also allow the enemy to bring in reinforcements. Do not think only in taking positions but also how to do bring the enemy position out of balance and to inflict high losses on important targets. After breaking the enemy line quickly there is the window of opportunity, because your enemy has lost a position which he considered safe and there is a small time gap until he can bring in reinfocement where the attack can do real damage. Thus, no time to loose to press forward the attack. You can also cover your infantry in attack with smoke ( also 2 to 3 120 mm mortars will do the best job here ( 120 mm smoke is much better than 80 mm smoke ( not big enough). Smoking an area after the shelling is helpful if tanks are present. Tanks loose their superiority if smoked to inf with anti tank weapons. On German side Panzergrenadiers with anti tank weapons are best all purpose infantry. Remember, primarily important is the close cooperation of artillery ( 120 mm mortars) and infantry not some special ability of your infantry. Your infantry should just have good morale, MGs ( for distance, German inf superior) for medium distance and anti tank weapons. Infantry without anti tank weapons is shitty ( you want always have your Panzerfaust available if you need it). You can also have a specialist unit like a flamethrower unit or pioneers for close combat, but key is artillery and/or airforce and inf cooperation and timed cooperation. Put your infantry mainly in SPWs or armored transports not trucks. That makes them less vulnurable to artillery fire, gives them additional fire support and allows to transport them close to the position to be attacked against small arms fire. In attack speed is important (give the enemy as less time to react and reinforcement as possible). Thus, when attacking over open fields, for example to take a forrest, your infantry should not walk, but be carried in armored vehicles in order to allow for higher speed. Make sure that the approaching route is free of enemy direct fire form paks or tanks. Shell the forrest with 120 mm mortars ( they make best smoke too and due to range, you do not have to move them around all the time) to stun everything in it, then smoke the area before the forrest, to cover the unloading anfd move infantry in as quickly as possible. Try to mop the inf up and if possible keep moving to break into the enemys second line, where flak and anti tank units are. By moving quickly into the rear area, if possible circumventing areas of strong resistance and destroying valuable targets you will disrupt their defence and confuse the enemy. Bring in a second wave and use mortar fire to deal with left over pockets of resistance. Here also the 120 mm mortar are superior to the 80 mm mortar because of the much higher range every point can conveniently reached without the need to babysit them. These shocktrooper tactics are unsuitable to moving around vulnurable 80 mm mortars as support because there will be no clear front line, just moving groups. With 120 mm mortars you just press "1" to select your mortar battery and select a target.

I have to disagree on light defenses and building them up. First of all, I think probing attacks in this game are difficult, taxing on APM, and costly, and therefore, not heavily used. Your opponent doesn't KNOW if you are strong on a position, he just knows either that last time he moved on it, he took fire, or he knows the front line is pushed out. Ergo, he needs 2 t-34's , 5 squads of infantry, and a bomber or two to even think about attacking. And maybe an offmap. I saw exactly one probing attack in this video, the assault pioneer YOLO at south. And even that... I question the value. What info did you exchange for that one clearly doomed assault pioneer squad? One of the best ways to get local force superiority is to engineer local force INFERIORITY in secret on much of the battlefield. Your opponent doesn't KNOW that your buildup has reached 1 sherman and 2 flamers. He just knows "okay, you aren't attacking yet, the front line is forwards, and last time I advanced, I got ripped up by 2-3 light machine guns and maybe took an AT round". That's all he NEEDS to know. Secondly, a lot of defense breaking units are at least partly, blindfire or area denial. If I am lobbing mortars into a forest, the more stuff you have in the forest, the more damage you take and the more cost effective my mortar is. Same with offmap, even to some extent, same with bombers. I can miss my target and still hit something, which is highly nonideal from a defender perspective. Relatively thin defenses with minimal buildup are more resistant to defense smashing units. Your opponent will spend his points, and those points will do damage to your defenders unless you give him something else to shoot at, which is kind of convenient, as defending units tend to be cheap, in heavy cover, and often concealed. Attackers are often none of these things. They are expensive, visible, and in the open. You WANT your enemy bombers bombing 25 point infantry, because it means he won't have them for bombing more expensive more vulnerable things. and attacks are best used when your opponent cannot predict them. If you had seen 2 tanks build up over time up north, you would probably have held the north. its BECAUSE they all show up at once, you just aren't ready. you have no AA for your AT guns, you have like 1 AT infantry, you have a couple armored cars. but no, protoss shows up with EVERYTHING all at once. His entire airforce, like 3 T-34's, and what is probably 100 points of infantry. Also, infantry is just better in transports. It's amazing how quickly you can make ground if you are not using defender infantry on foot, but dedicated attacking infantry in a transport.

A lot of good points to consider for me as a newb. Thank you!

look how many times your opponent is able to attack with multiple units onto a single defensive unit in this game. defense in depth is the reverse of this.

Thank you for one more masterfuly done and very helpful tutorial.

Eagerly awaiting the 352nd Infantry video for D-Day anniversary 😉

Let the infantry "jump" from building to building also, when under fire, is increasing their survivability. Can used offensivly too, to bring the AT guys just close enough to the enemy tank which just entered the village. Repositioning AA and AT guns as arty stuff aswell after using, keeps the layer of defense there I guess. Good video +1

More tips from my experience in 10vs10: - for hidden AT guns, disable HE and set efficiency shot. otherwise they will be spotted just because your fired at a random foot soldier. - always keep AA moving, so it can avoid counter arty - dont camp with tanks for too long or it will be a nice rocket target - always bring some AA to defend the heavy tanks - send planes as waves, not one by one as soon as they are ready. The more you have the more the AA is saturated. Support them with air recon. - use flamethrowers smoke grenade (I seldom see ppl using it) - smoke your path of advance in open area to get closer - use groups keys, so you can select all arty of same type on one click that's all for the moment folks

This intro was a lot better! I was thinking about your intro, and one good comparison is Vulcans intro. Have a look at his older videos and see how long his intro used to be compared to how short it is now. The way I see it, an intro only needs to remind the viewer of the persons content. Vulcans icon does this perfectly. He understood that even tho his longer intro was informative of his content, he only needed to illustrate his brand, and let the video itself illustrate his content choice instead of his intro. I hope this makes sense 😂😂. I even think that his new intro could drop his name too make it look cleaner honestly. Old intro: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ULFNfBjO4t8.html New intro: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dL3XsV1Maqg.html

Thanks sd2 daddy. How do you feel about precision shot

can you build defensive forifications or trenches? Im sure while playing, in the armory i think, I could use these fortifications. I didnt really apply it so I just skipped it.

in campaign i tried a battle where i got attacked by tanks and the only at guns i had were just emplacements (granted i placed them in dumb positions out in the open) but with infantry alone how are you supposed to fight off tanks

> it's ok to retreat My koruck 559 disagrees

Thank you so much for your tutorials! I was really struggeling with defense but you saved me :D