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HOI4 Dev Diary - Railway guns never tire

Hello there, C0RAX again.

It’s time again to reveal some more secret information that was hinted at in the last dev diary. Specifically this week will be revolving around the final part of railways and trains. So without any more need for introduction here are our stars of the show today.

The railway guns.

So to start off I'll go through how you get a railway gun on the map because it’s a little different to normal land units. First of all you are going to want to research railway guns which comes after armoured trains.
pasted image 0.png

Then you can find it in your production tab just like building normal equipment. But unlike other equipment you build, these production lines are limited to 5 factories and the railway gun won't be added to your stockpile.
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Instead, once completed, your brand new railway gun will appear in your capital, in this way they are built similar to capital ships.
pasted image 0 (2).png


Moving your railway gun is limited to provinces with railways, and so to get to the front you must have a rail connection. Taking into account the rail conversion time when capturing territory is important as you will have to wait for the big guns to be able to help you out.
pasted image 0 (3).png


You can also attach railway guns to armies just like with planes and they will attempt to place themselves relative to the frontline. If you have several, they will be distributed where possible to support your army. There is also a quick select button on the army to select all railways guns attached to an army should you need to.
pasted image 0 (4).png
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Finally, the last bit of control understanding is range. Railway guns have a range in which they can support and so from any one point are limited in which provinces they can support. This range is shown by hovering over the unit icon.
pasted image 0 (6).png


On to combat now, here we can see a combat with a supporting railway gun, we have added the useful icon on the combat progress indicator that there is a supporting bombardment. This new icon will also show if there is shore bombardment happening in the combat.
pasted image 0 (7).png


The combat effects of railway gun bombardment work just like shore bombardment, causing negative combat stat modifiers to those on the receiving end of the big guns. These modifiers affect both soft and hard attack as well as defense values. Notably, these effects do not stack - it becomes more important to spread out your railway artillery than to concentrate it.
pasted image 0 (8).png


Finally we need to talk about capture and damage, railway guns can be captured via encircling them and damaged by damaging the railway they are placed upon.

Now railway guns are the biggest guns by far used on land and so it's important that we have representations of those built by the major powers. So now we look at the unique guns for the major powers.

This is the German Schwerer Gustav model you will see when playing as the Germans. It's perhaps the most famous railway gun and definitely the biggest and so had to have a part in this feature.
pasted image 0 (10).png

This is the BL 9.2inch railway gun, a relic of the first world war but these big guns were kept in service until 1945.
pasted image 0 (11).png


Following that we have the French Canon de 305 another veteran of the first world war.
pasted image 0 (12).png


Next up is the USA’s 8-inch Mk. VI which remarkably first entered service as late as 1941!
pasted image 0 (13).png


Type 90 240 mm railway gun whose claim to fame is being destroyed by the retreating Japanese in the soviet invasion manchuria.
pasted image 0 (14).png


And finally the TM-3-12, three of these were made in 1938 and were used in the winter war against finland, unbelievably these where in service until 1999 (a whopping 61 years of service)
pasted image 0 (15).png


Finally here's a cool clip of the Schwerer Gustav firing in game.
Railway-1.gif
 
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Nice.

  • Images are broken for me too. If you can't see them, maybe read the diary on steam. They are working fine there (but the last link there is broken).
  • As many others, I'd also like to know how/if we can transport them oversea and if we can move them through allies/puppets.
  • Since they are basically land battleships, could we choose where to deploy them as we can for ships? Maybe any supply hub could be a viable deployment point.
  • It would be cool if we could make designs for them too, though I can see that more useful for modding.


Thanks for pointing out the steam issue, Ive fixed that there
Also all the images should now be fixed too!
 
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Great stuff! What I like even more is the fact that they actually managed to implement some sort of "range-model" in the game – this could be applied to planes as well.
 
Going to voice and unpopular opinion: Dissapointed they made them tactical fire support units, something they would be wholly ineffective on. Instead they should be used as a siege unit and fortress buster.

I.e Schwere Gustav would have been a poor unit to shell advancing tank formations (calling in arty is a long process, even during WW2. It is a reason why battleships wasn't used in this role, but destroyers) but it was used to weaken i.e Sevastopol.
It might be unpopular but you're right.
 
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Hello there, C0RAX again.

It’s time again to reveal some more secret information that was hinted at in the last dev diary. Specifically this week will be revolving around the final part of railways and trains. So without any more need for introduction here are our stars of the show today.

The railway guns.

So to start off I'll go through how you get a railway gun on the map because it’s a little different to normal land units. First of all you are going to want to research railway guns which comes after armoured trains.
View attachment 754461
Then you can find it in your production tab just like building normal equipment. But unlike other equipment you build, these production lines are limited to 5 factories and the railway gun won't be added to your stockpile.
View attachment 754462

Instead, once completed, your brand new railway gun will appear in your capital, in this way they are built similar to capital ships.
View attachment 754463

Moving your railway gun is limited to provinces with railways, and so to get to the front you must have a rail connection. Taking into account the rail conversion time when capturing territory is important as you will have to wait for the big guns to be able to help you out.
View attachment 754464

You can also attach railway guns to armies just like with planes and they will attempt to place themselves relative to the frontline. If you have several, they will be distributed where possible to support your army. There is also a quick select button on the army to select all railways guns attached to an army should you need to.
View attachment 754465View attachment 754466
Finally, the last bit of control understanding is range. Railway guns have a range in which they can support and so from any one point are limited in which provinces they can support. This range is shown by hovering over the unit icon.
View attachment 754467

On to combat now, here we can see a combat with a supporting railway gun, we have added the useful icon on the combat progress indicator that there is a supporting bombardment. This new icon will also show if there is shore bombardment happening in the combat.
View attachment 754468

The combat effects of railway gun bombardment work just like shore bombardment, causing negative combat stat modifiers to those on the receiving end of the big guns. These modifiers affect both soft and hard attack as well as defense values. Notably, these effects do not stack - it becomes more important to spread out your railway artillery than to concentrate it.
View attachment 754469

Finally we need to talk about capture and damage, railway guns can be captured via encircling them and damaged by damaging the railway they are placed upon.

Now railway guns are the biggest guns by far used on land and so it's important that we have representations of those built by the major powers. So now we look at the unique guns for the major powers.

This is the German Schwerer Gustav model you will see when playing as the Germans. It's perhaps the most famous railway gun and definitely the biggest and so had to have a part in this feature.
View attachment 754470
This is the BL 9.2inch railway gun, a relic of the first world war but these big guns were kept in service until 1945.
View attachment 754471

Following that we have the French Canon de 305 another veteran of the first world war.
View attachment 754472

Next up is the USA’s 8-inch Mk. VI which remarkably first entered service as late as 1941!
View attachment 754473

Type 90 240 mm railway gun whose claim to fame is being destroyed by the retreating Japanese in the soviet invasion manchuria.
View attachment 754474

And finally the TM-3-12, three of these were made in 1938 and were used in the winter war against finland, unbelievably these where in service until 1999 (a whopping 61 years of service)
View attachment 754475

Finally here's a cool clip of the Schwerer Gustav firing in game.
View attachment 754427
Will we be able to lend-lease railway guns? Will there be an option to construct railway guns under a production license?
 
Ohohoho, this one looks great, and also not memey with limited range, not stackable, and captureable.
 
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Going to voice and unpopular opinion: Dissapointed they made them tactical fire support units, something they would be wholly ineffective on. Instead they should be used as a siege unit and fortress buster.

I.e Schwere Gustav would have been a poor unit to shell advancing tank formations (calling in arty is a long process, even during WW2. It is a reason why battleships wasn't used in this role, but destroyers, or why strategic bombers did not provide CAS) but it was used to weaken i.e Sevastopol.

I think HoI4 should include the possibility of pounding rear echelon units (something startegic bombers and battleships did) and saturate those areas.

100%. Just looked it up and Schwerer Gustav had a fire rate of 14 rounds per day. That's fourteen!

So considering any kind of tactical use for it just bonkers! There's no way it would hit a moving tank 100km away even once if it only had 14 tries a day!
 
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It might be unpopular but you're right.
Yeah. I might be flexing now, but I have been artillery observer/calling in fire support in armored recon, so it might be that I take it too seriously and the way fire support in HoI4 is handled is more of a me problem/pet peeve.

That said I do enjoy the game and look forward to NSB!
 
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mfw reading this diary
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can't heckin wait to build these things gonna be so much fun asdhvboadibhreh

now that the railways/trains diaries are done what can we expect for the next weeks diary? portraits/artwork or another bag of tricks? I am rly curious now.
 
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Only if they made that garbage in IRL. I wonder how many lives would have been saved from making decent stuff?
Probably building wonder weapons would have actually saved lives over regular equipment and ended the war even faster since they would have been practically useless in most cases. Germany committing resources to crazy shit means fewer tigers, stugs,and stukas.
 
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Can you show the full research tree and show if trains have there own research section or if they’re part of a different section?
Also do civilian trains use mils to build? Was never really clear on that for me.