Russia tried to annex Finland. Finland succesfully resisted and avoided that fate. I wouldn't call that a loss.
A fix for the 40 width Meta?
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Russia tried to annex Finland. Finland succesfully resisted and avoided that fate. I wouldn't call that a loss.
If the effectiveness of a division was based entirely on IC cost per combat width, tank divisions would be the worst in the game.
I am not refering to fighting in China here. Proper 10 width, full support, divisions are not supposed to be used when you dont have enough troops for the front. If you want to do that, basic infantry divisions with just engineers tend to be the option. 10 Width SF divisions are about concentrating the maximum amount of firepower.
Do you think Finland "succesfully resisted" because their army was smaller or because the Soviet Army was demoralized?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Soviet_War
Soviet Union: From ~50,000 in early 1919[1] to almost 800,000 in summer 1920[2]
Poland: From ~50,000 in early 1919[3] to ~738,000 in August 1920[4]
Incredible difference of army strenght!
Greek is your best case because Greece actually has terrain that limits army movement and limits the effects of numerical superiority. But still, the difference in combat strength was not that big:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Italian_War
And no, we're not talking about battles here, we're talking about wars. And no I'm not arguing that combat width should be removed. And no, tank divisions are not "effective exactly because they have a much greater effectiveness for their combat width compared to infantry." Tank divisions are effective because they have a lot of breakthrough, the value that is used to avoid damage while attacking.
I specifically said, imagine what if there would be no combat width because it seems combat width is everything you think about. And there are multiple other mechanisms that limit how many troops can be in a battle, for example supply.
I agree with you that there are other ways to limit troops in a battle, I even suggested supply to be used a few posts before yours.
When you said "imagine there was no combat width", it wasn't implied in any way that you were talking about using other mechanics to replace it, so I agued that there should still be a way to limit troops engaged even without combat width.
And combat width does pertain to battles, not wars. With or without combat width, small armies do not win against bigger armies in HoI4.
Well, they are more effective per combat width exactly because they have more breakthrough (but not only that, there's also armor), duh.
You'd have to stack huge amounts of infantry or artillery battalions or whatever to reach the same breakthrough of tank battalions, which would make the division's cw much larger than an equivalent tank division, so you could fit more tank divisions in combat than the infantry ones, thus the cw effectiveness of the tank is much greater.
Not a hard calculation imo.
I certainly don't, or perhaps you are generalizing?
The Finnish military defeated the Red Army because it was better led and trained, knew what it was fighting for and knew how to use the terrain. The effects of Stalin's purges had largely worn off by 1944, yet the Russian offensives aimed at capitulating Finland in the summer of 1944 were obliterated and stopped around the same spots the Russian offensives in 1940 had been.
And for sake of argument, let's not forget about 1918, when Soviet Russia armed and incited Finnish Reds into open revolt against the lawful government, instigating a bloody civil war in a bid to Sovietize the country. That too, failed.
Coming back to the width conversation, very large formations are impractical and a hindrance to combat effectiveness, particularly in more remote, low supply regions. The Russians learned this the hard way, and in the post-Winter War reforms of 1940-41, Russian infantry division size dropped from 19k men (some divisions in the Winter War had well over 20k men, IIRC even up to 23k) to about 14.5k, and then to about 11k right after the start of Operation Barbarossa. Similarly the huge unwieldy tank formations they still had in the summer of 1941, were discovered to be far too large to be effective, and were subsequently considerably downsized. Another lesson the Russians learned the hard way.
These things are not represented in HoI4. Part of the blame goes to the fact the supply system is extremely simplified.
IRL 14/4s with full supports would've been close to 30k men when you factor in vital formations not represented in the game. Such a huge division would've been ineffective. And yes, I'm aware some countries (IIRC USA) organised much of the logistical part on a corps level. That doesn't change the argument.
What's worse is that you can easily stack multiple of these gigantic divisions in areas where realistically you could feasibly only put a brigade or even just a regiment, and still be completely fine. This is one area HoI3's supply system modelled considerably better.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, but I think the sweet spot for division size from a min-max perspective should be what most militaries IRL found most effective: around 14-17k men. That's real-life manpower, so it includes formations not represented in HoI4. HoI4 figures would be lower.
Ideally they'd rework supply and combat a bit as well, so that smaller formations can be viable in certain, lower infrastructure areas. I don't see things like the Battle of Suomussalmi happening within current mechanics.
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Tank divisions have additional benefits like armor, breaktrough and speed.
So you cant really compare those in that case here, or include this into your calculation.
Inf is the backbone of every army you still build and face 80-90% infantry making them cost 60% more per combat width would be a huge Investment and makes them to costly for mass producing. On a low ammount they can become usefull as some kind of special force, but thats what you normally then have the tanks for.
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The only problem is that there are no documents or memoirs of soviet government or military staff that mention anything about Finland annexation. USSR wanted to secure Leningrad "flanks" and take Karelia.
Believing this Russian state propaganda in light of what the Red Army actually did and was attempting to do 1939-44, is analogous to believing that Germany invaded Poland because "the border was unstable". You don't have to be a genius to understand that it's nonsense.
How is stating that USSR wanted to annex Finland without any proofs and based only on assumptions is not a "state propaganda"?
USSR actions, documents, war plans, memoirs have no mention about full annexation, but it is more pleasing for a sense of national pride to believe that "We stopped the bear from taking our country!".
Is this thread about the realism and historical accuracy of the combat width mechanic, or is this thread about gameplay mechanics and their diversity / balance?
On some level we probably all agree that width is a useful mechanic. Its an abstraction, but it serves a purpose.
Things ive seen suggested before to losen up the width meta, is to reduce penalties for exeeding width, and add a small random modifier to the width in play of any given combat. (=it wont always be exactly 40 )
Something else i’ve considered is, what if more tactics that reduce width were included, could this also affect width meta? Some tactics do this, but they are all unlocked by very late doctrines. Also, chances of having these picked in combat as needed to make a consistent differance may currently be slim, but what if that too could be changed?
On some level we probably all agree that width is a useful mechanic. Its an abstraction, but it serves a purpose.
Things ive seen suggested before to losen up the width meta, is to reduce penalties for exeeding width, and add a small random modifier to the width in play of any given combat. (=it wont always be exactly 40 )
Something else i’ve considered is, what if more tactics that reduce width were included, could this also affect width meta? Some tactics do this, but they are all unlocked by very late doctrines. Also, chances of having these picked in combat as needed to make a consistent differance may currently be slim, but what if that too could be changed?
You are talking about wars, but combat width is about battles. There are tons of example in the WW2 there a smaller force could hold against a larger force.
It does not matter, if you want to remove combat width or not, we discuss your arguments and justification for removing it.
And yes tank divisions are only effective "effective exactly because they have much greater effectiveness for their combat width compared to infantry." How do you win battles in HOI4? It is fairly easy: You destroy the Org of the enemy division before they can get any reinforcement. If you have no combat width, you can achieve the same thing by just adding more INF-division. Yes, breakthrough helps to avoid damage while attacking, but since INF-divisions are much cheaper, it does not really matter if they take more damage. It is also not important if an individual division can fight longer. Also, supply favors a pure INF spam since INF units are the most effective in terms of supply. Another mechanic is a stacking penalty, but this would favor larger combat width units.
The 40w meta is only partially a result of combat width. Sure, if we would change the default combat width to 90, we would get a 45w meta. The goal should not be to replace one meta with another, this would be rather pointless. The goal should be to allow multiple viable strategies with unique advantages and disadvantages. The reason people use 40w divisions is that they are much more combat effective (due to how attack and defense etc. works; also: most nations have only a few good generals), cheaper and easier to micro. Smaller division sizes can be viable for defensive operations since the main advantage of smaller divisions is the higher total ORG.
One possible solution might be to couple the relative ORG of a division to the combat stats e.g: 100% Org = 100 % attack, 50 % Org = 75% attack, 0 % Org = 50% attack.
If you are able to post historical proof about that, do it. Before Winter War the Soviets made clear-cut requests to Finland to avoid war, and none of those involved annexation or even making Finland a puppet.
It's very boring and annoying to have to fit into 10/20/40 widths, which results in ahistorical templates, instead of having the freedom to use more historical setups for fun.
At that time probably only the Germans recognize and help the White Finn!
Anyone tried the mods that remove the 40 width meta? I think they works great and no one has complained in our MPs.
USSR demanded the follow: Territories on the Karelian Isthmus, the islands of the Gulf of Finland and a military base near the Finnish capital Helsinki.
Sure, this would not directly make Finland a puppet state of the SU, BUT, it would remove their main defenses in the Karelian region, which where also the defenses to their main roads/railways that lead to their post important and populated cities, so losing that strategic position alone would leave them undefended for future demands. Also, having foreign military bases close to your capital makes it so that it's impossible for you to even NOT accept future demands... And, given what happened to other countries (like Czechoslovakia) who caved to demands of giving over their main defenses, it's logical to asume that something similar would happen... Is it certainty that there would be future extra demands? No. BUT it's an impossible risk to take as a country, because you de-facto already become a puppet by it becoming impossible to say no to any future demands because you gave up your defenses and left you country wide open to a superior foe.
Soviet want exchange territory. They offer land double as large as what they need from the Finn; and base to control the sea entrance to Leningrad.
After the Winter War Soviet get all of this and more, but we already see what's next.
Again, land value is NOT about size, Finland is huge for the amount of population it has, they don't lack land, but the demands made were some of the most important strategic defense positions for the Fins... It's nice that you gain new land.. but if you can't defend your country anymore, what will you do if one year later the Soviets came with the next demands? Then you lost ANY kind of bargain position, because everyone knows that the Soviets could just walk in and take it.. By not giving the defensive positions away Finland hoped not to be able to win a war against soviets, they never had the ilusion that this would be possible, they just wanted to make the price for taking it by force more expensive that the gains from it, making it a stupid idea to try and take it by force... (except that they forget that Stalin didn't value human lifes enough to care about the price payed in men-lifes)
The fear of the Fins was not unwarranted. The Baltic states have accepted similar Sowjet demands but they were occupied and annexed only a few months after.