A German Mechanised Strategy

[Kanitatlan]

First of all: Great work with your Russian AAR and I looking forward to this here too.
Altough I myself like to approach the game like a roleplay and not this gamewise-optimized as you, I am very intrigued by your approach and the loads of good information about game mechanics.
I have a question though:
In your Russian AAR you wrote (something like that): "In Brazil I had to reset the supply sources for my armies."
I didnt even now that was possible.
How do you do that?
And by the way, keep up the splendid work.

By deduction from the effects observed it is apparent that the supply base assignment belongs to a stack and not an individual unit. Any action that puts units in a "new" stack means that a new supply base must be assigned. The game does this by assigning the closest qualifying province. The final point is that you can make a new stack by 'create new unit' and then transfer ALL units in the stack to the new stack. This results in exactly then same stack of units as before but with a new supply base. Note that this cannot be done whilst the stack is being transported and that you need to land units at a nearby supply base before carrying out an opposed amphibious landing.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Policy

Because of the value to me of the free doctrines and being awarded claims on territory I am not going go for an early war. I will let it run through to the Danzig or war event and then claim Danzig. If they let me have it (apart from being very surprised) I will make demands on France until they lose patience and declare war. If this doesn’t work I will think again. So I have several years of preparation.

The start of the Spanish civil war gives doctrines worth 12000, 4000, 5400, 2800, 2800 at list price. Total value 27000 ICs at list price or approx. 24,500 at the prevailing research rate (90.8%). The treaty of Munich is even more rewarding and gives doctrines worth 12000, 12000, 4000, 5400, 5400, 5400, 4000, 4000, 12000 at list price. Grand total of 64,200 or 53,150 at the prevailing research rate (82.8%). This represents a substantial supplement to my total IC expenditure by this stage and difficult to forego.

The free doctrines are not, however, the key to waiting. The biggest issue for me is the lack of claims on foreign countries. This are awarded during the appropriate events and the benefits of owning territory as core provinces is extremely valuable and provides a further increment to the desire to wait.

As a last reason, one of the justifications for an early war under previous versions of HOI (see the Hynkel AAR) was the opportunity for striking down major foreign powers due to their unreadiness. This has now been substantially undermined by the supply distance penalty which effectively prevents the kind of foreign adventure that was previously so popular. Also the spheres of interest events make all foreign adventures liable to trigger war with the major powers.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Ministers

The ministerial policy is quite important for the Germans because they have a wide range of objectives. This initial analysis is focused on the pre-war years and therefore has a limited scope of ministers to choose from. The discussion below is based on arbitrarily changing ministers which is something the Germans can do without penalty. When a minister is sacked he becomes unavailable but if the game is saved and reloaded he is back again. I will follow this procedure so that I can change to and fro whenever I want although this may be considered a little underhand.

Minister of Armaments

The nation can easily sustain the resource requirements of an administrative genius and therefore it is appropriate to retain Hjalmar Schacht throughout the pre-war period (and later too). However, there are two alternative ministers that offer useful benefits, both appearing in 1938; these are Hermann Göring (air to ground proponent) and Walter Funk (air sea proponent). They both offer a 10% cost and time reduction for building ground attack and naval attack air units respectively. This benefit applies if they are appointed at the time the units start building and therefore I can appoint them, start the builds, save the game, reload and restore the previous minister. So if I appoint Hermann Göring for a few hours he gets me cheaper bombers. I know this is obvious ‘cheating’ but I can’t resist it as it’s unusual. After all, how long should he be appointed for before it stops being cheating? In my unit cost analysis it will be assumed that I am using this method to reduce costs.

Paul Lejeune-Jung (1937), tank proponent, can be used in the same way to get a 10% cost and time reduction for armoured research, again applied if the minister is in post when the research is started.

Minister of Security

During the first year there is a choice between Wilhelm Frick (prince of terror) and Heinrich Himmler (efficient sociopath). This is a choice between reduced ICs due to higher anti-dissent spending or reduced manpower. The issue will be dealt with under the industrial analysis. After 1936 the choice is between Karl Sack (silent lawyer) and Josef Wirmer (man of the people). This is again a choice between ICs and manpower and therefore again covered by the industrial analysis.

Chief of Staff

Most candidates only have a wartime effect and therefore the pre-war choice is easy. As soon as possible (1937) I will change to a school of fire support Chief of Staff who gives a 10% cost and time reduction for rocketry and artillery research. As a consequence these research categories will be deferred for the first year.

Chief of the Army

This is a similar issue to Chief of Staff and the only change will be Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord (guns and butter) in 1939 as this reduces my peace time supply consumption.

There are no opportunities to make any other useful changes so it’s not really worth discussing the situation.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Research Policy

This is a complex area but it can be started simply enough by designating the pre-war research targets. In my Russian AAR I emphasised the advantage of a focused research strategy for obtaining the best trade off between unit construction and research expenditure. The Germans have a much greater issue with research focusing as they need a balanced armed force. Justifying my choices therefore needs to start with a discussion of military units. It is important to consider that, as the Germans, I am looking towards being aggressive and need to have the maximum force possible as early as possible and therefore economy of expenditure is extremely important.

I have a major requirement for ground forces and therefore need to expend significant research. The first economy is to simply do without and tank divisions. They are disproportionately expensive and I can do just fine with mechanised divisions. This will be more apparent in the section on unit costs. This gives me a major research economy because Mechanised and Infantry technology have a major overlap. So, I therefore declare my ground research objectives to be maximising the combat capability of infantry and mechanised with a lesser emphasis on mountain troops. There is a need for mountain troops to deal with the variety of difficult terrain that I am inevitably going to have to fight in. This focuses my technology on Infantry techs and Land doctrine with a focus on techs that provide increases in basic scores (soft attack etc.), ground defence efficiency (very important), surprise bonuses and, to a lesser extent, army detection capability. There is also a benefit in significant armour research but focusing entirely on the techs that lead to mechanised improvement. The fact is that the mechanised divisions are going to carry out most of the fighting and therefore they are a key focus for technology.

I need to use air power and for this I will need some sort of fighters, some sort of ground support bomber and some sort of anti-naval capability. There is no realistic prospect of basing my air force on improved types and therefore the research objective is basic types and supplementary techs that improve them. There is considerable scope here for leaving research till later and despite the urge to get improved types as soon as possible this has to be resisted to reserve capacity for building units.

I will need some naval power but it is, I believe, entirely reasonable to focus this entirely on the u-boat fleet. There isn’t any real need to get improved types as the main benefits are the supplementary technology not the u-boat model. U-boat research will be taken through to “Improved Weaponry and Detection” and its applied technologies. There is no need for the next stage as the type IX is only slightly better and slightly more expensive so what is the point?

Initially I have 1 computer tech which reduces my actual research costs to 90.25% of list price. If I go flat out than I can have a second one after 684 days and then have research at 82.75% of list price, a major saving.

The next computer tech takes 456 of those days plus 240-12, 480-43.2, 150-13.5 days = 870-68.7 = 1258 days in = 178 days into 1939 = July !, new cost 77.4% of list price.

It is important to note that these total cost reductions are because the reductions are applied to both time and cost so that the 5% reduction makes the cost 95% and the time 95%. If you multiply these together you get nearly twice the saving. In the Russian AAR this was particularly beneficial for the infantry division price because of rounding. My understanding (not properly checked) is that the cost reduction for research is not rounded and hence the arithmetic is close to being correct.

Next point is that I have major free doctrine from events. These are extremely valuable and save a great deal of ICs and are therefore not advisable to lose by inappropriate warlike behaviour. They also have a major impact on scheduling of research and other activities. In particular I cannot build any mechs until I have the free doctrines, followed them with the required “Mechanised HQ” doctrine and then build the units. Everything else must be built by that point. In fact there is a huge burst of previously blocked research which needs doing as soon as possible so it is important that everything else be, as far as possible, completed by September 1938.

On the industrial research front, all I actually want are some cost reduction technology and some IC increase technology. Unfortunately my earlier view that the conversion technology can be delayed is fatally flawed and it will be necessary to obtain all the industrial theory techs as soon as possible. By late 1940 or early 1941 I may be using rubber conversion technology and when the oil runs out I will be using coal conversion technology.

The technology objectives are as follows

Maximum progress on infantry research and electronics theoretical
Improved halftrack in armoured research (plus techs to improve mechanised and motorised). If possible aim for heavy assault guns
Assembly and polyurethane in industrial, theory techs ready to quickly roll out conversion techs to a tight time scale.
None in rocketry, nuclear, naval
As stated above for submarine and air technology
Artillery needs the infantry improving techs up to the self propelled artillery section but the supply increasing ones can be done at the last minute.
Heavy air needs paratroops and dive bomb drop shells.
Land doctrine needs maximum development for bonuses after the Munich treaty releases the new weapons research capability.

It needs to be recognised that there is a huge outburst of infantry technology after the Munich treaty.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Industrial and Manpower

Running all the figures through a spreadsheet, using estimates for Austrian, Sudeten and Czech contributions gives me the following.

Assuming polyurethane as quickly as possible (228 days) I will have 338,000 ICs up to 1st September 1939. This assumes using optimal ministers for IC production. The choices are…

Prince of terror instead of efficient psychopath gives -5600 ICs in exchange for 55.8 manpower. Man of the people instead of silent lawyer gives -10,500 ICs in exchange for 65.5 manpower. Oddly the prince of terror is a better value choice than Man of the people but this is obvious once you think about the figures.

Base manpower is 823 (if IC preferences are chosen) but with another 410 from events and a cost of -30 from events (Spain).

This is all a difficult choice but given my policy on reinforcement (i.e. don’t do it) I have decided to go for maximum ICs. It is worth bearing in mind that the IC commitments for secondary activities are unaffected by this decision and therefore all of the additional ICs will be represented as combat units in the main theatre of operations. In this context 16,000 ICs is quite significant.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Unit Costs

Here is a quick review of unit costs. These are the costs that I am going to pay for units not the standard HOI price. I am getting, for example, the dive bombers at a huge discount making them far more attractive.

Infantry 570, 10mp
Mountain 960, 13mp
Motorised 700, 10mp; 1048 motE, 1694 motA;
Mechanised 1350, 10mp; 1826 mechE (10% minister), 2646 mechA (10% minister)
Armoured Pz I 1456, 7mp (10% minister)
Destroyer (cheap) 320
Submarine (cheap) 300
Cruiser (cheap) 2016 (10% minister)
Dive Bomber (Stuka) 736 (2 x 10% min), range 230, TA 5, 1mp
Tac Bomber (He) 1320, range 350, TA 6, 2mp
Fighter (109E) 1440
Naval Bomber 1755 (10% min) NA will be 10, range 350
Torpedo Bomber 990 (10% min) NA will be 8, range 230

I am going to build infantry, some mountain, mechanised, dive bombers and fighters. Also some torpedo bombers and submarines for naval power.

I have considered building motorised infantry but they don’t feature effectively in my strategic planning. A motorised division is a slightly improved infantry division, it has slightly higher attack strengths, but still with the same vulnerabilities. The simple fact is that the infantry role in my campaigns (somewhat different from the Russian AAR) is attacking difficult terrain and discouraging the enemy from attacking. Motorised is useless for difficult terrain and foot infantry is just as good for discouraging the enemy – so no motorised.

The use of dive bombers and torpedo bombers is purely a decision of economy and I will have to cope with their inferiority to tacs and navs. Most discussions focus on the fact that tacs get better tactical bombing later on due to a whole series of technologies building up. This is misleading, the biggest benefit by far is actually and the navigation techs that give tacs substantial bad weather and nights capability. By focusing on dive bombers I am making my air power dependent on good weather and daylight. This is, of course, a micro-management nightmare as will later become apparent. It will anyway become apparent how limited a role I have for air power in my strategies.

I have carried out some force requirements analysis and my objective is to have 120 infantry, 12 mountain and 100 mechanised divisions ready for the invasion of Russia. These figures are useful at this stage as they can help determine the limits of pre-war building. The arrival of computer techs and ministers makes it beneficial to build early (but only certain things) and research later. This could benefit from some very careful scheduling which I will leave up to the rest of you as I can’t be bothered.

 

[Kanitatlan]

Resources

I will say this only once. Rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber … It’s the only thing that counts. Whilst there is some need for coal, steel and oil they are all in relatively plentiful supply compared to Rubber. If the rubber runs out then the oil will run out as the stockpile gets converted and then the coal will run out.

By the time any resource shortage starts affecting my production it will already be so high it doesn’t really matter and it will be perfectly reasonable to cut back on total production to suit resource availability.

The main point in resource strategy is to make sure I have as much rubber as possible when the war starts. It doesn’t matter if I have no coal as there will be a coal surplus in the early part of the war. The position with steel is no so good but there is no initial shortage and the captured stockpiles will be quite good. It is therefore quite reasonable to start with reduced steel stockpiles.

I have through long experience developed a standard world trading strategy (not described in the Russian AAR). This is the German version. I trade 1 for 1 for rubber when available and try to build up stockpiles as high as possible. I build up 9999 stockpiles in any isolated places available (East Prussia in this case). It doesn’t matter how low coal stocks are as I am producing more than I need. If stockpiles hit 100% then I set precise trades for stability at maximum levels. If rubber is not available at 1 to 1 I allow stocks to fall whilst coal builds up. When coal maxes out I set up 5 4:1 buys on rubber using coal and maybe steel (or even oil if full). This sucks up the world’s supply of rubber whilst rapidly depleting my stockpiles but when coal runs down I cancel these trades and reinstitute some 1:1 trades. By buying in bulk I can often get some rubber at 1:1, even if not enough, between buying binges. I also have a theory that it affects the other countries when I buy all the rubber but unfortunately I have been unable to detect any consequences.

 

[unmerged(32135)]

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

The minister thingy is a little silly, but you are right, it IS an unusual idea.

 

[Kanitatlan]

This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

The minister thingy is a little silly, but you are right, it IS an unusual idea.

Now come on. This isn't fair. Its one thing reading the stuff faster than I can write it but reading it faster than I can post it, thats ridiculous.

Next updates are

start
spanish civil war
boring history
poland

 

[GrimReaper]

It feels like France, UK and SU are toast already

Nice breakdowns, keep 'em coming!

 

[Zuckergußgebäck]

I am getting the impression that Hitler is starting five-year plans

Long live our Nazi mtherland, built by the Peoples mighty hand...

 

[unmerged(33990)]

H...Kanitatlan's cool, precise and calculating style must appeal the german people.

 

[unmerged(24320)]

It feels like France, UK and SU are toast already

Nice breakdowns, keep 'em coming!

All true!

excellent analysis K!

 

[Jopi]

H...Kanitatlan's cool, precise and calculating style must appeal the german people.

"A good Aryan must be able to solve differential equations in his head" or "Hitler Jugend: Mathematics club for the German youth!" OK, this joke just got old. I will be very interested to see how you invade the US and the SU, the two evil, mirrored acronyms.

 

[Kanitatlan]

"A good Aryan must be able to solve differential equations in his head" or "Hitler Jugend: Mathematics club for the German youth!" OK, this joke just got old. I will be very interested to see how you invade the US and the SU, the two evil, mirrored acronyms.

This may appear strange to many of you but I don't find invading the Soviet Union a problem. My strategy for dealing with them is efficient, effective and fatal not to metion a little unusual. I find more of a challenge from coming up with efficient and reliable strategies for elsewhere.

 

[elbasto]

like the English Channel?

 

[unmerged(33990)]

like the English Channel?

I bet he is already calculating how many screws the transport ships will need...

 

[Timpino]

I bet he is already calculating how many screws the transport ships will need...

One for the captain is enough, the men will find meat in port!

 

[danoh]

Nice summary of where a maximizing, world-conquesting Germany arrives in 1.06c.

100 mech divisions is a bit excessive for Russia - I think 48 organized in four 12-stacks is plenty to attack May 1. and have the B.P. cities by November. But I arty-brigade mine; since you're number-crunching, am I right those will be vanilla boys?

Good analysis on the ministers. I've always put the Man of the People guy in right as 1937 rolled around, but his cost/benefit numbers don't add up.

The argument about starting the war early for me isn't so much about catching underteched Allies - they stink either way - but about putting the I.C.s in my bank earlier. Attacking in Oct., 1938 will get Germany all the Western Europe I.C.s 11 months earlier, and speed the buildup for a staunch Barbarossa in Spring, 1940. It's true those national provinces are choice to wait on, but don't you get the same in Poland if you attack Poland after the Suedetenland Event?

Is there any longer-term plan to turn air and rockets back on, or will the Luftwaffe pound through the air-stack penalty with massed basic fighters? I bet that's what pays I.C.-wise, but it's nice to have improved Naval Bomber/Transport ranges. No airborne boys or did I miss that post?

The resource analysis is fine. With conversion techs there will be no oil or rubber issues, especially with your pre-war trade plan for rubber. The only new trades I lock in are 1:1 coal for steel at 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60. This assures Germany enough to make it to Munich and after that the conquests begin and it's not an issue.

The mountain stack will also help with the urban areas. I start building 3 arty-mountain boys in 1936 and keep that going for the entire game. They mean somewhere, probably where you really need it, you're gonna have a sure thing.

Mechs are such an unbelievable bang for the buck you'll be fine and have a blast.

 

[Timpino]

more! more! more!