A question about "Divisions"

[Scutatus]

I have been catching up on the "World War Wednesdays," watching all of them, all the way through. One of the things that strikes me is the immense number of "divisions" in the slogfest. Both sides - even Britain - speak of having "hundreds" of Divisions, when in real life Britain raised just 38 divisions during the whole war and rarely had more than a dozen divisions in any theatre at any one time - and very often far less. It's manpower was stretched to breaking point with this (relatively small) force, Indeed, by the end of the war Britain was having to merge divisions just to keep them at effective fighting strength. So where are these "hundred" divisions in the game coming from? Are the players really talking about Brigades? (Single Brigade Divisions?)

 

[safe-keeper]

Might be a balance thing seeing the game is in early beta, but yeah, that is weird. Hoping it'll get balanced by release.

 

[Sir Garnet]

It's probably the usual thing where the conversion of manpower into troops needs to take account of hte large logistical tail component stretching back across the globe to the depot battalions and all the sources of men and materials. Realistic front-line strength is much less than simply dividing manpower by division strength might suggest.

 

[BattleMoose]

I share your impression.

Just some numbers, in WWI, the British army peaked at 4 million soldiers and wWWi, it peaked at 2.9 million. For a division of 15000 and ratio of 4:1 (soldiers to frontline soldiers), that gives 48 divisions, not far off from what you cite, which sounds like it already excludes those already enlisted.

It does seem out of whack.

EDIT: You really would have thought that Paradox would at least try and get the manpower numbers, in the right ballpark. I guess that's what the Beta is for, or isn't for, not that I am bitter....

 

[kviiri]

Beta is probably more focused on the game playing well. Numbers are unlikely to switch at this point anymore, since the division is a very core mechanic.

The reason, I believe, for large amount of divisions is simply how small provinces are. I believe in real life a division could adequately defend more than one province. In HoI4 though, each division only occupies a single province at a time, because of the way Clausewitz works.

Bear in mind though, that a "division" in HoI4 varies in size a lot. It might be just a single battalion or have as many as five brigades.

 

[HeilLoki]

Well, he doesn't have hundreds of fully upgraded units. He got A LOT of garrison-type units with just a few brigades in them.

Edit: Oh, and they are France+UK (Union). It is reasonable that UK can raise more units. They got some manpower from this Union.

 

[Vidkjaer]

I am sure Britain could have fielded a great many more divisions in WW2. I believe it is modelled by the manpower laws. If you field more manpower your production efficiency goes down (less workers).
I guess you could see it as Britain in WW2 didnt mobilize all adults, while in the WWW game Johan did.

 

[aruon]

the discrepancy is really more the result of it being a difference in how a division actually worked, and how they are depicted. IRL divisions didn't fight entirely in one place and may well have been a bunch of brigades under a strategic division fighting all over the place. ingame a division is just a simplified group of brigades fighting in a given area under one ID.

 

[CyberianK]

In the division designer a main unit is 1000 men while a support one is 100-300 right?

So the lighter divisions created like a 3x1 infantry plus a few support are more on the level of a brigade. Definitely not like the fat WW2 ones like a british armored division or an SS that could be 15k or 20k men.

 

[jamesd]

I think its a combination of factors.

1. Divisions themselves are too small, with too few support troops assigned to them and no manpower required for logistics and command functions
2. Non-divisional combat troops are not being used, meaning that there is a lot of additional manpower going into those small divisions
3. Logistics, training and other rear area troops that were essential to the proper functioning of armies are not represented
4. The large amounts of manpower that went into navies and air forces is not represented. Aircraft units required ground crews and naval bases needed to be manned for planes and ships to operate.

Some may say that the manpower under 3. & 4. is or can be accounted for through varying the number of men that can be recruited or increasing manpower requirements for ships and planes, but consider that different countries had different proportions assigned to the 3 services and different rear area needs. There's also the matter than naval base troops and air force ground crews keep operating regardless of the number of ships or aircraft that are lost. A squadron may lose hundreds of planes or none over its operational history, but unless the base is overrun you pretty much only need the one set of ground crew, and there are many more men in the ground crew than the flight crews. There's also the matter that at certain times training, naval and air force rear area troops get sucked into combat. For example German replacement divisions assumed rear area security duties in Russia, the training army was mobilised as Germany was invaded, the Luftwaffe formed infantry divisions from excess ground crews and the navy formed a few divisions and sent people as replacements to army divisions.

 

[Scutatus]

There are some very good explanations and suggestions here from everyone - from game divisions being too small in the first place, to Johann enacting a-historical "mobilise all adults," to Britain gaining all French units (or what was left of them anyway). Put it all together and the excessive number of divisions in game could be explained. My concerns have been appeased.

Thanks everyone!

 

[safe-keeper]

I haven't watched much of the WWW, but yeah, since you can in fact form as many divisions you want, more or less instantly (except they need time to build up strength, of course), it's not unlikely the devs have simply spammed them, even though they know it'll drain them of manpower in the long run?

 

[Scutatus]

I haven't watched much of the WWW, but yeah, since you can in fact form as many divisions you want, more or less instantly (except they need time to build up strength, of course), it's not unlikely the devs have simply spammed them, even though they know it'll drain them of manpower in the long run?

Johann was indeed commenting on the beginning of a manpower problem by as early as 1942 in the game. After the appalling attrition in Italy, Greece, Spain, the near East and the trench warfare of Suez, I would be surprised if he has many of his "100 divisions" left in any state to do much in the last WWW. He was very obviously fixing his focus to nukes - and just as obviously frustrated when he realised they would take too long and could not be relied on to balance the field in the last game (which he clearly believed he dearly needed). In other words, his army just isn't effective enough (anymore) and he is (apparently)running out of reserves. If he did over-mobilise too quickly - and has now paid the price and "shot his bolt" too early - that too would go a long way to explain 100 divisions.

 

[LordOfWar16]

Johan has alot of divisions he got from France due to the british-franco thingy aswell. Keep that in mind. Granted most of those divisions died or got captured, but quiet a few still managed to escape. Not only that but Johan also has quiet alot of very cheap and weak colonial garrison units, which are by no means capable fighting units.

Mobilizing most of your manpower reserves will harm your industry and slow down production significantly, so preserving manpower is very important.

Same goes for germany for example. Daniel recieved all of the Spanish divisions and recieved quiet alot from Italy and the other axis members aswell as Expeditionaries. They arent his own divisions.

 

[Denkt]

You can go for quality divisions like divisions with massive amount of artillery and other expensive stuff. Divisions are not the same thing for each country, like some countries divisions could be much smaller then other countries divisions.

 

[Sir Garnet]

What I wonder about is merging understrength divisions or detaching elements from one for another. Or there is disbanding, which should restore manpower to the pool.

 

[safe-keeper]

What I wonder about is merging understrength divisions or detaching elements from one for another. Or there is disbanding, which should restore manpower to the pool.

I do really hope there will be the ability to split and merge divisions, staying within the division template system, of course, with leftover/needed manpower and vehicles being sent to/from the pool. Should absolutely be in a patch or DLC.

For example, I'd be able to send my tank division to a city, create a template called "Garrison detachment" which consisted of a small unit of infantry and artillery, and create a Garrison detachment division in the city, drawing men and material from the tank division.

 

[Sir Garnet]

We have seen seecurity divisions in the videos - Military Police and a couple cavalry units. - of regimental size, but presumably fit for their task.

 

[safe-keeper]

We have seen seecurity divisions in the videos - Military Police and a couple cavalry units. - of regimental size, but presumably fit for their task.

Yes, I know you can make that kind of divisions. I was talking specifically about splitting existing divisions.

 

[LordOfWar16]

What I wonder about is merging understrength divisions or detaching elements from one for another. Or there is disbanding, which should restore manpower to the pool.

I do really hope there will be the ability to split and merge divisions, staying within the division template system, of course, with leftover/needed manpower and vehicles being sent to/from the pool. Should absolutely be in a patch or DLC.

For example, I'd be able to send my tank division to a city, create a template called "Garrison detachment" which consisted of a small unit of infantry and artillery, and create a Garrison detachment division in the city, drawing men and material from the tank division.

experience of your men is tracked. If you disband a unit the troops and experience will go to the manpower pool untill they are needed again. If thats the case the experience they gained will preserve and be added to the divisions experience level itself. If you want to split existing divisions in half you simply delete the half of the template you dont want anymore and all the divisions using that template (which can be swapped) will adapt to it accordingly. According to some posts of podcat if you want to move your weakened divisions together you simply delete one division and their manpower and troops should move to the next divisions that need reinforcements or if no division availabel into your stockpile and manpower pool.

experience is now "number of experienced people in a division". So when sending manpower back we assume the least experienced go back. So usually experience will go up if you just shrink a division



you regain through training or fighting. loss depends on how different the division change is (so tanks would be more here)

If you want to secure the occupied areas you'd have to move in a garrison unit behind your troops or swap out the template of some of your infantry divisions to a garrison one (which is essentially just a poorly equipped infantry division in HoI IV).

I would have to check if it changed, but if you disband one of two understrength divisions in a province the other will get its stuff right away. You cant easily split though but its doable with some hoops:
1. make new template thats smaller
2. make basically empty divisions with template
3. place them in same province as other divisions
4. swap those divisions to new smaller template also
5. should now share equipment without roundtrip needed through reinforcement system

hopefully nobody will do either of above very much although I have removed understrength divisions at times to consolidate where I had no access to reinforcements.