Air force vs Army, how to invest your resources?

[Denkt]

In my future game as Albania, I'm planning to invest heavily in heavy bombers, as I have the protection of the sea from any possible italian invasion, and then I will turn the italian cities into rubble.

Well as Albania I think you will also need a army not just bombers.

USA and UK are two countries who can very well invest more then 50% of their factories into aircraft production and it may be pretty strong choice to do so.

 

[Lightning Jack]

According to the new Dev diary having one single cockpit aircraft might cost more than say 1 man but instead 10. This is because of ground crews and balancing factors for nations like the USA or Germany who can produce huge quantities of units. So building 100 aircraft is equivalent to one field division so it's a trade off. Is I was a small nation I would focus nearly entirely on land forces and a large nation focus a balance of men and aircraft so I have an equal strength in both air and land. That's my personal opinion because small nations have low manpower and large nations have lots of manpower.

If they shoot down my 1 plane, what happens to the 10 support guys, do they die and need to get replaced when I build my new plane? Or do they stay alive and sevice the next plane?

 

[Orlunu]

If they shoot down my 1 plane, what happens to the 10 support guys, do they die and need to get replaced when I build my new plane? Or do they stay alive and sevice the next plane?

They sudoku, thinking that they probably hadn't prepped the plane gud enough.

 

[AtlasAngel]

They sudoku, thinking that they probably hadn't prepped the plane gud enough.

Just imagined bunch of mechanics playing sudoku lol

But that would suck for minors if they invest in an airforce...as they wont really have a ton of manpower they would have to pick one over the other...

 

[rutger9]

Maybe the manpower is just tied up in maintaining it but if the plane is lost then that manpower would return to the pool?

 

[Evan05]

They sudoku, thinking that they probably hadn't prepped the plane gud enough.

They play a round of Sudoku when their air pilot dies?

 

[rutger9]

Don't they play jenga?

Spoiler

 

[Novatheorem]

Well, they certainly can't just leave. What, with that Catch-22 and all...

Spoiler: Catch 22

“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.”

They have to be represented somewhere. I would imagine that a percentage goes back to the equipment pool (to signify that they are available to assign elsewhere). Complete speculation, however.

 

[Axe99]

Been decades since I read Catch-22, but is an absolute classic .

The interessting question is, what happens with the 9 guys, if the singleseat airplane is shot down? Are they lost? Or did they return to the pool? For minors it would be horrible if they loose a airplane and ten men, for each shot down plane. Or even more for a bomber.

This is a good and important question. Navies and airforces should tie up a lot of manpower in running, but not all of that manpower should be lost when the units are lost. It is a little odd having the 'support manpower' for naval and air units in the game, but the 'support manpower' for land units not making the cut, but small steps - hopefully we're edging in the right direction .

I figure they die too. Because balancing.
But this can be rationalised at least partly through roleplay, when we assume that ground forces also often died during bombing raids on airfields.
Of course this won't explain a total loss of the group, but whatever helps to maintain immersion, I guess.

I don't think there's any rational way of maintaining immersion if they all die . Probably better to ignore and suspend disbelief (which is necessary for many mechanics in all strategy games, and I'm sure will be in HoI4 as well - and if it wasn't, the game would be unplayable) than try and make up stories for it.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

Army can fight without air forces or navy, but neither can exist without army.

 

[Lightning Jack]

Instead of adding and subtracting manpower every time a plane is shot down (which I imagine will be hundreds of thousands of times), why not have an airbase require MP in production and repair? The airbase would lose MP after it was bombed and only cost MP to train replacement ground crews. I think it would be less CPU intensive than the hundreds of thousands of calculations each time a plane is lost.

 

[ithillid]

I would think that Air power should be represented by squadrons, which are stupidly hard to actually kill unless you can actually overrun their airfield. However, they take equipment losses more severely than Army forces.

 

[Bocaj78]

Just build tanks tanks win wars I mean what can stop armored 88 mm guns driving at you at 24mhp? Millions of german tanks driving at full spead will stop even the soveit and american war machines at the same time right then drive them into the oceanan and invade them using snorkels

 

[ROGTARholy]

I would like to introduce your armored 88mm guns to a flying machine going around 200 - 400 kph carrying explosives with the accuracy to drop on the hood.

 

[KalZakath]

I would like to introduce your armored 88mm guns to a flying machine going around 200 - 400 kph carrying explosives with the accuracy to drop on the hood.

Not just that, but haven't seen any of the WWW where it would seem that a heavily armored army is even possible .

Though maybe those tanks could be like the battleships of the land against the planes, with a whole fleet of AA-mini tanks driving alongside of them to protect them like a destroyer/cruiser screen .

 

[Katarian]

This is a good idea as I was just planning to continually build new ships as the UK utilising the port capacity to its fullest. Now I can't just churn out new Carriers, Battleships, etc... without a care in the world.

The interessting question is, what happens with the 9 guys, if the singleseat airplane is shot down? Are they lost? Or did they return to the pool? For minors it would be horrible if they loose a airplane and ten men, for each shot down plane. Or even more for a bomber.

Just as interesting is what happens when you research a new airplane. So I'm playing as the UK and I have 1000 Gloster Gladiators and I put them into reserve and replace them with 1000 Hawker Hurricanes, does that use 10k of my manpower or 20k? Sensibly it should only use 10k manpower as the guys servicing the Gladiators just move onto servicing the Hurricanes.

 

[amalric de g.]

Just as interesting is what happens when you research a new airplane. So I'm playing as the UK and I have 1000 Gloster Gladiators and I put them into reserve and replace them with 1000 Hawker Hurricanes, does that use 10k of my manpower or 20k? Sensibly it should only use 10k manpower as the guys servicing the Gladiators just move onto servicing the Hurricanes.

Thats also a very important point. For minors it would be horrible, to replace maybe 500 fighters, four times, with the newest airplane or a new variant during the war.

 

[Denkt]

From what I have seen from the streams you only need manpower then you assign aircrafts to airwings.

 

[Count Drew]

Some games you don't need an air force as much to win. In older HOIs I use to forgo a strong air force or create a small elite one. Though I was never deep into HOI3! While in HOI2 and subsequent patches I found that the air power was more so deadly in naval actions. While on land it would cost you ... airfields can be easily over run.

Big Powers can afford air fleets while little powers would probably be better served with a stronger army. I don't really know the full effects of air power in game. It has been presented but it doesn't appear so far as I can tell deadly unless I slept through all the twitchchannel. I don't recall watching Naval Strikes on ships as in WW2 knocking entire fleets. As they did very very effectively.

We won't know exactly what the value in air power is in game till we ourselves test the game then according tweaks will need to be made. 1 German Pilot Rudel killed (what would Allied Pilots of accomplished had they started earlier?)

519 Tanks
800 vehicles of all types
150 Mixed arty
4 Armored Trains
not including supply and naval destruction... on the Eastern Front

Now I will trade that for 1 tank but in game do you get that type of effect? I don't think so? Maybe for balance but I would use a group of 4 Fighter Bombers on land in Hoi2 DH to clean out a slow moving Division in Africa. When they become extremely experienced it was doable as slow as they march. Real? I think so given the situation.

Given that military factories are used both to build the equipment your army need as well as building the aircrafts your airforce need, your airforce and army is in direct competition with eachother in terms of resources as each factory that build aircrafts could be used to build army equipment and vice versa.

A strong airforce can halt the enemy army, making it easy to encircle and thus minimize your own casulties. Air force can also be used in a more direct offensive role and destroy enemy factories. Not only that but it can also play a key role at naval engagements.

However without a strong army your country is likely to face defeat and be annexed, but an army without an airforce will likely not do well and take huge casulties. You will also have alot of trouble to defend your factories, even the strongest army can not defend its factories from enemy aircrafts. An army can not really do to much against a navy which can be a huge deal.

It will cost alot to build up an airforce as aircrafts are extreamly expensive in HOI4, a fighter cost about as much as a heavy tank.

 

[Denkt]

Sound more like it depend on nation, Sweden may be better off with a focus on the airforce over the army because of its location while the same may not apply to Poland.