Any reasons to garrison home land?

[TheRomanRuler]

In HOI3 it was mostly pointless against AI to garrison lot of places, most importantly homeland. Why would Germany need to garrison Berlin when air forces, navy and soldiers 5 000 KM (made up number, what i mean is "LONG") away can stop the enemy. But still, in RL, i believe all nations had strong garrisons in home land. And in RL you garrisoned borders at least nominally with some border guard militia, but in HOI3 you always just sent all your soldiers into nation you are attacking.
In WWW as Japan, i notice that Daniel went as far as pull what little garrison Japanese home islands had and sent them do naval invasion into China - something Chinese coastal garrison could have prevented or at least caused Japanese garrison troops a lot of casualties. So protection against naval invasions is 1 thing you somewhat need to think about - but why? It is far better to pull every soldier from their garrison towns and send them against China, instead of protecting Soviet-Japanese border and Japanese home islands.
In RL best of Japanese tanks never even saw action becouse they were stationed in reserve at Japanese home islands. But in HOI3, you would just rush those tanks into battle. And numerically most of Japanese and German troops (militias) were in their home lands, not far away at the front lines in deep soviet Russia.
Is any of this in HOI4? Do i need to raise Luftwaffe infantry to protect my air fields, or should i just let air crews handle themselves?

In RL at home lands there were:
-militias (Italy had

• Forestry Militia
• Frontier Militia
• Highway Militia
• Port Militia
• Posts and Telegraph Militia
• Railway Militia
• University Militia
• Anti-aircraft and Coastal Artillery Militia, a combined command which controlled two militias:
  • Anti-Aircraft Militia
  • Coastal Artillery Militia
• Fascist militias that could number some 1 million men)

-Gendarmee/military police
-Police forces
-reserve soldiers or armies
-training troops (experienced veterans or at least fully trained officers)
-coastal watch of some kind
-AA crews (1 AA FLAK tower in Berlin held Soviet Attack 8 hours, and with stood hits from Soviet heavy artillery. After the war when it was supposed to be destroyed it was still standing after first set of explosions)

But in HOI3 all you have is provincial AA, and they are not represented as units.

 

[Caesar15]

I don't think there will be much of a reason to defend the homeland, besides invasion. Japan won't need to garrison until the U.S joins the war, and even then they only need to be worried if the U.S is close by.

 

[JerkyJerry]

No reason

 

[Vukodav]

In HOI3 it was mostly pointless against AI to garrison lot of places, most importantly homeland. Why would Germany need to garrison Berlin when air forces, navy and soldiers 5 000 KM (made up number, what i mean is "LONG") away can stop the enemy. But still, in RL, i believe all nations had strong garrisons in home land. And in RL you garrisoned borders at least nominally with some border guard militia, but in HOI3 you always just sent all your soldiers into nation you are attacking.
In WWW as Japan, i notice that Daniel went as far as pull what little garrison Japanese home islands had and sent them do naval invasion into China - something Chinese coastal garrison could have prevented or at least caused Japanese garrison troops a lot of casualties. So protection against naval invasions is 1 thing you somewhat need to think about - but why? It is far better to pull every soldier from their garrison towns and send them against China, instead of protecting Soviet-Japanese border and Japanese home islands.
In RL best of Japanese tanks never even saw action becouse they were stationed in reserve at Japanese home islands. But in HOI3, you would just rush those tanks into battle. And numerically most of Japanese and German troops (militias) were in their home lands, not far away at the front lines in deep soviet Russia.
Is any of this in HOI4? Do i need to raise Luftwaffe infantry to protect my air fields, or should i just let air crews handle themselves?

In RL at home lands there were:
-militias (Italy had

• Forestry Militia
• Frontier Militia
• Highway Militia
• Port Militia
• Posts and Telegraph Militia
• Railway Militia
• University Militia
• Anti-aircraft and Coastal Artillery Militia, a combined command which controlled two militias:
  • Anti-Aircraft Militia
  • Coastal Artillery Militia
• Fascist militias that could number some 1 million men)

-Gendarmee/military police
-Police forces
-reserve soldiers or armies
-training troops (experienced veterans or at least fully trained officers)
-coastal watch of some kind
-AA crews (1 AA FLAK tower in Berlin held Soviet Attack 8 hours, and with stood hits from Soviet heavy artillery. After the war when it was supposed to be destroyed it was still standing after first set of explosions)

But in HOI3 all you have is provincial AA, and they are not represented as units.

Well, there are several answers to that question. Most of those garrison units and auxiliary formations were very small groups. Rarely you saw a single unit of a couple of thousands forestry militiamen or some such. So anything that is nor organized as a brigade at least is not in the game (HOI3) and nothing below the division level in HOI4.

Now, the use of it? Yes, historically you had those garrison units spread out across the country. Usually for keeping peace, helping the police, organize the background and similar jobs. In HOI2 you had to garrison your homeland when the dissent was too high as the people start to rebel. In BICE HOI3 that is the same. I don't remember for core HOI3 - never actually had so high dissent. But anyway, you had to garrison some troops in order to keep everything calm.

And you do need to garrison some key positions against the paratrooper landings. Not that AI does them a lot but once I played as France and I held the Germans on the borders everywhere. Left my ports and cities in the back empty. But then a paratrooper unit landed and took Paris, I took a national unity hit (BIG one) and all of my resources. It is dumb and unrealistic I know, but there is one thing you need to guard yourself from.

I am against abstractions as much as possible in the game but here you might think of those auxiliary units being tied up depending on the conscription law. For instance, if your conscription law is weak, you have a small number of men for the front line units while the rest works and serves in auxiliary formations. Once your law goes up, those auxiliary units get drafted for front line and you get some IC hits and some such as there is no one to keep the order back home. Just a thought.

But some form of Home Army might be a fun thing. Even if you only make it that high dissent hits your IC and supplies and you need to station some troops in the country in order to keep it in check, like BICE and HOI2.

 

[kviiri]

I see two significant reasons:

- You have a real risk of having to defend said homeland in near future
- You need to have a lot of forces on the map and ready for deployment for an upcoming campaign (or as a reserve for an ongoing one)

 

[Tus3]

It is far better to pull every soldier from their garrison towns and send them against China, instead of protecting Soviet-Japanese border and Japanese home islands.

I'd hope that if you'd leave the Soviet-Japanese border unprotected the battle of Khalkin Gol would end really disastrous, in the China DD they said something about a borderwar, to represent the Chinese civilwar without actual fighting, but units in border states will start to suffer attrition, with 'bad things' happening if you leave the border undefended, I guess they might use something like that to represent the Soviet-Japanese borderwar.

 

[Secret Master]

I guess it depends on what you mean by defend and garrison.

The HOI series has always abstracted a lot of stuff, including manpower rotating to and from the front line and so forth. You could argue that a lot of what you are trying to depict is subsume into things like NU, party popularity, and revolt risk. If revolt risk at home is zero, NU is high, and party popularity is high, then I guess the Brownshirts are either doing their job or not needed, eh?

I don't see a pressing need to force countries to garrison their home territory if revolt risk is zero, if the country is stable, and there is no physical possibility of enemies reaching the home territory. Of course, I'm also the guy that would put 4 divisions of 4xMIL on every port in the Atlantic, North Sea, and Med occupied by Germany in HOI3, so take my words with a grain of salt.

 

[jalapen0]

Maybe China AI is smart enough to invade the unprotected home islands of Yapan? One could hope.

 

[lekim]

Maybe China AI is smart enough to invade the unprotected home islands of Yapan? One could hope.

First they need to find out that Island are unprotected, then they should have enough troops etc.

China AI should be smart enough to protect the Coast, however they did have enough troops even to protect the front line.

 

[Karl244]

Does military police garrison also count? Because I see using them a lot.

 

[llib]

I don't know, what happens with the planes when paratroopers land on enemy airfield?

 

[Dr. Njitram]

As long as you have airsuperiority and it is all inland, it shouldn't matter, but as soon as you lose that or have a coast nearby, garrisoning is useful to protect important points from air drops and naval invasions. Not being able to react quickly enough can get you hit hard, possible cutting off supply or losing core national unity.

 

[parkerg12]

With the new division designer it will be pretty easy to build skeleton division in order to garrison the ports, cities and important supply routes with only a miniscule impact on your manpower and arms pool. as seen in WWW Ger v UK paratroopers and naval invasions can happen anywhere and everywhere. and in those cases time is not on your side!!!. so those guys who you really want to send the front don't, because uncle sam is coming and if that port aint guarded it'll be taken before you can say Normandy and even a small garrison division could delay a invasion a few hours and maybe a day enabling you to respond and save the day.

 

[Victor Cortez]

With the new division designer it will be pretty easy to build skeleton division in order to garrison the ports, cities and important supply routes with only a miniscule impact on your manpower and arms pool. as seen in WWW Ger v UK paratroopers and naval invasions can happen anywhere and everywhere. and in those cases time is not on your side!!!. so those guys who you really want to send the front don't, because uncle sam is coming and if that port aint guarded it'll be taken before you can say Normandy and even a small garrison division could delay a invasion a few hours and maybe a day enabling you to respond and save the day.

This. I suppose a good thing will be making ‘on paper‘ home defense division of one regiment and move them to key areas during qiet times.
Then, if things go south, you simply edit the home defense template. Those divs, at that point, will have entrenchment bonus and won't need to be moved.

 

[potski]

Maybe China AI is smart enough to invade the unprotected home islands of Yapan? One could hope.

It needs a navy capable of securing naval superiority across the East China Sea. Daniel knows they can't do it, their navy is too small. In HOI3 the China AI could and did carry out sneaky invasions of Dalian, Okinawa etc. if you left them undefended. Even when you had complete naval superiority. So that forced you to garrison all ports.

 

[lekim]

In HOI3 it was mostly pointless against AI to garrison lot of places, most importantly homeland. Why would Germany need to garrison Berlin when air forces, navy and soldiers 5 000 KM (made up number, what i mean is "LONG") away can stop the enemy. But still, in RL, i believe all nations had strong garrisons in home land. And in RL you garrisoned borders at least nominally with some border guard militia, but in HOI3 you always just sent all your soldiers into nation you are attacking.
In WWW as Japan, i notice that Daniel went as far as pull what little garrison Japanese home islands had and sent them do naval invasion into China - something Chinese coastal garrison could have prevented or at least caused Japanese garrison troops a lot of casualties. So protection against naval invasions is 1 thing you somewhat need to think about - but why? It is far better to pull every soldier from their garrison towns and send them against China, instead of protecting Soviet-Japanese border and Japanese home islands.
In RL best of Japanese tanks never even saw action becouse they were stationed in reserve at Japanese home islands. But in HOI3, you would just rush those tanks into battle. And numerically most of Japanese and German troops (militias) were in their home lands, not far away at the front lines in deep soviet Russia.
Is any of this in HOI4? Do i need to raise Luftwaffe infantry to protect my air fields, or should i just let air crews handle themselves?

In RL at home lands there were:
-militias (Italy had

• Forestry Militia
• Frontier Militia
• Highway Militia
• Port Militia
• Posts and Telegraph Militia
• Railway Militia
• University Militia
• Anti-aircraft and Coastal Artillery Militia, a combined command which controlled two militias:
  • Anti-Aircraft Militia
  • Coastal Artillery Militia
• Fascist militias that could number some 1 million men)

-Gendarmee/military police
-Police forces
-reserve soldiers or armies
-training troops (experienced veterans or at least fully trained officers)
-coastal watch of some kind
-AA crews (1 AA FLAK tower in Berlin held Soviet Attack 8 hours, and with stood hits from Soviet heavy artillery. After the war when it was supposed to be destroyed it was still standing after first set of explosions)

But in HOI3 all you have is provincial AA, and they are not represented as units.

I am not sure that most of the cities in the world had huge garrisons (yes they have some initial defense, like police and some militia, ports head coast guard and most like navy (which are also kind of soldiers). But how well can they really fight against the invasion?

I would actually solve this problem by increasing the visibility range and setting penalties for naval invasion high and put a delay on operation. Basically if you have mobile group with enough information it can push back any invasion fast. Also fight width should be extremely small.

 

[Invictus5966]

I don't think there will be much of a reason to defend the homeland, besides invasion. Japan won't need to garrison until the U.S joins the war, and even then they only need to be worried if the U.S is close by.

Just tell that to LetterZ in the multi play WWW

 

[CHRIS3169]

It'll probably be like eu4 where having friendly units in your provinces will reduce all the unrest modifiers.

 

[Sic Domine]

There should be units not on the map that automatically pop up when you attack a bigger city.

If an unprotected city gets attacked the government will mobilize troops like the Police and Fire Department, non-vital personnel like athletes, officials, artists etc. etc.
So if you just paradrop something onto undefended Berlin, there should be a fight ensuing against a militia unit.

Also there were situations in WWII like in Belgium where Paratroopers actually were dropped onto an ungarrisoned city, but those were mostly commando-type units.

 

[Secret Master]

There should be units not on the map that automatically pop up when you attack a bigger city.

If an unprotected city gets attacked the government will mobilize troops like the Police and Fire Department, non-vital personnel like athletes, officials, artists etc. etc.
So if you just paradrop something onto undefended Berlin, there should be a fight ensuing against a militia unit.

Those forces would not be a significant defense against the full divisions we employ in HOI.

If someone is dumb enough to leave Berlin completely unprotected when the enemy is in range for some kind of attack, they deserve to lose the city. Although in HOI4, abusing capital occupations to steal stockpiles won't be an issue, so the potential for abuse is less severe than HOI3.