Armor, Piercing and Combined Arms

[EntropyAvatar]

Regarding the combined arms, I'm not 100% sure it's in, in the www we can see Daniel using divisions with only tanks, I understand that he has more tanks then trucks, but a good player like Daniel would disband the motorised SS to place those trucks in the armoured divisions if it was a big deal, right?

Yes I noticed that as well. An all-tank division should run into many significant problems. Even on an open-terrain province, there are places where a tank can't go.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Like Germany easily crushing Russia?

Yes, I remember in 1914 how the Germans took most of European Russia in a few months. Wait, did that happen?

 

[Sir Garnet]

A simple average would not make sense either. The marginal value of the first tank bn in adding capability is greater than that of the 2nd and the 3rd, and likewise with other attachments elements except for those units and purposes requiring a certain critical mass to be effective. It was in recognition of this that the simple piercing vs. armor rule was used, but it is indeed too simplistic with the far more granular division template in HOI4.

 

[joe9594]

Yes, I remember in 1914 how the Germans took most of European Russia in a few months. Wait, did that happen?

Well the vast majority of the Germany army was in France at the time. The Germans might not have won in months but they did consistently defeat the Russians, avoided getting bogged down and when more forces arrived knocked Russia out of the war. Infantry can move at like 20 miles a day if they are really rushing (like they did in France during the first month or so of WW1. If Germany had launched most of its forces against Russia they could have made serious progress.
That having been said I don't disagree that the speed of Daniel's advance is problematical from both historical and game play perspectives.

 

[FOARP]

Like Germany easily crushing Russia?

Errrm, please go and read a history book. Actually, please just pick up a dictionary and check the meaning of the word "easily". HINT: if something involves several years of fighting with hundreds of thousands of casualties and numerous reversals, then it probably wasn't easy.

Well the vast majority of the Germany army was in France at the time.

The vast majority of the Austro-Hungarian forces weren't, though.

The Germans might not have won in months but they did consistently defeat the Russians

You mean except for those defeats they suffered.

If Germany had launched most of its forces against Russia they could have made serious progress.

Possibly, possibly not - this hardly validates the idea that you should be able to launch infantry blitzes.

 

[mursolini]

Where are the T34s which shocked the Germans causing a desperate race to find a German tank design to defeat them?

Blind parroting this myth is getting annoying. T-34s and KV-1s engaged Germans on 22d of June 1941, and by august, out of Soviet superior in quantity and quality tank force, barely anything was left. Soviets had a T-34 for every Pz4 Germans had, and still lost horribly.

The "T-34 shock" only came in winter 1941, when Germans realised they failed in the offensive, and something had to be blamed for it. Despite being a good tank, T-34 never posed real problems for German troops to deal with.

 

[HeilLoki]

The combined arms mechanic -- as introduced in TFH -- was such an important feature. It encouraged the player to build diverse historically accurate divisions. I cannot imagine they would not carry that feature forward to HoiIV, especially with the more detailed division builder. Then again I would never imagine they would strip fuel from the game either. The fact that you can defeat the Soviets with all infantry no artillery divisions "because they have more org" is not particularly encouraging.

While I agree with you in general, I must add that they said in the last WWW, they are gonna change the arti/org-thing. They did not say in what way they are changing it, but they also said, they hear us.

 

[Secret Master]

The vast majority of the Austro-Hungarian forces weren't, though.

:cough: shackled to a corpse :cough:



Would you say that A-H forces in 1914 and 1915 were too focused on fortress warfare in general? They didn't show a vigor for offensive operations while they had the operational freedom to do so (prior to Italian entry), costing the Central Powers potential progress against the Russians?

Possibly, possibly not - this hardly validates the idea that you should be able to launch infantry blitzes.

Say what you want about HOI3, but division speed was useful. I wouldn't describe them as infantry blitzes. Just far too successful.

I think the problem with HOI3 was that even in TFH, ART spam was too easy to achieve. This made infantry formations firepower heavy. And AT was fairly cheap and easy to tech, making it easy to immunize an entire theater against enemy armor.

 

[SwordOfJustice]

In WWW the Invasion startend 1940. Befor any t34 Produktion could have started. The industry was not.mived to siberia. And SU was in the middle of a purge and just had an intern Revolte where trotski couped Stalin. The artillery was removed so the infantry need less supply. This way he was able to attack in the Winter. The russians were overrun unprepared and lost most of their factories quickly. Combined with the increased supply need the Winter caused, the SU run out of equipment quickly. If switzerland is really a tough fortress is relative. You can easily reach the big cities and thats enough for surrender.

Thanks mate. Do you think those factors are enough to justify the end result in the SU?

Blind parroting this myth is getting annoying. T-34s and KV-1s engaged Germans on 22d of June 1941, and by august, out of Soviet superior in quantity and quality tank force, barely anything was left. Soviets had a T-34 for every Pz4 Germans had, and still lost horribly.

The "T-34 shock" only came in winter 1941, when Germans realised they failed in the offensive, and something had to be blamed for it. Despite being a good tank, T-34 never posed real problems for German troops to deal with.

Sorry mate, I am extremely rusty on my WW2 history. It is an often repeated quote. Do you have a good website I could read to brush up on the T-34 and its impacts to the German fight in the SU?

 

[SwordOfJustice]

Actually, I just saw on this on the forum. It's very interesting. http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html?m=1

The main concern I had seeing that WWW video was the relatively easy victory the German player seemed to have. I suppose other games can go very differently. I'll wait and see how HOI4 turns out before buying it.

 

[ArcandSpark]

Thanks mate. Do you think those factors are enough to justify the end result in the SU?


Sorry mate, I am extremely rusty on my WW2 history. It is an often repeated quote. Do you have a good website I could read to brush up on the T-34 and its impacts to the German fight in the SU?

There is a thread in this forum right now which has been very popular lately. Here is the link in it.
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.ca/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html?m=1

 

[shri]

You mean except for those defeats they suffered.

Battles of Galicia were 100% Austrians and the Brusilov Offensive was also almost wholly Austrians, the German Army under Linsingen had mostly Austrian troops under them.
As SM already said- Austrians were "a Shackled Corpse" which were thoroughly useless except in Fortress Defensive Warfare (eg: Italian Front and the interlude between Galicia and Brusilov).
Having said that, these same Austrians and the even less well armed Bulgarians performed Tremendous Feats when under the Command of Mackensen-Seeckt Combo. Serbia, Romania and in several other battles, only the tip of the Spear was German, the Handle was mostly Austrian and at times Bulgar or Turk.
Good Staff Work, Officers having initiative and a few-breakthrough divisions were needed to get these people moving along.

 

[shri]

Blind parroting this myth is getting annoying. T-34s and KV-1s engaged Germans on 22d of June 1941, and by august, out of Soviet superior in quantity and quality tank force, barely anything was left. Soviets had a T-34 for every Pz4 Germans had, and still lost horribly.

The "T-34 shock" only came in winter 1941, when Germans realised they failed in the offensive, and something had to be blamed for it. Despite being a good tank, T-34 never posed real problems for German troops to deal with.

There is a whole thread about the T-34, please use that one. Anyway what you have posted is largely incorrect information.

 

[Zaku]

There is a whole thread about the T-34, please use that one. Anyway what you have posted is largely incorrect information.

You replied to a one month old post, and the T34 thread is 1 week old.

 

[fellaz007]

Sorry mate, I am extremely rusty on my WW2 history. It is an often repeated quote. Do you have a good website I could read to brush up on the T-34 and its impacts to the German fight in the SU?

I sure like the analytic approach from Nigel Askey: http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/

Cheers!

 

[Mevsrei]

The problem with piercing and armor values is that it is abstracted too much.

If only one unit would give full bonus the player can max out every division by just putting one unit of TD based on heavy/superheavy chassis.

On the other hand, this unit doesn't lose it's armor thickness or piercing power only because there are more infantryman fighting besides it. So an average is equally wrong.

Simulating individual units fighting would solve the problem, but it would need to much processing power.

So how could this be solved?
In my oppinion a good solution would be, that armor and piercing are sumarized with their absolute value in percent. E.g. 2 tank battalions with 10 armor, 2 infantry battalions with 0 armor and an at battalion with 2 armor
-> division armor value:
40% 10 armor
20% 2 armor
40% 0 armor

The enemy divisions piercing value is put together the same way and results in, e.g.
10% 12 piercing
60% 5 piercing
30% 1 piercing

Now each combat "tick" the game does randomly chose an armorvalue from the ones represented (the higher the percentage the higher the chance a specific value is used). Than the damage is applied according to how much percent of damage can pierce.
E.g.
1st tick:
Game rolls 10 armor, only 10% of damage is applied (rest can't pierce 10 armor)
2nd tick:
Game rolls 0 armor, 100% of damage applied
3rd tick:
Game rolls 10 armor...

If in between 2 armor is rolled, the game would apply 70% of damage.

This would apply the values according to unit composition without dimnishing individual units full benefits trough averaging.
Averaging would make an average of 11 pierce allways do 100% damage to average armor of 10, which shouldn't be the case if there are battalions with 5 pierce or 15 armor included.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

In my oppinion a good solution would be, that armor and piercing are sumarized with their absolute value in percent. E.g. 2 tank battalions with 10 armor, 2 infantry battalions with 0 armor and an at battalion with 2 armor
-> division armor value:
40% 10 armor
20% 2 armor
40% 0 armor

So this is fairly reminiscent of how the soft hard distinction is handled. It's fairly reasonable, though I think it underestimates the impact of having a few elements with strong piercing or armor. A combatant will tend to put the strongest elements in the position where they can be most effective. The 'truth' is probably somewhere between taking the max and a percentage breakdown - maybe weighting the strongest elements higher?

 

[ArcandSpark]

The problem with piercing and armor values is that it is abstracted too much.

If only one unit would give full bonus the player can max out every division by just putting one unit of TD based on heavy/superheavy chassis.

On the other hand, this unit doesn't lose it's armor thickness or piercing power only because there are more infantryman fighting besides it. So an average is equally wrong.

Simulating individual units fighting would solve the problem, but it would need to much processing power.

So how could this be solved?
In my oppinion a good solution would be, that armor and piercing are sumarized with their absolute value in percent. E.g. 2 tank battalions with 10 armor, 2 infantry battalions with 0 armor and an at battalion with 2 armor
-> division armor value:
40% 10 armor
20% 2 armor
40% 0 armor

The enemy divisions piercing value is put together the same way and results in, e.g.
10% 12 piercing
60% 5 piercing
30% 1 piercing

Now each combat "tick" the game does randomly chose an armorvalue from the ones represented (the higher the percentage the higher the chance a specific value is used). Than the damage is applied according to how much percent of damage can pierce.
E.g.
1st tick:
Game rolls 10 armor, only 10% of damage is applied (rest can't pierce 10 armor)
2nd tick:
Game rolls 0 armor, 100% of damage applied
3rd tick:
Game rolls 10 armor...

If in between 2 armor is rolled, the game would apply 70% of damage.

This would apply the values according to unit composition without dimnishing individual units full benefits trough averaging.
Averaging would make an average of 11 pierce allways do 100% damage to average armor of 10, which shouldn't be the case if there are battalions with 5 pierce or 15 armor included.

I think that is the best idea proposed to date. Can anyone see any problems or exploits from this?

 

[tommylotto]

Damage applied to the division would have to be apportioned also. A hit to soft infantry would kill manpower not destroy tanks. A hit that pierced an armored battalion would destroy tanks. It would be cool, but lots more processing.

 

[ArcandSpark]

So this is fairly reminiscent of how the soft hard distinction is handled. It's fairly reasonable, though I think it underestimates the impact of having a few elements with strong piercing or armor. A combatant will tend to put the strongest elements in the position where they can be most effective. The 'truth' is probably somewhere between taking the max and a percentage breakdown - maybe weighting the strongest elements higher?

So give armour a slightly higher chance of being picked. "We have spotted the enemy heavy armour in this area.""alright. Send in the light infantry to counter"
It just doesn't work like that.

Damage applied to the division would have to be apportioned also. A hit to soft infantry would kill manpower not destroy tanks. A hit that pierced an armored battalion would destroy tanks. It would be cool, but lots more processing.

It could be done in this game because of how equipment is handled on an individual basis. I know it would take more processing power but maybe not too much more.