Artillery question

[yoroba]

Walter Model used to keep artillery in reserve, to better insert it where needed.

Will the game mechanics allow me to do the same?
Making divisions of 4 or 5 artillery and nothing else, and then refrain from putting artillery in my infantry divisions, to insert the artillery divisions in the places on the front line where need arises.

Will this work in- game?

 

[LostAlone]

Walter Model used to keep artillery in reserve, to better insert it where needed.

Will the game mechanics allow me to do the same?
Making divisions of 4 or 5 artillery and nothing else, and then refrain from putting artillery in my infantry divisions, to insert the artillery divisions in the places on the front line where need arises.

Will this work in- game?

I don't see why not but man is that micromanagement going to get tedious. It'll also leave your infantry units as very very low on soft attack when the separate artillery units aren't there.

 

[Insp Herring]

I think you would need to be watching closely to make sure your ART units are where they are needed (of since you are not adding ART to your regular units, maybe you have enough equipment to put a special ART unit in every province )

If you just make 4-5ART it will have no ORG so it will be knocked out of battle instantly, but 1-2INF and 4-5ART should work.

I have the same idea myself but I am waiting until the 1.4 updates to really try them out properly

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/small-independent-combat-units.1017835/

 

[actioncradd]

The combat model is kind of silly, the more I think about it. Independent artillery detachments prove catastrophic, because of the way stats interact. The "division" would have so little HP, no organization, and thus would take incredible losses. It doesn't make very much sense to me that, for example, 12 infantry battalions plus 4 artillery have crazy attack and breathrough statistics, but a 12 infantry division plus a 4 artillery detachment in a separate division would do so poorly in the exact same combat together. Combat should be cohesive amalgamation of stats on each side. A 40-width division shouldn't be able to utterly trash 2 20-width divisions of basically the same composition, simply because stats are binary

 

[Surimi]

You should never use a division of only artillery with no supporting troops. They will take immense losses and be unable to fight.

That said, it's perfectly viable to have separate infantry-heavy and artillery heavy divisions. One thing I often do when playing with the deep battle branch of the mass assault doctrine, for example, is to make very large and cheap infantry divisions with only support artillery and companies and use them en masse as a purely defensive line. In SP this works extremely well.. like, bizarrely well.. but then again many things which work well in single player are rubbish in MP.

As for justification, the game focuses on divisions, not battalions or regiments. Divisions are really big formations and are theoretically supposed to be self-supporting. As far as I can find out, model's reorganisation of the artillery was on the battalion level (you could think of it as going from only using support artillery to using line artillery). Not on the division level.

 

[Noble713]

While overall I think the division template and equipment mechanic is VERY slick.......there's definitely some oddities about the combat mechanics that don't seem very well thought out. Either that, or they were conscious decisions made to nerf things like artillery, which would otherwise be properly balanced by a more realistic supply model.

"Combat time" and supply is one of the best features in Supreme Ruler 2010/2020: if you want to have doomstacks of artillery battalions sitting behind your frontline blazing away, you ALSO need stacks of supply trucks driving back-and-forth down the roads to supply depots to keep the ammo topped off. That can get VERY micro-intensive, but that game is more operational in scale anyway.

But I'd like to see "combat time" represented somehow in HOI4. In the 21st century US military we talk about "Days of Supply" (DOS). Frontline units usually only have 3 DOS, so past that "out of supply" penalties would kick in. You alleviate this by having logistics units that provide supply points (perhaps multiplied by the province infrastructure). So a logistics support battalion (and you should be able to add more than one) wouldn't give a % decrease to supply required, but be a source of positive supply points to counteract your supply consumption which is highest during combat, high during training, and low but persistent while static. If we could build "logistics brigade" templates and add them to provide supplies to our armies, it would help to represent the manpower drain of the "tooth-to-tail" ratio that is otherwise TOTALLY absent in HOI4, which is why as Germany you can field like 500 divisions of combat troops when historically Germany at its height had maybe 200.

I'm just not sure how to link supply production/consumption to industry, and do so without the supply depot nightmares of previous HOI games....

Hope I didn't derail your thread...

EDIT: Also, while I'm not knowledgeable about Model's use of artillery, the Soviets however definitely used division-level artillery formations to great effect. I don't think the game mechanics adequately support the tactics and organization used by what is inarguably one of the two most important land powers of the entire game: http://soviethammer.blogspot.com/2015/03/soviet-wwii-artillery-divisions.html

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Walter Model used to keep artillery in reserve, to better insert it where needed.

Will the game mechanics allow me to do the same?
Making divisions of 4 or 5 artillery and nothing else, and then refrain from putting artillery in my infantry divisions, to insert the artillery divisions in the places on the front line where need arises.

Will this work in- game?

I'd say ad-hoc command arrangements like that are actually beyond the scope of the game entirely. Commander who concentrates artillery from his subordinate divisions into large corps/army level pool is still given the same formations as a commander who keeps it more dispersed, the difference is in individual usage. Same thing with kampfgruppes.

That being said, it would still be nice if corps/army artillery park style of formations actually worked since those existed as formalized part of at least every major power's OOB.

Combat should be cohesive amalgamation of stats on each side.

While I agree with your gripes, the problem with this is that it would dilute concentration. If I'm attacking with two tank and two infantry divisions I don't want to disperse the tanks for infantry support.

 

[Galithor]

You could do pure inrantry divisions and a second division template thats extremely heavy on artillery as a spot force to put in places you want to do alpha strikes.

You do need some infantry in it though. You need the HP to blunt the equipment losses.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

The more I think about it, I think radio and signal techs should affect this somehow.

As it is right now, smaller armies are at a disadvantage when you lack radios and signal corps since the 40 width division with no radios gets to fight along its entire 40 width, but four 10 width divisions with no radios has to send one division in to fight, the other ones have to wait for a command on signed letterhead before they can join the fight. I question how historical is this abstraction, where less granular armies can do that much more damage?

 

[cat013]

I'd say ad-hoc command arrangements like that are actually beyond the scope of the game entirely.

Actually this is pretty basic stuff. And yet it happens to be beyond the scope entirely, along with lot of other basic stuff about large scale 20th century wars like, say, mobilization. Which kinda brings some questions.

 

[Meglok]

Walter Model used to keep artillery in reserve, to better insert it where needed.

Will the game mechanics allow me to do the same?
Making divisions of 4 or 5 artillery and nothing else, and then refrain from putting artillery in my infantry divisions, to insert the artillery divisions in the places on the front line where need arises.

Will this work in- game?

Can you do it? Yes. Will it work, no.

As others have said artillery lacks org and HPs by itself.

EDIT - A unit of Corps/Army/Independent Artillery can not attack without org and will immediately retreat if attacked.

If you want to do something like this you have to add a few battalions of leg infantry to add staying power. And you will have to micro these units obviously. The ai has no clue currently how to use special units properly. 1.4 is adding stances but we will have to see how that works.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Can you do it? Yes. Will it work, no.
As others have said artillery lacks org and HPs by itself. A unit of Corps/Army/Independent Artillery will retreat very fast out of combat even when attacking as soon as something gets past it's breakthru value. And if attacked will almost immediately retreat.

If you want to do something like this you have to add a few battalions of leg infantry to add staying power. And you will have to micro these units obviously. The ai has no clue currently how to use special units properly. 1.4 is adding stances but we will have to see how that works.

Artillery-only division will have 0 ORG and as such they won't join combat, be able to move etc. IIRC. The only way to have ORG as Artillery only division is currently to have either A) Integrated Support Doctrine and include Support Artillery for that tiny tiny amount of ORG in division. B) Get (IIRC) Czech fascist national focus/spirit which gives +5 ORG to all divisions.

 

[Meglok]

Artillery-only division will have 0 ORG and as such they won't join combat, be able to move etc. IIRC. The only way to have ORG as Artillery only division is currently to have either A) Integrated Support Doctrine and include Support Artillery for that tiny tiny amount of ORG in division. B) Get (IIRC) Czech fascist national focus/spirit which gives +5 ORG to all divisions.

I stand corrected, what I deserve for going off memory without checking code.

I tried to create and use a stand alone artillery unit in my test game save. You can create it as a template. It can not attack as it has zero org and with zero org will auto retreat if attacked.