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sparta105

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What if the artillery tree was split between light, medium and heavy artillery? All of them could be placed both in the "line" (as a battallion) but each of them would give different amounts of bonuses and penalties.
Light artillery would be the weakest of the three but it wouldn't require much in terms of fielding (only the equipment itself).
Medium artillery could be horse drawn or truck drawn. Truck drawn could have higher stats to represent their higher mobility and flexibility but would require motorised equipment (and would thus consume fuel) to use. Maybe the horse drawn could also lower the HP and defence of the division to represent that they cannot move the guns fast enough.
Heavy artillery would be costly but it would also carry the heaviest punch. It would always need to be truck drawn thus requiring motorised equipment and fuel to function.
 
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Hoi Neuling

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Yep the Army-Things like MG´s, Mortars, Arty etc. in the 2 or 3 Tech-Trees have to be overworked.

Minimum it have to look like in the Ultra-Historical-Mod, which overworks all Parts incl. the Infantery-Templates with light and heavy Infantry.
 

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I am a little unsure how separating out battalion and regimental level support weapons would work in practice. For instance, most countries found that six 8 cm mortars were about right for a battalion - and neither the design nor organization changed over the course of the war. Regimental artillery was more diverse, and included heavy mortars (107-120 mm), and various short-ranged artillery pieces. Technologically, these evolved significantly during the course of the war - but organizationally no nation saw a need for deploying more than a heavy support company at regimental level. The main reason for this is that the short range of these weapons made them rather inflexible. Divisional artillery could be concentrated as needed, but the regimental companies could not easily be re-deployed in support of another regiment. Thus, while the balance between divisional and corps artillery presented the historical actors (and potentially the player) with a meaningful choice - it is less obvious how the support at battalion and regimental level could be changed in a meaningful way. And as Secret Master pointed out earlier, the technology is already present in the tech tree in the support weapon category - and industrially it is part of the infantry weapons. However, if you visually look in the tech tree, you can easily get the impression that what you actually are building are mostly small arms and some light anti-tank weapons, while the support weapons are only represented in an abstract way. But perhaps some minor modification to the text / art would be sufficient to explain more clearly that the produced infantry weapons also include light support weapons?

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the very heavy weapons (like the 21 cm Mrs 18 that I mentioned earlier, or the US 155 M1 "Long Tom") provided either very heavy shells or very long range, which were impactful against certain targets (one heavy shell is, for instance, much more likely to collapse a building than several small ones). But while the division and corps level weapons were in some sense "interchangeable," the very heavy weapons were more specialized and provided more of a "bonus" capability. One would have to think a little, though, how to represent such a capability in meaningful way in-game so that the AI could use it effectively as well.

My original point, though, was that one could already capture most of the historical choices by introducing two categories - a light one for weapons that could be towed by a standard truck, and a heavy one that would require a new (in game) vehicle for towing - and make it possible to prioritize between divisional artillery and independent artillery units that would be attached to higher-level formations according to player preference, doctrine, and logistical capabilities (for which the concept was greatly improved in NSB, but could perhaps evolve even further over time).
 

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What if the artillery tree was split between light, medium and heavy artillery? All of them could be placed both in the "line" (as a battallion) but each of them would give different amounts of bonuses and penalties.
Light artillery would be the weakest of the three but it wouldn't require much in terms of fielding (only the equipment itself).
Medium artillery could be horse drawn or truck drawn. Truck drawn could have higher stats to represent their higher mobility and flexibility but would require motorised equipment (and would thus consume fuel) to use. Maybe the horse drawn could also lower the HP and defence of the division to represent that they cannot move the guns fast enough.
Heavy artillery would be costly but it would also carry the heaviest punch. It would always need to be truck drawn thus requiring motorised equipment and fuel to function.
The problem here is unfortunately tech bloat

The tree as it is is a bit...confused and it's hard to manage everything as it is, especially for new players

It wouldn't be impossible to split things better, especially if you changed how you handle infantry support weapons. But it would be rather difficult to get it right
 
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pnt

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And if one wanted to re-work the infantry branch of the tech tree, perhaps the bigger question is whether the tree needs to be so deep? Aircraft, armor, and AT weapons saw very significant development during the war, but small arms and artillery did not (although better logistics made it possible to use artillery more effectively). The improvements were mostly incremental, and new systems rarely replaced old ones.
 

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Artillery can be like CAS: give damage (everyone love to see how many his big guns kill), and give bonus, and have few direct casualties and can be captured. The CAS use a big fuel when it attacks, but fuel can be free for some country. Arty can use fuel too if supply is not used, not 100% correct but better than free ammo from heaven.

Because there is no longer big arty in the line divisions, so the arty need to cover that and doesn't need to compete with rail gun. Rail gun is of course much more expensive, and give lower bonus. They are the extra for the rich.
More on this for some may try to mod and try, the artilery can be a CAS like, land base unit, that have a range of the province it is on and nearby provinces. Not life accurate but increase game tactics, instead of every province has an artillery unit.
 

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I play ultra historical mod exclusively these days. I like sticking heavy aa in my German divisions and using heavy arty as a support company.

but until paradox adds depth and functional to&e to the division designer itself…I’m not sure I see a point for all of that in the base game.

by that I mean to dynamically break apart and reconstitute a division by its regiments, have artillery/aa/at that is attached at a corps level, be able to form kampfgruppe, and reform them into their respective divisions.
in the pacific I’d love to be able to break apart a division on New Guinea or Guadalcanal and spread the regiments out, keep the divisional artillery regiment in the rear—then with the campaign done, reconstitute it, send it to Australia to rest and refit and send it off again to the next island hell.

either way, so long as we are shlepping “divisions’ of 500 to 35k men across the map on a counter that looks identical—I’m not sure what increased granularity brings us with respect to varying calibers of artillery/aa/at. At this point we’re just looking to amass more stats, not to give ourselves dynamic tactical freedom.
 
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pnt

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Two quick comments:

Major reorganizations of the division structure were quite rare - and so was attaching or detaching units at division level. Montgomery even issues a specific order saying that detaching brigades should be avoided since it created problems with full artillery support. The main limitation in the current division designer is that it lacks a meaningful regimental structure, since unless you mix armor / motorized / infantry, the boxes can be filled in any way you like. There should be an artillery regiment that is separate from the support companies, and the number of line regiments could have an impact (three was most flexible, two or four would work if mixed - but five overloaded the division HQ and was rarely encountered). But creating a more relevant role for the regiments, which are already part of the designer, would only be a very minor change.

The global allocation of artillery between divisions and independent units attached as needed to higher formations did, however, vary dramatically from country to country, and could represent a very meaningful player choice. And the investment in heavy artillery was economically very significant. As I mentioned earlier, Germany spent more industrial resources on heavy artillery tractors than on tanks, and if you include the actual artillery - more than all AFVs combined. So it would be nice if this could be included in both the combat and economic models.
 
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Secret Master

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Two quick comments:

Major reorganizations of the division structure were quite rare - and so was attaching or detaching units at division level. Montgomery even issues a specific order saying that detaching brigades should be avoided since it created problems with full artillery support. The main limitation in the current division designer is that it lacks a meaningful regimental structure, since unless you mix armor / motorized / infantry, the boxes can be filled in any way you like. There should be an artillery regiment that is separate from the support companies, and the number of line regiments could have an impact (three was most flexible, two or four would work if mixed - but five overloaded the division HQ and was rarely encountered). But creating a more relevant role for the regiments, which are already part of the designer, would only be a very minor change.

The global allocation of artillery between divisions and independent units attached as needed to higher formations did, however, vary dramatically from country to country, and could represent a very meaningful player choice. And the investment in heavy artillery was economically very significant. As I mentioned earlier, Germany spent more industrial resources on heavy artillery tractors than on tanks, and if you include the actual artillery - more than all AFVs combined. So it would be nice if this could be included in both the combat and economic models.

I disagree from the American side.

Everytime I look up division composition of American formations from Overlod to the end of the war (Europe), I see every couple of months battalions being swapped out for different types. Tank destroyer battalions in particular got swapped around all the dam time. It makes sense given US doctrine.
I know you are focusing on artillery in this discussion, but I see no reason any battalions can’t be swapped out with some frequency.
 
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Major reorganizations of the division structure were quite rare - and so was attaching or detaching units at division level. Montgomery even issues a specific order saying that detaching brigades should be avoided since it created problems with full artillery support.
Monty issuing that order implies that divisions swapping brigades was not all that rare. You don't issues orders to avoid a thing that isn't happening.
 
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I disagree from the American side.

Everytime I look up division composition of American formations from Overlod to the end of the war (Europe), I see every couple of months battalions being swapped out for different types. Tank destroyer battalions in particular got swapped around all the dam time. It makes sense given US doctrine.
I know you ate focusing on artillery in this discussion, but I see no reason any battalions can’t be swapped out with some frequency.
This gives me an interesting idea for a new Officer Corps spirit: Reduced XP loss from changing templates
 
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Sourlol

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I disagree from the American side.

Everytime I look up division composition of American formations from Overlod to the end of the war (Europe), I see every couple of months battalions being swapped out for different types. Tank destroyer battalions in particular got swapped around all the dam time. It makes sense given US doctrine.
I know you ate focusing on artillery in this discussion, but I see no reason any battalions can’t be swapped out with some frequency.
Not to mention the reorganization of Italian divisions to a smaller size to create a larger number, the same for German infantry, and iirc their armored divisions. Then there’s the kampfgruppes late war. Also the temporary attachment of battalions and regiments for specific operations for the Japanese Americans and British at the least (not to mention independent regiments within most of not all majors).

The real question is in a game where we don’t have a pilot manpower pool, where corvettes, frigates, destroyers and the nearly light cruiser size Narviks are all the same class of ship, where land units of 500 all the way to 35k are the same counter, a game where the economy is abstracted to guns and butter factories…I’d the minutiae of regimental, divisional and even corps level to&e appropriate or is that all washed out in the abstraction?
 

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I disagree from the American side.

Everytime I look up division composition of American formations from Overlod to the end of the war (Europe), I see every couple of months battalions being swapped out for different types. Tank destroyer battalions in particular got swapped around all the dam time. It makes sense given US doctrine.
I know you ate focusing on artillery in this discussion, but I see no reason any battalions can’t be swapped out with some frequency.
Yes, if you look at the amount of paperwork produced by the various general staffs - it is staggering. Maybe it is good that they at least did not have powerpoint and excel back then. :)

However, there are perhaps two details worth keeping in mind. First, at the level of abstraction of HOI4, the US infantry division kept it basic structure of three infantry regiments of three infantry battalions, and an artillery regiment with one 155 mm and three 105 mm battalions throughout the war. And many of the changes that occured post-war (such as replacement of the 105 mm regimental cannons with 4.2-in mortars) do not currently have an HOI4 representation. But the TD battalion was never an organic part of the infantry division, but rather an attached unit - although as you point out, the attachments in practice became essentially permanent. But while the US TD battalions were entirely SP, whereas other armies relied mostly on towed AT guns (the Germans and Soviets added a company of SP AT towards the end of the war, and the British experimented with all kinds of configurations), it would still seem reasonable to see all these differences could be seen as variations of a generic "AT battalion" that most divisions had?

There were some examples where infantry divisions were significantly re-organized, but my impression conveyed above was that these were relatively rare. The US pre-war reorganization was one, but perhaps the most striking one was the German one from late '43 / early '44 where the number of battalions per regiment was cut from three to two, but an independent battalion was added to work more directly with the newly formed StuG (SP AT) company in the AT battalion, while retaining the artillery regiment with one 150 mm and three 105 mm artillery battalions. Still, even this would in HOI terms only be a reduction of the number of infantry battalions from 9 to 7...

A larger variation could perhaps be seen in the armored formations, where allied armies initially did not get the tank infantry balance quite right (too many tanks), while the Soviets struggled with coordination of larger formation and deployed most of their tanks in small 65 tank brigades, a few of which were eventually grouped into "tank armies." The Germans, on the other hand were hard pressed both in terms of tank production and availability of fuel, which meant that they had to find the most "cost-effective" solution rather than simply the most effective one. The result was quite interesting - with one tank regiment of two large battalions with 91 tanks each (one with Panzer IV and one with Panzer III, later replaced by Panthers), and two infantry regiments with two battalions each. One of the latter was mechanized and followed the tanks, while the other one was motorized and held ground. But in HOI4, both the Panzer IV and Panther are medium tanks, and one cannot currently assign different roles to the infantry battalions, so it would simply be a division with two medium tank, two mechanized, and two motorized battalions. Of course, two tank battalions is not much for a HOI4 armored division, but calling each of the eight companies with 22 tanks each a battalion would be a bit of a stretch - in particular if you would like to compare it with a US tank division with three tank regiments and one mechanized regiment.

Thus, my overall impression is that with the current division designer one cannot easily reproduce the details of the historic formations, and instead should try to make divisions that are more true to the "spirit" of the historical ones. But this makes the idea of detailed changes in composition a little hard to interpret. Well, at least that this would be my 2c. :)
 
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@pnt

To clarify, would you say that the division designer is too granular or not granular enough? With regard to ART at any rate.

because despite my earlier objection, I would like some kind of corps/army level heavy guns. We practically have it now with siege artillery command power and train guns that can follow around a stack of divisions.
 

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I think that the designer is not granular enough to model historical divisions in detail - but it is sufficiently granular to give the player relevant choices in terms of what best suits their strategy. That said, I think that one could bridge the gap with some relatively minor tweaks - for instance by making the regimental structure more relevant (even if regimental support companies would not be represented explicitly).

But specifically for artillery, it should be straightforward to introduce an artillery regiment that would be separate from the support companies and the line units. And one could have independent regiments (or maybe even divisions) that could be attached to higher-level formations (e.g., the generals in the current OOB). The latter would probably require some AI work - but as you point out, hopefully not too much. :)
And it would resolve an issue with rocket artillery, which is part of the current tech tree, but was not historically used at divisional level.
 

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Monty issuing that order implies that divisions swapping brigades was not all that rare. You don't issues orders to avoid a thing that isn't happening.
You are right. I was just not very clear. :)

What I meant by reorganization was to change the theoretical composition of a division - not to swap subunits for equivalent ones "in the field."

The reference to Mont was supposed to illustrate the practice that brigades were often "split off" for a task, but in so doing often lost the full support of the divisional artillery, which Mont saw as a key element for success. Thus, he tried to stop the practice of solving problems in a piecemeal fashion, and instead tried to draw up plans that involved whole divisions. I guess this was the opposite to the improvised "kampfgruppe" concept that was popular with the Germans. Maybe a good illustration of the two doctrines?
 
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I guess this was the opposite to the improvised "kampfgruppe" concept that was popular with the Germans.

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