Artillery - Support vs. Battalion

[Devout]

I have been keen to understand the difference between units that can exist in the support tree, as well as existing as a battalion. This applies to Artillery, Anti-Tank, and Anti-Aircraft units. In WWW #6, we got some information to start discussing the differences.

I did a quick assesment based on the numbers I pulled from the video. Some notes on methodology.
(1) The comparison is based on scaling the 36 battalion artillery pieces to 24 for projected benefits. So a value of 124% means that support is performing 124% per cost than the Battalion artillery. Poor results placed in brackets to make reading easier.
(2) I had to calculate the org loss based on the status of the unit it was being added to.
(3) Org delta is the impact of adding the artillery unit to 9x infantry with 90 org each.


Bat Sup. Sup Scale Comparison
Artillery (cost) 36 24 100%
Defense 9 0.9 (15%)
Breakthrough 3 0.3 (15%)
Soft Attack 23.2 19.2 124%
Hard Attack 4 4 150%
Organization 20 10 N/A
Org Delta 7 8 (3.33)
Hit Points 10 5 (75%)
Manpower 500 300 90%
Width 1 0 0.34

So which is better? The analysis is very tricky as we can't effectively weigh the benefit of using a support slot. At first glance, the support slot seems to be the better choice as it gives more attack and doesn't use combat width. Cost wise, it is also easy to update units early game with only 24 pieces. But going for a unit in a battalion doesn't look too bad as has better organization, defense, and break through bang for the buck.

 

[griffor]

i think it depends more on the amount of industry you have vs the amount of regiments you can field

 

[agentgb]

hmmm i supect the factory efficiency is another factor, dan was clearly specialising in one area mostly, jack of all trades or master of none, so he focused on keeping the bulk of his forces well equipped, has opposed to having artillery/anti tank support groups that would require factories dedicated to maintaining, given he was fighting on multiple fronts, the infantry took the lion share of supplies/equipment, plus all the captured IC allowed him more tactical options in the long run, by the time the allies land he could probably add in the artillery support.

I think the problem may be, and especially for smaller nations, is the dilemma caused by the factory efficiency, on such a huge front like that of russia, combat width isn't a real problem, atleast it doesn't look like it in hoi4, in hoi3, using nothing but infantry/tank bridgades would kinda cause your forces to bottleneck even if they were tougher, the K/D ratio would be better with support, on a narrow front, support is a must, had johan used a combination of support and infantry brigades, attacked up via italy with offshore bombardment and areial support, it would have been a bloodbath for dan.

I think support like artillery may be situational now, were there is narrow front and a demand to bring more firepower to bear, in hoi3, even on the eastern front, it felt like support was still essential if you wanted to make a decisive breakthrough, but the bulk of the front could just asorb blows with high organization divisions to allow the surgical divisions with lot of support make the war winning maneuver, which dan seemed to have accomplished with his micro managing,

Had Johan pushed up through italy, with better support brigades, it may have forced dan to dedicate factories to building support to match johan, that could have affected his efforts in russia, tbh, johan seemed a tad bit sloppy, and got into a grudge match attempting to protect sweden honour, which was alittle to late, and should have been a priority from the start, germany should not have been able to cross those straights. When playing Britain, you should being using islands has aircraft carriers, and the navy has artillery support, italy would have been a perfect invasion to threaten the under belly of germany,

 

[shri]

You are ignoring one major fact-
HOI series does not consider Light Artillery and Mortars as Artillery but instead as Infantry gear.
this itself means anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the total artillery in the division is already inbuilt inside the division (where do you think that SOFT ATTACKS shown by Jacob in WWW3 comes from?)

 

[panzerzombie]

Apart from the data I wonder if AT/AA/Art Battalions reduce movement of Inf-Divisions, the Unit description where the stats are listed does not contain info about movement.

Its clear that they don´t influence Movement as support units but as Batts ?

 

[shri]

A division will move at the speed of the slowest battalion, a support battalion does not affect that speed - this or something similar was once told by Johan.

 

[panzerzombie]

Sigh... Yeah I knew that, so let me rephrase it:
A Infantry Division ( 3-3-3) moves with 4 mph as shown in the designer, a Artillery Unit has no Movement listed in its data (shown in research screen), so does it move with 3 mph ( added as a Battalion and slowing down the division to 3mph) or something ?

 

[kviiri]

I'm (positively, of course) amazed by the forumites' enthusiasm when it comes to data-hunting for a game that doesn't even have a release date yet. You guys will probably master the game before playing it for the first time!

 

[jamesd]

You are ignoring one major fact-
HOI series does not consider Light Artillery and Mortars as Artillery but instead as Infantry gear.
this itself means anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the total artillery in the division is already inbuilt inside the division (where do you think that SOFT ATTACKS shown by Jacob in WWW3 comes from?)

That has been the case in the past, with HOI3 infantry brigades effectively representing 3 infantry and 1 field artillery battalions, however I'm not sure it's the case with HOI4. Support artillery is light artillery and is air droppable when attached to a parachute division. That means its representing guns that are normally no more than 75mm. The equivalent guns in a standard division range from 75-105mm, and are exactly those guns that in HOI3 would be factored into an infantry brigade. I've seen devs state that only infantry weapons are produced in packets and every other item, be it a tank, plane, truck or gun is produced as an individual item. I've never seen them state that infantry equipment includes artillery pieces that can weigh a couple of tons, and I've had engagement from them when looking at historical templates where I've included artillery battalions that represent organic divisional field artillery. It would have been the perfect opportunity for them to say that we don't need to use those slots for field guns because they're already factored into the infantry equipment, but they didn't.

 

[panzerzombie]

I'm (positively, of course) amazed by the forumites' enthusiasm when it comes to data-hunting for a game that doesn't even have a release date yet. You guys will probably master the game before playing it for the first time!

Hehe, yes this is the plan. My notes are already 5 pages long...

 

[DrinkingHeavily]

The comparison isn't unit vs unit but rather IC-days vs Battle-Winning Ability

If it's just unit vs unit [eg, what single division is better] then an SS division should be the base for every infantry division.. the same analogy for support units.

So the optimal comparison is actually the IC it takes compared to the total ORG you can bring to bear using the various combinations that you spend. The SS unit MAY be chosen, but probably more for flavor.. because the German player would rather win battles quickly [quicker the battle, the less strength and org loss in each attacking unit for the victor] than take a longer time just because the unit has "SS" in the title. The SS division may cost three times as many IC-days [vs the vanilla] simply because those lightning bolts are hard to make... but will have the same org as a line division!

The key insight is that most battles won't end in actual elimination of divisions but rather the defending division will break due to low org and retreat.

 

[shri]

That has been the case in the past, with HOI3 infantry brigades effectively representing 3 infantry and 1 field artillery battalions, however I'm not sure it's the case with HOI4. Support artillery is light artillery and is air droppable when attached to a parachute division. That means its representing guns that are normally no more than 75mm. The equivalent guns in a standard division range from 75-105mm, and are exactly those guns that in HOI3 would be factored into an infantry brigade. I've seen devs state that only infantry weapons are produced in packets and every other item, be it a tank, plane, truck or gun is produced as an individual item. I've never seen them state that infantry equipment includes artillery pieces that can weigh a couple of tons, and I've had engagement from them when looking at historical templates where I've included artillery battalions that represent organic divisional field artillery. It would have been the perfect opportunity for them to say that we don't need to use those slots for field guns because they're already factored into the infantry equipment, but they didn't.

OK, i may be wrong then. But in HOI3 and in HOI2 that was the case, that <=105 mm guns were part of the Infantry kit and the Artillery generally denoted Heavy Artillery support. i.e. guns over 105mm. The 150mm being the obvious ones.

But, if you look at WWW3, Jacob and Johan compared their infantry stats and German divisions showed a lot of ORG and SOFT ATTACK but low HARD

 

[jamesd]

OK, i may be wrong then. But in HOI3 and in HOI2 that was the case, that <=105 mm guns were part of the Infantry kit and the Artillery generally denoted Heavy Artillery support. i.e. guns over 105mm. The 150mm being the obvious ones.

But, if you look at WWW3, Jacob and Johan compared their infantry stats and German divisions showed a lot of ORG and SOFT ATTACK but low HARD

Someone did some analysis of the change in Germany's attack stats regarding dropping the artillery. I think soft attack dropped from 78 to 60. If the divisions had the correct number of guns, 72 to include regimental infantry guns, the divisions would have 114 soft attack with 54 from the guns and 60 from the infantry & engineers. At almost 50% from the guns that's pretty reasonable considering that artillery caused most of the battle casualties in the war.

 

[Denkt]

Compared to infantry artillery have much less manpower cost for maybe the same or better attack.

Artillery is a good way to conserve manpower if you are ready to pay for its cost.

 

[Midden]

Sorry but I must be a bit of a stick in the mud, it's not a cost offset thing to me. Assuming this game is actually something to do with WW2 ... turning up to a land battle without Artillery would be odd wouldn't it?

There needs to be some force multiplier effect, i.e. you might need 3 infantry only div's to beat one division defending with combined arms.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

I'd say that since we can research support weapons/equipment for infantry in the tech tree that improves defensivness, the regimental artillery, be it mortars or howitzers or whatevs, are included in the ordinary infantry.

 

[Praetori]

I'd say that since we can research support weapons/equipment for infantry in the tech tree that improves defensivness, the regimental artillery, be it mortars or howitzers or whatevs, are included in the ordinary infantry.

Which is strange seeing as we build our divisions from battalions (and artillery above mortars is and was never organic at battalion level).

 

[Midden]

I'd say that since we can research support weapons/equipment for infantry in the tech tree that improves defensivness, the regimental artillery, be it mortars or howitzers or whatevs, are included in the ordinary infantry.

Then why have Artillery unit mentioned in the game? Saying it is already included in Infantry is I agree is exactly the effect of what is shown to us that a 3*3 inf only being so effective on assault and defense, it must therefore have sufficient artillery included.

If the Artillery unit is just an Org hindrance, (that is what the Pdox 1700hr player says), and if people rationalize it is already included in Inf, then the Artillery unit needs to be deleted from the game, as it has no useful influence in the combat stats ... as its seems better just to add yet another inf.

Problem over. I just have to say Inf = Infantry and heaps of 155mm artillery supporting them. Yay I feel better already.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

I am not saying arty is useless, just that in a case where frontline was not fully occupied by enemy troops and where gaps are easily exploited it is not a necessity. It is necessity when when every division is fully engaged along the whole front and you need every extra point of firepower you can get, but that simply was not the situation on the eastern front this time.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

I think it would be good for the game if infantry by itself was "necessary but not sufficient". That is, every effective division needs infantry, but a mass of infantry by itself is going to be cheap to equip but at a serious disadvantage unless on very favorable terrain. I think a standard WW2 infantry division, as represented in HoI4, should have other, more expensive elements such as artillery.

Taking the view that the infantry battalion contains a lot of organic artillery and heavy weapons is viable, but it makes it much harder to model something like a very light infantry or militia. If you model the infantry battalion as lacking the heavy weapons, you have a good way of making that distinction, and of modeling the difference between very light divisions and those with high firepower, high IC cost and high supply requirements.

So I'd have the infantry battalion provide some soft attack, some defensiveness, a tiny bit of hard attack, a tiny bit of breakthrough and a lot of org. So a pure infantry versus pure infantry fight favors the defender, and can last a fair while. Infantry would be the component that adds staying power (ORG). Artillery would add soft attack, defensiveness, a bit of hard attack, a bit of breakthrough and very little org. So expensive and extremely brittle alone, but a good force multiplier since an infantry division with artillery will be dishing out a lot more hits and avoiding a lot more hits.