Artillery - Support vs. Battalion

[GsusNSV]

mursolini said: ↑
8 heavy artillery pieces is reasonable amount for a division, especially in 1936.

No idea said: ↑
how do you know that means just heavy art?

mursolini said: ↑
I don`t know. I know that infantry divisions IRL tended to have ~ 150 mortars, 30-80 50mm or lower calibre cannons for AT or fire support, 20-30 75 mm cannons, 10-30 105/122 mm cannons and 6-12 150 mm cannons. If the number is in units, then logically it would be heavy art.


Yeah its heavy artillery, also in this case its probably a small support amount. We abstract small bore and mortar stuff into infantry equipment packages.

Light Artillery has been abstracted in the division itself. (Like Winter clothes? Nobody would skip them and therefore it is a non brainer?) They may change their mind.

One could also include the need of artillery for Inf battalions. Like 1 battalion needs 1000 manpower, 100 Inf equipment and 2 artillery, to simulate the included medium artillery. Just an idea.

 

[Devout]

I understand there is a lot of discussion going on concerning artillery and its role in the game and its good to have this discussion as I would hate to see artillery be a non factor in the game. But as the OP, I just wanted to point out that I was trying to spark a slightly different discussion that applies to all three applications: ARTILLERY, ANTI-TANK and ANTI-AIRCRAFT

The easiest thing for Paradox to implement was to make these three units as ONLY support or ONLY battalion. But they chose to put the units in both groups. I can see the wish to give players flexibility, but they complicated more by creating different stats for a support unit vs. a battalion unit. Why have the unit in both areas? Why have different stats? I believe that this approach was taken because they percieved a specific application for both. I am trying to understand the different applications.

My theory is that they wanted to create a quick painless early game method for attaching these units to divisions. They used the support branch to accomplish this. It requires fewer units and has better attack. As production rises, and number of divisions increase, there will be a shift to produce fewer units with greater firepower and more survivability. For this reason, support slots will be come more valuable. It is also expected that major powers can cover the additional production costs for the larger unit.

Even with that theory, it still doesn't match battalion/support stats. Why not just give a simple 25% attack value and keep all the other stats the same?

 

[GsusNSV]

I understand there is a lot of discussion going on concerning artillery and its role in the game and its good to have this discussion as I would hate to see artillery be a non factor in the game. But as the OP, I just wanted to point out that I was trying to spark a slightly different discussion that applies to all three applications: ARTILLERY, ANTI-TANK and ANTI-AIRCRAFT

The easiest thing for Paradox to implement was to make these three units as ONLY support or ONLY battalion. But they chose to put the units in both groups. I can see the wish to give players flexibility, but they complicated more by creating different stats for a support unit vs. a battalion unit. Why have the unit in both areas? Why have different stats? I believe that this approach was taken because they percieved a specific application for both. I am trying to understand the different applications.

My theory is that they wanted to create a quick painless early game method for attaching these units to divisions. They used the support branch to accomplish this. It requires fewer units and has better attack. As production rises, and number of divisions increase, there will be a shift to produce fewer units with greater firepower and more survivability. For this reason, support slots will be come more valuable. It is also expected that major powers can cover the additional production costs for the larger unit.

Even with that theory, it still doesn't match battalion/support stats. Why not just give a simple 25% attack value and keep all the other stats the same?

If it goes about this, it is a bit different.
Support artillery has as a main point, that is do not give the Division a big malus on movement. A Motorised division will keep their 10 mph (or so). While a artillery brigade will slow them down to walking speed. (4 mph, like normal Inf)

Only support artillery is 'light' enough to be airdropped. So Paratrooper with a arty battalion, is noting more then Infantery. You can not do a airdrop mission with these divisions.
Same for the other specialist infantery. While an artillery battalion will give your mountaintroopers a big malus in mountains (making them just a tad better then normal Inf), with a support artillery, they will have almost none.

So support artillery has a lot of bonuses, but you can have only one in a division. So if you want to get more punch, you have to use battalions.

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

only support units are f.e. airdroppable

edit: sorry noticed the new post too late

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

Following on the theme of mobility - the game has artillery, and SP artillery (tank variant?)
In reality there was 3 or 4 different ways of moving artillery around, not just 2.
1) Horse. The majority for Soviet, French, Japanese, Chinese, and (Surprisingly) German. For Artillery, A/T, and AA.
2) Trucks. The majority for Commonwealth and US. If this is not in the game it is a glaring hole. Motorised artillery, in large amounts, was a hallmark of both armies.
3) Half-tracks. Most artillery in German Panzer & Panzer grenadier divisions, and some in other armies. For game terms could be considered the same as Truck drawn, although they were more mobile in poor conditions, and less mobile in good ones.
4) Self-propelled. A small component of most armies artillery, either as direct fire & close support, or in direct support of armoured formations.

Is there a distinction between artillery (presumably horse-drawn if moving at the same speed as foot infantry) and motorised artillery?

 

[HerrWeltkrieg]

Following on the theme of mobility - the game has artillery, and SP artillery (tank variant?)
2) Trucks. The majority for Commonwealth and US. If this is not in the game it is a glaring hole. Motorised artillery, in large amounts, was a hallmark of both armies.

actually there is truck towed artilery if I am not mistaken I saw it in last stream

 

[Zaku]

actually there is truck towed artilery if I am not mistaken I saw it in last stream

If you attach support arty to motorized divisions it will be motorised arty. It always has the same speed as the slowest combat brigade in the division.

 

[bkuepers]

actually there is truck towed artilery if I am not mistaken I saw it in last stream

I think it is just called towed artillery. Which keeps up if a support company but not a battalion which has been stated here a bunch of times. There needs to be an option to assign trucks to the towed artillery so we can have full support battalions with our motorized divisions to give more punch.

Where did you see this in the DD? I'd love to get to the bottom of it.

 

[tommylotto]

So for modding an immersive artillery system, you would need three types of artillery pieces -- light (~75mm), medium (~100mm), and heavy (~150mm) and three types of combat artillery battalions -- light, medium, and heavy. I assume artillery support units would always be light and made up of 75mm pieces. I would want three types of artillery support units of varying sized 12, 24 and 36 pieces. Then I would reduce the size of the combat battalions to 12 pieces and reduce their frontage (if any) accordingly. So, for example, US divisional artillery would be a separate combat regiment that looked like this: MART, MART, MART, HART. Whereas the artillery for an Italian Alpini division would be: LART, LART or more likely, just a support ART24 so that the alpine artillery could keep up with the mountaineers.

 

[bkuepers]

So for modding an immersive artillery system, you would need three types of artillery pieces -- light (~75mm), medium (~100mm), and heavy (~150mm) and three types of combat artillery battalions -- light, medium, and heavy. I assume artillery support units would always be light and made up of 75mm pieces. I would want three types of artillery support units of varying sized 12, 24 and 36 pieces. Then I would reduce the size of the combat battalions to 12 pieces and reduce their frontage (if any) accordingly. So, for example, US divisional artillery would be a separate combat regiment that looked like this: MART, MART, MART, HART. Whereas the artillery for an Italian Alpini division would be: LART, LART or more likely, just a support ART24 so that the alpine artillery could keep up with the mountaineers.

X2 since we would also need the motorized versions.

 

[tommylotto]

Horse/mule towed
Truck towed
Truck mounted
Half-track mounted
Various tank chassis mounted versions

 

[jamesd]

Horse/mule towed
Truck towed
Truck mounted
Half-track mounted
Various tank chassis mounted versions

Half-track towed? Most German motorised artillery employed half tracks as the prime movers.
We also need to separate Horse towed and Mule carried - mules carrying a part of a gun can go places a horse team pulling a complete gun can't go.

 

[Victor Cortez]

We also need to separate Horse towed and Mule carried - mules carrying a part of a gun can go places a horse team pulling a complete gun can't go.

HOI is supposed to be Grand Strategy though.
If you're in charge of a stalled allies' advance in Italy and Churchill calls to ask what the hold up is, I don't think you want to say: "you see Sir, we have horses, but what we actually need is mules, Mister Prime Minister, mules!"

 

[jamesd]

HOI is supposed to be Grand Strategy though.
If you're in charge of a stalled allies' advance in Italy and Churchill calls to ask what the hold up is, I don't think you want to say: "you see Sir, we have horses, but what we actually need is mules, Mister Prime Minister, mules!"

The point I was making is that there's a difference between horse towed guns, which can include 200mm heavy pieces and pack artillery which was normally around 75mm, sometimes smaller and never larger than 105mm. If you want a true mountain/jungle/light infantry division, it has to have pack artillery.

 

[Victor Cortez]

The point I was making is that there's a difference between horse towed guns, which can include 200mm heavy pieces and pack artillery which was normally around 75mm, sometimes smaller and never larger than 105mm. If you want a true mountain/jungle/light infantry division, it has to have pack artillery.

I got your point, and I was joking with the Churchill thing.
Still, I understand this level of detail might be cool for some of us, but HOI is still a game that needs to be playable but as many people as possible.

 

[jamesd]

I got your point, and I was joking with the Churchill thing.
Still, I understand this level of detail might be cool for some of us, but HOI is still a game that needs to be playable but as many people as possible.

I almost replied with a Churchill joke myself

 

[Victor Cortez]

I almost replied with a Churchill joke myself

And is it suitable to a gaming forum?