Can it be done?: Historical US production

[Secret Master]

Alright, now that I actually understand some of the basic mechanics in the game, I'm almost ready to begin testing nations to see if they can reach their historical production.

But I need some help.

In HOI3, when we tested production, we had to convert the production of equipment into brigades and wings. In HOI4, we have equipment, but we need to still convert some things over.

For example, one rifle clearly does not equal one infantry kit, as you only need 100 infantry kits per infantry battalion. There is also the Liberty ship problem; one convoy in the game does not represent one Liberty ship. But what does it represent? I have no idea.

Planes and tanks are clearer, but because all nations have similar tech trees, a Sherman in the game might not actually be a Sherman. Getting exact tank numbers right might be hard. And heavy fighters versus light fighters versus carrier planes versus... you get the idea.

So, I want to come up with game equivalents for historical war production so I can actually try to reach production goals.

Those who know, let me know what you think.

 

[ApocalypseMao]

A US infantry battalion would be 3 rifle companies and a heavy weapons company for around 900 men on paper. So, each infantry kit equips an individual squad (roughly).

Convoys are a mystery to me. I think equipment will just have to be lumped into broad categories like the game does.

 

[Antediluvian Monster]

Re convoys: name implies multiple ships, usage for shipping ground units at least acceptable for single ship, in terms of cost cheaper than single ship. As I recall checking before release merchantmen were closer to submarines in per unit financial cost. I'd suggest either 1:1 or 5:1 equivalency for "in-game convoy:historical liberty ship".

If you want to be really ambitious, mod in synthetic rubber plant and try to get about 1000 base production in rubber. Historical US production was 920k tons in 1945, while DEI, Malaya and British Borneo made 1,350k tons in 1941. Taking into account the excavation techs that comes to about 1000 base.

Souces for rubber production:

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/syntheticrubber.html

https://books.google.fi/books?id=dR...MBI#v=onepage&q=rubber production ww2&f=false

 

[Indigo Blue]

Alright, now that I actually understand some of the basic mechanics in the game, I'm almost ready to begin testing nations to see if they can reach their historical production.

But I need some help.

In HOI3, when we tested production, we had to convert the production of equipment into brigades and wings. In HOI4, we have equipment, but we need to still convert some things over.

For example, one rifle clearly does not equal one infantry kit, as you only need 100 infantry kits per infantry battalion. There is also the Liberty ship problem; one convoy in the game does not represent one Liberty ship. But what does it represent? I have no idea.

Planes and tanks are clearer, but because all nations have similar tech trees, a Sherman in the game might not actually be a Sherman. Getting exact tank numbers right might be hard. And heavy fighters versus light fighters versus carrier planes versus... you get the idea.

So, I want to come up with game equivalents for historical war production so I can actually try to reach production goals.

Those who know, let me know what you think.

This has a guy who studies aspects of tanks for WWII - he has a listing of cumulative number of tanks built for wwII it appears ~29 minutes. You should listen to it for some context as it describes economics of some of the tanks and different industrial approaches to production.
Italy: 4333
Japan: 5369
UK: 36252
Germany: 46937
US: 102253
Russia: 106104

Do remember that the US was producing tanks for everyone basically.
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/index.html
Has org break downs for tank battalions and stuff. But it basically suggests that there were about 120 tanks in a battalion which is more than double then what HOI 4 requires for light tanks.

As a note for the US to produce the listed number of tanks 102253 it would take 6 production lines with maxed throughput and production efficiency 1550 days - which is longer than the 5 years of the war (11 tanks/day).

 

[Indigo Blue]

Something different though is that convoys carry varying amounts of equipment.

For example its 1 convoy per 100 infantry weapons or 20 tanks per convoy or 10 airplanes per convoy.

It seems relatively okay in this regard - I think the 20 value was taken from the fact that the landing craft shipped 20 tanks at a time for landing.

 

[Axe99]

Haha, good luck Secret Master . I played a game (noting it was modded, so DDs and SS were a bit cheaper), and I found I could hit the US naval build (ignoring non-HoI4 classes, of course, so lets pretend all those DEs and ASW ships didn't exist) about 2 and a bit years late by the end of the game. Keeping up wasn't so bad initially (noting that the mod has all of the starting production actually in the game, which helps - if you're playing vanilla, you get to start with a not-insignificant handicap) but then once the major US naval build programs kick off, it's impossible to keep up.

Also - I was only trying to hit the naval build, so there's a fair chance my army and airforce suffered . Look forward to reading your progress .

 

[Dalwin]

Re convoys: name implies multiple ships, usage for shipping ground units at least acceptable for single ship, in terms of cost cheaper than single ship. As I recall checking before release merchantmen were closer to submarines in per unit financial cost. I'd suggest either 1:1 or 5:1 equivalency for "in-game convoy:historical liberty ship".

If you want to be really ambitious, mod in synthetic rubber plant and try to get about 1000 base production in rubber. Historical US production was 920k tons in 1945, while DEI, Malaya and British Borneo made 1,350k tons in 1941. Taking into account the excavation techs that comes to about 1000 base.

Souces for rubber production:

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/syntheticrubber.html

https://books.google.fi/books?id=dRmrAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA262&lpg=PA262&dq=rubber production ww2&source=bl&ots=9nUKRc3qcC&sig=bQJ6dbHVURR0LsUMFlkLEJE6mUI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG_KPE5bfOAhWqKJoKHXQbDek4ChDoAQhcMBI#v=onepage&q=rubber production ww2&f=false

This is a good point since in game the US has virtually no reason to build a single synthetic plant in game. Then again, knowing the process whereby factory totals get set in these games, I believe this one was already effectively factored out.

Haha, good luck Secret Master . I played a game (noting it was modded, so DDs and SS were a bit cheaper), and I found I could hit the US naval build (ignoring non-HoI4 classes, of course, so lets pretend all those DEs and ASW ships didn't exist) about 2 and a bit years late by the end of the game. Keeping up wasn't so bad initially (noting that the mod has all of the starting production actually in the game, which helps - if you're playing vanilla, you get to start with a not-insignificant handicap) but then once the major US naval build programs kick off, it's impossible to keep up.

Also - I was only trying to hit the naval build, so there's a fair chance my army and airforce suffered . Look forward to reading your progress .

I think it is more reasonable to convert those DE and other light escort ships to DD (instead of simply ignoring them) for the purpose of this and similar studies. Perhaps they should be converted on a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio depending on the tonnage of these smaller vessels compared to a full DD.

 

[Indigo Blue]

This is a good point since in game the US has virtually no reason to build a single synthetic plant. Then again, knowing the process whereby factory totals get set in these games, I believe this one was already effectively factored out.


I think it is more reasonable to convert those DE and other light escort ships to DD (instead of simply ignoring them) for the purpose of this and similar studies. Perhaps they should be converted on a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio depending on the tonnage of these smaller vessels compared to a full DD.

You know maybe they should consider an escort requirement for deploying Capital ships?

 

[Dalwin]

This has a guy who studies aspects of tanks for WWII - he has a listing of cumulative number of tanks built for wwII it appears ~29 minutes. You should listen to it for some context as it describes economics of some of the tanks and different industrial approaches to production.
Italy: 4333
Japan: 5369
UK: 36252
Germany: 46937
US: 102253
Russia: 106104

Do remember that the US was producing tanks for everyone basically.
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/index.html
Has org break downs for tank battalions and stuff. But it basically suggests that there were about 120 tanks in a battalion which is more than double then what HOI 4 requires for light tanks.

As a note for the US to produce the listed number of tanks 102253 it would take 6 production lines with maxed throughput and production efficiency 1550 days - which is longer than the 5 years of the war (11 tanks/day).

120 tanks in a battalion would simply be an incorrect figure. Perhaps he meant regiment. Most nations other than Russia built upon a platoon of 5 tanks as the foundation. This meant considering command vehicles that you would end up with 17 to a company and in the low 50s for a battalion. The soviets used a 3 tank platoon and 10 vehicle company but I do not recall their battalion composition. It is better that they standardize this for all sides in the game instead of giving the Russian completely separate battalions from which to build their divisions than those used by other countries.

 

[Secret Master]

I am pretty sure there is no way to reach historical production levels, although I still want to try.

Here's an example of why:

According to the National WWII Museum, the United States built 96k aircraft in 1944.

Hypothetically, there is a number of factories dedicated to aircraft production that would generate this number of aircraft. You'd need around 263 aircraft a day to meet the requirement, totaling 789 factories assigned per day (on Veteran, with all IC techs in place, including centralized industry) if you just produced 1944 light fighters. Obviously, strategic bombers would cost more.

But 789 factories assigned to producing 1944 light fighters would require 3156 aluminum per day. There's not even close to that much aluminum on the planet, even if you conquered it all and cranked up extraction techs to level 5.

Of course, the USA also needs to build 806k trucks while doing this. That would require 15 factories 44 years to produce. Or 150 factories in 4 years. But that would cost 150 rubber a day, and that rubber has to be paid for by CIC. (The USA cannot build 75 synthetic plants, as she does not have enough states and slots to build the plants and factories.)

But this raises the question: Are we supposed to see each truck and plane and tank as a single unit? Or is it supposed to be some kind of multiple like infantry equipment?

I do think it is possible to reach the historical naval build, though. My estimate is that on normal difficult, 90 NIC (which you build first, because undisturbed isolation nerfs CIC and MIC production) should net you the proper result. Importing the required chromium shouldn't be too difficult, as you don't have to build 27 CVs in parallel.

 

[Indigo Blue]

120 tanks in a battalion would simply be an incorrect figure. Perhaps he meant regiment. Most nations other than Russia built upon a platoon of 5 tanks as the foundation. This meant considering command vehicles that you would end up with 17 to a company and in the low 50s for a battalion. The soviets used a 3 tank platoon and 10 vehicle company but I do not recall their battalion composition. It is better that they standardize this for all sides in the game instead of giving the Russian completely separate battalions from which to build their divisions than those used by other countries.

Well lets say the 120 is wrong and then you drop it down to 60 a piece. All that does is match the current value of light tanks needed for one unit of tanks. It still doesn't detract from the actual number of tanks built just how the tanks are distributed.

As is I think what the developers decided to do is that for mechanized tank materials there was a concerted effort to make the numbers come out to about 6 days per unit of mechanized materials i.e. across all standard tanks it takes about 6 days of maxed tech to make a single tank group. Its a little less when it comes to TDs and SP-A. If you look at infantry its 1 day for 2 divisions and for motorized I think its 5 days for 1 division with the mechanized being a bit higher I think.

 

[Dalwin]

I am pretty sure there is no way to reach historical production levels, although I still want to try.

Here's an example of why:

According to the National WWII Museum, the United States built 96k aircraft in 1944.

Hypothetically, there is a number of factories dedicated to aircraft production that would generate this number of aircraft. You'd need around 263 aircraft a day to meet the requirement, totaling 789 factories assigned per day (on Veteran, with all IC techs in place, including centralized industry) if you just produced 1944 light fighters. Obviously, strategic bombers would cost more.

But 789 factories assigned to producing 1944 light fighters would require 3156 aluminum per day. There's not even close to that much aluminum on the planet, even if you conquered it all and cranked up extraction techs to level 5.

Of course, the USA also needs to build 806k trucks while doing this. That would require 15 factories 44 years to produce. Or 150 factories in 4 years. But that would cost 150 rubber a day, and that rubber has to be paid for by CIC. (The USA cannot build 75 synthetic plants, as she does not have enough states and slots to build the plants and factories.)

But this raises the question: Are we supposed to see each truck and plane and tank as a single unit? Or is it supposed to be some kind of multiple like infantry equipment?

I do think it is possible to reach the historical naval build, though. My estimate is that on normal difficult, 90 NIC (which you build first, because undisturbed isolation nerfs CIC and MIC production) should net you the proper result. Importing the required chromium shouldn't be too difficult, as you don't have to build 27 CVs in parallel.

It seems like you are assuming here (at first) that 1 point of motorized equals one truck. I do not believe this to be the case.

I think what we are seeing in essence (since I think the devs do clearly intend one point of aircraft to equal one plane, except for transports) is that HOI is mostly about flavor with some attention to historical balance. One will be disappointed more often than not if trying to treat this game as if it is an actual WWII simulation. It is a game (a fine one in my opinion) that strives to capture the flavor of WWII but abstracts much of the actual essence of the war away to allow for playability.

Well lets say the 120 is wrong and then you drop it down to 60 a piece. All that does is match the current value of light tanks needed for one unit of tanks. It still doesn't detract from the actual number of tanks built just how the tanks are distributed.
As is I think what the developers decided to do is that for mechanized tank materials there was a concerted effort to make the numbers come out to about 6 days per unit of mechanized materials i.e. across all standard tanks it takes about 6 days of maxed tech to make a single tank group. Its a little less when it comes to TDs and SP-A. If you look at infantry its 1 day for 2 divisions and for motorized I think its 5 days for 1 division with the mechanized being a bit higher I think.

If you are saying that the devs built their battalions and divisions around production time instead of around historical OOBs I would vehemently disagree. The figures in game for a battalion and for a division (if the player sticks to width in the 20-25 range mostly) are relatively close to the proper historical amounts of equipment.

 

[Indigo Blue]

It seems like you are assuming here (at first) that 1 point of motorized equals one truck. I do not believe this to be the case.

I think what we are seeing in essence (since I think the devs do clearly intend one point of aircraft to equal one plane, except for transports) is that HOI is mostly about flavor with some attention to historical balance. One will be disappointed more often than not if trying to treat this game as if it is an actual WWII simulation. It is a game (a fine one in my opinion) that strives to capture the flavor of WWII but abstracts much of the actual essence of the war away to allow for playability.


If you are saying that the devs built their battalions and divisions around production time instead of around historical OOBs I would vehemently disagree. The figures in game for a battalion and for a division (if the player sticks to width in the 20-25 range mostly) are relatively close to the proper historical amounts of equipment.

No, I think i'm trying to highlight something different. The way MIC and the construction values work out for tanks is that it takes 6 days to complete a full unit across all tank types. To me this is weird because it makes choosing a tank type more of a function of the stats a tank contributes versus actual production restrictions/needs. For example, there isn't a driving strategic need to produce heavy tanks over medium tanks because a division of either is turned out in roughly the same time with comparable stats. Like, to me reality of production time and the equipment cost production should figure to some degree in what gets produced instead of it being uniform across all tank types. Or in other words the number of tanks required for a unit should stay the same so that the MIC value of a tank unit increases making it take longer to equip a heavy unit versus a light unit.

 

[Dalwin]

No, I think i'm trying to highlight something different. The way MIC and the construction values work out for tanks is that it takes 6 days to complete a full unit across all tank types. To me this is weird because it makes choosing a tank type more of a function of the stats a tank contributes versus actual production restrictions/needs. For example, there isn't a driving strategic need to produce heavy tanks over medium tanks because a division of either is turned out in roughly the same time with comparable stats. Like, to me reality of production time and the equipment cost production should figure to some degree in what gets produced instead of it being uniform across all tank types. Or in other words the number of tanks required for a unit should stay the same so that the MIC value of a tank unit increases making it take longer to equip a heavy unit versus a light unit.

OK, if only comparing light tanks to medium etc. etc., I tend to agree on this being why lights have 60 per battalion and medium only 50 and so on. I have felt the same in the past and disagree with it not being the same number per battalion for all tank types, though for reasons of cost you will likely have fewer heavies in a division with this being accomplished by including fewer tank battalions.

There are two main differences between armor vehicles in my eyes. The combat stats they have as you point out AND the number and type of resources needed to construct them.

In a way it seems counterproductive to have gone with there being an ahistorically large number of lighter tanks in a battalion and then to offset this by the actual construction costs which allow you to build fewer medium tanks from a factory line compared to lights in a given period of time. These two things cancel each other to a large degree. They should have kept vehicle numbers consistent and simply tweaked the production costs (including the one which defines production time) as needed.

 

[Ruck]

But this raises the question: Are we supposed to see each truck and plane and tank as a single unit? Or is it supposed to be some kind of multiple like infantry equipment?

I always thought that in HOI4 every truck, plane and tank, does represents an abstraction, f.e. for the tank that could mean:

The tank unit + a big bunch of fuel for that that tank + a big bunch of spare parts for that tank + support cars and manpower to bring f.e. fuel and spare parts to the front for that tank,

as we can not build these support cars and manpower separately and also no fuel.

So I dont believe that its possible recreate exact production numbers from real history, as we have just too much abstraction in the game. You can not know how many planes exactly you had produced in HOI4, as you produce whole units with fuel, spare part, support cars and mechanics and all that stuff.

That is at least my understanding from the game. I might be wrong.



Edit:

So one idea from me:
If we preassume that 1 plane factory in Hoi4 is producing 4 different things, like I had in my thoughts so:

1 Plane Unit = (1 Plane/1 Fuel Unit/1 Spare Part Unit/1 Support Unit.) Then we could take the real history numbers and divide them "rougly" through 4.

Like the 1944 Numbers from the USA = 100.000 Planes/4.

Would it be possible to produce 25.000 HoI-4 Plane units in 1944 with the USA ?

Maybe that could be a thing.

 

[Dalwin]

I always thought that in HOI4 every truck, plane and tank, does represents an abstraction, f.e. for the tank that could mean:

The tank unit + a big bunch of fuel for that that tank + a big bunch of spare parts for that tank + support cars and manpower to bring f.e. fuel and spare parts to the front for that tank,

as we can not build these support cars and manpower separately and also no fuel.

So I dont believe that its possible recreate exact production numbers from real history, as we have just too much abstraction in the game. You can not know how many planes exactly you had produced in HOI4, as you produce whole units with fuel, spare part, support cars and mechanics and all that stuff.

That is at least my understanding from the game. I might be wrong.

I don't disagree with your viewpoint, but that does not invalidate what Secret Master is trying to accomplish. We cannot know the sum total of everything produced, due to your argument, but that does not mean that we cannot consider only the portion of this abstracted unit that is the aircraft itself and see about matching those figures. Trucks on the other hand are entirely a lost cause.

 

[Axe99]

I'm grateful I'm just playing with ships, where the level of abstraction is much clearer (on the by, I agree with Dalwin's point that DEs should be counted, probably a a rate of around 2 DEs: 1 DD, on standard tonnage - so around 180 (there were about 365 DEs built for or shortly after the war and used by the US - this doesn't include those built and provided by lend-lease), more or less), but from the numbers in battalions, it looks like tanks are at least a general 1:1 approximation. No idea on planes, trucks, mech and artillery.

I am pretty sure there is no way to reach historical production levels, although I still want to try.

Here's an example of why:

According to the National WWII Museum, the United States built 96k aircraft in 1944.

Not to take away from your absolutely appropriate general point, a lot of those aircraft would have been trainers, transport aircraft (there's no way known 1 transport = 1 transport aircraft), scouts, utility aircraft (STOL medical evacuation planes, for a random example that comes to mind) and the like. I'm afraid I've no idea how the numbers fall out.

 

[Insp Herring]

I'm grateful I'm just playing with ships, where the level of abstraction is much clearer (on the by, I agree with Dalwin's point that DEs should be counted, probably a a rate of around 2 DEs: 1 DD, on standard tonnage - so around 180 (there were about 365 DEs built for or shortly after the war and used by the US - this doesn't include those built and provided by lend-lease), more or less), but from the numbers in battalions, it looks like tanks are at least a general 1:1 approximation. No idea on planes, trucks, mech and artillery.

Thinking on the Mech/Mot numbers, 1 battalion of either requires 50 'equipment'.
Looking at the Germans, a Panzergrenadier platoon would officially have 4 half tracks or 3 trucks and a car if they were part of a panzer division. Then add another 4 for the company weapons platoon, and another 2 for company HQ.
HQ + 3 platoons + heavy platoon
2+(4+4+4)+4 gives 18 vehicles.
3 companies to a battalion gives 54 trucks+cars/half tracks which is provided by 50 equipment in HoI.

In panzergrenadier divisions each company loses it's own heavy weapons platoon but the battalion gains a heavy weapons company so it largely evens out.

The US have similar numbers for an armoured rifle platoon. 4 half tracks each platoon, 2 for company HQ and lets say 4 for company weapons but I am less sure of that.

Not too far off a 1:1 I think, as far as "1 equipment = 1 vehicle and related supplies". This is only counting purely combat vehicles though, you could probably double the number of vehicles (especially trucks) if you include the various company/battalion train tasks.

I might even go as far as suggesting that whoever at PDX decided on 50, looked at some historical numbers and choose a nearby round number for neatness

 

[Had a dad]

I am pretty sure there is no way to reach historical production levels, although I still want to try.

you'd be correct, at least not without a great deal of conquest. To hit historical production levels Michigan alone would have to be able to out produce Germany.

 

[Indigo Blue]

you'd be correct, at least not without a great deal of conquest. To hit historical production levels Michigan alone would have to be able to out produce Germany.

Lol that is true. And pretty crazy when its described like that.