Can it be done?: Historical US production

[Alex_brunius]

So, at the end you mean that the new production system is just for flavor

No. It's a very interesting game mechanic, that models reality well and ties great into making reinforcements, division design, lend lease and training interesting, as well as promotes long term planning.

if adjusted to match historical figures, all the other factors in HOI4 are "screwed"?

Yes if it's adjusted to match historical figures it would probably wreck havoc with large parts of the rest of the gamebalance.

 

[Poh]

Are you following a specific NF plan? the historical or do you diverge?

Regarding Aircraft the game only produce combat aircraft so we should be able to eliminating all support aircraft from the equation which removes 1/3 of all produced aircraft or 96k/296k Then the question if what an ingame aircraft is equal to in terms of actual aircraft. My best bet is looking at the starting assigned aircraft and try and compare them to historical numbers to see if theres a difference.

 

[Cardus]

No. It's a very interesting game mechanic, that models reality well and ties great into making reinforcements, division design, lend lease and training interesting, as well as promotes long term planning.

Yes if it's adjusted to match historical figures it would probably wreck havoc with large parts of the rest of the gamebalance.

Well, from my side I am really looking forward to a production system that reflects historical figures because, if not, it will "wreck havoc with large parts of the rest of the gamebalance".

 

[Alex_brunius]

Well from my side I really looking forward a production system that can reflect historical figures because, if not, it will "wreck havoc with large parts of the rest of the gamebalance".

Why don't you mod tanks to be 3 times cheaper, guns to be 5 times cheaper, trucks to be 20 times cheaper and planes to be 7 times cheaper then and see what happens?

I very much doubt the game will be better or more balanced.

 

[Cardus]

Why don't you mod tanks to be 3 times cheaper, guns to be 5 times cheaper, trucks to be 20 times cheaper and planes to be 7 times cheaper then and see what happens?

I very much doubt the game will be better or more balanced.

If you do that, for what I have understood from you, the issue will be with loss system as losses are too low.

 

[Axe99]

Not if losses and alot of other factors are totally different...

USA historically built 68000 medium tanks. If you can build equally many in HoI4 that means it's enough to train 227 tank divisions ( with 300 medium armor each ). If we instead use factor 3:1 it's "only" 76 divisions, which is a bit more reasonable.

Pillory me appropriately if you've factored it in, but does that include losses in training, movement and combat? The US (well, everyone ) lost a lot of tanks in use.

Why don't you mod tanks to be 3 times cheaper, guns to be 5 times cheaper, trucks to be 20 times cheaper and planes to be 7 times cheaper then and see what happens?

I very much doubt the game will be better or more balanced.

I'm with Cardus on the 'get the numbers as accurate as possible', but the trick as far as I can see is to:
- Only do it if the AI can handle it.
- get the numbers right at both sides of the equation. Germany built 100K or so aircraft during the war, but never had anywhere near that in use at any point in time, due to losses, attrition and whatever else goes into it.

Down the track, it's something I'd be interested in modding, but there's a fair chance that by the time I've finished with the naval side of things, HoI6 will be out . That said, I'm sure someone will have a crack at it (it sounds like a Black ICE kind of thing to do, although probably not their first release).

 

[Cardus]

Pillory me appropriately if you've factored it in, but does that include losses in training, movement and combat? The US (well, everyone ) lost a lot of tanks in use.



I'm with Cardus on the 'get the numbers as accurate as possible', but the trick as far as I can see is to:
- Only do it if the AI can handle it.
- get the numbers right at both sides of the equation. Germany built 100K or so aircraft during the war, but never had anywhere near that in use at any point in time, due to losses, attrition and whatever else goes into it.

Down the track, it's something I'd be interested in modding, but there's a fair chance that by the time I've finished with the naval side of things, HoI6 will be out . That said, I'm sure someone will have a crack at it (it sounds like a Black ICE kind of thing to do, although probably not their first release).

Thank you for the endorsement

I am with you: getting historical figures is meaningless if screws up the game. On the other side if historical figures can't be matched I think (again this is just my opinion) that the production system is just for flavor. If can help please see the attrition rate for the Luftwaffe

and this for USA bombers

http://www.au.af.mil/au/afri/aspj/airchronicles/aureview/1983/mar-apr/murray.htm

EDIT
Having read the Galland's book I can tell that the fighters' losses were due to a couple of factors:
1) The improper use of fighters in several kind of missions because a fast airplane was needed. This was caused by the lack of air superiority which in turn was caused by the unavailability of fighters in sufficient numbers.
2) Hitler's order to resist at any cost which caused the loss of a huge amount of material (planes included) because on orderly retreat was not possible.
3) The lack of training of German pilots.

In my opinion 1, 2 and 3 can't be fully factored in game (but this is fine from my point of view).

 

[Alex_brunius]

Pillory me appropriately if you've factored it in, but does that include losses in training, movement and combat? The US (well, everyone ) lost a lot of tanks in use.

Not factored in, but pretty minor in compairson. Training to decent levels takes 15-25% of the total equipment in HoI4 ( for land units, nothing for airplanes obviously), movement can be minimized by using SR, and combat+terrain-move-attrition can also be fairly minor if you know what your doing.

That ofcourse also will depend on situation and opposition. But using the non-optimal 1939 scenario starting units it's possible as Germany to take Poland losing 0 tanks to combat ( even if you use only the tank/motorized divisions to attack with ), and losing exceptionally small amounts to attrition ( since you can take it in less then a week ), probably less then 10 tanks lost. Historical German losses were 674 tanks so at least 70 times higher...

If you min-max and deploy better then "default 1939 starting divisions", and have support batallions to negate attrition losses. Well, the sky is the limit, why take any tank losses at all versus the AI?

I'm with Cardus on the 'get the numbers as accurate as possible', but the trick as far as I can see is to:

For modding sure! It's a neat goal and fun challenge to try to achieve balance around.

Do I think it's something the devs should spend time on to get the base game there? Absolutely not! Better the devs focus for example on ways to ensure tanks are lost from combat.

I am with you: getting historical figures is meaningless if screws up the game.

I'm happy to read you finally agree with me

 

[Axe99]

Not factored in, but pretty minor in compairson. Training to decent levels takes 15-25% of the total equipment in HoI4 ( for land units, nothing for airplanes obviously), movement can be minimized by using SR, and combat+terrain-move-attrition can also be fairly minor if you know what your doing.

That ofcourse also will depend on situation and opposition. But using the non-optimal 1939 scenario starting units it's possible as Germany to take Poland losing 0 tanks to combat ( even if you use only the tank/motorized divisions to attack with ), and losing exceptionally small amounts to attrition ( since you can take it in less then a week ), probably less then 10 tanks lost. Historical German losses were 674 tanks so at least 70 times higher...

If you min-max and deploy better then "default 1939 starting divisions", and have support batallions to negate attrition losses. Well, the sky is the limit, why take losses at all versus the AI?

That'll be the issue then - so the battalion sizes are fine, and training losses sound sensible, but combat losses aren't high enough (or can be gamed that way) - and I could see how such a high throughput could be a pain to code and balance (and also not be a lot of fun for players).

For modding sure! It's a neat goal and fun challenge to try to achieve balance around.

Do I think it's something the devs should spend time on to get the base game there? Absolutely not!

Aye, sorry, if I'm ever talking plausibility stuff, I generally mean to mod in - I agree that it should absolutely not be something the devs spend time on. I think it'd be neat if we had the mechanics in place that could support it in mods, but if we do get moddable maintenance costs, and assuming attrition in combat can be modded (which I'm sure it can), then it should be doable.

In game though, and on topic, the lower loss rates should mean that Secret Master building up his US equipment totals isn't going to work just be counting equipment, but because it's more of a loss rate than 1 in-game unit = x real life units, it might be a fairly tricky exercise to calculate numbers. It might be more practical to try and achieve US force levels at August (or around then) 1945, and make sure the US does enough fighting and lend-leasing to cover game-consistent loss and attrition rates, maybe?

 

[tommylotto]

If I recall from all of the threads concerning the lack of supply, the tanks and planes did not just represent tanks and planes but also fuel, food, spare parts and all the other consumables needed by a military unit. So, I would think you should be able to exceed historical figures. You should be able to build all of the "tank tanks" as well as the "fuel tanks" and the "supply tanks" too.

That is, of course, unless they introduce some other mechanic to abstractly represent maintenance costs, which podcat has recently hinted at.

 

[Cardus]

I'm happy to read you finally agree with me

Alex, whenever possible I try to discuss things plainly and try to be bound to facts. In matter of opinion we know that we have quite different ones but IF the game can't handle historical production I think that it is straightforward to everyone that it would be stupid to do so.

If it does please you, I agree as well on the fact that the developers shouldn't focus on this exercise (the top priority now is to fix the AI). The same applies to province's names, unit historical leaders, OOB, etc. On the other side I think that the game should give the opportunity, to those that want to, to add back those features.

If I recall from all of the threads concerning the lack of supply, the tanks and planes did not just represent tanks and planes but also fuel, food, spare parts and all the other consumables needed by a military unit. So, I would think you should be able to exceed historical figures. You should be able to build all of the "tank tanks" as well as the "fuel tanks" and the "supply tanks" too.

That is, of course, unless they introduce some other mechanic to abstractly represent maintenance costs, which podcat has recently hinted at.

Yes, he mentioned up-keeping but I think that one matter is how many tanks you loose in a war ( @Alex_brunius said zero ) and another is how much it costs to maintain them.

EDIT

Not if losses and alot of other factors are totally different...

USA historically built 68000 medium tanks. If you can build equally many in HoI4 that means it's enough to train 227 tank divisions ( with 300 medium armor each ). If we instead use factor 3:1 it's "only" 76 divisions, which is a bit more reasonable.

Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_losses_in_World_War_II some some data on equipment losses

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/12/26/on-allied-tank-casualties-in-the-eto/#more-6813

 

[Marfach]

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.



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.

Im replying late here maybe somebody has already said it, the USA produced roughly 192,000 combat aircraft over the course of the war, I dont have figures on the numbers of specific planes although I imagine it can be found digging into National archives.
Go to page 30 of this https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/ww2overview1998.pdf

 

[Secret Master]

I want to differentiate between a couple of things here that might get muddled in our discussion.

1) Can the USA actually produce her historical numbers?

The answer is clearly no. We are off by factors of 10 or even 100. The exception is the navy. But when it comes to battalions, they don't even have historical numbers in some cases. So, the numbers are clearly fudged.

2) Does the USA produce enough equipment over the course of the game in proportion to other countries?

This is a different question, and one I can't answer right now. But this question relates to both game and historical balance. If the USA produces too much or too little, we might say historical balance is off. But we might also say that differences are appropriate to make the game playable.

I suspect the USA is probably nerfed in comparison with Germany. But I can't say for certain at this time. I also suspect that, despite any nerfs, the USA is powerful enough in the game to do what she needs to do in the hands of a competent player. But right now, I can't prove it; if someone challenges me, I have to accept that I don't have enough evidence to support my position.

3) Does equipment get "used up" at the same rate as it did historically?

The evidence suggests no, but it would require far more testing to determine. If the loss rates are off by factors of 10 or 100, it would lend credence to the idea that simply multiplying equipment by 10 or 100 will yield historical production results. It would also indicate that, while the numbers are smaller, the proportions are about right. We are producing "supply" by replacing lost equipment.

I want to point something else out that some others have kind of mentioned: because we produce equipment in lieu of supply, producing only 10% of the required quota of tanks makes logical sense. Sure, your tanks can drive all over the world with no oil, but you are producing 10% of the number the US did historically. You produced tons of ammo and fuel.

4) Is production fun?

This is a different question. I'm sure if podcat was here, he would point out that the ultimate goal is to make the game fun. If the production system is ridiculously out of whack, it won't be fun. But it doesn't have to be historical to be fun, either.

 

[Alex_brunius]

3) Does equipment get "used up" at the same rate as it did historically?
The evidence suggests no, but it would require far more testing to determine. If the loss rates are off by factors of 10 or 100, it would lend credence to the idea that simply multiplying equipment by 10 or 100 will yield historical production results.

Loss rates of aircraft in game are probably pretty decent. They pretty much scale as high as you want them to in HoI4, the more planes you throw in the faster they die ( but it might cause lag or issues with performance or Micromanagement if you could built historical numbers of them ).

On the ground though I'm confident equipment losses are no way near historical.

4) Is production fun?
This is a different question. I'm sure if podcat was here, he would point out that the ultimate goal is to make the game fun. If the production system is ridiculously out of whack, it won't be fun. But it doesn't have to be historical to be fun, either.

Indeed. I think the general WW2 feeling of "I'm producing hundreds or thousands of planes and tanks" can be reached just fine with current production numbers. And my quickly thrown together calculations/estimates suggested that tanks and planes actually are less then factor 10:1 off, closer to 5:1.

 

[AlanC9]

1) Can the USA actually produce her historical numbers?

The answer is clearly no. We are off by factors of 10 or even 100. The exception is the navy. But when it comes to battalions, they don't even have historical numbers in some cases. So, the numbers are clearly fudged.

How short is the USA in terms of deployed land and air units? I wasn't clear on how many divisions you had managed to deploy in that test, but I'm pretty sure you had more than nine.

Going from abstract to concrete numbers of planes and tanks opens up a can of worms that I think maybe should have stayed sealed. Now it isn't enough to get the TO&Es right; if the combat loss and noncombat attrition numbers are off, you get the wrong number of units in the world even if the production model is correct.

 

[Secret Master]

How short is the USA in terms of deployed land and air units? I wasn't clear on how many divisions you had managed to deploy in that test, but I'm pretty sure you had more than nine.

Going from abstract to concrete numbers of planes and tanks opens up a can of worms that I think maybe should have stayed sealed. Now it isn't enough to get the TO&Es right; if the combat loss and noncombat attrition numbers are off, you get the wrong number of units in the world even if the production model is correct.

I didn't deploy any divisions, as that would take items out of the stockpile. I only had my starting units, and starting air wings.

Naval fighters and bombers were deployed on all carriers I built, so you could add a few planes to the totals if I took all carrier planes off the CVs.

 

[long_fella]

Im replying late here maybe somebody has already said it, the USA produced roughly 192,000 combat aircraft over the course of the war, I dont have figures on the numbers of specific planes although I imagine it can be found digging into National archives.
Go to page 30 of this https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/ww2overview1998.pdf

This is worth quoting again. The game doesn't directly model, or model the production of, generic transport aircraft (DC-3s!), observation planes, bridging equipment, tank transporters, diggers, tractors, recovery vehicles, mine layers, mine clearance vehicles etc.

Not that I don't think the analysis is an interesting exercise, but you have to abstract somewhere...... .

 

[AlanC9]

I didn't deploy any divisions, as that would take items out of the stockpile. I only had my starting units, and starting air wings..

Right, of course you didn't. Dunno what I was thinking there.

Did you do the math on what army you'd get from that stockpile?

 

[Secret Master]

Right, of course you didn't. Dunno what I was thinking there.

Did you do the math on what army you'd get from that stockpile?

No, I didn't. I could, though.

I can go into the save, cheat a ton of XP, making some 40 width templates for infantry and armor, and figure it out.

 

[Dalwin]

It is not only America that falls short. I have never come close to 300 German infantry divisions to launch Barbarossa, let alone all the other units. Usually when I launch the invasion it feels like I have only half the army that I am supposed to have. This is in spite of not over investing in either the navy or the air force.

I think the game is trying to achieve a level of balance similar to history and to have a high level of playability without putting any real effort into matching the historical numbers. I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing.

What is ironic is that in this environment of majors badly under producing vs history you then get minors (especially fascist) who far exceed historical numbers.

I don't think their mistake is in scaling down some of the numbers to make things more manageable. I think it is in having set as a high design priority making minors fun to play at the expense of overall balance.