Can't figure out combat. Sunk almost 80 hours into this and still cannot even execute Fall Gelb

[our_man]

Hi all,

I'm really struggling with HOI4 and I'm close to giving it up in frustration. I'm no novice at Paradox games and am pretty competent at Stellaris, EU4 and HOI2 before this (and average at CK2...) but I just cannot get into this combat aspect of this game at all. I've got to the stage where I can beat Poland and I'm ready to usually invade France in March/April 1940 with 72 infantry division, 16 motorized divisions, 12 light tank divisions and 9 medium tanks divisions in my attacking army backed up with an airforce of 800 CAS and 600 tactical bombers. I put my battle plans into place, have my troops initially surge through the base of the lowlands to cut the Dutch off and force them to capitulate (that works!) and then turn south to envelop Brussels in a pincer movement before going on to attack France properly. That doesn't work out - the French army arrives at the Dutch-Belgian border and my soldiers come up against a brick wall.

I just can't get battle plans to work. I mean, I know how they're meant to work but I just don't know why they're not working for me. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I've attached a screenshot below to illustrate. I had to redirect some of my armoured troop up to the north of the Netherlands to crush a pocket of British divisions. From the various videos I've watched on youtube to try and help any soldiers you give an order to should, once they have completed it, resume the initial battle plan that they have been given to follow. As you see in this screenshot this isn't the case. Myy spearhead has grounded to a halt is that several of my armies just don't seem like they want to move to the front line or fight - a concept I'm beginning to refer to as 'unit chill'. They'd prefer just to chill rather than fight! My panzer and motorized divisions in the north of Holland are part of the aquamarine pincer that's northwest of Brussels that has a clearly defined front line and a clearly defined spearhead but they're just staying put. What am I doing wrong, or is the battle plans system broken?

 

[Altobelli]

Two things. First is that you do not have airsuperiority. Second is that your tanks are spread out over the whole Belgian line. Make a small frontline of 1 or two provinces with your tanks and spearhead to dunkerque.

 

[Altobelli]

Key word is blitz , when I attack Belgium the French are not defending it; and I overrun it before they can defend it. So I think maybe you declared war on them before you were ready ? When I started playing I would declare on all 3 benelux countries at once. That gave France time to dig in.

 

[Metz]

Replace the tactical bombers with fighters to achieve air superiority. Don't spread out armored units and use them to force through the enemy's front line to then create pockets.

 

[Zauberelefant]

If you have 12 light tank divisions, they are probably too small. Try using divisions at least double in size of the Original Panzer division template and if you can, get some medium armour battalions in.
Also, fighters and CAS for air superiority. Try to get fighters over eastern france as well to slow down their reinforcements to belgium. An attack through Luxemburg can Pin down french forces as well.

 

[JohnnyDepressio]

Keep an eye on the supply situation. Especially at the very frontline. Sometimes you kill your offensive by having too many troops (of which none are properly supplied).

 

[Emren]

Don't give up. You will learn new things about this game even after spending five times as long playing it.

Can you show a screenshot of the battalions in your panzer divisions?

 

[mabus81]

Are your tank divisions hard enough? You should use at least 6 medium tank battallions per 4 motorized. I usually use 8/2 and would never go below 7/3. If you do not have enough tanks, disband light tank divisions and fill up your real tank divisions with additional light tank battallions (just like the austrian did).

Push hard for air superiority, use all bombers available, use maximum planning bonus and have masses of infantry follow the tanks by hand, so that everytime they get stuck they can get reinforced in a timely manner.

 

[Simon_9732495]

As you see in this screenshot this isn't the case. Myy spearhead has grounded to a halt is that several of my armies just don't seem like they want to move to the front line or fight - a concept I'm beginning to refer to as 'unit chill'. They'd prefer just to chill rather than fight! My panzer and motorized divisions in the north of Holland are part of the aquamarine pincer that's northwest of Brussels that has a clearly defined front line and a clearly defined spearhead but they're just staying put.

That is really strange.
Your "6. Panzer Division" and "7. Panzer Division" are attached to a frontline, but are just sitting some tiles away from the frontline and not moving. They don't have a yellow or a red exclamation mark.

The game is not paused and you have just redone the battle plans and not yet unpaused?

To summarize:
Reasons that units in an army with a frontline don't move to that frontline:

• Units are not attached to that frontline. 2 cases:
  • A) Units have another order. They should move there
  • B) Units have no order at all. Then they have a red exclamation mark
• Units are not able to find a path to the frontline. (Happens sometimes if unit have to move overseas.) Then the units should have a yellow exclamation mark.
• Too low supply. Moving towards the frontline would cause other units to be out of supply. The units are waiting for the supply on the frontline to be better. Then the units should also have a yellow exclamation mark.
• (Doing a frontline in pause and not having unpaused yet.)

Did I forget something? (Just back from vacation...)

 

[Secret Master]

I’ll repost this checklist from a previous thread.

If you think defense gets high in 1937, I'd hate to see what you'd make of Barbarossa in 1941.



Yeah, you should post a save game. You mentioned using 40 width divisions, Brazil, Japan, and a few other things. Something seems a bit off.

However, until we see a save, let's go over a short checklist of Things That Cause Us to Fail in Land Combat:

1) Are you units in supply?

1a) Do your fuel using land units actually have fuel? This answer might be different from the supply answer.

2) Does the enemy have air superiority?

3) Do you have land doctrines researched?

4) Do your units actually have their full quota of equipment?

5) Did you research better equipment for your units?

5a) Did you start producing the better equipment you researched?

5b) Is that better equipment actually getting to your divisions?

6) Do you have generals assigned?

6a) Are they good generals?

6b) Did you assign traits to them when they level up?

7) When defending, are units staying in a single province and entrenching, or is the battleplanner moving them around constantly?

8) Are you garrisoning ports properly?

9) Do all front-line divisions have engineers?

10) Are you failing to pierce?

11) Is enemy CAS and TAC melting your ORG in ground combat?

12) Are you attacking into forts pointlessly?

This aught to at least eliminate some common problems.

 

[our_man]

Key word is blitz , when I attack Belgium the French are not defending it; and I overrun it before they can defend it. So I think maybe you declared war on them before you were ready ? When I started playing I would declare on all 3 benelux countries at once. That gave France time to dig in.

I've been declaring war on all three Benelux at once... I haven't tried just declaring war on one of them (Netherlands I guess...) and then the others. Feels a little gamey and not historically accurate but I'm at the stage where I'll try any sort of skulduggery to win.

Two things. First is that you do not have airsuperiority. Second is that your tanks are spread out over the whole Belgian line. Make a small frontline of 1 or two provinces with your tanks and spearhead to dunkerque.

I was holding back some fighters to defend Germany airspace - I'll reload from before I commenced Fall Gelb and see if there's any effect in temporarily transferring all my fighters to air superiority over the Benelux and Northern France.

 

[our_man]

Replace the tactical bombers with fighters to achieve air superiority. Don't spread out armored units and use them to force through the enemy's front line to then create pockets.

What's spreading out? I thought I was keeping it pretty tight - my first Panzer army has been assigned a 2 province front and my 2nd panzer army a 3 province front. Should I just concentrate my panzer divisions on just one province? Is it not worth assigning their front to more than one province to take advantage of the bonus from attacking from different directions?

 

[our_man]

Don't give up. You will learn new things about this game even after spending five times as long playing it.

Can you show a screenshot of the battalions in your panzer divisions?

Attached is my medium armored division template.
My light tank divisions are composed of 6 light tank battalions, 4 motorized infantry with engineer, maintenance, artillery, signal & logistics support.

 

[our_man]

That is really strange.
Your "6. Panzer Division" and "7. Panzer Division" are attached to a frontline, but are just sitting some tiles away from the frontline and not moving. They don't have a yellow or a red exclamation mark.

The game is not paused and you have just redone the battle plans and not yet unpaused?

To summarize:
Reasons that units in an army with a frontline don't move to that frontline:

• Units are not attached to that frontline. 2 cases:
  • A) Units have another order. They should move there
  • B) Units have no order at all. Then they have a red exclamation mark
• Units are not able to find a path to the frontline. (Happens sometimes if unit have to move overseas.) Then the units should have a yellow exclamation mark.
• Too low supply. Moving towards the frontline would cause other units to be out of supply. The units are waiting for the supply on the frontline to be better. Then the units should also have a yellow exclamation mark.
• (Doing a frontline in pause and not having unpaused yet.)

Did I forget something? (Just back from vacation...)

Game not paused. The other instances don't seem to apply either.

 

[Simon_9732495]

You have a save? Try reloading it and see if it works now.

If it's still not working after that, you can upload the savegame here if you want. I will take a look.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Attached is my medium armored division template.
My light tank divisions are composed of 6 light tank battalions, 4 motorized infantry with engineer, maintenance, artillery, signal & logistics support.

The game combat system makes it so that 40 width are superior when attacking.

I used to have a lot of trouble attacking. When I switched the offensive formations to 40w it became easy.

 

[Eisscrat]

My Panzerdivisionen are 20w.
More historical.

I even cut easy through the front.

20w or 40w is a minor thing after template build, type of equipment, commanders, terrain, air support etc.

Even if u lost the Planningbonus i would command ur tankdivision manually. In a battlrplan even spearhead the often dont focus on the speficic province and waste time driving along the frontline.

Take all ur tanks and attack north of the rhine. Take amsterdam and rotterdam and then follow the coast. That is the easiest route to surrender france quickly. The begian victorypoints are nearby to take and also paris is not far. If u are quick u can cut off most of the france army in the south. And if france surrenders u get all there nice tanks that u didnt destroy. About 1000.

 

[Dalos]

I spared Netherlands (wanted to try if they join me but that's probably lost cause) and I ended up in a similar situation (I also made few mistakes in the process)...

Put every fighter to Benelux and attack with all your tanks through there. Support them with infantry to keep enemy forces busy. It should be easier for you with Netherlands included.

And open second front from Italy. I initially did not accept them to Axis and let them in right before I wanted to attack. Which I did after my attack through Belgium become stalled... Their defense was really weak there. Then they collapsed rather quickly.

 

[our_man]

Thanks for everyone's contribution - I finally managed to accomplish Fall Gelb. The issue turned out to be Air Superiority; I don't think I realized how crucial this was to advancing your soldiers! Once I stacked 800 fighters over Benelux my armoured divisions were able to blast through the enemy's lines and capture Paris.

 

[seattle]

Thanks for everyone's contribution - I finally managed to accomplish Fall Gelb. The issue turned out to be Air Superiority; I don't think I realized how crucial this was to advancing your soldiers! Once I stacked 800 fighters over Benelux my armoured divisions were able to blast through the enemy's lines and capture Paris.

Air supremacy is very powerful and you should combine that with CAS. As Italy I struggled big time in Greece against the combined Greek and UK armies in mountaineous terrain. I had 600 CAS over Greece though and they turned every red combat icon into shiny green ones. CAS will shred the enemy forces (particularly armoured ones) to pieces.

Manual airforce control is unfortunately necessary. If you embed the airforce in your armies, then they won't even see combat in many cases, particularly in Poland and the Low Countries. It sucks when your forces are attacking the enemy while your airforce stays in their home region instead of joining the battle.