Capturing Equipment

[espana33]

I was wondering if it will be possible to capture certain things, particularly capital ships at port if you have troops in the province and you annex, I know this was semi-possible in Hoi2, although I have only ever captured transport ships and destroyers. What I am referring to in particular is possibility of capturing French capital ships at Toulon.


I think this would be a cool feature especially for smaller countries if it was possible to capture equipment and supplement some of your own divisions with it. For instance as a little guy (I usually did it with Yugoslavia or Spain) you could often encircle and destroy divisions, if these were armored divisions, you ought to be able to salvage some equipment, and if you are a lower tech. country, you ought to be able to capture rifles and things like that.


PS I really hope supply is not infinite like it basically was in Hoi2.. would be nice to be able to attack enemy supply.. operational art of war (opart) modeled supply really well and it would be nice to get a little more depth there.

 

[Iridium]

It would be difficult to make it balanced properly in my opinion. If it was a rare random even it wouldn't be too bad but if it were to occur at a constant rate I would be worried about everyone fielding each other's units in divisional strength.

 

[espana33]

It would be difficult to make it balanced properly in my opinion. If it was a rare random even it wouldn't be too bad but if it were to occur at a constant rate I would be worried about everyone fielding each other's units in divisional strength.

Well I doubt it will be implemented at all, but it would be nice to have certain variables governing what can be captured and what could realistically be fielded. For example, when you force a unit to surrender even though it has organization and units remaining. It would be nice to get a +1 every now and then on a division for that..

It would also be nice though that major things like ships could be captured, I suppose by event, because it's really nonsense that a stack of ships just disappears when you conquer a country. Those French ships could be very useful in the Med. This also provides a little reward for you to conquer areas and encircle the enemy quickly. That way you could just change the conditions of the event if it was too 'easy'

 

[Hayden]

I would like to see the possibility of capturing ships, not all the time of course, but every so often it's nice to get a small boon.

 

[SeedSnatcher]

I would like to see the possibility of capturing ships, not all the time of course, but every so often it's nice to get a small boon.

We can already do that in HoI2. They'll probably keep it, but I suppose it could be improved.

 

[unmerged(52507)]

I think that the chances could be improved a little, but mostly these kinds of ships scuttled themselves

 

[unmerged(131342)]

It would also be nice though that major things like ships could be captured, I suppose by event, because it's really nonsense that a stack of ships just disappears when you conquer a country. Those French ships could be very useful in the Med. This also provides a little reward for you to conquer areas and encircle the enemy quickly. That way you could just change the conditions of the event if it was too 'easy'

Maybe a little str boost when capturing enemy divisions of the same type?

 

[unmerged(131221)]

The problem is that your troops use different equipement. Its abstracted in game. When there were production of indywidual equipement and not divisions as a whole then it would be ok, but now how to implement that?

 

[unmerged(131342)]

The problem is that your troops use different equipement. Its abstracted in game. When there were production of indywidual equipement and not divisions as a whole then it would be ok, but now how to implement that?

Again, a little str gain, just a little to satisfy the idea of gaining equipment. It was not uncommon for foot soldiers to pick up small arms of the opposite side, just because they were better weapons. Even tanks were repaired and put into use. The russians fought with pzIV's and the germans with T-34's. Even later in history, in the vietnam war American soldiers often picked up AK's because they simply performed a lot better in the wet jungle then the ealry generation M4's.

All this is rather insignificant on a strategic scale though, therefore just a little str gain is in order (also str is both manpower and equipment, so you can never gain a lot of it)

 

[unmerged(39280)]

Again, a little str gain, just a little to satisfy the idea of gaining equipment. It was not uncommon for foot soldiers to pick up small arms of the opposite side, just because they were better weapons. Even tanks were repaired and put into use. The russians fought with pzIV's and the germans with T-34's. Even later in history, in the vietnam war American soldiers often picked up AK's because they simply performed a lot better in the wet jungle then the ealry generation M4's.

All this is rather insignificant on a strategic scale though, therefore just a little str gain is in order (also str is both manpower and equipment, so you can never gain a lot of it)

Germany used a lot of enemy equipment, especially soviet because they captured large quantities in Barbarossa. For exemple the early Marder self-propelled anti tank guns were made using russian guns, at least a few hundreds were made (some were a combination of french tank and soviet gun). Captured trucks were used in large numbers during the war. Hard to model in game however.

 

[unmerged(131221)]

Its not that it was IRL but how to implement it. Strenght is not the way IMO, But I also dont have any other idea.

 

[bz249]

Since most of such equipment is passed to the lesser allies why not having an event which either gives a minor strength bonus to your unit or put a half complete tank/AA/SP-AT... brigade to the pool of a certain ally.

 

[zeekater]

Let's also not forget the downside to using captured equipment: they are a huge burden on your logistics

Germany used a lot of captured french trucks for example in Russia (but also tanks, trucks from other countries,..) which caused a logistical nightmare. All those different trucks required different spare parts and were build differently than what the maintenance crew were used to
For tanks and guns it's even worse, you may have captured some ammo, but you will soon run out of that. I can think of only one case where the Germans started producing their own ammo for the russian 76mm gun, which they changed to an antitank gun (as referenced earlier, 560 were converted).

Other countries didn't use captured equipment that much. Russia for example used Panthers, but only until they would break down (rather fast). Same goes for the USA and the UK which had more then enough trucks and tanks of their own.

 

[zeekater]

Another way to look at it:

with the new supply system it might be possible to take over enemy supplies when conquering provinces, these could then symbolize captured equipment.
Captured supplies means you need less supplies for your own divisions, so you save IC days

Sorry for bringing this thread back from page 3

 

[Ostheim]

I believe it's been stated in a DD that fighting with certain unit types reduces practical decay for those units. An abstract solution for simulating captured equipment may be to give a practical decay bonus from a small percentage of str damage inflicted on enemy units of each type. Wipe out a panzer division in Normandy? Some captured Panthers are available to fill the gaps in one of your new armor units (practical decay). The problem with this solution I admit myself is 'how did those panthers get to Boston?'. We could simply assume that those tanks are swapped out into divisions in France and therefor what would be replacements for those divisions in the theater will go to the new divisions being created.

Another was mentioned above: make victorious units 'steal' a little bit from the defeated divisions personal supply pool. It could go to the national pool but I think it would be better as an addition to the victorious unit(s) supply pool or a bonus over the max. This would be a cool feature in itself and really separate from captured equipment.

The problem though with stealing str damage as a sim of capped eq. is you wouldn't be putting some captured tanks in an infantry brigade, so then comes the problem of unit match-ups. With the new division-brigade system you no longer have armor divisions that theoretically also have a lot of infantry. It is assumed that an armor brigade is purely an armored formation. Yet another problem with this idea is what about divisions that 'capture' and already have 100% strength? It could be displaced to another appropriate unit type involved in the battle. However, my conclusion about this solution is it's just not a good one--it becomes too complicated too quickly.

I think despite the small problem with the practical decay solution and the USA example, it might be worth consideration. The bonus to practical decay could be modified by the level of technology attributed to the enemy divisions being damaged and defeated. This would make the system dynamic so that knocking around a panzer brigade at Panther tech would make it easier to fill that new armor brigade you're building since the tank is stronger and provides more firepower/strength than a earlier or weaker model. An armor brigade of Panther tech may theoretically have less actual vehicles than a Panzer IV brigade but is still stronger because the equipment is better.

Another option could be to abandon any differentiation between types of land equipment and modify the IC required for reinforcements with an appropriately decaying bonus raised by a small percentage of str damage inflicted to enemy units--possibly a random value within a range ie. 3-10%. MP cost would remain the same of course as you're just giving captured guns to your soldiers or putting crews in captured vehicles.

I like the practical decay idea the most.

 

[unmerged(56754)]

Why a strength bonus?

How do you replenish strength normally? With manpower ... so how would capturing some rifles resurrect the dead?

You could argue its abstracted, the capturing equipment; both sides capture equipment, so neither gets a bonus of anything. Although I don't like that, I would like capturing equipment in some form, Barbarossa just isn't the same without capturing hundreds of tanks.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Because of the logistical constraints mentioned earlier (its hardly worth the effort) I think the only place captured equipment belong is in static defensive lines not often used. One example would be beach defenses (sea fortress) where captured French and Soviet guns were more common then "ordinary" German ones.

For each artillery brigade you capture (encircle) you could gain one sea or land fortress level to place where you wish after a certain time.

 

[unmerged(12990)]

Don't know about other equipment, but at least ships should be handled like in HoI2. Maybe there could be a rare random event which would grant you something like 75% of all the ships of an annexed country in that country's ports at the moment of annexation. As stated, ships were often scuttled, but that wasn't always possible. A rare event like that would model the few occasions where large amounts of ships were captured quite okay.

 

[unmerged(12217)]

At a super-strategic level like HOI3, captured equipment is well below the scale of detection on the map; the only exception might be captured/surrendered capital ships - which were so few and so rare as to not make the trouble to program this, not worth while.

Let the programmers focus on AI and important things that affect greater issues, like better simulation of national economies in wartime.

 

[Alex_brunius]

At a super-strategic level like HOI3, captured equipment is well below the scale of detection on the map

Im afraid I can't agree with you as to whats "below the scale".

If Wiki is right this is what the allies left behind at Dunkerque:

In accordance with military principle where priority is given to men over arms, the Allies left behind 2,000 guns, 60,000 trucks, 76,000 tons of ammunition and 600,000 tons of fuel supplies.

And of those:

The Germans gained:

* 1,200 field guns
* 1,250 anti-aircraft guns
* 11,000 machine guns
* 25,000 vehicles