Capturing Equipment

[unmerged(54763)]

1.Question is what proportion of captured equipement is in operational state.Statistics of captured hardware usualy included all peaces of equipement,even broken one.

2.Second question how many time is required to adapt soldiers to use strange to them equipement?
How many time for homologization,paper work,re-painting?

3.Whatabout logistics,you can capture 1000 russian guns but youl need costant suplies of ammunition for them.From where?

4.Maintenence,spare parts?

 

[unmerged(12217)]

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

True, but how much of that is going to have a very different combat value from what is already in use?

I think it is not really worth it to do much more than symbolically represent such equipment in a strategic level game that already does not count discrete armaments in the inventory. You can represent it by adding transportation or IC points once the enemy capitulates, which can be used to equip new units - typically the garrison units had a lot of this stuff, and we are already representing them in the game.

If this game actually counted tanks and guns - like, say, Gary Grigsby's War in Russia - then I'd say, absolutely, add them up, count them in and put them in your national reserve stocks. But HOI doesn't count armaments that way so I can't see an easy way to resolve this without a lot of extra book keeping or micro-management.

 

[Alex_brunius]

If this game actually counted tanks and guns - like, say, Gary Grigsby's War in Russia - then I'd say, absolutely, add them up, count them in and put them in your national reserve stocks. But HOI doesn't count armaments that way so I can't see an easy way to resolve this without a lot of extra book keeping or micro-management.

Why, as said before captured equipment in mobile formations were not as useful due to maintainance, spare parts, logistics standard of different ammo exc.

I still claim that static emplacements that don't need this are the only that can fully use captured equipment. How many km of shore can you defend with 11000 machineguns and 1200 field guns? For those inactive places the ammo captured is enough.

 

[unmerged(54763)]

I mean Germans realy used anything captured they could.Rommel corps in Africa even used fiew captured Matilda tanks.
But thats just "spice".

 

[unmerged(54763)]

Why, as said before captured equipment in mobile formations were not as useful due to maintainance, spare parts, logistics standard of different ammo exc.

I still claim that static emplacements that don't need this are the only that can fully use captured equipment. How many km of shore can you defend with 11000 machineguns and 1200 field guns? For those inactive places the ammo captured is enough.

Its all problematic on grand scale you know.

There
realy was serious utilisation of captured harware,especialy by Germans,but I am not sure does this have to change any stats of divisions,looking strategicaly.

And this captured equipement usualy was "place-holder" within units until enough quantities of standardised domestic equipement arrives.

 

[unmerged(12217)]

Why, as said before captured equipment in mobile formations were not as useful due to maintainance, spare parts, logistics standard of different ammo exc.

I still claim that static emplacements that don't need this are the only that can fully use captured equipment. How many km of shore can you defend with 11000 machineguns and 1200 field guns? For those inactive places the ammo captured is enough.

You may be right as far as captured tanks (although the Germans did use captured french Renault light tanks in the anti-partisan role) but the most dramatic and large-scale use of captured booty was with the field guns and artillery - for example, the Germans used large stocks of captured Russian guns, especially the 76mm field gun, and equipped divisional artillery and anti-tank units with them and used others on Marder AT guns.

My personal argument is that HOI3 is ill-equipped to simulate this historical fact, since it doesn't track individual vehicles and artillery pieces, unlike some games I have played. In those games, you could capture, say, 200 T-34's and actually assign them to new units under formation. Same for artillery pieces. But HOI doesn't track vehicles and artillery, so it is awkward and (to me) hardly worth the trouble to do more than make symbolic representations of these captured and re-cycled items.

 

[Van Diemen]

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

I think this is the easiest and most appropriate solution to this issue. Indeed with the new supply system and army supply pools you could simulate this. Say that if you attack an enemy province and you force the enemy to retreat you could gain about 20% extra supplies (also fuel), which earlier belonged to the enemy army supply pool. When successfully defending a province from an attack you might be able to gain 10% of the remaining army supply from the enemy. If your army encircles and destroys an enemy army completely (as if it surrenders when cut off from the front line) you can gain an immediate boost of supply by taking all the remaining supply of the enemy army, plus a gain in national supply and fuel for about 60% of the calculated IC value of the remaining strength at the time the divisions surrendered. Furthermore when retreating by sea, as Dunkerque, you also gain the same amount of IC, while the retreating divisions loose an extra 50% in the remaining strength of the unit.

If this should be made more complicated you could also use speed as a indicator of how many supplies are being captured, as a fast travelling panzer divisions will force the enemy the abandon equipment and supply depots faster than slow moving infantry, which could allow them enough time to save their equipment.Also of course if an army already has 100% supplies inside their pool, the additional gains go the national supply pool.

 

[Honor_Australia]

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.

hmmm yes i do agree with you,

you should take around a quater of there equitment or more or less depending on the casultys, reinforcments and also depending on the forces they escaped with and don't forget the morale that would defently effect that also good idea

 

[unmerged(12990)]

The Germans used equipment from occupied France in vast numbers, certainly in numbers which are sufficient for the scope of the game. You could find French tanks anywhere from the Eastern Front to (more often) the Atlantic Wall. Same goes for the already mentioned British goodies left at Dunkirk.

 

[Khevenhuller]

You may be right as far as captured tanks (although the Germans did use captured french Renault light tanks in the anti-partisan role) but the most dramatic and large-scale use of captured booty was with the field guns and artillery - for example, the Germans used large stocks of captured Russian guns, especially the 76mm field gun, and equipped divisional artillery and anti-tank units with them and used others on Marder AT guns.

Look at the Finns. Vast amounts of Russian kit usd to equip their troops from tanks on down. And, in the case of smaller armies, it does not have to be much to make a big diffrnce.

K

 

[unmerged(112153)]

I remember from some mods in HoI2 (WiF or TRP... not sure) that an event could pop giving you the choice in upgrading an infantry unit to a moterized unit, however this was an arnaments event and not one afther you destroyed enemy units and captured material...

Should they get an idea to add this for perhaps artillery of any kind, or making a infantry unit a mobile one etc... then the material should be crappy, afther all its equipment thats left over and abandoned by the orignal owners so it should be in poor state, for example you capture artillery from 1940 but the brigade you can add gives you a great war one, or a 1941 infantry turned into a 1939 moterized...? (in anyway you should have 2nd thoughts to use it and if its really usefull at the time)

 

[unmerged(12217)]

As I posted in a different thread, IF HOI3 can be build with, or modded to include, a means to track tanks, artillery pieces, AT and AA guns, etc - then this discussion would be different. A game that can do that, can easily track various models of anything.

Assuming that there would also be a way to assign these various equipments and armaments to brigades, a "brigade builder screen" so to speak, then we would have all that would be needed to make brigades of captured equipment.

My point has been that, if such is not possible in HOI3 because of programming limitations, then don't bother to trouble the development team with the issue at all. There are ways to simulate some of the effects of captured or obsolescent equipment - but in the end, the effects are fairly minor in the scope of a 4-year long war that spanned the globe. Historical, yes, nice to have, yes; but essential, no.

 

[unmerged(134053)]

Perhaps the effect of captured equipment could be reflected in research blueprints.

For example, the UK captures a province with a German fleet at anchor. While most of the ships would be scuttled by the fleeing Germans, destroyed during the British attack or some manage to get out to sea and escape, surely anything that is left intact would be taken back to Blighty and examined inch by inch by experts.

Any advantages or innovations in the German designs (in other words if it is a higher tech than the Brits have currently researched) could be reverse engineered, giving the UK a blueprint for that type of ship.

We all know that the RAF and Luftwaffe have used each others' captured aircraft in the past.

A formation of tanks or troops that is destroyed wholesale could give a small number of supplies.

 

[Dark Scipio]

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.

I dont think so. The Germans captured a lot of equipment and even supplied their Axis partners (H39 tanks for Italy for example) with that.

 

[Jmland]

Some interesting stats about germans using captured equipment

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6135


"In August 1940, Hitler already decided that in further enlargement of the Army, the possibility of a campaign against Soviet Russia had to be considered. By the time this campaign began in June 1941, 84 more divisions were created. Just before Barbarossa, 88 infantry divisions, 3 motorized infantry divisions and 1 Panzerdivision were largely equipped with French vehicles."

(The meat of the article)

"After the battle of France, the German troops recovered/repaired many French tanks, about :

500 FT-17
800 R-35/40
600 H-35/39
50 FCM-36
160 B1bis (18 B2(f) with 10.5 cm howitzers,
60 B2 flammpanzer and 82 B2(f) tanks + turretless B2(f) Fahrschulpanzer)
297 Somua S-35 tanks "

Considering the fact that they were still producing Czech tanks while they were rolling across Ukraine and Belarus, it seems to me captured equipment was deemed crucial to the German war effort by the Germans themselves.
Yes, I'm counting Czech T35's produced in 1941 as "captured" for the purposes of this discussion.

 

[unmerged(13008)]

...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...

Has been taken out in HOI II. Was possible to capture entire fleets in HOI I. Considering that fighting ground troops never caught anything bigger then torpedoboat/destroyer size, this should be ok. We might think about diplomatic reasons for capitals changing owner.

Aside:
(self) sunk ships in shore water were sometimes recovered. Maybe another possibilty to play around with.

 

[unmerged(110317)]

"In August 1940, Hitler already decided that in further enlargement of the Army, the possibility of a campaign against Soviet Russia had to be considered. By the time this campaign began in June 1941, 84 more divisions were created. Just before Barbarossa, 88 infantry divisions, 3 motorized infantry divisions and 1 Panzerdivision were largely equipped with French vehicles."


Well this is explained by the IC increase Germany gets after it has captured France. Alot of these French vehicles were manufactured in German occupied French Industries.

But alot of equipment was indeed captured by the Germans, be it in France, Russia or even North Africa. Where apparently 80% of Rommels Afrika Corps trucks were made up of captured British trucks, which is a BIG deal, and cant be ignored.

The best solution would be a supply increase to represent captured equipment, if there is no other choice. Otherwise lack of captured equipment representation would really make HOI3 historically INaccurate.

 

[unmerged(65355)]

In Czechoslovakia Wehrmacht captured equipement for 20 divisions. AFAIR 10th pzDiv was equiped this way.
Where is it in HOI??

 

[Rick Middleton]

Why not make it a simple algorithm when you encircle an army? For example, start out with a parameter that "if encircled force > 5 divisions, then 5% chance of a random brigade added to your deployment screen"; "if >10 divisions, then 10% chance of a random brigade added to your deployment screen" and so on. It will give you an approximation of what happened in real life, that encircled divisions did yield returns. Furthermore, when a country is annexed, an increased chance of a random brigade being added to your deployment screen, perhaps based on either their total forces or the size of their economy. This would approximate how Germany and other countries gained equipment from conquered nations.