Yes in reality it was much more flexible than shown in HOI4.
Command hierarchy
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What is the correct cost of an infantry battalion? It’s a rhetorical question, I don’t think you have any base to answer it. It is clear that all weapons not directly produced in the production screen must be assumed to be part of it’s parent entity. Whether we are talking about uniforms, grenades, shovels, boots, MG’s, crew-ported mortars, smaller artillery, bullets, bombs, etc.
We can start with looking at how much they are spammed in the game compared to reality to get an good idea if their cost is resonable or not and its quite clear they are too cheap and too spamable compared to reality.
Also one thing not really represented is the quality level of various infantry units, many garrison units was considered of lower quality, not suited for frontline duties, like wounded veterans. This was kinda represented in HOI2 and HOI3 with the garrison division which was cheaper than regular infantry division but lacked mostly in mobility. Also these games had a milita division as a lower quality version of the infantry division which could be fielded at a reduced cost and may represent stuff like Volksturm.
Also alot of the cost of fieldning a division is not its Equipment but the logistical cost of keeping it in the field which is poorly or not even at all represented in HOI4 but in HOI2 an infantry division supply cost ment in about 4-5 years its supply cost would have costed as much as a whole new infantry division.
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I don’t think there’s any point to this. This game assumes that unit cost is equal across countries for any given tech level. Obviously this doesn’t hold up to any kind of historic scrutiny, but it is the chosen approach to HOI4. You will end up concluding that the game isn’t realistic, but that’s not the ambition either.
The ability to spam and maintain unrealitstic amount of divisions do negatively affect the game as eventually there will be so many divisions that front lines basically becomes static as combat width don't scale and at that Point the game become about who can survive the attrition war.
So yes cost, or especially a logistical system that require nations to pay for their fielded divisions would be very Wellcome, also it could be used to give the defender more advantage as the attackers supply lines would likely be an issue, like it was for Germany in Soviet union, the deeper Germany advanced the longer it supply lines became and the less efficient they became. Soviet had the exact same issue when they advanced towards Germany but at that Point the German military was largely destroyed.
You advocated that infantry battalion cost should be increased. Now you’re turning to asking for a logistical system, different from the one that we already have, or at least one that is more punishing. I think those are two entirely different issues.
And I still do not see how this can be used as a vehicle to justify 40 with divisions, space marine and other gamey tactics.
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40w 14 Inf 4 Art 17000 men hoi division -> german Infanteriedivsion 1939 strength 17000 men
And of course our common friend from Austria is
1. The only authority on the topic
2. Did claim that this was the only solution to the issue
3. Explicitly stated that his proposal would cover all three bases of manpower, equipment and organization
/s
Don't be so serious about it, Nobody prohibits you from playing as you like, but stop enforcing non-watertight ideas on others.
It is pretty much impossible to cover all 3 given the limits of the game. If you try to get Manpower correct, organization and Equipment will be wrong and that is the case if you try for any of the other two.
Wait, now YOU are talking about abstraction?
By the way, did anyone account yet for the missing 13th and 14th company in German infantry regiments I have seen proposed by any advocate of "historic" templates?
Where are the AT and infantry guns? What about the mortars? The MG count? How come the firepower of German Panzerschützen is the same as for infantry? While in reality, it was roughly double?
The argument is hypocritical. In hoi4, any template is fantasy. Historicity is Impossible.
NO!Wait, now YOU are talking about abstraction?
By the way, did anyone account yet for the missing 13th and 14th company in German infantry regiments I have seen proposed by any advocate of "historic" templates?
Where are the AT and infantry guns? What about the mortars? The MG count? How come the firepower of German Panzerschützen is the same as for infantry? While in reality, it was roughly double?
The argument is hypocritical. In hoi4, any template is fantasy. Historicity is Impossible.
So, a German 9 INF, 1 ART, 1 AT division, plus support, would be deemed historical by you? And you would be able to defend that claim?
Or would it rather be 9 INF, 3 ART, 2 AT plus support?
Because I cannot for the life of me, find the infantry guns of 150 mm, that surely are not "infantry equipment" but artillery, I cannot, by firepower, discern it from a motorized division with twice the MG count, and the regimental heavy weapons and AT companies are nowhere to be found in the chart of organization.
Also, it lacks support units, with engineers, Signals, recon, field hospital, logistic train and maintenance as well as field police, bakery, butchery, vetinary, AA, bureaucracy and so forth. Not to mention the wrong head count.
You have yet to present to me a historical division template. MHV's proposal is a compromise, and a questionable one at that.
The Brigade was most often equipped with 75 mm artillery. The 150s were usually Divisional Support Artillery because of their lower mobility and heavier needs for logistical support and transportation. In the Division video, it's pointed out the artillery at the lower level was 75s. Machineguns and low level AT rifles were/are part of the infantry. From the Wiki:
Improved Infantry Equipment 1: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Improved weapon models and more specialized equipment.
Infantry Equipment II: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Modernized to include a great number of sub-machineguns and anti-tank rifles.
Infantry Anti-Tank I: Arming our infantry with anti-tank rifles will allow them to take out lighter armored vehicles while maintaining mobility.
Infantry Equipment III: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Further modernized to include personal Assault Rifles and anti-tank rockets.
And the list goes on. That's where the infantry support weapons are.
Improved Infantry Equipment 1: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Improved weapon models and more specialized equipment.
Infantry Equipment II: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Modernized to include a great number of sub-machineguns and anti-tank rifles.
Infantry Anti-Tank I: Arming our infantry with anti-tank rifles will allow them to take out lighter armored vehicles while maintaining mobility.
Infantry Equipment III: Personal and crew served weapons for infantry as well as the various other bits of kit a soldier needs. Further modernized to include personal Assault Rifles and anti-tank rockets.
And the list goes on. That's where the infantry support weapons are.
While this is true, the regimental infantry guns were 6x 75 mm and 2x 150mm IG 18, in the 13th company of the regiment.
Note that they are not in the battalions TO&E, but the regiment's/brigade's.
So, organizational and equipment wise, they would actually form a 9 battery Battalion of direkt fire artillery. Well, 9 batteries? That's three battalions! A bleeding regiment!!
Would justify 6 ART, with 2 AT and 9 INF for a German division.
Makes 38w, 13000 men + 2500 in support for 15500, which quite nicely is the about combat troops number of a 1st Wave German infantry division.
On a side note, I cannot help but note that the "historical" side in this Argument is perfectly fine with abstraction as long as the Battalion count is what they consider accurate, but balk at the very prospect of abstracting from organization to achieve correct number of guns/men.
Not to mention that missing horses, small vehicles and light trucks, regimental recon platoons, regimental field medics, or even entirely misplaced artillery regiments (!) are obviously "historical".
I can fully accept a certain perspective on what any person would find important for historicity, but plain statements like "40w is unhistoric/only realistic size is 27w/abstraction is good if it works in favour of my position" are extremely weak discussion style.
Furthermore, the wiki says that infantry Equipment is personal or crewed weapons, but fails to Point out what this is.
50mm mortars? Yes, very likely so. LMG? Probably as well. 81mm mortars? I would not object.
A 75mm gun in a company directly subordinate to a higher Echelon? That's not infantry equipment - because it does not belong in the infantry battalion!
The regimental AT guns are, for the very same reason, NOT infantry equipment. The AT rifles are, but there's 36 guns in the Division that are not part of infantry battalions.
Some German infantry battalions did have their famous 75mm IG directly assigned to them, but not battalions in the infantry divisions, it seems.
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Germany/HB/HB-2.html
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Germany/HB/HB-2.html
I tend to agree with most anything your write, but I think this one line is backwards. Every weapon system above and on the battlefield supports the combat troops, which are typically infantry or tankers.
Imagine, if you would, that you are a platoon leader tasked with taking a hill. The artillery does not ask you to support it while they push their guns up the hill to take the enemy position. No, you as the platoon leader will call mortars, artillery, tanks, aircraft, battleships, and anything else you can think of to support you and your men as you take that hill. Practically every battlefield weapon invented was and is to aid and support the infantry and other front line troops. I cannot think of one WW2 weapon that can take a position.
More than a few people have tried to envision a day where weapons will be capable of taking and holding ground. We may see it in our life time as autonomous weapon systems come on line in the future. In WW2, and even today, it takes boots on the ground to push the bad guys off the hill and to keep them off.
I think you nailed the problem down with your observation. The game system is not going to allow the player to build a TO&E correct infantry division that matches, manpower, weapon systems, and organization. One of those three will always be "wrong".
So the possibility, using the level of abstraction in HoI 4 -- and in just about every other war game on the strategic level -- and having 100% historical accuracy is slim to none. I've been playing WW II games from the level of high strategy like this one to squad level tactical varieties, and even one of individual soldiers and equipment with a single squad-sized unit, since I was 12 and it has always been an issue. These discussions are nothing new.
It doesn't matter if you're using die-cut cardboard pieces on a printed map sitting physically across a table from each other, or pixels on a screen with someone across the globe. The issue is pretty much the same either way: the smaller the base unit the less the abstraction and, while able to get closer, to historical accuracy, it still will never be exact. Nit picking over what is and isn't abstracted vs modeled when it comes to pieces representing the size units we are using is an exercise in futility -- even if it is fun sometimes.
On this level we can't choose whether we give the division 75 mm field guns or 150 mm howitzers in the line, nor can we decide if or companies are made up of 8-man squads as the Germans used or the 10- to 12-man squads of the Russian army. Since you are leading the war effort of an entire country it is below your pay grade. We can't add LMG, HMG, Inf AT (75, 76, 50 or 37 mm) or 50 mm as opposed to 88 mm mortar teams in our forces because, to put it simply, that is too far below the level of the game to be of any consideration. If you want to play on that level of tactical operations then buy a game suitable to that style of play. Pushing that crap is just looking for more shit to argue about and confuse the basic issue and is unworthy of intelligent gamers, which I like to assume most of us are.
The basic issue is: what is a gamey set up and what isn't. The rest is just BS.
The US Army in WW II had 91 Divisions containing approximately 15,000 soldiers each. This was the division structure of the infantry 1942.
German Infantry Division of 1940 with 17,000 men
This is the level of the game's design. If you use these layouts, or close to them, in your Division level formations you are at least close to historical. If you use some massively larger formation, whatever you are using as your justification, you are not. It isn't number of men, number of guns, number of anything include width. It is how many of what type of subformation you use to represent the division formation that make historic sense.
It is an unfortunate aspect of the game that PDX made 80 the standard width. Although we would have a similar issue if they had said any number equally divisible by 15, or 12, or probably even 13. They could probably even made the division templates 4x4 instead of 5x5, but they didn't and we're stuck with it.
I know this was too long for many of you to bother reading. Sorry about that.
It doesn't matter if you're using die-cut cardboard pieces on a printed map sitting physically across a table from each other, or pixels on a screen with someone across the globe. The issue is pretty much the same either way: the smaller the base unit the less the abstraction and, while able to get closer, to historical accuracy, it still will never be exact. Nit picking over what is and isn't abstracted vs modeled when it comes to pieces representing the size units we are using is an exercise in futility -- even if it is fun sometimes.
On this level we can't choose whether we give the division 75 mm field guns or 150 mm howitzers in the line, nor can we decide if or companies are made up of 8-man squads as the Germans used or the 10- to 12-man squads of the Russian army. Since you are leading the war effort of an entire country it is below your pay grade. We can't add LMG, HMG, Inf AT (75, 76, 50 or 37 mm) or 50 mm as opposed to 88 mm mortar teams in our forces because, to put it simply, that is too far below the level of the game to be of any consideration. If you want to play on that level of tactical operations then buy a game suitable to that style of play. Pushing that crap is just looking for more shit to argue about and confuse the basic issue and is unworthy of intelligent gamers, which I like to assume most of us are.
The basic issue is: what is a gamey set up and what isn't. The rest is just BS.
The US Army in WW II had 91 Divisions containing approximately 15,000 soldiers each. This was the division structure of the infantry 1942.
German Infantry Division of 1940 with 17,000 men
This is the level of the game's design. If you use these layouts, or close to them, in your Division level formations you are at least close to historical. If you use some massively larger formation, whatever you are using as your justification, you are not. It isn't number of men, number of guns, number of anything include width. It is how many of what type of subformation you use to represent the division formation that make historic sense.
It is an unfortunate aspect of the game that PDX made 80 the standard width. Although we would have a similar issue if they had said any number equally divisible by 15, or 12, or probably even 13. They could probably even made the division templates 4x4 instead of 5x5, but they didn't and we're stuck with it.
I know this was too long for many of you to bother reading. Sorry about that.
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