Command hierarchy

[Zauberelefant]

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.

While you are making good points, your final example is contradicting everything you said before.
MHV has the number of infantry and artillery Battalions wrong (+2 INF, +1 ART), doesn't show the AT battalion (and given the organic AT of each regiment, we could argue for 2 AT).
And it's still 38w! Where is the essential difference to 40w? What would constitute a 'massively larger' formation?

Of course this is all nitpicking, Keitel won't use the Nazi timemachine to reprimand any of us, but I find the arguments put forward very much flawed and hand wavey.

Is 40w gamey? No, because you need to pay for it with equipment. Space marines are different, because you exploit the armour mechanic, even though they are easily countered.
Pure Inf with CAS would be gamey too.

Then again, vs AI, having a brain, one eye and an index finger could be considered gamey.

My point still stands: depending on what is your definition of historical, the game allows to build historical 22-40w divisions and there is no solid argument to denounce either as ahistorical.

Certainly, some 27-33w looks like the design target for ww2 divisions in hoi4, but that is deliberate.

 

[George Parr]

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.

How exactly do you arrive at those numbers, because they make no sense at all. There is no way you can take 20 light infantry guns and 6 heavy ones and somehow arrive at 9 batteries, regardless of how you count them.

If you took the extreme approach - which makes little sense - you could arrive at four platoons of 2 guns per company, plus the additional platoon to reach the number of 20 guns. That would make it 13 platoons. Technically that would be correct, but it is entirely useless here, because that is breaking down units way below the company level, which does not fit to the game.

If you took the more reasonable approach and counted batteries by how they stack up compared to artillery, you arrive at maybe 4 batteries or so. In the artillery-branch, guns lighter than the 10.5cm howitzer generally came in batteries of 6 guns instead of just 4. Seeing how all of these infantry guns, even the 15cm ones, aren't remotely close in terms of capabilities to the actual artillery, that would need to be applied as well. 26/6=4 mod 2. So even if you somehow counted these guns as artillery, which doesn't make a whole lot fo sense anyway, it would still be nothing more than one battalion plus one additonal battery, most definately not anything close to an entire regiment of artillery, as those had four battalions.

 

[Zauberelefant]

How exactly do you arrive at those numbers, because they make no sense at all. There is no way you can take 20 light infantry guns and 6 heavy ones and somehow arrive at 9 batteries, regardless of how you count them.

If you took the extreme approach - which makes little sense - you could arrive at four platoons of 2 guns per company, plus the additional platoon to reach the number of 20 guns. That would make it 13 platoons. Technically that would be correct, but it is entirely useless here, because that is breaking down units way below the company level, which does not fit to the game.

If you took the more reasonable approach and counted batteries by how they stack up compared to artillery, you arrive at maybe 4 batteries or so. In the artillery-branch, guns lighter than the 10.5cm howitzer generally came in batteries of 6 guns instead of just 4. Seeing how all of these infantry guns, even the 15cm ones, aren't remotely close in terms of capabilities to the actual artillery, that would need to be applied as well. 26/6=4 mod 2. So even if you somehow counted these guns as artillery, which doesn't make a whole lot fo sense anyway, it would still be nothing more than one battalion plus one additonal battery, most definately not anything close to an entire regiment of artillery, as those had four battalions.

Each regiment has 6 light and 2 heavy guns in 4 Platoons. That makes 12 Platoons.
A Platoon in artillery is a battery. 3 of those make a battalion.
Since we are abstracting, we have to disregard that the platoons are half strength. So we end up with 12/3 = 4 battalions of light to heavy artillery.

This is of course to show that the approach of taking organization as the single criterium is nonsense. But even if we take your argument of 6 guns in light batteries, we have 3 batteries of light guns and 1.5 of heavy guns, giving us 1.5 battalions.

The historical party does not Account for them.
I think that a German 1939 infantry division should account for:
The organization of 3 infantry regiments and 1 artillery regiment.
The AT battalion and regimental AT guns.
Infantry guns.
The support units.
Manpower.

I can imagine it like this:
3x3 INF, plus 4 ART and 1 AT. This is the base, a minimum, according to organization.
The ART battalions are 36 guns, but I have to accept that this is to account for ammo. Because both manpower and designation mean they are battalions.

So, the base width is 31.

Then, a German regiment is actually 3.5 battalions at 14 companies. 1 is AT, there are 3 of them, makes a battalion.
That additional AT battalion is falsely represented as a divisional battalion, but its strength is distributed across the division, again, I accept Abstraction.
The 3 infantry gun companies are tricky. 24 guns in different calibre make 1.5 battalions.
So, my proposal: an additional ART and support arty.

This gives us a width of 35.

In comes the support. We have support arty, engineers, signals, recon, maintenance, field hospital and logistics as contenders for 5 slots.
Field hospital, recon, engineers, Signals and support arty are 5.
Maintenance and logistics need to go. The former because it is apparently intended as the Battalion used in Armour divisions, not the company in infantry divisions, the latter because the logistics support in Wehrmacht infantry division was nothing to write home about. I'd leave that to the western allies.

Giving us 3x3 INF, 5+1 ART, 2 AT, and ENG, HOS, SIG, REC, ART support.
Width 38, 5 support. Head count: 15500 men.
Which seems about right for frontline services.
The only gripe I have is the ridiculously high number of guns, at 242, while we only use ~1000 infantry Equipment. But I already said that I have good reasons to assume the gun count is abstracted to the roof.

So, I end up with a historical division of 38 width, with almost all subunits of the division accounted for and a close to acceptable head count. I honestly don't understand how you would consider a 9 INF, 1 AT, 1 ART plus support division "historical", as it's missing 75% of it's guns, and a third of it's manpower.

 

[Ostovar Hossein]

Add a real logistics to the game where you have FOB and limited ammunition to lunch offensive all the sudden fat divisions hording all the ammo die off lol. I mean seriously atm the only thing you have to worry about in logistics is road and port that is it...

 

[Challenge]

@Zauberelefant

Do you just have a problem with the word "abstraction"? The inf guns and at guns are represented in the stats of the infantry unit. It says so in the Wiki.

When you add an artillery marker to a Regiment, you aren't adding a company of artillery; your are adding a Brigade of artillery. It isn't a battery or two of infantry guns; it's a full Brigade of heavy guns. Number of guns only works when you can put in the correct type and size for what the counter is supposed to represent; otherwise you are building Space Marines 2.0.

I could actually see putting an artillery Regiment into the line mix. If you add all the batteries of an infantry Brigade together, maybe that would work out for the numbers. But more would have to go as Divisional Support. I think an AT Regiment might work as well; or an AA unit. Such assignments were made, but since the guns and AT of a Regiment are abstracted into the base unit counter, and you don't have the proper guns to work with, your formations are technically something no military ever built. And I wouldn't use all of them, but that's just me -- cost to much to keep them up to 100% anyway.

You are trying to build your Divisions from the ground up. We don't have the counters of a low enough level for that to work. We can't add a company of specific guns and hardware to match perfectly what things are supposed to be; we don't have to because even an infantry-only Division has Hard Attack to represent AT weapons and part of the Soft Attack is from the abstracted artillery. (There's that word again.)

Finally, just two things, neither of which are specifically about historical unit construction.

First: Why was MHV a good source when you were using them to prove your body counts, but not for my argument about formation structure -- which had nothing to do with number of f*****g guns. They really are accurate since they dig into real historical sources for their material -- unlike most of us gamers who use their work instead of digging up all those official military documents buried in archives and in languages we don't read.

Second: If you need a 40 wide infantry formation to beat the AI, there are bigger issues with your strategy than ahistorical formations. If you do it to compete in MP, then fine, have fun; I just don't enjoy min/max games myself, preferring the use of at least near historical formation set ups.

 

[Zauberelefant]

@Zauberelefant

Do you just have a problem with the word "abstraction"? The inf guns and at guns are represented in the stats of the infantry unit. It says so in the Wiki.

When you add an artillery marker to a Regiment, you aren't adding a company of artillery; your are adding a Brigade of artillery. It isn't a battery or two of infantry guns; it's a full Brigade of heavy guns. Number of guns only works when you can put in the correct type and size for what the counter is supposed to represent; otherwise you are building Space Marines 2.0.

I could actually see putting an artillery Regiment into the line mix. If you add all the batteries of an infantry Brigade together, maybe that would work out for the numbers. But more would have to go as Divisional Support. I think an AT Regiment might work as well; or an AA unit. Such assignments were made, but since the guns and AT of a Regiment are abstracted into the base unit counter, and you don't have the proper guns to work with, your formations are technically something no military ever built. And I wouldn't use all of them, but that's just me -- cost to much to keep them up to 100% anyway.

You are trying to build your Divisions from the ground up. We don't have the counters of a low enough level for that to work. We can't add a company of specific guns and hardware to match perfectly what things are supposed to be; we don't have to because even an infantry-only Division has Hard Attack to represent AT weapons and part of the Soft Attack is from the abstracted artillery. (There's that word again.)

Finally, just two things, neither of which are specifically about historical unit construction.

First: Why was MHV a good source when you were using them to prove your body counts, but not for my argument about formation structure -- which had nothing to do with number of f*****g guns. They really are accurate since they dig into real historical sources for their material -- unlike most of us gamers who use their work instead of digging up all those official military documents buried in archives and in languages we don't read.

Second: If you need a 40 wide infantry formation to beat the AI, there are bigger issues with your strategy than ahistorical formations. If you do it to compete in MP, then fine, have fun; I just don't enjoy min/max games myself, preferring the use of at least near historical formation set ups.

I don't have a problem with abstraction per se, only with the very selective usage I Encounter by you and @gefallenerHeld.

An artillery marker in hoi4 is a battalion. It's defined as such, so there's no discussion that most infantry divisions had more than 1 artillery battalion.

The infantry equipment encompasses rifles and the crewed weapons of the infantry battalion- not the 13th and 14th companies, as these were regimental assets.

The heavy weapons of the infantry battalion (German) were MG 34/42 and 50-81 mm mortars. Anything larger was not part of the infantry battalion and thus cannot be accounted for with infantry equipment.

This is crucial, there's a difference between abstraction and just omitting stuff because you cannot adapt your point of view. It becomes even more absurd as the 13th company AT guns are absolutely not "abstracted" into the battalion's Piercing and hard attack, because 1. There is a tech and equipment of its own for AT guns and 2. The infantry battalion's AT assets were satchel charges, grenades, AT rifles and Panzerfaust/Bazooka.

So, you "abstract" away two heavily equipped battalion strength formations in a division, without accounting for their equipment or stats.

This is not historical, and it is outrageous that some here would claim that despite the fact, it's the only historical Setup. I demonstrated differently.

Your last two points:
MHV is right on head count, wrong on Equipment and organization. Not because I rely on his work selectively, but because I have a body of knowledge of my own which he matches at 1/3.

I don't need a 40w division vs AI. But that was not the point either. It's simply ridiculous to declare 40w "gamey" or unbalanced and I pointed to the fact that being human is enough to send the AI packing.
Except when playing Expert AI.


So, I think my points have been failed to be adressed - my proposal gets a reasonably good Balance for head count, Equipment used, organization for a typical early Blitzkrieg infantry division. When PDX finally gives the ART battalions 12 guns and triples gun cost, it would be a 95% perfect representation within the game's limitations. Given that hoi4 ART battalions are battalions, I would support this.

This is much more closer to actual History than the Proposition of all others in this thread.

Certainly, a 3x3 INF +1 ART division is not more historical than that.
But I could accept it as a compromise between complexity and historical accuracy, while my proposal is geared towards accuracy alone.
"Abstraction" is an argument employed in a discussion about historical divisions - and inherently weak for that. It does not support any Claim I argued against, and I demonstrated that it falls on your feet instead, because you end up abstracting half of a Division's AT guns away but would employ the other half, not doubling the AT Performance that way.
That's just being in denial and I happily point that out.
Also, an infantry battalion was a given 4 company Formation with mortars and Mgs, yet you would discount the 2 heaviest of 14 companies in the Regiment? If the abstraction argument held any water, you should instead have 2 additional INF battalions in the template.

Sorry, no way I can take these proposals seriously.

 

[Harin]

This has been a great discussion so far. Kudos to the OP and all the people responding. I have learned a lot about historical TO&E and about the game's limitations in re-creating them.

Should the developers give us a division planner (and after reading such informed posts above) I would like to see the freedom to build our own battalions through a series of five or so quick choices that would help us visualize what we are trying to do. The results of the choices would determine the manpower, guns, etc.. that are actually in the battalion.

For custom battalions to work, the combat width restraint will have to be rethought and that is another discussion entirely. The good news is that the developers have shown an interest in dealing with the combat width eventually.

1. For infantry battalions, let the player make some simple decisions based on a controlled range of choices. These choices DO NOT show up in game as sub-units. Instead they accumulate to create a battalion that is equipped with the aggregate of the choices. The choices would simply allow the player to make decisions based on commonsense, history, or the player's pleasure. The choices would be controlled by the developers by limiting the choices to within a range of choices. For examples:
   • Choose how many infantry platoons infantry companies will have, say between 2 and 4.
   • Choose if the infantry platoons will have a LMG section, say between 0 and 1.
   • Choose how many infantry companies the battalion will have, say between 3 and 7.
   • Choose if the infantry companies will have a weapons platoon of HMGs and or light mortars , say between 0 and 1 of each.
   • Choose if the battalion will have an infantry gun section of 76mm guns, 0 or 1.
   • Choose if the battalion will have a heavy mortar section, 0 or 1.
2. Those are just examples, but it would allow the player to build simple "infantry only" battalions, something the OP spoke of, or a fully realized infantry battalion. The difference in cost and ability would be enormous. It would make a Chinese infantry battalion that barely has enough rifles for every man look very much different than an infantry battalion loaded out with all that money can buy in 1945.
3. The same concept would work for all the combat battalions, just change the choices as necessary for tanks, artillery, motor, and mechanized.

META players can go through the process one time for each type battalion and just make them defaults for their entire game. Still, I would not be surprised that even META players might dream up some uses for differentiated battalions for low supply areas, port defense, naval invasion, breakthrough, or simply make use of the miscellaneous equipment in their storage depots.

I know many players want to keep things simple as they are. Out of respect to them, it would be good that they could just play like these decisions do not exist by allowing players to use default battalions like we have now. The battalion decisions are a button they never have to hit.

 

[Zauberelefant]

This has been a great discussion so far. Kudos to the OP and all the people responding. I have learned a lot about historical TO&E and about the game's limitations in re-creating them.

Should the developers give us a division planner (and after reading such informed posts above) I would like to see the freedom to build our own battalions through a series of five or so quick choices that would help us visualize what we are trying to do. The results of the choices would determine the manpower, guns, etc.. that are actually in the battalion.

For custom battalions to work, the combat width restraint will have to be rethought and that is another discussion entirely. The good news is that the developers have shown an interest in dealing with the combat width eventually.

1. For infantry battalions, let the player make some simple decisions based on a controlled range of choices. These choices DO NOT show up in game as sub-units. Instead they accumulate to create a battalion that is equipped with the aggregate of the choices. The choices would simply allow the player to make decisions based on commonsense, history, or the player's pleasure. The choices would be controlled by the developers by limiting the choices to within a range of choices. For examples:
   • Choose how many infantry platoons infantry companies will have, say between 2 and 4.
   • Choose if the infantry platoons will have a LMG section, say between 0 and 1.
   • Choose how many infantry companies the battalion will have, say between 3 and 7.
   • Choose if the infantry companies will have a weapons platoon of HMGs and or light mortars , say between 0 and 1 of each.
   • Choose if the battalion will have an infantry gun section of 76mm guns, 0 or 1.
   • Choose if the battalion will have a heavy mortar section, 0 or 1.
2. Those are just examples, but it would allow the player to build simple "infantry only" battalions, something the OP spoke of, or a fully realized infantry battalion. The difference in cost and ability would be enormous. It would make a Chinese infantry battalion that barely has enough rifles for every man look very much different than an infantry battalion loaded out with all that money can buy in 1945.
3. The same concept would work for all the combat battalions, just change the choices as necessary for tanks, artillery, motor, and mechanized.

META players can go through the process one time for each type battalion and just make them defaults for their entire game. Still, I would not be surprised that even META players might dream up some uses for differentiated battalions for low supply areas, port defense, naval invasion, breakthrough, or simply make use of the miscellaneous equipment in their storage depots.

I know many players want to keep things simple as they are. Out of respect to them, it would be good that they could just play like these decisions do not exist by allowing players to use default battalions like we have now. The battalion decisions are a button they never have to hit.

Full consent here. Decisions like how many MGs per squad were relevant. A five step Slider based thing would be both useful and easy to use.

 

[Challenge]

I can agree to that as well. Squad level stuff is turning this into a tactical decision level game. It's supposed to be grand strategy, so I don't think that's stuff is pertinent. Steal Panthers: World at War was pretty much down at that level, but you only commanded Regiments and, maybe, reinforced Regiments. Even Company level is a bit more than this game was designed for. I can see custom building regiments as they, in some cases, were pretty specialized.

This game was never designed with that level of detail in mind, so you are talking about a serious change in focus along with the needed coding. It's when we try to force that level of detail into a system not designed for it that we run into trouble.

I will never agree with you Zauberelefant. I can not see your point simply because what you are using to try and achieve your stated goals does not agree with the reality of military unit structure. It just seems like you are ignoring reality to match your needs. At the start of the war the US had what we would call 4x4 Divisions and they broke them up because the C&C fell apart and they just became to unwieldy to maneuver and supply.

I feel you are forcing tactical design on a strategic level game and the result is over powered and defies both the scope of the game and common sense. Your Divisions need to lighten up on the steroids, man.

 

[Zauberelefant]

I can agree to that as well. Squad level stuff is turning this into a tactical decision level game. It's supposed to be grand strategy, so I don't think that's stuff is pertinent. Steal Panthers: World at War was pretty much down at that level, but you only commanded Regiments and, maybe, reinforced Regiments. Even Company level is a bit more than this game was designed for. I can see custom building regiments as they, in some cases, were pretty specialized.

This game was never designed with that level of detail in mind, so you are talking about a serious change in focus along with the needed coding. It's when we try to force that level of detail into a system not designed for it that we run into trouble.

I will never agree with you Zauberelefant. I can not see your point simply because what you are using to try and achieve your stated goals does not agree with the reality of military unit structure. It just seems like you are ignoring reality to match your needs. At the start of the war the US had what we would call 4x4 Divisions and they broke them up because the C&C fell apart and they just became to unwieldy to maneuver and supply.

I feel you are forcing tactical design on a strategic level game and the result is over powered and defies both the scope of the game and common sense. Your Divisions need to lighten up on the steroids, man.

Well, the game does away with a lot of military structure.
But to claim that regimental support is organic infantry battalion assets is everything but historical and there are better alternatives to "abstraction by omission".

As you mention "overpowered" as a counter to my proposal, the division designer is for "division" and we need to look at the range of 1-50 combat width, where the upper end would be anything considerably smaller than two divisions, a reinforced division, for example.
This leads to the natural conclusion that a considerably smaller than 50 combat width unit is not a full strength division, but a binary one, a (reinforced) brigade or at the most extreme, an Independent battalion.

This would support 40 width as the natural King of the Battlefield and the most common large formation.

Your counter of 4x4 divisions is ok, but that's 4 infantry regiments plus artillery, right?
Comes out as 44+ width. Probably too large, yes.

 

[Challenge]

Game width does not relate in any way but abstract to operational frontage.

And about you artillery regiments, I borrowed this quote from the thread on pure infantry...

Abstracted
JAP_1936:

# (Square) Infantry Division - 4 infantry regiments (3k men each), 1 field artillery regiment - abstracted into infantry,

# Independent Mixed Brigade: 5 infantry battalions (4k men total), 1 field artillery basttalion - abstracted into infantry,

# Also represents (over-sized) IJN Base Defense Unit (island, city and naval base garrisons): 2 infantry rgts (3k men), 1 field artillery rgt (abstracted), 1 engineering rgt

While the internal comments didn't specify their caliber, a quick search on Wikipedia shows that the omitted artillery units were indeed equipped with 75mm guns.

So your thing about gun numbers is abstracted, as I pointed out. Can I please have your source on that so I can add it to my source list?

 

[Zauberelefant]

Game width does not relate in any way but abstract to operational frontage.

And about you artillery regiments, I borrowed this quote from the thread on pure infantry...





So your thing about gun numbers is abstracted, as I pointed out. Can I please have your source on that so I can add it to my source list?

The planned to&e of the German infantry division is easily found on the net, German Wikipedia has a good rundown.

I still have objections, for example:
German regimental AT was of the same type as divisional AT (would change later, as heavier guns were moved to divisional control), but the piercing and hard attack values of 9xINF compared to 1xAT do quite differ.
The japanese 75 mm infantry gun and artillery pieces were pre-ww1 standard pieces, while the German guns were considerably more advanced interwar designs.
IJA infantry regiments lacked the mortars the Germans had on the company, battalion and regimental level.

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJA/HB/HB-3.html

So, yes, devs obviously "abstracted" to the point where japanese forces get their support weapons for 100 inf eq. /Btn, and a 1936 first Wave German infantry division has to make do with a support artillery company instead of 3 medium and a heavy battalion, and instead of needing 72 AT guns it needs none...

Or the devs did abstract for different reasons, like an inept AI.

Because right now, we are at a point where identical guns are needed or not, and to me this appears whimsical. Also, the template designer then could simply be capped at, say, 25, because that's apparently enough to depict historical divisions, if everything is abstracted.
Apparently, battalions are not battalions either. Because ART are regiments, but everything else isn't?

First thing to concede: yes, the system is a mess and inconsistencies abound.
Second thing: the level of abstraction is quite high, apparently.
Third thing: artillery does not operate on the front, so its width should be rather small.

I think you cannot build remotely historical divisions with the system we have. It's Impossible as the level of abstraction is too high.
Consider the German infantry btn:
3 rifle companies, 1 heavy company, equipped with 1 lmg/squad, a dozen medium mortars and hmgs. Infantry guns and AT are regimental support.
The IJA has 4 rifle companies with 1 lmg/2 squads, 1 hmg company, organic 2 infantry guns and light mortars all over the place.

I think these are remarkably different formations considering firepower, c&c, manpower and effectiveness. But to this game, they are identical.

I can only throw my hands up on this. Abstracted support weapons should still give according stats, and if the gun count of an artillery battalion is 300%, then change it!

But the original point still stands: there's more than one single way to go about building historical units. That's maybe due to that trainwreck of a template designer, but to me, 3x3 INF and 1x AT, plus support arty and the rest, that's nowhere near an actual infantry division of the war period.

A possible solution would be either regimental HQ units, more support slots, limiting arty btns to 12 guns, instead of making formations the same, that were not, by means of abstraction.

 

[Challenge]

The idea they only did this with the Japanese, an argument I actually expected, is fallacious. Wikipedia is not a reliable source for information -- in research terms it is neither a primary source, which MHV cites in most of there work, nor an accurate one since pretty much anyone can gain editing rights without proving they actually know what they are talking about -- the reason universities and actual historians do not accept it as reliable.

What source you choose to use seems dependent on what you want to use as an argument, which I can understand. But since you insist on talking about individual bits we really cannot match for the lack of tools and bits to do it with since they aren't important to the actual scope of the game, instead of understanding it is the structure of a division and not the picking of pieces I am trying to explain simply means this discussion is a never ending circle with no conclusion.

It's been fun.

 

[Zauberelefant]

The idea they only did this with the Japanese, an argument I actually expected, is fallacious. Wikipedia is not a reliable source for information -- in research terms it is neither a primary source, which MHV cites in most of there work, nor an accurate one since pretty much anyone can gain editing rights without proving they actually know what they are talking about -- the reason universities and actual historians do not accept it as reliable.

What source you choose to use seems dependent on what you want to use as an argument, which I can understand. But since you insist on talking about individual bits we really cannot match for the lack of tools and bits to do it with since they aren't important to the actual scope of the game, instead of understanding it is the structure of a division and not the picking of pieces I am trying to explain simply means this discussion is a never ending circle with no conclusion.

It's been fun.

Yes, it was.
However, two points here:

I never claimed that the IJA divisions were the only case, I explicitly said that apparently that happened to German units as Well and went in how wrong that is given actual organization. A support arty unit cannot be an artillery brigade of 4 battalions.

And the Wikipedia is right, I know that because I have some 25 years in this hobby and can attest that primary sources support the wiki Numbers. Kriegsstärkenachweise (wartime strength charts) can be easily googled as Well.
Dismissing an Argument because it's based on Wikipedia is fallacious as Well. Just because 15000 wiki entries are incorrect doesn't make the one about infantry division organization incorrect.

Hence, I refute being called out for cherry picking.
Furthermore, a game design decision is not inherently correct either. If devs decide to confuse "abstract" with "omit" does not make it a valid point.

My feeling here is that you failed to give primary sources that support your points while I wrote ad nauseam why the Position is ahistorical, inconsistent and implausible.
All you did was attacking the way I argued, but did not address the points made by me. Hard to convince me that way.

Edit: for starters, "the German Army in world war II" by nigel Thomas is a quite reliable book. I expect anyone voicing his opinion here to have read a body of reliable sources and point to information easily available to everyone interested, for example Wikipedia if the info there is correct.

 

[Challenge]

I've got 55 years, like that means anything.

As a journalist I was taught that sources that are not definitive must be confirmed, Wikipedia is not a definitive source of anything.

You are cherry picking, but I really don't care. The sources are stated on the charts and MHV cites their sources in their videos.

Once again, and final: I am discussing organizational structure; you are discussing the number of pieces. You are counting the oranges, I am talking about the basket's construction. There will never be a solution, since we are talking about two different things, basically.

So give it up. I have.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Like it was that easy. Even if organizational structure was the most important, and I discussed that as well, the "historical" 3x3+1 division is unhistorical, by omitting 75% of divisional artillery.
A 3x3 division with the historic 4 battalions of artillery has 30+w, not 25, not 27.

And since I find the abstraction of regimental support into infantry battalions nonsensical, inconsistent and plain wrong, I did make a case for even larger historical Templates, with better characteristics.

You still did not make a convincing point or you failed to give your idea in line with your reasoning...

 

[Challenge]

Okay. Than let me say this. You are right.

Even though your Division template has half again the number of Infantry Brigades, and you have 2 to 3 times the number of Artillery Brigades, and all the existing military organization charts show you have more Brigades then were put into a Division since the formation began in the dawn of history, You Are Right.

Never mind that the HoI Wiki and sections of the game's code both state that all the numbers of hardware you are saying you are representing are abstracted into the brigades as they are represented. You. Are. Right.

Is that good enough for you to let this go, or do I need to kiss your ring as well?

 

[Zauberelefant]

Okay. Than let me say this. You are right.

Even though your Division template has half again the number of Infantry Brigades, and you have 2 to 3 times the number of Artillery Brigades, and all the existing military organization charts show you have more Brigades then were put into a Division since the formation began in the dawn of history, You Are Right.

Never mind that the HoI Wiki and sections of the game's code both state that all the numbers of hardware you are saying you are representing are abstracted into the brigades as they are represented. You. Are. Right.

Is that good enough for you to let this go, or do I need to kiss your ring as well?

Do you even know what a brigade is? And what a battalion is and which unit the hoi4 template designer uses?
9 INF and 4 ART are 3+1 brigades by any definition I am aware of.

Apparently you are under some misconceptions because my writing is apparently unclear. I will amend that.

Hoi4 abstracts 6 out of 42 companies in the 3 infantry regiments (or brigades) into the remaining 36 companies.
I think that this is lazy handwaiving, because, for instance, the combined AT strength of those 3 brigades is exactly the same as the divisional AT , yet the brigades do not have stats approaching anything close to the piercing/hard attack of the ind btn. That is not abstraction, but omission and I suspect the reason being either laziness or consideration towards the inept AI.
We can argue back and forth about 3 companies of infantry guns, I say they could similarly form a battalion to have their stats show up.

Then comes divisional artillery. Now, the devs "abstracting" an artillery regiment for the japanese and apparently 4 btns for the germans into infantry btns (plus maybe support arty) is again stretching the limits of abstraction and leaves me wondering, what the real life counterpart of an artillery regiment would be in hoi4, and what purpose that unit serves, actually.

You did not once adress these objections.

I argued, that organization is one of three criteria, next to manpower and equipment count, that must be considered to arrive at historical Templates. Compromise is necessary, because the game's system is so woefully wrong.
Neither the devs', nor gefallenerheld's proposals struck me as historical if the word still has the commonly understood meaning.
You would still have to make an actual counterproposal and make an actual Argument, instead of weakly attacking my reasoning.

Because, If we Discount Wikipedia as a source, then I can response that MHV is just a YouTuber and that flatearthers get their fix on YouTube as Well...

You see where I am getting at?

 

[Gefallener_Held]

Okay. Than let me say this. You are right.

Even though your Division template has half again the number of Infantry Brigades, and you have 2 to 3 times the number of Artillery Brigades, and all the existing military organization charts show you have more Brigades then were put into a Division since the formation began in the dawn of history, You Are Right.

Never mind that the HoI Wiki and sections of the game's code both state that all the numbers of hardware you are saying you are representing are abstracted into the brigades as they are represented. You. Are. Right.

Is that good enough for you to let this go, or do I need to kiss your ring as well?

Just say NO! as I have. NO! 40 width divisions are gamey and exploitative not to mention ahistorical. People combining non-combat manpower not reflected in the game to palm off as part of the 40 width, using the ways in which game do not perfectly replicate support brigades man for man, equipment and guns one to one.
Some things you just see with your eye. This is one of them.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Just say NO! as I have. NO! 40 width divisions are gamey and exploitative not to mention ahistorical. People combining non-combat manpower not reflected in the game to palm off as part of the 40 width, using the ways in which game do not perfectly replicate support brigades man for man, equipment and guns one to one.
Some things you just see with your eye. This is one of them.

The appeal to common sense is not an Argument.
Following your line of reasoning, German infantry division should then be 9 INF, 4 ART and 1 AT, correct? That makes 31 width, 4 more than the 27 cap you proposed...
Plus that division lacks 50% of its AT guns.
At 14000 men in combat units, that might be about right.