Division Frontage (or Fronts)

[Jmland]

Clarification on how division frontages will work.

Will a division that has a frontage value of "X" have that frontage in all directions?
Or more plainly, are units facing in a particular direction?

The reason I'm asking is that it looks like HO3 will be detailed enough that this may be an option.

The combat front of a division being extremely combat effective, and the back side (REMF) of the division significantly less so. What Blitzkrieg was trying to do, was get the tanks loose in the REMF areas and chew the enemy units up from behind (among other things).

 

[Alexander Seil]

I think the most reasonable guess is that the frontage is defined entirely by the province under attack, and that there will be only one frontage, as in EU3 and Rome. What you're thinking about is better simulated by in-battle behavior of individual units, rather than frontage, I think.

 

[potski]

It has a frontage in a certain direction certainly. One Div can only defend effectively along one axis of attack. If attacked from another direction then it will be flanked and suffer appropriate combat modifiers.

If you break through the frontline with ARM you can turn and attack enemy provinces from the rear. As long as you don't allow the defenders to turn to face you, then you should see them get chewed up. You would do this by fixing the defenders frontage on the axis facing the original frontline by attacking them from that direction with INF, before attacking with the ARM from the rear.

 

[Modestus]

Well I am still of the opinion (which could easily be wrong) that each province has a frontage for each side of a province. If a province has 4 sides there would be 4 areas to attack or defend.

We know that each type of brigade has a certain combat width.
When added together this gives you the total combat width\ frontage of a division.
This can also be influenced by a doctrine for example Blitzkrieg will make the combat width of armor brigades smaller so you would end up with a smaller overall frontage for an armor division, which allows you to deploy more armor divisions to the front line.

Leaving aside the combat abilities of a division\ division type it appears that the more divisions that you can deploy to the front line the better, so numerical superiority will have some influence.

It does seem to me that at least at the start of an offensive where you have a stable front line this numerical superiority can only really be gained by first engaging on one axis and fixing the enemy in position and then attacking on a second axis to either stretch? some of the already engaged enemy forces or to force its reserves if any to be drawn into the battle.

For me and I know people have explained it with modifiers and such but is a division a real physical entity on the front line? can a division only be engaged on one axis at a time, in affect is it not really being stretched but instead being out flanked. I am trying to understand what happens if you attack on a third axis and the enemy has no reserves left is that front completely exposed?

 

[Peekee]

"There is now only a finite number of units that can attack or defend on a single province border."

"if you cannot fill your whole frontage you suffer a force to space ratio penalty."

I think that explains everything so say there is a front width of 10 per boarder and all units have width 1. Then if you are attacking on only one border then the "first" 10 units on each side engage. If either side has less than 10 units then they would get a "space ratio" penalty. (Interesting that they use ratio I wonder if this could literally be 10% in the most extreme case of our example, I assume it will be scaled also perhaps limiting its effect to X% of the total.).

Anyway if you are attacking over two borders then the width would be 20. So again if the defenders had less than 20 units they would suffer a penalty. If it was a single unit then the penalty ratio would essentially double.

Interestingly the diary also says :

"but you can’t just throw in a single division and pick up a nice bonus, you really need to attack with numbers on each axis."

So it looks like if you attack with full strength on one border then you would have 0 space ratio penalty. However attacking with a single unit on another front would then cause it (or everyone in the battle?) to suffer from a space ratio penalty.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Interestingly the diary also says :

"but you can’t just throw in a single division and pick up a nice bonus, you really need to attack with numbers on each axis."

So it looks like if you attack with full strength on one border then you would have 0 space ratio penalty. However attacking with a single unit on another front would then cause it (or everyone in the battle?) to suffer from a space ratio penalty.

I can see two ways how it could work: either the penalties hinge on the relative engaged combat widths, or every gets a penalty if they can't fill up the available width. Either way I think it would boil down to about the same thing.

So say it takes about 3 regular infantry divisions to cover the width of a border. If someone attacks with 6 divisions from one border and 1 division from the other, then they get 4 divisions engaged at any one time. If the defender has just 3 divisions, then the defender, in addition to being outnumbered 4:3 in terms of firepower, gets an additional penalty for having to be too spread out in order to cover the advance of the 4th enemy div. If the defender actually has 6 divs in the province, then adding that additional axis of advance would be a bad move for the attacker, because he would go from 3:3 engaged width to 4:6 engaged width. I think this makes the most sense.

Alternatively, the attacker might be assessed a penalty for only being able 4/6 of the active border width, while the defender (assuming only 3 divs again) gets a slightly higher penalty for only covering 3/6 of the active border width. The penalties would have to work in a way so that they won't slow down combat when both sides are penalized.

 

[potski]

Surely if you have one Div only defending, and already stretched thin on a frontage on one axis that can accommodate three Divs, and it is then attacked on another axis, then it must be outflanked. Combat is on a Division level, so it can't split itself into it's constituent Bde's to defend more than one axis.

If there are three Divs defending on one axis, filling the whole frontage then they MAY be outflanked if attacked on another axis. But there should be a chance that they adjust their positions, so two engage on the original axis and the third engages on the new axis. I would have thought that should depend on the abilities of a Corps or higher commander.

If there are three Divs defending one axis and some in reserve, then the chances of them being outflanked should be very much diminished.

 

[Modestus]

"There is now only a finite number of units that can attack or defend on a single province border."

"if you cannot fill your whole frontage you suffer a force to space ratio penalty."

I think that explains everything so say there is a front width of 10 per boarder and all units have width 1. Then if you are attacking on only one border then the "first" 10 units on each side engage. If either side has less than 10 units then they would get a "space ratio" penalty. (Interesting that they use ratio I wonder if this could literally be 10% in the most extreme case of our example, I assume it will be scaled also perhaps limiting its effect to X% of the total.).

Anyway if you are attacking over two borders then the width would be 20. So again if the defenders had less than 20 units they would suffer a penalty. If it was a single unit then the penalty ratio would essentially double.

Interestingly the diary also says :

"but you can’t just throw in a single division and pick up a nice bonus, you really need to attack with numbers on each axis."

So it looks like if you attack with full strength on one border then you would have 0 space ratio penalty. However attacking with a single unit on another front would then cause it (or everyone in the battle?) to suffer from a space ratio penalty.

Well I decided to do a little research on Force to Space ratio and as far as I can tell it really only means that you have more room to maneuver if you have a lower force to space ratio. Where as a high force to space ratio you have less.

An attack along a maximum frontage of 3 by 3 divisions faced by 3 divisions has a high force to space ratio, essentially the attacker and the defender are fighting in a confined space.

If you attack along another axis and a defender does not have sufficient forces to defend this area you have a low force to space ratio, essentially your increasing the amount of space that your units can operate in.

There is of course a limit to how much you can lower the force to space ratio because each axis has a limited frontage.

To be honest saying that there is a forced to space ratio penalty does not mean much because I don't know how its applied how it relates to the other fronts.

Does a defender get stretched along all the axes of attack and the attacker has a lower force to space ratio for all of the fronts? Or is the front with the lower force to space ratio completely exposed.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[aaaaburnHOI]

It has a frontage in a certain direction certainly. One Div can only defend effectively along one axis of attack. If attacked from another direction then it will be flanked and suffer appropriate combat modifiers.
If you break through the frontline with ARM you can turn and attack enemy provinces from the rear. As long as you don't allow the defenders to turn to face you, then you should see them get chewed up. You would do this by fixing the defenders frontage on the axis facing the original frontline by attacking them from that direction with INF, before attacking with the ARM from the rear.

I am very excited about the frontage idea. Some of the rating numbers need tweeking, but a GREAT idea. Even more is the principle you bring up about flanking and unit size. Would a division such as garrison be much easier to flank than a bloated infantry division? hhhmmm.

I just like where they are going with this.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

Does a defender get stretched along all the axes of attack and the attacker has a lower force to space ratio for all of the fronts? Or is the front with the lower force to space ratio completely exposed.

I think it has to be the former. It would be too fiddly to figure out in exactly which direction a division is defending at any given moment. It would introduce a lot of headaches and potential exploits. I think this level of flanking should be handled by combat events.

 

[Modestus]

I think it has to be the former. It would be too fiddly to figure out in exactly which direction a division is defending at any given moment. It would introduce a lot of headaches and potential exploits. I think this level of flanking should be handled by combat events.

Yes I think your right,

Some of the differences between HOI2 and HOI3.

1\ Theres a overall limit to the amount of units that can be engaged at any one time for the whole province.

2\ Reserves will act much more like reserves.

3\ To gain an advantage from a second or third attack you will need to commit enough divisions to first force the enemy to commit its reserve (if any) and secondly to increase that attack so that you gain a significant force to space ratio. Which confusingly seems to mean you lower your force to space ratio, I suppose the terminology means nothing as long as the defender suffers a penalty of some sort.

Seems to me that initially your going to be doing a lot of probing attacks to find the optimum forces to attack with.

Also after a breakthrough its not going to be that simple to stop forces moving forward you cannot simply tell your units on the flanks to attack a bulge in the line and halt an attack. Even if you have large forces on the flanks you will still have a limited frontage for those attacks. So you will need to defend in depth.

All sounds mighty interesting, Paradox better start testing the AI after Christmas.