Do amphibious assault times need to be shortened?

[Adonnus]

With the new naval invasions focus on perfect planning, preparation and execution as opposed to improvisation, do amphibious assault times need to be shortened compared to Hearts of Iron III? It was a matter of hours in reality not days, but in Hoi3 they dragged on for much longer.

In my mind, I think it would work better and more realistically this way. The combat would be brief and bloody and the success or failure would depend on how well it's planned and the strength of the opposition as opposed to things like combat modifiers (which can have a larger effect if the combat goes on for longer).

The main battleground shouldn't really be stopping them landing at all, it should be trying to contain the landings or force them back into the sea once they're already landed.

 

[Caesar15]

Well in Hoi3 there's two stages, the landing and the actual fighting in the process. When you say it took a few hours, I assume you mean the actual landings at Normandy and what we saw on the beaches. Well yeah, you're right, but after that they had to land the rest of the guys, along with tanks, supplies, artillery, and the rest. Then after that they had to secure the surrounding area. Now in Hearts of Iron, the provinces are fairly large, so when you look at the entire process of a naval invasion, starting with the initial brutal landings, then the big supply ships coming in, then the rest of the heavy guys arriving, and then finally with the actual securing of the rest of the province, it really does take days rather than hours.

 

[Adonnus]

Well in Hoi3 there's two stages, the landing and the actual fighting in the process. When you say it took a few hours, I assume you mean the actual landings at Normandy and what we saw on the beaches. Well yeah, you're right, but after that they had to land the rest of the guys, along with tanks, supplies, artillery, and the rest. Then after that they had to secure the surrounding area. Now in Hearts of Iron, the provinces are fairly large, so when you look at the entire process of a naval invasion, starting with the initial brutal landings, then the big supply ships coming in, then the rest of the heavy guys arriving, and then finally with the actual securing of the rest of the province, it really does take days rather than hours.

True but this effectively means you can't land more troops on the beach without a stacking penalty as technically the combat is still in progress.

The other main problem is the amphibious penalty. It's better to represent a "landed" invasion force as in possession of a province, cause I don't think the amphibious penalty went away after the invasion progress was 100%. So troops would still have the penalty (which is huge) long after the first few hours, which is when, in reality, they were ashore.

Maybe "amphibious penalty" can be abstracted for problems that occurred while on the beach after the assault... however, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't really think there were any, besides large scale supply, that warrant such a large penalty as coming ashore in the first place.

 

[Caesar15]

True but this effectively means you can't land more troops on the beach without a stacking penalty as technically the combat is still in progress.

Yeah that is a problem, the guys that land are the guys that have to fight for the rest of the province also. Remember how in Hoi3 you would have a little red bar that slowly goes down to simulate your troops landing and securing the beach? Well maybe when that red bar goes down you can send in your tanks and other guys without them having to go through the landing/securing the beach process?

 

[Alex_brunius]

With the new naval invasions focus on perfect planning, preparation and execution as opposed to improvisation, do amphibious assault times need to be shortened compared to Hearts of Iron III? It was a matter of hours in reality not days, but in Hoi3 they dragged on for much longer.

In my mind, I think it would work better and more realistically this way.

You are aware that D-Day historically was prepared and planned in detail for many months to land just 5 divisions over a short distance, right?

 

[Axe99]

You are aware that D-Day historically was prepared and planned in detail for many months to land just 5 divisions over a short distance, right?

I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong @Adonnus) that the OP's point is that now that we have to do the planning for invasions (so there's a chance to get an alert based in decryption/etc that the speed with which the actual troops hit the shore (not the speed they plan) could be sped up.

It's all a bit tricky, because when someone's 'won' an invasion, they're in posession of the province - so it's not just the couple of days it took to secure the immediate beachhead, but rather the province. Based on the map of Normandy below (just ripped off a Google search, but looks legit), I'd say the invasion fighting would have taken around 6 days, all up (ie, the June 12 line is when the Allies have control of the province, more or less). I'm a bit hazy on how long it'd take in HoI3 in this context. I'm all in favour of plausible invasion times, as it sounds like it'd work well in terms of HoI4's invasion mechanics.

 

[Adonnus]

You are aware that D-Day historically was prepared and planned in detail for many months to land just 5 divisions over a short distance, right?

Um...yes, that's my point. Not a difficult thing to look at the context by which I made that statement to figure out I mean the time from the troops land ashore to the time they've established a beachhead. Not the planning or organisation.

 

[Alex_brunius]

Um...yes, that's my point. Not a difficult thing to look at the context by which I made that statement to figure out I mean the time from the troops land ashore to the time they've established a beachhead. Not the planning or organisation.

Since someone agreed with my point, it seems it indeed was a bit difficult to understand what you meant by the context.

I think Axe99 has some good points though, as long as you have to fight isolated on several beaches or with your backs against the water your at a disadvantage, and 6 days seems reasonable, so I guess we will just have to wait and see how long time it does take to fight an amphibious assault once the game is released.

 

[LordOfWar16]

The initial assault may only take a few hours, but landings take much much longer. Its not like it is only about simply landing on the beaches and you won. Your troops of course first of all have to get to shore and then fight through the defenses, thats the quick part. Then they have to secure the province and the rest of the troops need to land, which takes significantly longer. If you ship your troops to harbours on the other hand its just a matter of hours of course.

 

[Secret Master]

To be honest, I have no problem with the invasion times of HOI3. It's an acceptable compromise between realism and abstraction. And most of my amphibious invasions never took more than 48 hours to execute from landing to province secured anyway. If it's taking you longer (against the AI at any rate), you need to rethink division composition and supporting assets to the invasion. (Shore bombardment, ground attack, and so on)

Having said that, I will say this:

I suspect that players will want to be far more cautious in HOI4 on general principle. It looks to me like the AI will be far better about responding to invasions. You won't be able to scam the AI with ninja attacks, so instead of doing a ninja attack that catches the AI off-balance, you will instead do what the Allies did: apply massive and overwhelming force to the invasion. Massive bombing both at the target area and on all units nearby and so forth.

I think this is a positive change.

 

[LordOfWar16]

I suspect that players will want to be far more cautious in HOI4 on general principle. It looks to me like the AI will be far better about responding to invasions. You won't be able to scam the AI with ninja attacks, so instead of doing a ninja attack that catches the AI off-balance, you will instead do what the Allies did: apply massive and overwhelming force to the invasion. Massive bombing both at the target area and on all units nearby and so forth.

I think this is a positive change.

I agree. It isnt even that unrealistic for invasions to take longer than a few hours anyway, since they have to secure the entire province, not only the beaches. Sending marines in first with coastal bombardment support form battleships and hopefully air superiority will be the way to go. It felt always a bit too easy to simply land in an ungarded province in HoI III and simply hoping the garrisons arent fast enough or even dropping some paratroopers on ungarded harbours and moving in ridicioulous amount of troops, or entire army groups within hours. The hardest part wont most likely even be the invasion itself, but rather securing supply channels for the forces.

 

[Adonnus]

To be honest, I have no problem with the invasion times of HOI3. It's an acceptable compromise between realism and abstraction. And most of my amphibious invasions never took more than 48 hours to execute from landing to province secured anyway. If it's taking you longer (against the AI at any rate), you need to rethink division composition and supporting assets to the invasion. (Shore bombardment, ground attack, and so on)

Having said that, I will say this:

I suspect that players will want to be far more cautious in HOI4 on general principle. It looks to me like the AI will be far better about responding to invasions. You won't be able to scam the AI with ninja attacks, so instead of doing a ninja attack that catches the AI off-balance, you will instead do what the Allies did: apply massive and overwhelming force to the invasion. Massive bombing both at the target area and on all units nearby and so forth.

I think this is a positive change.

Ah but you still have the amphibious penalty being applied, perhaps, after the first few hours which doesn't make sense. If they'd find a way around the penalties, I'd be happy.

I wonder if we can do what the Allies actually did then: plan a huge deception, historically aimed at the Pas de Calais to move the enemy troops there, instead of ninja attacks?

 

[NapoleonComple]

Could a "contested province" system work? Basically, if fighting goes on for a certain period of time, it can be assumed the attackers have made some progress. At this point the province becomes contested. The attackers have a foothold and the defenders no longer control all key points. This gives the attackers a slightly more favourable position, which could include losing landing penalties. The attackers lose this advantage when they drop below a certain victory percentage. (The indication is that they're being pushed out of the province... or even into the sea!).

You could even have an advanced stage where the attackers have taken over most of the province and the defenders lose all advantages or even have to attack. It would give people reason to pull out of a fight that is going south and use fall-back positions.

 

[Moriartiy]

I like the Idea troops whole divisions couldnt land on Iwo Jima or the Normandy and fight for days at the beach since getting supplies in that situation was not that easy i guess (under mortar, artillery and mg fire) and if im not mistaken all of the naval invasions (spoken about the well known ones) were done in 3-12 hours