Does Motorized Units Make Sense?

[Hippob4]

Not in the 'does it make sense to use them for Encirclements' or whatever but instead:

Does having pure motorized infantry units conceptually make sense?

Like, wouldn't it make more sense for you to be able to attach trucks to a regular foot unit and increase their speed? That's how it's done in Unity of Command 2. If you want a unit to have a farther reach, you just attach motorized vehicles to the unit temporarily at the cost of HQ Points.

But in HoI4, I feel like maybe it would be more practical to just assign trucks to units/armies if you want to have a speedy advance for your infantry.

Like, it would also simplify things in that you don't have to convert infantry into Motorized or the other way around via the Division Template when dealing with (un)suitable. Motorized Infantry have their own stats too for some reason. More attack and breakthrough, but less defense. Also does worse in combat in jungles, mountains, etc.

Just making trucks a faster mode of transport for infantry would cut down on the micro. No need to focus on the combat stats, just speed and fuel consumption.

EDIT: I mean, when you look at WW2, the US army had tons of trucks and lots of infantry were transported via trucks. But for some reason HoI and other wargames don't consider US infantry being motorized units. They're just Infantry divisions.

 

[Algarde]

Like, wouldn't it make more sense for you to be able to attach trucks to a regular foot unit and increase their speed?

Literally that's what they are in the game. Infantry + trucks. The only problem is that they lacks elasticity as the motorized divisions must be produced individually and separately. But yes, I use them a lot mixed in an army with pure infantry 12+12 normally

 

[Hippob4]

Literally that's what they are in the game. Infantry + trucks. The only problem is that they lacks elasticity as the motorized divisions must be produced individually and separately. But yes, I use them a lot mixed in an army with pure infantry 12+12 normally

Thats my big issue, having to separate them into two different entire unit types when you can probably just 'Assign Trucks' to an army and those units automatically get the speed buff, consume fuel, and can suffer truck losses from attrition or air superiority. Instead, the game treat Motorized infantry as a entirely different unit that you have to design in the Army Designer (ofc, it eats up Army XP too), then babysit by making sure the motorized units aren't doing poorly in Mountains, Hills, etc.

I'm not sure why motorized infantry would do less attack and suffer more casualties in bad terrain though. The trucks should just be stationed behind the frontlines while the infantry fights the battle in tough terrains. It seems like Paradox thinks Motorized Infantry = Trucks being sent directly into combat @_@

 

[Algarde]

Yeah from this point of view doesn't makes sense how they have represented the motorized infantry in-game

 

[Vlad123]

To a game, very nice. It did the speed calculation directly. Each jeep carried you 1/2 other infantryman, the other trucks 10 (or 20 depending on the type) the 1/2 wagons (placed on the turrets as seen in some films / videos / cinematics) so if the infantryman went 10km / h and trucks at 100. The army went to 100 if there were enough trucks or at the speed of the slowest vehicle (eg tanks doing at 50km / h)

 

[DolusMaximus]

I don't know if that is what you mean by "attaching trucks" or whatever, but there already is a method of transporting troops faster with "strategic redeployment". (Shortcut CTRL + B)
This however does not have anything to do with trucks, but rather with your infrastructure. AFAIK they are working on a better system for logistics in this game that is more interactive for the player. Right now all you need to worry about is fixing logistics (infrastructure) if it doesn't work.

You also mentioned the "US army had tons of trucks" just dedicated for troop transport but I think this is an exception. Most other nations didn't have that luxury and had to resort to train transport or just literally marching all the way, look at the German invasion of France. So it's not very unrealistic to have trucks dedicated to the most elite/important units or to back up your tanks, which is represented in the game pretty well.
I can understand that it's kind of bad to have the trucks permanently stuck with the troops, unable to detach them if you build a motorozed division, maybe that could be changed but other than that I don't see anything wrong with motorized divisions right now.

 

[billcorr]

Don't know if this helps, but Wikipedia has a article on motorized infantry:

Motorized infantry - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

motorized infantry is infantry that is transported by trucks or other motor vehicles. It is distinguished from mechanized infantry, which is carried in armoured personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles, and from light infantry, which can typically operate autonomously from supporting elements and vehicles for relatively long periods and may be airborne.

 

[Gyrvendal]

Unity of Command 2 does have dedicated motorized infantry units though, in addition to the ability to temporarily motorize a unit. Historically those units of dedicated motorized infantry definitely existed for many countries. For things like artillery and other heavy equipment, the carriages used for truck transport and horse transport are different, so it's not as simple as detaching the horses and attaching a truck instead. Motorized infantry likely also received training in how to interact with the trucks. When and where to disembark, how to react to an ambush, etc. Their slightly higher stats reflect this as well as their ability to carry more heavy equipment, more ammo, and the fact that they are left without support in terrain where trucks cannot follow them (mountains, jungle).

So yeah I am against the idea of removing motorized infantry. Adding an ability to temporarily speed up an infantry unit (to an intermediate speed, not full motorized) could be cool though!

 

[ConceptEagle]

This game shows operational and strategic warfare, not tactical aspects such as loading infantry onto trucks and moving them from one point to another.

Of course motorized infantry suffer equipment loss when travelling through mountainous terrain, marshes, swamps, and etc. Bad roads and lack of roads will result in the attrition of wheeled vehicles. Understand that motorized infantry units lack tracked vehicles. Infantrymen can tactically and locally dismount from their vehicles but operationally, they still stick with their vehicles.

 

[mursolini]

Game implements German model, where "motorized" division is a division that has enough trucks to fully move it`s personnel.

US motorization was focused on removing horses from infantry divisions, however, as far as I understand US division lacked trucks to fully move it`s personnel in one go, and thus there was less difference in speed of US "motorized" division and German infantry, other than instead of 4.5k horses US division had a 2k various motor vehicles.

German "motorized" from what I understand from charts, needed closer to 3k motor vehicles, a 50% increase compared to US division.

That said, some more knowledgeable on US division organization specifics, can probably chime in.