Elastic defence vs. Armoured spearhead.

[Tormodius]

In the tech-screen land doctrines section those concepts are described well. They were historical ww2 stategies, and I think this works kinda realistically in HoI too. (it's what I like about the game)


When the axis uses the armoured spearhead strategy,
they can run the panzerdivisions fast and their goal is a breakthrough through the elastic front to reach the key prov.
If they break through, they might split and move very fast to many different provinces. Following them are loads of infantry to defend the captured territory. Mech.inf. following armour div. is helpful, cause they can split fast into undefended territory and so on. So do you use that in MP games?


As when playing Soviet against this kind of attacker, you might have to pull back and make the front elastic , organize, gather around the German attacker and then attack with a powerful punch. And repeat that until you can force them back after producing many T-34s. I find it stressing, but I have not tried it against a human player. Well, it's the elastic defence. Forts provide bonus for static defence, and that's useful in those humongous fort at the Maginot line where Germans will have a hard time attacking, even when surronding them! Except for this line or mountain areas, I think static defence will not work very good in MP games... what do you think? Which one do you use when being attacked by an overwhelming force ?

 

[juv95hrn]

Whats totally unrealistic is that you are able to strat redeploy into newly captured provinces far behind the enemy line, even in Russia. Did no one enlighten the designers of the railway conversions on the Eastern front? I suggest a house rule or patch addition prohibiting strat deployment from/to/through provinces adjacent to enemy provinces.

 

[jgbaxter]

Well said juv, would be nice to see.

 

[Tormodius]

As for railroads we should have been able to remove infrastructure by explosives, (scorched earth) and build it up fast, like the bridge in Kwai. (force labour)


Ok, as you say the HoI deployment mechanism is kinda strange. That must be the most unrealistic feature of the game, e.g. when building new ones you can deploy them in the home country and the annexed ones. Germany cannot annex France unless it takes Cayenne, that goes for NL also, unless Japan takes those rubber islands. Thus Germany cannot deploy V1 or V2 rockets along the canal, but they can deploy them at home, and then redeploy them anywhere...

Redeployment time is essential for realism. the CORE-mod had a fix on this, which made the time longer (one week), but did only half damage to the org. I think it might work better.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Another thing that is annoying with strat redeploying:

Germany can have its Eastern Front provinces weakly guarded (say 3 divs), and when SU starts an attack deploy its superior units into the battle in no time. So unless SU manages to pull of an simulationous attack against 3 provinces, each done with at least 48 divs, it will fail.

Oh, and about the elastic defence - I have yet to see a SU player who can defend against Germany at all when the game was started in '36.

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Originally posted by DoctorPlague
Redeployment time is essential for realism. the CORE-mod had a fix on this, which made the time longer (one week), but did only half damage to the org. I think it might work better.

I think this is a very good point here (the whole thread is an excellent topic for MP discussion BTW). Strat redeployment always starts the unit off at 0 org, that always seemed poorly designed to me. I think its reasonable to assume that a newly created unit has some degree of training, albeit no expirence. Longer deployment times and higer Org when deployed seems like a fair compramise, however Im with Juv on not being able to strat deploy in a province that is adjecent to an enemy province.

All three of these things combined would make the most sense to me, for both the offensive point and of view and defensive.

I would be remiss though if I didnt find someway to work in my post a disagreement with Isebrand (real or imagined).

So on your comment on the elastic defense Ise, that maybe your expirence but I think the elastic defense principal was enhanced somewhat with the loss of org from movement penalty. I havent done this myself, or seen it done with the new feature but now if your the russians I would imagine you could keep falling back, and allow the germans to take land and lower thier org with thier movement and then counter attack.

 

[unmerged(8114)]

Originally posted by Odin1970
So on your comment on the elastic defense Ise, that maybe your expirence but I think the elastic defense principal was enhanced somewhat with the loss of org from movement penalty. I havent done this myself, or seen it done with the new feature but now if your the russians I would imagine you could keep falling back, and allow the germans to take land and lower thier org with thier movement and then counter attack.

Well, in our current game I tried falling back. I applied elastic defence from the first hour of the battle, and I'm still applying it, but after 1.5 years of war the frontline runs through Krasnojarsk. I didn't perform very well, but even if I had I don't think it would have changed the outcome much:
I did a grave mistake in the beginning that allowed Germany to corner and destroy 50 divs in Finland. But at the same time I managed to encircle and destroy 18 German divs in the south, so maybe that balanced it out.

After that I managed to prevent any further major destructions of my units, always rather retreatring then fighting. I had the forts set up accordingly etc etc. I even managed to pull out my best 24 divs out of Moskov after a 3 month struggle before they got encircled.

However, defence is no valid strategy at all in HoI. Once you are on the run, it is very hard to become offensive again because of the fast movement rates. Even if you try to regroup somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Siberia, the German troops will be there in a couple of days via the transibirian railway. Once you run out of org for counteroffensives, you are done for it. And you need a lot of troops for counteroffensives because of redeploying. Germany just needs 3 divs in each front province and ~15 tanks with brigade in the SR box and SU's offensive options tend towards zero.


Well, maybe I'm just not good enough. But unless I see a SU player winning against a decent German player in the '36 scenario I rather like to think it is game flaw. (I should note that in a previous game with me playing Germany I took out UK and SU single-handed within a year, and US asking for unconditional surrender after its fleet made the first encounter with my improved subs. )

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Originally posted by Isebrand
Well, in our current game I tried falling back. I applied elastic defence from the first hour of the battle, and I'm still applying it, but after 1.5 years of war the frontline runs through Krasnojarsk. I didn't perform very well, but even if I had I don't think it would have changed the outcome much:
I did a grave mistake in the beginning that allowed Germany to corner and destroy 50 divs in Finland. But at the same time I managed to encircle and destroy 18 German divs in the south, so maybe that balanced it out.

After that I managed to prevent any further major destructions of my units, always rather retreatring then fighting. I had the forts set up accordingly etc etc. I even managed to pull out my best 24 divs out of Moskov after a 3 month struggle before they got encircled.

However, defence is no valid strategy at all in HoI. Once you are on the run, it is very hard to become offensive again because of the fast movement rates. Even if you try to regroup somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Siberia, the German troops will be there in a couple of days via the transibirian railway. Once you run out of org for counteroffensives, you are done for it. And you need a lot of troops for counteroffensives because of redeploying. Germany just needs 3 divs in each front province and ~15 tanks with brigade in the SR box and SU's offensive options tend towards zero.


Well, maybe I'm just not good enough. But unless I see a SU player winning against a decent German player in the '36 scenario I rather like to think it is game flaw. (I should note that in a previous game with me playing Germany I took out UK and SU single-handed within a year, and US asking for unconditional surrender after its fleet make the first encounter with my improved subs. )

Well I know your an accomplished player with a good MP Pedegree. So I will take your example as fact. Based on that I accept that it is a game flaw, you should, as the Russians be able to complete a Elastic Defense Doctrine given the loss of org for movement. Maybe a solution for this would be no loss of org for a unit retreating from an engagement.

Now that seems unrealistic to me, but as you fall back your loosing org to thus negating the doctrine. So much success in HOI is dependant on org and its why Germany always suceedes its head start in Doctrine is its one compelling advantage over any other nation, still this should be a viable strat for the russian player. How I dont know, but I trust your expirence and your word implicitly on your game expirence so I dont know what the answer is, but Org is the key....

 

[unmerged(8114)]

I'm not 100% sure if there is really nothing one can do with a defensive strategy, but I have yet to find one that works. Maybe in this game the problem also was that the inf-tech gap between SU and Germany was too large.

Another problem seems that the advantage is on the side of the attacker. With all boni the attack has quite often a higher effectivness, and he can throw in a lot more units than the defender if attacking from multiple sides.

My analysis what went wrong in the game:

- On outbreak of the war I had ~250 divs, but most of them (~220) were plain infantry. Germany had 120 divs, most of them with brigades. The plain infantry proved rather useless against the German troops, no matter if on offense or defense.
- I planned for a first serious defense in forest provinces, all with lvl 3 fortifications. Unfortunately it seems forests don't hinder tanks that much.
- I had air-superiority for the first 12 month, but no bomber or bomber tech. If I would have had a stack of dive-bombers, the war might have ended differently.
- I didn't have enough tanks, and those I had sucked.
- I decided to apply elastic defense, and I sticked to it. In retroperspective I have to say that because of my defensive setup I missed many opportunites to hit back.
- At chokepoints I had deep defensive lines, e.g. 24 divs in Leningrad and 24 divs in the neighboring front-line province. Result: The 24 divs in the front-line get beaten, retreat to Leningrad and arrive at the same time as the German attackers in Leningrad. Now a lot of those still high org units in Leningrad fight with low effectivness and Leningrad falls much faster than it would have done without the additional 24 retreating divs. Maybe realistic, but something one should keep in mind.

So my conclusion is:
Forget about defensive strategies in the '36 scenario. Next time I will probably let Germany rush deep into SU, setting up a defence around Ural or even further to the east. Meanwhile I throw 150-200 plain inf at Japan in the far east. Once that is solved Germany would have to reach Wladiwostok in order to annex SU. That is entirely possible for Germany within a couple of month, but the hope would be to delay the German troops until the US can do a serious landing in France before it happens.

 

[Tormodius]

Very interresting Isenbrand! I have never played neither Germany or SU in an MP game... But from my experience in SP games I noticed that as SU I could reasearch doctrines and tanks and have as high maxorg and nice tanks as the German AI units by their attack in -41.


However, if Germany was a decent human player using a superior panzer spearhead, they would probably have beaten me in doctrine competition too, since that is the decisive factor in combat, and they would prioritize it. Hence, my counterattacks would fail... Unless perhaps I used loads of AT-brigades and tanks ?

 

[unmerged(9612)]

Strat Redeploy Issues

There are a number of issues with this, but lets first try to understand what it tries to model:

My understanding is that it models the movement of troops by rail or by a combination of rail and other means (e.g river barges, road transport etc...) thus allowing troops to move more quickly and efficiently.

The problems are :

unability to strat redeploy in or accross allied territory: this is unrealistic

ability to strat redeploy anywhere where there is a land connection regardless of distance and infrastructure : clearly there are no trains/quick transport in the mongolian desert or african jungles so this is unrealistic as well....

redeploy time unrealted to distance: obviously it should take more time to redeploy from Lisboa to Vladivostock than from Berlin to Kiel


Some of the criticism made here however I disagree with. Specifically "redeploying into battle" was a common practice and there are multiple examples of soviet or german divisions moving into battle immediately upon detraining. Further some of the HOI provinces are quite big, so it would be strange to prevent redeploying into or out of them on the basis that an ennemy is "adjacent" (which may mean that he is some hundred of Kms away)

In addition some of the problems mentionned here are not related to redeploy but rather to supply. The germans for example are able to drive deep into russia because there is never a supply problem. There is no easy solution to this within the existing game model. One would need to introduce new concepts such as supply depots and distance from supply depots to address this issue.

The strat redeploy issue however can be I believe addressed more easily:

The mecanism would need to be changed as follows :

troops require (as they do now) one week to be returned to the pool

to redeploy from the pool troops are not deployed immediately as is the case now, but after a number of days that is calculated depending on distance and infrastructure of the target region from the troop location in the pool (which in most cases will be the capital.... So to redeploy from Berlin to Warsaw could take one day while from Berlin to Vladivsotock may take 3 weeks as an example)
if that region is captured by the ennemy before the redeploy can be completed, then the troops stay in the pool

no redeploy can occur into, out of, or accross territories with infrastructure levels of 10 or less (there are simply no trains or other means of transport there)... this by the way is a rule that is easy to use as house rule

reploy can occur into, accross, out of territories with infrastructre less than 34 and more than 10 ONLY if its national territory (not annexed or occupied)... so the soviets can redeploy into =say= any of their soviet home province with infra 20, but the germans will never be able to redeploy there... this is to give an advantage to the defender and models the fact that the nationals make better use of their local transport assets than the invaders

 

[Tormodius]

How will a recently deployed unit with org = 0 moving into a battle perform? My guess is that he dies...

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Re: Strat Redeploy Issues

Originally posted by Tomar
There are a number of issues with this, but lets first try to understand what it tries to model:

My understanding is that it models the movement of troops by rail or by a combination of rail and other means (e.g river barges, road transport etc...) thus allowing troops to move more quickly and efficiently.

The problems are :

unability to strat redeploy in or accross allied territory: this is unrealistic

ability to strat redeploy anywhere where there is a land connection regardless of distance and infrastructure : clearly there are no trains/quick transport in the mongolian desert or african jungles so this is unrealistic as well....

redeploy time unrealted to distance: obviously it should take more time to redeploy from Lisboa to Vladivostock than from Berlin to Kiel


Some of the criticism made here however I disagree with. Specifically "redeploying into battle" was a common practice and there are multiple examples of soviet or german divisions moving into battle immediately upon detraining. Further some of the HOI provinces are quite big, so it would be strange to prevent redeploying into or out of them on the basis that an ennemy is "adjacent" (which may mean that he is some hundred of Kms away)

In addition some of the problems mentionned here are not related to redeploy but rather to supply. The germans for example are able to drive deep into russia because there is never a supply problem. There is no easy solution to this within the existing game model. One would need to introduce new concepts such as supply depots and distance from supply depots to address this issue.

The strat redeploy issue however can be I believe addressed more easily:

The mecanism would need to be changed as follows :

troops require (as they do now) one week to be returned to the pool

to redeploy from the pool troops are not deployed immediately as is the case now, but after a number of days that is calculated depending on distance and infrastructure of the target region from the troop location in the pool (which in most cases will be the capital.... So to redeploy from Berlin to Warsaw could take one day while from Berlin to Vladivsotock may take 3 weeks as an example)
if that region is captured by the ennemy before the redeploy can be completed, then the troops stay in the pool

no redeploy can occur into, out of, or accross territories with infrastructure levels of 10 or less (there are simply no trains or other means of transport there)... this by the way is a rule that is easy to use as house rule

reploy can occur into, accross, out of territories with infrastructre less than 34 and more than 10 ONLY if its national territory (not annexed or occupied)... so the soviets can redeploy into =say= any of their soviet home province with infra 20, but the germans will never be able to redeploy there... this is to give an advantage to the defender and models the fact that the nationals make better use of their local transport assets than the invaders

Excellent post and reasonable solutions to the issues. I would like to add the issue of Org. Redployed troops start at 0 org, and thats a big part of the problem. Assuming these would be implimented as you state them, the deployment of unorganized troops would negate most of the strategic value of the changes, in combat anyway.

This is getting more into another issue so I wont labor on it, but 0 org units are useless, there should be at least 75% of initial org values already in place when deployed (just an arbitrary figure there...). My preference would be to have increased organization with expirence that makes more sense to me. I know the issue is strat redeploy and where and when and how fast, but Org is a major factor in HOI and one that should be addressed with this issue.

 

[unmerged(9612)]

Org of redeployed troops

Odin, in the latest version, org of redeployed troops is equal to 50 percent of their org prior to redeploy... So if you redeploy a unit which has an org of say 76, after redeploy it will have 38

 

[unmerged(12746)]

Re: Org of redeployed troops

Originally posted by Tomar
Odin, in the latest version, org of redeployed troops is equal to 50 percent of their org prior to redeploy... So if you redeploy a unit which has an org of say 76, after redeploy it will have 38

Really? Im playing CORE 6.03, 1.05C. I didnt notice that it had that feature. When I strat redeploy I swear I dont get any org to start Tomar. Latest game is with the U.S. very hard furious, I placed all my air units in the pool and redeployed for upgrading later on, they started with 0 org when redeployed, im sure of it.

Is it dependant on the difficulty setting?

 

[unmerged(9612)]

Well I dont know about Core... Never use it... but in plain HOI thats how it works

 

[unmerged(8114)]

I mostly agree with you, Tomar.
Only one point - historically it was possible to deploy right into the battle zone (if I'm not wrong, part of the German panzer army that was deployed to break the Sovjet ring around Stalingrad was shot to peaces while unloding from the railway. So they must had redeployed quite closely to the frontline).

However, even with this redeploying into battle zones, it probably has taken a few days for the unit to engage in battle in a functional formation (not counting the days or weeks it would have taken to send them there in the first place). As movement rates are in HoI at the moment, this is probably best simulated by allowing only redeployment in neighboring provinces. It then only takes a couple of days before the troops reach the battle.