Germany has more dockyards than France...

[Mirage2k]

So I did some research on the Wiki, where one of maybe the most useful lists to evaluate game balance is the List of states: http://www.hoi4wiki.com/List_of_states

Copying into Excel and doing some summations, I find some interesting numbers:

Germany starts with 40 Military, 10 Naval and 32 Civilian factories for a total of 82. It has a total of 150 building slots, so it can expand with up to 150-82=68 factories without anschluss or focus and tech.

France starts with 6 Military, 8 Naval and 36 Civilian factories for a total of 50. It has a total of 169 building slots, so it can expand its starting industry with 169-50=119 factories without going Napoleon or using focus and tech.
47 of those building slots are in colonies, a minority of which were historically captured by Axis. The remaining 122 are in France.
The early lead in military factories gives Germany the advantage early game, but the roughly equal building slot number allows France to eventually match German power later on if the war stagnated as it very well could have.

That's perfectly fine, my issue is with the number Naval dockyards: How does it make sense that Germany starts with more dockyards than France, a colonial empire with at least 3 times the coastline and a much bigger fleet? Did the french navy materialize out of thin air? For comparison, Britain starts with 19 dockyards which makes sense. Dockyard numbers should be UK>France>Italy>Germany at the start of the game, if Germany wants to go historical path and produce submarines enough to threaten UK they will actually have to build some submarine factories like they did historically!

This doesn't matter much in playthroughs where everything goes exactly as they did in history, but it breaks ahistorical options for no reason. Imagine ahistorical England goes communist while Germany and France goes WW1 on each other along the Maginot/Siegfried line: Both would be focusing construction on military factories and by 1942 or so Germany could have a better navy than France (still smaller, but more modern ships) as they have 25% more dockyards. It also makes it unhistorically hard to for example have a fascist France in non-agression pact or alliance with Germany go for a colonial expansion plan similar to Japan or any other number of other things that can happen.

It's as if China started with more dockyards than japan: Sure the starting Japanese navy would still win a historical war and then it wouldn't make much difference, but it would ruin any game where China manages to hold off japan for several years as they often did in some versions of HoI 3. Hell, why not give Albania 8 dockyards and remove 4 from Italy? After Italy conquers them and non-core penalty is applied, they will have the same effective number anyway! What a brilliant way to model Italian buildup of naval production!

The way it is currently set up, the French Fleet is set up to do one thing only: survive until 1940 when some of it is destroyed and some joins Royal Navy. The problem is that OPTIONS to do anything else is restricted as a result of a situation that is ALSO historically incorrect.

PS: That Wiki list is a gold mine of info for balance, this is just one of many "nuggets". I suggest anyone interested to check it out
PS #2: Manpower column is made into dates when importing to Excel no matter what I do to change formats before or after. Really annoying, but given the extreme detail of their decimal numbers I would assume they are quite historical

 

[Shatterfury]

The German Empire had the second biggest fleet, the German Reich is the inheritor of much of that infrastructure, I don`t see any problem here.

Both the Reich and France are land powers, their primary focus will be land and air, sea will be the last important one.

 

[Mirage2k]

The German Empire had the second biggest fleet, the German Reich is the inheritor of much of that infrastructure, I don`t see any problem here.

The German Reich is very different from the German Empire of WW1. The Versailles treaty, which Germany slowly started to deviate from in 1934, kept them from building a major fleet. Obviously they didn't have a big dockyard capacity without using it for anything. Germany has the IC in-game to expand their dockyard capacity in the mid thirties as they did historically.

Both the Reich and France are land powers,

Both Germany and France have at various times in history been considered land powers, naval powers or both, this is not a permanent world we live in. In 1936, France was a land power and a naval power.

their primary focus will be land and air, sea will be the last important one.

That is up for the player to decide and will also depend on diplomacy.

 

[sebirean6]

The German Empire had the second biggest fleet, the German Reich is the inheritor of much of that infrastructure, I don`t see any problem here.

Both the Reich and France are land powers, their primary focus will be land and air, sea will be the last important one.

That's basically it, the only advantage France has is that it's fleet is already built while Germany starts with a very small fleet due to disarmament. And even those extra dock yards still require a lot of time to build a new capitol ship fleet, which is accurate.

Without significant infrastructure investment, and so long as France does not stop producing ships altogether, I think the player would be hard pressed on taking on the French fleet with German surface fleet only, and no additional air support from the mainland.

 

[Axe99]

While France's navy and shipbuilding capacity shouldn't be underestimated, it's also important to note that Germany built a lot of tonnage in the late 1930s, and had a large shipbuilding industry. Unfortunately for France, a lot of its shipbuilding capacity was in north-western France which was damaged during WWI, and didn't really recover fully afterwards. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I just gave my Conways a quick eyeball as to what France was producing and produced in 1935-1940 and, on the face of it, the 10:8 ratio for Germany to France does sound reasonable. If you want better, tag me and I'll give you the list of what was produced by both nations in that early game window when those dockyard numbers are relevant.

 

[Mirage2k]

While France's navy and shipbuilding capacity shouldn't be underestimated, it's also important to note that Germany built a lot of tonnage in the late 1930s, and had a large shipbuilding industry. Unfortunately for France, a lot of its shipbuilding capacity was in north-western France which was damaged during WWI, and didn't really recover fully afterwards. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I just gave my Conways a quick eyeball as to what France was producing and produced in 1935-1940 and, on the face of it, the 10:8 ratio for Germany to France does sound reasonable. If you want better, tag me and I'll give you the list of what was produced by both nations in that early game window when those dockyard numbers are relevant.

Very good post there, do you have a link to that list? If you have to write it manually you can save the time, it's not that important.
Is it possible that Germany prioritized warship construction higher than France, and thus produced more warships in the late 30's while France produced more civilian vessels (largely convoys in game)? I would be very surprised if Germany produced more ships than France which had a colonial empire, I would not be surprised if the Germans spent a much greater proportion of their dockyards on warships and thus produced more of those classes than France in the years 1936 to 1940 as you suggest.

 

[Patisfidel]

I'll begin by saying that this is in fact the laziest proof of a point ever.

From wikipedias list of shipbuilders and shipyards edited to remove those defunt pre ww2 and those founded afterwords
Germany

• AG Weser
• Blohm + Voss
• Bremer Vulkan
• Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG
• Deutsche Werft
• Deutsche Werke
• Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG)
• Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft
• Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW) (Kiel)
• Lürssen
• Meyer Werft (Papenburg)
• Neptun Werft
• Nobiskrug
• Nordseewerke (Emden)
• Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven
• Schichau-Werft
• Stülcken
• ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems

and the same list for France.
France

• DCNS
• Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée
• Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire
• Ateliers et Chantiers de Saint-Nazaire Penhoët
• Constructions Mécaniques de Normandie (CMN) in Cherbourg

While the above lists are certainly not conclusive proof, they are at least indicative.

 

[commandercoop]

I think a good explanation would be the London Naval Treaty, which regulated and reduced Naval Armament and Naval Shipbuilding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Naval_Treaty

Powers who signed the Treaty :

Italy
UK
USA
France
Japan

Another Treaty, upon which the LNT was built upon, was the Washington Naval Treaty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty

So in short, with limitations on what they could Construct and have at the time, having reduced Naval capacities makes sense to me

And taking a passage from the WNT,

"Under the Treaty, the standard displacements of submarines was restricted to 2,000 tons with each of the major powers being allowed to keep three submarines up to 2,800 tons, and France being allowed to keep one. Submarine gun caliber was also restricted for the first time to 6.1 inches (155 mm) with one exception, an already constructed French submarine was allowed to retain 8 inch (203 mm) guns. This put an end to the 'big-gun' submarine concept pioneered by the British M class and the French Surcouf."

Note, France being limited to one such Submarine, instead of the other Powers being allowed 3.

Many Ships at the time of this Treaty were actually scrapped, or converted into something that would be allowed per the Treaty.

EDIT ADDING :

To add to that, not many realise, by 1935 Germany was no longer restricted to the Versailles limits placed on its Navy. Thus being 1 year before the starting bookmark of HOI IV

As the Anglo German Naval agreement was put into practice to set the German Fleet at 35% of the tonnage of that of the United Kingdom.

And while this does not sound like much, it was more than Germany was forced to accept in the Versailles Treaty.


"The Naval Pact was signed in London on June 18, 1935, without the British government consulting with France and Italy, or later, to inform them of the secret agreements which stipulated that the Germans could build in certain categories more powerful warships than any of the three Western nations then possessed. The French regarded this as treachery. They saw it as a further appeasement of Hitler, whose appetite grew on concessions. And they resented the British agreeing, for what they thought a private gain, to scrap further the peace treaty and thus add to the growing overall military power of Nazi Germany. Great Britain, as the French contended, had no legal right to absolve Germany from respecting the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty.

As an additional insult for France the Naval Pact was signed on the 120th anniversary of the famous Battle of Waterloo, in which British and Prussian (German) troops defeated the French army under Napoleon."

Many in Germany even thought this Treaty would be a start of an Anglo-German Alliance against France and the Soviet Union

Even so, many argue that Germany could not have even reached the limits even until 1942, due to certain Problems Germany lacked at the time.

 

[Axe99]

Very good post there, do you have a link to that list? If you have to write it manually you can save the time, it's not that important.
Is it possible that Germany prioritized warship construction higher than France, and thus produced more warships in the late 30's while France produced more civilian vessels (largely convoys in game)? I would be very surprised if Germany produced more ships than France which had a colonial empire, I would not be surprised if the Germans spent a much greater proportion of their dockyards on warships and thus produced more of those classes than France in the years 1936 to 1940 as you suggest.

Here we go - these are what's in production at the start of the game. I did Germany for a thread a whiles back (thanks be for the search function - although who would have known I've posted over 100 posts with the word "destroyers" in them, lol):

Germany:
- Mid-way through two BCs (Scharnhorst, Gneisenau)
- Started two BBs (Bismarck, Tirpitz)
- Started one CV (Graf Zeppelin - just, but it was laid down on the 28th of the 12th, 1936)
- Mid-way through one CA (Admiral Hipper) and started three CAs (Blucher, Seydlitz, Lutzow)
- Mid-way through 12 DDs (Z5-Z16), started about three DDs (Z17-Z19)
- My SS numbers are a bit ropey (I don't have clear details on years, just ranges), but hopefully a decent estimate. Mid way through fourteen SS (U25, U26, U18-24, U27-31).

From:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-uk-in-naval-production.894808/#post-20303494

France I'm doing now, taking the dates from Navypedia (so a bit more precise than for Germany, but shouldn't be a material difference):
- Mid-way through two BCs (Dunkerque, Strsbourg)
- Started one BB (Richelieu)
- Mid-way through six CLs (La Galissoniere class)
- Mid-way through 6 DDs (4 La Fantasque and 2 Mogador class, which were all large for DDs)
- Mid-way through 5 SS (4 Minerve and 1 Aurore class)

So at the start of the game, whether it's on numbers or tonnages, Germany is building more naval vessels than France.

I'm afraid I can't comment on the civilian ship-building side of things (well, I could comment, but it'd be based on no knowledge whatsoever, so not that helpful ), but the dockyard balance for the different powers at game start does look reasonable at first glance.