If you call the supply system excellent then I'm afraid you don't understand it too.
It's not terrible at all, but it's far from excellent.
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If you call the supply system excellent then I'm afraid you don't understand it too.
It's not terrible at all, but it's far from excellent.
When you mix facts that are obviuosly true (like suplies cut in half in enemy territory), with facts that are not confirmed ( like global limit of single 10 infra province), well that does not make those facts true!
Like I said, in my test, 2 streams starting near Berlin were feeding whole SU front and I have built extra 25+ divs of 4xharm and dropped them on Urals border where infra was not improved at all. It was still working, there was no general collapse of army supply, just divisions that were overloading local links were obviuosly out of supplies.
Yes IMO it is excellent already, it would be near perfect if you could prevent the supply center from auto-shifting and chose its location. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion I just gave you mine; if you think that I don´t know the HOI3 supply system inside out... think again!
Man I have just showed you the pictures instead of the Portuguese flag imagine that it is the US flag invading Europe through Axis Portugal/Spain. What I have said is 100% true if you have never seen it or you don´t know all the variables that might affect the results of your testing those are your problems not mine.
If you do, you can't call it excellent, unless excellent means something else out there.
Somehow when I test it i clearly see two streams 1k each coming out of provs near Berlin and going towards SU. How can you explain that? I see ~2300 supply going out to the east of Berlin. And if I sum "received" supply for front divisions i get >1400.
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are you producing supply? as that would cause a immeasurable contrubution
If you post a save game I will gladly have a look at it and tell you the reason but without seeing it I would say that the most likely cause is what nimrod123 said; when you produce supplies they are automatically deployed in core provinces with IC, so if you're producing (lots of) supplies they will satisfy local demand and the surplus will go back to your capital; if you have a big surplus of supplies on the network you can see easily see 1000 of supplies coming back to your capital and think that they are going to the frontlines instead.
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I won't weigh in on the question of supply, other than to say that, for all its quirks, it does a reasonable job of forcing players to deal with logistical problems.
Now that I'm back home, I can run the comparison I wanted to run Thursday. I spent some time thinking about the relative advantages of HARM/MAR/whatever in the larger scheme of things, and I decided that this is a great example of needing to counter something with the correct division.
I will compare three different division builds. The HARM/MAR/MAR/ENG, my counter armor HARM/MECH/AC/TD, and a more generic HARM/MECH/SPART/SPART. Let's assume 1941 techs, on the eve of a historical Barbarossa.
Right away, smart players should see that the HARM/MAR division is much cheaper than its counterparts. MECH is expensive boys and girls, and HARM/MAR wins in IC/Days. It also uses far less fuel than either of the other divisions. Again, MAR just walks fast, while the other divisions have gas guzzling brigades. Even though supply usage is comparable, the reduced fuel consumption makes the division an interesting choice for Barbarossa.
We won't talk about terrain, other than to say that HARM/MAR wins in most terrain other than open plains. We all knew that already.
But what about firepower? HARM/MAR has the least amount of firepower of all three divisions. It has a total of 28 HA and SA, with more SA than HA (optimal opponent softness being 57%). My counter-armor division has a total of 38 HA and SA, which is a helluva lot more firepower, and has equal HA and SA (optimal opponent softness being 50%). In a fight, my counter-armor division wins in open terrain or on defense because it has more overall firepower, better toughness and defensiveness. But both divisions are fighting suboptimal enemies. The HARM/MAR division needs to face enemies with softness ratings closer to 57%, while my counter-armor division has a softness of 32%. The counter-armor division needs to face enemies with 50% softness, but the HARM/MAR division is sitting at 75%.
The HARM/MECH/SPART division has even more overall firepower, with total HA and SA of 41. It has more SA than HA, for an optimal opponent softness of 63%. It has comparable defensiveness and toughness, but since it has the right ratio of firepower, it chews up the HARM/MAR division easily. The HARM/MAR division, while having an optimal opponent ratio close to the softness of the HARM/MECH/SPART division, it lacks the same firepower.
Another consideration is width. My counter-armor division and the HARM/MECH/SPART division have a width of 2, while HARM/MAR has a width of 3. In smaller battles, who cares? But in major battles and breakthroughs (which is where the HARM should be in the first damn place), the counter-armor division and HARM/MECH/SPART division have an advantage in concentration of force. In a single axis attack, you can use 4 HARM/MAR or 6 counter-armor divisions. It gets worse for every axis you add (although at a certain point, you can't just keep adding armor to a big fight no matter how many axes you have).
At a certain point, though, you have to ask yourself what the right counter in this situation is. TACs end up being cheaper than most of these divisions in terms of manpower, officers, and IC/days. But a TAC can't hold a piece of terrain or prevent enemy forces from entering Moscow or Berlin. Depending on how you play the war, you might just be willing to fight delaying actions while you TAC the enemy to death. If the enemy is using divisions with 75% softness, TACs are just fine as long as you have some units on the ground keep the armor tied up in combats.
The advantages of the HARM/MAR division seem to be terrain and a far lower fuel requirement. It's slower than the other HARM divisions, but HARM really isn't all about speed anyway. It's softness makes it vulnerable to SA in a way that traditional HARM divisions are not, but it is also not really suited to killing enemy armor. Softness goes both ways, and even with penetration, HARM/MAR lacks the ratio of HA/SA to counter a low-softness strategy. The cheaper IC/days cost of HARM/MAR is offset as an advantage by its inferior total firepower and larger width.
If I'm defending the Soviet Union from German invasion, HARM/MAR makes little sense because the rivers are mine to defend until I grind the German army into dust. If I'm invading the Soviets, it can make real sense to use it, considering the number of rivers between Berlin and Moscow. However, I'd probably go HARM/3xMAR and skip the ENG, on the grounds that breakthrough units need firepower, and the terrain differences between a MAR and ENG are tiny, while the firepower differences are not. I would use it to "breach" rivers, allowing other armored forces (cheaper ARM/MOT/whatever) to pour through into the plains.
Now that I'm back home, I can run the comparison I wanted to run Thursday. I spent some time thinking about the relative advantages of HARM/MAR/whatever in the larger scheme of things, and I decided that this is a great example of needing to counter something with the correct division.
I will compare three different division builds. The HARM/MAR/MAR/ENG, my counter armor HARM/MECH/AC/TD, and a more generic HARM/MECH/SPART/SPART. Let's assume 1941 techs, on the eve of a historical Barbarossa.
Right away, smart players should see that the HARM/MAR division is much cheaper than its counterparts. MECH is expensive boys and girls, and HARM/MAR wins in IC/Days. It also uses far less fuel than either of the other divisions. Again, MAR just walks fast, while the other divisions have gas guzzling brigades. Even though supply usage is comparable, the reduced fuel consumption makes the division an interesting choice for Barbarossa.
We won't talk about terrain, other than to say that HARM/MAR wins in most terrain other than open plains. We all knew that already.
But what about firepower? HARM/MAR has the least amount of firepower of all three divisions. It has a total of 28 HA and SA, with more SA than HA (optimal opponent softness being 57%). My counter-armor division has a total of 38 HA and SA, which is a helluva lot more firepower, and has equal HA and SA (optimal opponent softness being 50%). In a fight, my counter-armor division wins in open terrain or on defense because it has more overall firepower, better toughness and defensiveness. But both divisions are fighting suboptimal enemies. The HARM/MAR division needs to face enemies with softness ratings closer to 57%, while my counter-armor division has a softness of 32%. The counter-armor division needs to face enemies with 50% softness, but the HARM/MAR division is sitting at 75%.
The HARM/MECH/SPART division has even more overall firepower, with total HA and SA of 41. It has more SA than HA, for an optimal opponent softness of 63%. It has comparable defensiveness and toughness, but since it has the right ratio of firepower, it chews up the HARM/MAR division easily. The HARM/MAR division, while having an optimal opponent ratio close to the softness of the HARM/MECH/SPART division, it lacks the same firepower.
Another consideration is width. My counter-armor division and the HARM/MECH/SPART division have a width of 2, while HARM/MAR has a width of 3. In smaller battles, who cares? But in major battles and breakthroughs (which is where the HARM should be in the first damn place), the counter-armor division and HARM/MECH/SPART division have an advantage in concentration of force. In a single axis attack, you can use 4 HARM/MAR or 6 counter-armor divisions. It gets worse for every axis you add (although at a certain point, you can't just keep adding armor to a big fight no matter how many axes you have).
At a certain point, though, you have to ask yourself what the right counter in this situation is. TACs end up being cheaper than most of these divisions in terms of manpower, officers, and IC/days. But a TAC can't hold a piece of terrain or prevent enemy forces from entering Moscow or Berlin. Depending on how you play the war, you might just be willing to fight delaying actions while you TAC the enemy to death. If the enemy is using divisions with 75% softness, TACs are just fine as long as you have some units on the ground keep the armor tied up in combats.
The advantages of the HARM/MAR division seem to be terrain and a far lower fuel requirement. It's slower than the other HARM divisions, but HARM really isn't all about speed anyway. It's softness makes it vulnerable to SA in a way that traditional HARM divisions are not, but it is also not really suited to killing enemy armor. Softness goes both ways, and even with penetration, HARM/MAR lacks the ratio of HA/SA to counter a low-softness strategy. The cheaper IC/days cost of HARM/MAR is offset as an advantage by its inferior total firepower and larger width.
If I'm defending the Soviet Union from German invasion, HARM/MAR makes little sense because the rivers are mine to defend until I grind the German army into dust. If I'm invading the Soviets, it can make real sense to use it, considering the number of rivers between Berlin and Moscow. However, I'd probably go HARM/3xMAR and skip the ENG, on the grounds that breakthrough units need firepower, and the terrain differences between a MAR and ENG are tiny, while the firepower differences are not. I would use it to "breach" rivers, allowing other armored forces (cheaper ARM/MOT/whatever) to pour through into the plains.
Please don´t get me wrong but I find it surprising to see you comparing a *glorified* INF division with real HARM divisions that are nigh on impossible to supply in great numbers (especially in a MP game).
Another thing that I find very surprising is seeing you neglecting the value of 0 width support units like ENG; if I was going down that path instead of HARM+3MAR I would recommend HARM+4MAR because that gives it more firepower and efficiency in bad terrain and you only need to supply 2 HARM to fill a frontage of 10 instead of 3HARM (leaving 2 MAR idle) or not filling the frontage.
Another thing that I find very surprising is seeing you neglecting the value of 0 width support units like ENG; if I was going down that path instead of HARM+3MAR I would recommend HARM+4MAR because that gives it more firepower and efficiency in bad terrain and you only need to supply 2 HARM to fill a frontage of 10 instead of 3HARM (leaving 2 MAR idle) or not filling the frontage.
Its worth noting, that the Harm/Mar/Mar/Eng division, with the correct "engineer" trait leaders at division and corps levels, only has a 16% river crossing penalty.
These guys could easily punch through any river line, get the rest of the army across and then just about any river line is almost impossible to defend.
These guys could easily punch through any river line, get the rest of the army across and then just about any river line is almost impossible to defend.
HARM+2MAR+ENG is really the weakest of "INF" HARM variants. You should really consider HARM+2xMAR+ART instead, that is a different beast due to SA of ART. You don't give up much in terrain mods either, considering how strong ART based div is, and how important SA is overall.
Width is a weakness, but i'd like to point out, that packing 6 of HARM/MECH/SPART/SPART in one province is going to be bad for supply system health, can't really do that in many important places. If you attack with 4+4 from each axis - well you can do that with 6 3-width divs, so you give up just 33% of concentration at considerably lower supply costs.
To me HARM+2xMAR+ART is a sweet spot of price/performance, terrain mods are just right, combat power ( 22 SA + 12 HA => 34 total shots of decent ratio) is great for price.
You are completely right. But consider this, there exists a sweet spot in riverine penalty reduction ( extreme example - going from -90% to 80% doubles your combat power, but going from -20% to -10% is just 12.5% increase in power). 2xMAR+HARM+ART for example, already will have penalty of 50%, to reduce it further, you give up ART brigade slot (~50% extra SA) that works in any terrain and probably a great commander too. So you end up loosing plenty of performance for what is very situational division.
Width is a weakness, but i'd like to point out, that packing 6 of HARM/MECH/SPART/SPART in one province is going to be bad for supply system health, can't really do that in many important places. If you attack with 4+4 from each axis - well you can do that with 6 3-width divs, so you give up just 33% of concentration at considerably lower supply costs.
To me HARM+2xMAR+ART is a sweet spot of price/performance, terrain mods are just right, combat power ( 22 SA + 12 HA => 34 total shots of decent ratio) is great for price.
You are completely right. But consider this, there exists a sweet spot in riverine penalty reduction ( extreme example - going from -90% to 80% doubles your combat power, but going from -20% to -10% is just 12.5% increase in power). 2xMAR+HARM+ART for example, already will have penalty of 50%, to reduce it further, you give up ART brigade slot (~50% extra SA) that works in any terrain and probably a great commander too. So you end up loosing plenty of performance for what is very situational division.
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I feel that we can take the comparison a step further and we can illustrate precisely how the OP must have been beaten.
First, HARM/2xMAR/ENG with the terrain modifiers showing (using the same tech assumption as SM, or as close as I realized):
HARM-2xMAR-ENG
As you can see, even with the MAR and ENG it still suffers a 31% penalty to attack across rivers, with varying other attack penalties for other terrain types that you will see in Russia (lowest being 12.5% for Forest). Its actually a damn good defensive unit, especially against river attacks. Note the slight difference between SM and my CGM IC-day cost is due to me researching all the various Infantry kits in CGM. The OP mentioned that he was trying to attack the divisions and if the GER player did it right, it was in terrain that gave it a bonus to defense on top of the piercing bonus.
Here is OP's unit he attempted to use to counter, 2xARM/MOT/TD:
2xARM-MOT-TD
About what you'd expect penalty-wise from such a hard unit. And look at all that HA which is going to waste on the 75% softness units. It even costs more IC-days, too, but it does save on manpower. The terrain penalties plus piercing modifier plus not optimizing your shots are easily seen as the big reason your hard divs couldn't break the HARM/MAR. In fact it only has 1 SA more than the HARM but with 7 more HA its obvious that this a specific counter to hard units and not meant to be used as a general all-purpose unit.
Now let's look at the area I presume the German divs were primarily operating in; the Baltics and Northwestern Russia:
Northern Front
Rivers and non-plains terrain ahoy! Oh my! In fact, the entire Baltic area seems custom made for delaying actions and softer, non-fuel consuming divisions (or at least not heavily fuel-consuming ones). My guess is you saw the HARM and brought your hard counter divs in, thinking you'd smash them, but if fact that's essentially a foot division, so you would have easily been better off just throwing straight-up 3xINF/ART (or 2x2) against the HARM divs and then use those wonderfully hard divisions of yours to crush, well, anything else the Heer has. Just to see, in CGM I deleted everything from the Barbarossa start point and then built 20 HARM/2xMAR/ENG (non-reserve). That used up almost 1/4 of the available IC-days, and while its certain that the GER player didn't use quite as much, it does mean that it was a significant investment, and likely a "put your eggs in one basket and hope you don't drop it" deal. Just to see how big a hurt it was, I decided to build up the rest of the German Army just to get a rough idea (I also built navy too since I had scrapped the navy). I pumped out 50 3xINF/ART, 50 3xINF/AT, 40 INT, 18 MR, 15 TAC, 20 SS, 10 CL, 5 BC, and had about 10k left, which I would have used on building up the OOB + garrison troops. You said that you had total air superiority so that either means you crushed the Luftwaffe or the GER player invested more into the Heer and/or KM than I did. You will note, though, that I did not build a single extra armored division, which means that if you encountered any other armor then the German player doubled down on his army investments.
Just for comparison, even though they would be giving up the piercing and a bit of CA, you could churn out a little more than 4 3xINF/ART, whose ideal enemy is right around 75%. Sure, each HARM/MAR div may slowly grind through a few of the standard leg infantry divs, but the Russians can trade bodies for time, and that would have freed your massive armored force to go somewhere else and probably win the game.
First, HARM/2xMAR/ENG with the terrain modifiers showing (using the same tech assumption as SM, or as close as I realized):
HARM-2xMAR-ENG
As you can see, even with the MAR and ENG it still suffers a 31% penalty to attack across rivers, with varying other attack penalties for other terrain types that you will see in Russia (lowest being 12.5% for Forest). Its actually a damn good defensive unit, especially against river attacks. Note the slight difference between SM and my CGM IC-day cost is due to me researching all the various Infantry kits in CGM. The OP mentioned that he was trying to attack the divisions and if the GER player did it right, it was in terrain that gave it a bonus to defense on top of the piercing bonus.
Here is OP's unit he attempted to use to counter, 2xARM/MOT/TD:
2xARM-MOT-TD
About what you'd expect penalty-wise from such a hard unit. And look at all that HA which is going to waste on the 75% softness units. It even costs more IC-days, too, but it does save on manpower. The terrain penalties plus piercing modifier plus not optimizing your shots are easily seen as the big reason your hard divs couldn't break the HARM/MAR. In fact it only has 1 SA more than the HARM but with 7 more HA its obvious that this a specific counter to hard units and not meant to be used as a general all-purpose unit.
Now let's look at the area I presume the German divs were primarily operating in; the Baltics and Northwestern Russia:
Northern Front
Rivers and non-plains terrain ahoy! Oh my! In fact, the entire Baltic area seems custom made for delaying actions and softer, non-fuel consuming divisions (or at least not heavily fuel-consuming ones). My guess is you saw the HARM and brought your hard counter divs in, thinking you'd smash them, but if fact that's essentially a foot division, so you would have easily been better off just throwing straight-up 3xINF/ART (or 2x2) against the HARM divs and then use those wonderfully hard divisions of yours to crush, well, anything else the Heer has. Just to see, in CGM I deleted everything from the Barbarossa start point and then built 20 HARM/2xMAR/ENG (non-reserve). That used up almost 1/4 of the available IC-days, and while its certain that the GER player didn't use quite as much, it does mean that it was a significant investment, and likely a "put your eggs in one basket and hope you don't drop it" deal. Just to see how big a hurt it was, I decided to build up the rest of the German Army just to get a rough idea (I also built navy too since I had scrapped the navy). I pumped out 50 3xINF/ART, 50 3xINF/AT, 40 INT, 18 MR, 15 TAC, 20 SS, 10 CL, 5 BC, and had about 10k left, which I would have used on building up the OOB + garrison troops. You said that you had total air superiority so that either means you crushed the Luftwaffe or the GER player invested more into the Heer and/or KM than I did. You will note, though, that I did not build a single extra armored division, which means that if you encountered any other armor then the German player doubled down on his army investments.
Just for comparison, even though they would be giving up the piercing and a bit of CA, you could churn out a little more than 4 3xINF/ART, whose ideal enemy is right around 75%. Sure, each HARM/MAR div may slowly grind through a few of the standard leg infantry divs, but the Russians can trade bodies for time, and that would have freed your massive armored force to go somewhere else and probably win the game.
Why not? The OP was wondering how he could counter this build. I'm showing him some possibilities that counter both the armor of the HARM and the build of the division.
I thought I indicated that TACs were the correct counter, as long as you could tie the HARM/MAR down in combats. TACs are cheaper and have an optimal SA/HA ratio for hitting this kind of unit. They also have decent range. They just can't hold terrain themselves.
Maybe I should of had started with a compliment because what you wrote is correct and undoubtedly another good gesture towards helping/teaching the HOI3 community like you have did countless times in the past. So thank you for your time and effort.
With this out of the way I still think it was a bit disproportionate with around -220 IC days you can build an IMO much more useful "rig" because it is a "task force" designed to kill infantry (the bulk of most armies). So with 5 brigades of INF and 6 of ART you can defeat HARM+MAR+MAR+ENG in plains and still suffer ~same casualties (but I suspect the HARM will still suffer the most). If you spend a bit more IC days (+90) you can add another ART brigade and the HARM will suffer much higher casualties compared to yours.The advantages of the INF+ART approach is that it is much easier on the research front, the 75% softness HARM division will suffer more casualties, it is very useful against the bulk of any army advancing into the Soviet Union, does not require fuel, it can be built faster and it will eventually become much more cheaper in IC days because of how the practical’s work (...); The disadvantages are that it requires twice the amount of MP (but Soviet Union can afford it especially because it will suffer less casualties than the Germans), more officers (that is not really a problem if you use up-to-date "easy on tech front" units) and ~100% more supplies but since it does not use fuel it can be mass produced (...). So like I said before if you want to counter that *glorified* INF division you can do it with up-to-date low-tech units or you can give your HARM an INF brigade along with 2 ART.
BTW my math assumes that all of them are fighting with 1941 techs and all the relevant doctrines (including the “combined arms” doctrine), and they all have skill 3 battle masters at division level all the way up to the TH HQ. Because the Germans can field better leaders the Soviet player will probably have to add another ART brigade to more or less offset that.
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