Hearts of Iron IV - 21st Development Diary - 21st of August 2015

[potski]

Every unit must have a frontage in case the enemy breaks through. A rear support artillery regiment has a frontage when an enemy tank division has passed through the front lines and caught it before it can relocate.

No, this wrong. Some battalions, like Art have no frontage. The minimum level of combat is Div v. Div, but I guess if a commander uses the Breakthrough tactic and it is not countered by being blocked or pulling back Art. battalions from the tanks, then you will see higher losses of equipment/men in the Art. battalions.

 

[harvesarmy]

Why should rocket artillery be a different thing to normal artillery? Don't you get to choose what models of stuff you want to produce anyway?

 

[potski]

I assume we have to create new terminology to differentiate support as in "only for support collumn" and support for "units without frontage"...

Support company and support battalion.

Let's call the support column "battalions"

No, they are support companies in the support column.

Is there a difference between support companies and battalions? I am amusing that there is. When I see people listing support companies some of them would make more sense as entire battalions rather then companies. Especially ART would make more sense as battalions. And In the text Johan specifically says AA battalions.

Yes, there's a difference - companies being the subunit in the support brigade column. Battalions being the subunit in the combat brigade columns.

Art is one type which can be both a battalion or company. They can operate in direct support of infantry or tanks in a combat brigade. These are the equivalent of field/medium artillery.

Art companies are also allowed within the support brigade. These represent heavier artillery.

There are five slots in a support brigade column, but you can choose in your template to have more than one artillery company. This might represent a Div reinforced with Corps/Army artillery batteries.

So in total you can have more than 5 companies in the support brigade column. Perhaps the same applies with recon and engineer companies, so you can have several of these, and add to the bonuses these provide.

In the videos we didn't see any option to add things like AA to the combat brigade columns, in other words to have AA battalions. That would suggest to me that AA is only possible as a company in the support brigade column, and it is one of the ten types. Again probably with multiple companies possible. With each company reducing the effects of air attacks.

I doubt there are two types of AA - towed and self-propelled- in the ten types. Their mobility is determined by the overall mobility of the Div/techs, and they are just one of the ten types.

Given the depth we keep seeing, then I feel the support company types could include:

• Field Hospitals

• Sanitary companies (reduce attrition of men)

• Mechanical workshops (reduce attrition of equipment)

• Bridging engineers (for crossing wide rivers)

• Police (for partisan suppression)

• Transport companies (for improving supply throughput in their state)

Interesting choices with only five slots then are between companies which directly add to combat stats, while others operate indirectly.

 

[potski]

I need HQ's, its not quite beautiful to see this list of all divisions of that theatre blocking the left side

It's not the complete list of all Divs in the Theatre. The Theatre is the whole of Germany. It's "just" the 25 Divs in Command Group 1. You can split these in to smaller command groups - we've seen examples with 7-9 command groups on the screen. If you want you could split those 25 Divs into 5 command groups, each with their own battle plan, rather than one overall plan.

Note the interface changes. We can now give our command groups names. The one in the screenshot is "Command Group 1" (which is a bit unimaginative and might still be work in progress). If I know Paradox that's a text box we can just click in and edit the name, and make it "Army Group A", "10th Army" or "XXV Corps" whatever we want.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

My guess would be -

AA
AT
Art
Rocket Art
Eng
Recon
Signals
MP
TDs
Support services which encompasses medical, logistics and repair

This. And depending on unit they are attached to, they are either motorised or not, armored or not.

 

[melkor88]

This sounds great to me!

 

[Had a Horse]

This. And depending on unit they are attached to, they are either motorised or not, armored or not.

That's a nice and streamlined way of doing it, if that's the case.

 

[Gamer_1745]

That would be cheating though. The individual generals has to earn their traits through action

Yes, but there were schools. Germany had two mountain warfare schools in Garmisch-Partenkirchen that sending officers could gain a mountain warfare trait. Or you have Preußische Kriegsakademie (Prussian War College) that could improve staff & supply trait. I like that BlackICE has 3 levels of a trait so I would like to have the basic (first) level trainable and higher levels earned in combat.

 

[Had a Horse]

I guess maybe military schooling could be a trait? I mean, you could train commanders in various fields and they would get something like "Military School -- Urban warfare", and a smaller bonus than if they had the actual Urban warfare trait? Then when they had enough city combat experience, the 'real' trait would replace the old one?

 

[DeclaredYuppie]

I guess maybe military schooling could be a trait? I mean, you could train commanders in various fields and they would get something like "Military School -- Urban warfare", and a smaller bonus than if they had the actual Urban warfare trait? Then when they had enough city combat experience, the 'real' trait would replace the old one?

It'd be nice if you could also build your specialist infantry in a similar way. Not everyone needs mountain infantry.

But I don't want to drag people too far off topic...

 

[HeilLoki]

1 Inf + 1 Cav + 22 planes attacks (!) an superior general with 2 Inf + 1 Lt. Arm

Please tell me, that's not an AI decision, but the decision of a human! If that's how the AI works, we're screwed.

 

[Gamer_1745]

I guess maybe military schooling could be a trait? I mean, you could train commanders in various fields and they would get something like "Military School -- Urban warfare", and a smaller bonus than if they had the actual Urban warfare trait? Then when they had enough city combat experience, the 'real' trait would replace the old one?

Yes, I would want some minimum level traits that are based on training (historically German generals were in different branches of the Army like , Artillery, Cavalry, Infantry) which can just be added based on history or sending a general to a school. Then as they fight they can learn/improve their skills and get traits with bigger impact. Even if this is not in the base game I would like it in an 'Advanced HOI IV' through either DLCs &/or mods.

 

[Sernista]

1 Inf + 1 Cav + 22 planes attacks (!) an superior general with 2 Inf + 1 Lt. Arm

Please tell me, that's not an AI decision, but the decision of a human! If that's how the AI works, we're screwed.

Strictly speaking, we don't actually know what those divisions are comprised of. If the German units are 'underweight' in terms of having small TOEs then the Poles may have numerical superiority, the Panzer Division may be predominantly motorized infantry taking its name from a small tank component, the Cavalry division may be just collapsing under the weight of all the heavy AT guns it's toting... that sort of thing. All we can see is the names and pictures associated, but those aren't complete information anymore.

 

[HeilLoki]

Strictly speaking, we don't actually know what those divisions are comprised of. If the German units are 'underweight' in terms of having small TOEs then the Poles may have numerical superiority, the Panzer Division may be predominantly motorized infantry taking its name from a small tank component, the Cavalry division may be just collapsing under the weight of all the heavy AT guns it's toting... that sort of thing. All we can see is the names and pictures associated, but those aren't complete information anymore.

There's even another Inf as reserve. Just look at the screen: It's 1936. There is no way in hell that german Inf is "light weight" compared to polish Inf in 1936. Other than that: Green "bubble" indicator says 86 in favor of germans and look at the red/blue indicator too which confirms 86. Also german troops are barely touched, but 1/5th of polish troop strength (maybe it's organisation) for Inf and Cav is gone. We do KNOW that it was a suicide attack. Look at all the stats you see. If that's an AI decision, that's just a bad AI. If it's an human making this decision, it's still horrible, but it might have been a battle started just to show off how land battle works.

 

[Denkt]

It is a battle to slow down a few german divisions that are moving.

 

[DeclaredYuppie]

It's a battle to show off a screen for a dev diary, ya dinguses.

 

[Shade205]

Actually, I'm almost positive its just depicting the historically accurate situation of World War 2. Germany beat Poland because Poland failed to recognize the importance of Tanks and was still trying to pull off Winged Hussar charges against them thinking it would work.

Because of this flaw in tactical thinking Germany was easily able to defeat Poland and France who also failed to see the decaying importance of Armoured Horses.

 

[misterbean]

Polish cavalry only used their horses for faster movement speed. They dismounted when they had to fight. Everything else is just fables.

 

[zonkie]

I will buy this game on Day 1.

 

[Shade205]

Polish cavalry only used their horses for faster movement speed. They dismounted when they had to fight. Everything else is just fables.

Hence the winky face and sarcastic tone of the post.