Hearts of Iron IV - 22nd Development Diary - 28th of August 2015
- Thread starter Johan
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Or say a Italan Marine div with 5 Logistics Companys for lean supplies in africa?
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If I'm reading this correctly, there are 7 types of support unit that can't be put into brigades, yet divisions of the major powers tended to have all of them by the end of the war. Given that, can Recon and Engineer units please be available as battalions that can be added to brigades so that we can still build historical divisional templates?
In regards to MP's, one of their key functions within a division is actually traffic control. Suppression of partisans is mostly done by ordinary soldiers mounting patrols, conducting sweeps or standing guard at key locations etc. As such, partisan suppression should be a mission that can be given to any unit (much like HOI2 if my memory serves) and would prevent that unit from moving, digging in, training or preparing to follow a battle plan. Adding MP's to a division should give it a small boost to movement or reduce Org loss from moving.
In regards to logistics units, all divisions had them (and usually more than 1 company - late war British divisions had 4 quite large companies) and didn't eat or receive ammunition without them. I think a better unit would be a motor transport unit, giving a non-motorised unit a boost to movement at the cost of additional fuel consumption. This would allow one of the key differences between British/US infantry divisions to be shown vs their German or Italian opponents. The Allied divisions included lots of motor vehicles even though they were not fully motorised. Infantrymen did not have dedicated transport but just about everyone else did, however a significant percentage of the infantry could be transported at any one time with vehicles working a shuttle system. This gave them significant mobility advantages. In fact Rommel called British Infantry Divisions in the desert "motorised" and lamented his Italian infantry's comparative lack of mobility. Another unit that could be available as an either/or with the Motor Transport company could be a Pack Train - giving a unit better mobility in difficult terrain.
In regards to MP's, one of their key functions within a division is actually traffic control. Suppression of partisans is mostly done by ordinary soldiers mounting patrols, conducting sweeps or standing guard at key locations etc. As such, partisan suppression should be a mission that can be given to any unit (much like HOI2 if my memory serves) and would prevent that unit from moving, digging in, training or preparing to follow a battle plan. Adding MP's to a division should give it a small boost to movement or reduce Org loss from moving.
In regards to logistics units, all divisions had them (and usually more than 1 company - late war British divisions had 4 quite large companies) and didn't eat or receive ammunition without them. I think a better unit would be a motor transport unit, giving a non-motorised unit a boost to movement at the cost of additional fuel consumption. This would allow one of the key differences between British/US infantry divisions to be shown vs their German or Italian opponents. The Allied divisions included lots of motor vehicles even though they were not fully motorised. Infantrymen did not have dedicated transport but just about everyone else did, however a significant percentage of the infantry could be transported at any one time with vehicles working a shuttle system. This gave them significant mobility advantages. In fact Rommel called British Infantry Divisions in the desert "motorised" and lamented his Italian infantry's comparative lack of mobility. Another unit that could be available as an either/or with the Motor Transport company could be a Pack Train - giving a unit better mobility in difficult terrain.
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I count 4 slots in the support column... so which one's the fifth slot? The one on the far right? Why not have five slots down the left and make it clear?
Dury.
Dury.
I think that the OOB should be included. This isn't CK 2 or EU 4 dealing with hundreds of years of history. HOI is specifically focused on combat. We shouldn't be seeing generic "stacks" of units led by <insert famous general here>. I feel like PDX will have taken two steps back, one step forward if they go with the HOI 2 OOB instead of the HOI 3 OOB.
Also, allows for more customization and easier tracking of theaters, groups, etc... Would be lovely to be able to see how much supply HG Nord needs instead of having to get out pen and paper and adding up individual supply needs of each division in that area.
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Hmmm...
I gotta say I'm not particularly thrilled with the "gamification" done here.
By this I mean :
1) Having more options than there are slots
2) Having to "pay" to expand divisions.
1) On the one hand, in real-life, if you are talking about a US/UK/GER/USSR division, particularly armored or mechanized, even a cursory look over the TO&Es will reveal that it was not uncommon for a division to have everything. All the support needed. AT/AA/Artillery/Engineers/Recon/Signals/Fields Hospital, the works. It feels gratuitous to make the player choose. And moreover, to make the player be unable to field divisions with historical TO&Es.
Non-combat Support Battalions feel like needless feature creep in particular. Virtually all divisions from all nations that fielded regular armies did in fact have some form of divisional Logistic+Maintenance/Field Hospital/Signal support formations. To make the player have to choose to sacrifice, what, realistically, is part and parcel of the organization of even the lowliest Romanian reserve infantry division is... puzzling.
2) "Paying" to expand divisions.
That's not how it works.
Making a division bigger isn't that big of a deal from an organization point of view. It is, however, a much greater effort industrially. Particularly in the case of frontline units, especially armored and mechanized formations.
Again, a cursory look over historical TO&Es will reveal that in fact divisions have gotten smaller(!) as the war went on. Actually, it was closer to an expansion of support assets. The number of battalions didn't change overall (besides deliberate expansions), but the number of support assets increased. So in 1941 a division might have 8 frontline battalions + support. In 1944 that would have transitioned to 2 x (4 x frontline battalions + support). The difference is that there's now twice the amount of support on the field for the same 8 frontline battalions.
However... going by the systems set up, it's just a straight shot. "Bigger is better. Mother Russia stronk!". When ironically, the USSR embraced the Brigade as the main operational element. As in just 1 Regiment + Division's worth of support. This resulted, of course, in the Soviet forces having more artillery and AT support (among other things) per frontline battalion.
And this point is among so many other particular elements that will be swept aside by the tide of player-designed 25-battalion/5-brigade divisions. Which is just too bad.
EDIT : Partly-ninja'd by jamesd.
I gotta say I'm not particularly thrilled with the "gamification" done here.
By this I mean :
1) Having more options than there are slots
2) Having to "pay" to expand divisions.
1) On the one hand, in real-life, if you are talking about a US/UK/GER/USSR division, particularly armored or mechanized, even a cursory look over the TO&Es will reveal that it was not uncommon for a division to have everything. All the support needed. AT/AA/Artillery/Engineers/Recon/Signals/Fields Hospital, the works. It feels gratuitous to make the player choose. And moreover, to make the player be unable to field divisions with historical TO&Es.
Non-combat Support Battalions feel like needless feature creep in particular. Virtually all divisions from all nations that fielded regular armies did in fact have some form of divisional Logistic+Maintenance/Field Hospital/Signal support formations. To make the player have to choose to sacrifice, what, realistically, is part and parcel of the organization of even the lowliest Romanian reserve infantry division is... puzzling.
2) "Paying" to expand divisions.
That's not how it works.
Making a division bigger isn't that big of a deal from an organization point of view. It is, however, a much greater effort industrially. Particularly in the case of frontline units, especially armored and mechanized formations.
Again, a cursory look over historical TO&Es will reveal that in fact divisions have gotten smaller(!) as the war went on. Actually, it was closer to an expansion of support assets. The number of battalions didn't change overall (besides deliberate expansions), but the number of support assets increased. So in 1941 a division might have 8 frontline battalions + support. In 1944 that would have transitioned to 2 x (4 x frontline battalions + support). The difference is that there's now twice the amount of support on the field for the same 8 frontline battalions.
However... going by the systems set up, it's just a straight shot. "Bigger is better. Mother Russia stronk!". When ironically, the USSR embraced the Brigade as the main operational element. As in just 1 Regiment + Division's worth of support. This resulted, of course, in the Soviet forces having more artillery and AT support (among other things) per frontline battalion.
And this point is among so many other particular elements that will be swept aside by the tide of player-designed 25-battalion/5-brigade divisions. Which is just too bad.
EDIT : Partly-ninja'd by jamesd.
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I agree. I was fine with dropping divisional commanders to reduce time and clicks needed, but there should at least be corps and armies with a level of higher HQ which has regional responsibilities. In reality a theatre commander has a very limited ability to influence the performance of any particular division under his command, with each lower level of command exercising exponentially greater influence. HOI4 leaving that out is a step backwards from HOI3.
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Beautiful! Not to be negative, but surely any modern (1940's) Army would be using every single one of those support "companies"???
Why not support battalions?
And what about the OOB!!!!These things belong at the Corps level for the most part. Such potential with an OOB that utilizes Corps, Army, Army Group etc... as force multipliers/centers of supply. Instead of supplying 100+ divisions with 400+ support companies we could just supply 25 Corps and 100 support battalions. (assuming 4 support companies/battalions per division/corps)
Afaik, all the support companies/battallions Johan mentioned also existed at divvisional level. Check niehorsbat site.
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By the way. Finally we see some counters. If we could only see them instead of 10 kms soldiers...
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Great!
But I will puzzle about these support companies. I wish I were getting everything...
But I will puzzle about these support companies. I wish I were getting everything...
Yea... I kind of abused it too much so it's no longer possible. It didn't feel right either to have several of the same unit IMO. But I guess you could always mod it if you really want it.
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There are non-frontage battalions available to put in the combat brigades, including Art, and I guess, R.Art and AT.
If you have no Field Hospital it doesn't mean you have no medics in the Div. Adding the FH just adds extra capability to the Div to deal with casualties at the front, instead of sending them to (abstracted) rear organisations.
Similarly with Logistics. Supplies still arrive because they come from rear abstracted logistics services. The support company adds extra capability into the Div.
It doesn't mean bigger is better. You could start the game with nothing in the support brigade, but fairly big combat brigades. Then add support companies into the templates. Later reduce the size/number of the combat brigades. This causes the proportion of support elements to combat battalions to increase.
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Maybe allow divisions to use all the support companies, but give the support companies different levels so they can be specialized. Know what I mean? Just a thought.
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No. NATO symbols, instead of the Paradox icons. As promised from the start. Let's not confuse these with the counters and start another pointless counters discussion
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quick question, do we still have FUEL CONSUMPTION? I couldn't find it in last screenshots with soviet forces...
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Yeah, you right. If you can add 5 FH to your template, it's kinda overpowered... But if it can be modded, I'll take a look at it
Given that modification of divisional structures is now done solely through swapping out templates, *that* is something I'm keen to see how it works. That = transitioning from a larger template to a smaller one.
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