Hearts of Iron IV - 44th Development Diary - 12th of February 2016

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Nice DD. Is it possible that resistant could steal some equipment and help the liberating army with some extra equipment when liberated or give manpower or units? No partisans, but something to help when real army arrives.

And sorry about the first spam.
Removing partisans from the game is a ridiculous notion.
 
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Will we be able to create puppet states or new countries from territory of occupied countries, like Belarus or Ukraine (or even Russia) from Soviet Union? Because in that time most modern time nations were still occupied, and it would be cool to have opportunity to give them independence.
 
As discussed above, not particularly. There is nothing that particularly suits cavalry for CO-IN warfare. Arguably they have greater mobility and this always helps, but this is even more true of recon and motorised infantry units. Light infantry were arguably better since dismounted troops were less likely to walk into ambushes, be hit by mines etc. and could operate in rougher terrain.



Essentially light infantry though, and the best thing about helicopters is that they can't be ambushed so easily.



But then again, cavalry cannot operate easily in rough, mountainous terrain. Again, leg-infantry appear better suited for this. The fact that cavalry divisions were employed in these areas is more a measure of how they weren't suited for other activities.

Cavalry as "anti-partisan specialists" was basically introduced in HOI2 and has become accepted as kinda-sorta true, but it isn't really. In reality, the main thing that suits units for anti-partisan warfare, other than detailed training of the kind that didn't really happen in WW2, is what they don't have: heavy equipment.

PS - Checking pictures of the various SS Cavalry divisions in operation, you'll see lots of pictures of them operating dismounted. Patrolling seems to have been done mainly on foot, with cavalry perhaps used for mobility between areas of operation.

Minor quibbles- read about Italian campaign, Monte Casino mules/ horses kept the allies fed and in ammo at some points.

I still see the truth that in Coin mobility is a key ingredient. Think through coin ops, quick responses, cut offs, and even regular sweeps and search and destroy or Hearts and Minds, covering a lot of ground regularly needs mobility.

Also Cav in Hoi anti partisan terms can be seen as mounted infantry not the sabre charging Cav of previous centuries.

But still I take your points. Maybe, besides Military Police specialists, Ideally :

1. Perhaps Option of specific training for a boost, or experience trait

2. Give a commander Divisions and Give them an anti partisan mission order (mobility has it's natural place in the movement around) ! in the planner
The order reduces partisans. Increases attrition and slowly trickle lowers Org (capped at something from this, say 70% ). ??
 
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Basicly I can be nice If I need manpower (not only from the occopied country but also because I need less suppression forces). Or I can be harsh If I need more Industry and have manpower to spare. Ok thats easy enough.
 
Maybe, besides Military Police specialists

Mmm . . . but then were MPs CO-IN experts either? Not as far as I can see.

2. Give a commander Divisions and Give them an anti partisan mission order (mobility has it's natural place in the movement around) ! in the planner
The order reduces partisans. Increases attrition and slowly trickle lowers Org (capped at something from this, say 70% ). ??

Having an anti-partisan order sounds unnecessary - just have troops not otherwise employed do CO-IN. Having a CO-IN expert trait for generals (and field martials?) is an excellent idea though - don't need divisional commanders for this, just give it to generals.
 
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Except looking at my book on the Soviet Partisan Movement, they had about 80,000 partisans behind Army Group Centre on 1st October 1943, with some groups as large as 15,000. There were also another 13,000 behind Army Group North. They had formed into actual combat units that controlled territory unless the Germans concentrated significant forces to drive them out, which left other areas undefended or weakened the front lines. They weren't well equipped with heavy weapons as there's a limit as to what could be flown or parachuted in or how much they could capture and maintain, but they caused big problems for the Germans that went well beyond we need to add an extra infantry battalion with its attached police company to that state.

The Yugoslavs also formed combat units from their partisans, growing in numbers from 80000 in late 1941 to more than 300000 by late 1943, as did the Poles in their uprising.

I think that resistance is going to be another area that won't be modelled well by the state mechanic (as opposed to provinces) as occupation forces could concentrate on keeping the main lines of communications through a state open, while there were large numbers of partisans in the woods on either side.

Yea and how many "battles" happened? In the SU they formed but scattered at the sight of Germans. It was so rare for partisans to actually fight an opposing army that its like adding blimps to the game because they appeared in WW2.
 
Yes! No more sending troops from my indochina frontline in the mountains/jungle all the way to central China in the mountains to hunt partisans... that was such a pain lol.

Keep up the good work :D
 
Yea and how many "battles" happened? In the SU they formed but scattered at the sight of Germans. It was so rare for partisans to actually fight an opposing army that its like adding blimps to the game because they appeared in WW2.

There were massive uprisings, but not so many on a scale you would notice on the HOI4 map. Basically, the following:

- Warsaw 1944 and Operation Tempest

- Yugoslavia 1944-45

- Operation Concert and the Rails War

- Paris 1944

- Prague 1945

Not quite blimps. More like something that deserves, eventually, its own mechanism so that you can have them occur dynamically, but which should be basically one-shot deals that take a lot preparation. In the meanwhile events can cover it.
 
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If you have enough MP or troops etc the resistance will tick down and go to 0. So yeah you'll want that.
Please be careful with that as in the Balkans there were about 50 Axis divisions nevertheless Yugoslavia had the highest density of partisans over the World.
 
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Were Military Police experts in CO-IN ops? No - they were traffic cops and experts at busting-up brawls amongst drunk and disorderly off-duty soldiers. Thus we fondly referred to them as "MEAT-HEADS" when I was in the Canadian militia (reserves) back in the '80's.

The kind of police that were expert at CO-IN ops in territories occupied by fascist governments are the kind that I have no interest in considering.

I am more than willing to go the ahistorical route of using Military Police.

...

The only reason I used Cavalry playing as Germany in HoI 3 (and earlier) was due to the 'whack-a-mole' partisan units that would pop. Cavalry move quicker than infantry, but use no (or little) fuel. I'm more than willing to relegate the horses to pulling the Mess for the Infantry battalions.

...

I can't see the need to recreate the actual partisan wars in detail. They were important - nobody really understood how significant they would become before the war started. But they were MESSY. Inevitably, it devolves down to civilians vs. the kind of "special unit" that fascists use to discourage the ENTIRE population from whence they evolve. THAT cannot be represented in the game AT ALL - for obvious reasons.

There is absolutely NO WAY that real WWII partisan warfare can be historically represented.
 
Thank so for another great DD, love the ability to manipulate control of occupied territory!
So, how does resistance work from the point of view of those who are resisting? I didn't see any new information here on this topic.

Yes, I'm interested in that point of view, as well. How will Governments-in-Exile be able to spawn resistance networks in their occupied lands, and how will a general uprising manifest itself?
 
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I wonder if you can give land/provinces to a non aligned faction member? For example: can Daniel (in WWW) give land to Romania when the USSR surrenders, hopefully that will boost friendly relations from Romania and they would join the Axis. I would think one can give land to a nation as long as that state is not in a faction already. Like it would be too late to give Correlia back to Finland.
 
I wonder if you can give land/provinces to a non aligned faction member? For example: can Daniel (in WWW) give land to Romania when the USSR surrenders, hopefully that will boost friendly relations from Romania and they would join the Axis. I would think one can give land to a nation as long as that state is not in a faction already. Like it would be too late to give Correlia back to Finland.
yes you can use your own peace score to hand things to people who fought on your side
 
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I love the way you are changing resistance from whack-a-mole to a more abstract system podcat. Well done, you have got it just right. Nice to see the effect of partisans simulated in a way thats not boring and repetitive.
 
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If there will be no rebel armies, how are you going to simulate the activities of Albanian of Yugoslav partisan armies, who fought with really big enemy forces and won these battles?
 
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Mmm . . . but then were MPs CO-IN experts either? Not as far as I can see.

Having an anti-partisan order sounds unnecessary - just have troops not otherwise employed do CO-IN. Having a CO-IN expert trait for generals (and field martials?) is an excellent idea though - don't need divisional commanders for this, just give it to generals.

Agreed, RL the bulk of Western MP units are traffic/route and drunken soldier control. But, MP units do play a role in COIN. Besides, shame on you, from your contributions to the threads I've read you must know MP is a euphemism for NKVD etc. :p At least that's how I saw them- as an abstracted bag of what was (a little like encryption decryption catches more than just radar)

Thing is COIN is an activity. A repetitive; 99% boring, sapping drudge. Exponentially so for most if it's for a heinous regime. You put points forward for leg infantry having decent Suppression. If that was implemented down stream, I would advocate that there should be an in game cost vs reward ratio to mirror life and make it a game choice. A group or regular divisions help with COIN- but they lose some Org and initially take more attrition because of it.

The release the patrol stance Model DLC :D
 
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If there will be no rebel armies, how are you going to simulate the activities of Albanian of Yugoslav partisan armies, who fought with really big enemy forces and won these battles?
HOI4 wont simulate Yugoslavia very well
But that will be better than having a Yugoslavian type of partisan uprising occuring everywhere like we had in HOI3.

You will still need to tie up occupation troops to prevent resistance in HOI4 the resistance will just show up as factory damage poor supply throughput etc rather than partisan armies.

This swaps a good representation of yugoslavian occupation for a good representation of the occupation of the rest of europe. And it gets rid of the repetitive whack-a-mole gameplay.
 
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