Historical division size

[GFM]

I'm planning to integrate nation specific division sizes into the game. For example: a german infantry division had about 17,000 men (later 12,000), an italian about 8000 men (just 4 battalions) and a canadian roughly 18,400 soldiers.
Although I do not have enough information yet, I know that this forum is filled up with WW2-fanciers who can surely help me out. Furthermore, I would appreciate your suggestions for nation specific strengths and weaknesses of the different unit types (e.g. inf, mot, arm, cas, int...). Whether you do this by increasing/decreasing the unit attack and defence values (hard attack, soft attack etc.) or by modification of the attack and defence boni, doesn't matter.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Mork]

Not possible.

I suppose this would also require different strength scores and different ratings? Like a '39 German division would be stronger than a '39 Italian one? And require different amounts of manpower?

It doesn't really matter, as as I said, it's not possible.

 

[GFM]

It is possible to modifiy the combat values, the costs and the manpower needed by events. The events would occur just to the beginning of a scenario. Take a look at the HSR-mod. They have nation specific navy events for the major powers, which are really great. I would like to make similar events for army and airforce.

 

[unmerged(51032)]

The real diference of different countries divisions was not the number of the soldiers, but their training and dogmas.
Theoritically an Italian or Albanian or Yugoslavian division trained and following the German dogma will be as efficient as a German one.
The SS troops were composed by many nationalities but were the Elite of the Axis Armies, because they were guided by German officers.

 

[GFM]

Therefore I adopted the HSR SS-brigade in my vanilla Hoi2. But still there is the problem that an italian and a british infantry division have the same value in combat (they even use the same doctrines) although the britsh one was twice as big as the italian one.
The number of soldiers in a division does matter! An italian infantry division was not much more than a regiment. For effective and coordinated use they had to be commanded at corps level, a single italian division was unable to operate.

 

[PNEawf]

Therefore I adopted the HSR SS-brigade in my vanilla Hoi2. But still there is the problem that an italian and a british infantry division have the same value in combat (they even use the same doctrines) although the britsh one was twice as big as the italian one.
The number of soldiers in a division does matter! An italian infantry division was not much more than a regiment. For effective and coordinated use they had to be commanded at corps level, a single italian division was unable to operate.

The game is a SIMULATION, not a recreation. In the game the divisions are the same, regardless of how they were in RL.

The game abstracts the division, allowing for each nation to have the potential to have an identical division in terms of size, skill, training, resources etc. The way it creates different values is through the use of doctrines. Those doctrines determine the size, officer/nco/soldier skill, training, determination, supplies, etc. So in the game an Italian div will be inferior to a german div because of the doctrine. That simulates a variety of factors that occurred in RL. Including the number of men.

 

[GFM]

Actually, it is not even a simulation. There are many points left which aren't integrated in the game, for example the american material supremacy. It is just unfair for the allies if the italians start with 40 full strength "divisions" which where historically half as large as the allied ones. Due to the fact that italians and brits use the same doctrine in the game, you cannot argue that the game balances all historical differences on an abstract level.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Just edit the Inf divs, make different ones for each country and give each country a tech activating them.
Voila, here you go...

 

[Jlop985]

I downloaded CORE the other day, and it has differentiation between 6- and 9-battalion divisions. It's not nation specific, but nations like Italy have less-powerful, cheaper divisions than nations like Britain.

 

[PNEawf]

Actually, it is not even a simulation. There are many points left which aren't integrated in the game, for example the american material supremacy. It is just unfair for the allies if the italians start with 40 full strength "divisions" which where historically half as large as the allied ones. Due to the fact that italians and brits use the same doctrine in the game, you cannot argue that the game balances all historical differences on an abstract level.

You'll find it is a simulation, and whether you think it's fair or not, it is done for game balance and to prevent another billion lines of game code to simulate something it really doesn't need to.

And yes you can argue that the game balances things on an abstract level due to the British having the ability to research more things, and faster than the Italians. Then being able to produce more, and faster.

However, because the game is a simulation it does not need to create the world that was in 1936, nor the exact militaries of each nation. It simply can't if you want to get it for £30. It is not meant to be a recreation of World War Two in every detail. It is just a simulation of the WWII era, BASED on the events and militaries. It does not claim that it represents the exact militaries. If you want something more detailed, go buy an Adv Squad leader box.

 

[egslim]

Perhaps you can do something like that through the Land Doctrine tree. For example raise the IC cost of "Superior Firepower" divisions, while increasing their attack and defense efficiency. That seems pretty doable, though it wouldn't be perfect.

 

[AlanC9]

It is just unfair for the allies if the italians start with 40 full strength "divisions" which where historically half as large as the allied ones. Due to the fact that italians and brits use the same doctrine in the game, you cannot argue that the game balances all historical differences on an abstract level.

So you give the Italians half as many divisions in the initial setup. New divisions take care of themselves, since while the Italian divisions may be twice as large as they should be, they also cost twice as much as they should. Not a big problem.

 

[Captain Frakas]

I downloaded CORE the other day, and it has differentiation between 6- and 9-battalion divisions. It's not nation specific, but nations like Italy have less-powerful, cheaper divisions than nations like Britain.

Here seem to be the solution.

Make 3 tech.

4, 6 and 9 battalion divisions. And make 3 version of each land division.
The tech activate the correct div. and desactivate the other.

Italy would have the 4 battalion div tech.

 

[GFM]

That would work, but I do not want to create new models. I will "steal" the core unit values and modify the divisions via events for the majors ingame.

 

[Terminatrix]

All the guy was asking for was for someone to help him out with Nation Specific Division sizes by numbers of men. I don't recall him asking other people for their opinion on whether it could be done or not. Everybody here who did not try to answer his question is complainer and a most likely has no real idea how the HOI-2 unit system works, or how it can work.

Here's what I know in terms of number of regiments which is the core basis of a division:

German Infantry: 3 to 4 Regiments
German Panzer:3 Regiments (Usually mix of Tanks and Mechanized Infantry)

British Infantry:3 Regiments
British Armor:2 Regiments

Japanese Infantry:3 Regiments

Italian Infantry:2 or less Regiments

Soviet Infantry: 2 to 3 Regiments
Soviet Tank Corps: 3 Regiments

U.S Infantry: 3 Regiments
U.S. Armor:3 Regiments
(If you do your homework, you will find American Divisions have tons of extra Battalion sized units attached to them, which is why they were so big. This was called the "Independen Battalion" system)

Hope this helps!

 

[unmerged(14249)]

The Italian changed to a binary structure for divisions in 1938 and so, in the 1938 scenario, you will find that Italian divisions have a max strength which is 70% of the usual 100.

Andrew

 

[potski]

As has already been said the game is a simulation, and the term "division" is used loosely. Everyone knows that IRL different nations constructed their ideal divisions slightly different from each other. But nations also constructed some of their divisions differently, particularly as the war progressed, and units took losses and were re-organised, or were upgraded, so they were unable to meet the "ideal" composition that the commanders would prefer.

The Italian Ariete Armoured Division No. 132, formed in 1939, was initially made up of a motorised infantry regiment, a tank regiment, an artillery regiment, and additional divisional support units. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_132nd_Armored_Division_Ariete)

The German 1.Panzer-Division in 1939 comprised an infantry brigade (one motorised infantry regiment and a motorcycle battalion), an armoured brigade (two tank regiments), an artillery regiment and other support units.

In late 1939, after the Polish campaign, an additional infantry battalion was added to 1.Panzer-Division. Following their involvement in the French campaign the armoured brigade was reduced to only one tank regiment (Panzer-Regiment 1 remained, Panzer-Regiment 2 transferred to the newly formed 16.Panzer-Division), and a further infantry battalion was added to bring the strength up to two infantry regiments before the Division took part in Barbarossa. (See http://www.feldgrau.com/PzDiv.php?ID=1)

The British 7th Armoured Division ("The Desert Rats") formed in 1940 comprised an armoured brigade of three cavalry regiments, a tank battalion, an artillery battalion and support units. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_7th_Armoured_Division)

The reference to the number of "regiments" used in a typical division for certain countries by Terminatrix is not entirely helpful in identifying the relevant size of each country's divisions. This term is not actually used in the military formations of many countries, and the structure of regiments used in Britain and other Commonwealth Countries (which mainly served an administrative purpose, rather than operational) was not the same as in others such as Germany or US. Wiki contains the following definition:

A regiment is a military unit, larger than a company and smaller than a division. Depending on mission, country of origin, and makeup, a modern regiment is similar to a brigade in size in that both range from a few hundred soldiers up to 2,000-3,000, depending on branch of service and method of organization. The modern unit varies in size, scope, administrative role from nation to nation, and within the armed forces of some nations.

Nevertheless, despite the differences between countries, a generally accepted hierarchy of military units is given in Wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_unit, whereby divisions consist of 10-2000 men and are led by a major-general (or the equivalent rank). HOI has adopted this standard.

The fact that in WWII Italy may have organised into units called "divisions" which were half the numeric size of the divisions of some other countries is not relevant. Two Italian divisions fighting alongside each other would therefore be roughly be the same numeric strength as a German division, and for simplicities sake HOI determines that an Italian Maj-Gen would command a unit the same size as a German Maj-Gen. The game calls all of these basic level units "a division", even if IRL it might have been called/comprised something else.

While it is accepted that it is possible to mod the game to provide a different set of infantry units to represent large and small divisional formations for different countries, what HOI will not allow is to change the command structure. So those ITA "small INF" units would be commanded by a Maj-Gen, while the GB "large INF" would also be commanded by a Maj-Gen. Even if IRL the ITA units might have been commanded by the equivalent of a Brigadier-General.

Taking larger groupings of units, an ITA Lt-Gen is restricted to commanding a corps of three "small INF" divisions (say 24,000 men), while a GB Lt-Gen can command three "large INF" divisions (say 48,000). Since battles in HOI are fought over provinces covering 100's km, they normally involve several corps, stacked in the same or adjoining provinces.

In the game the ITA's already have three disadvantages when fighting GB in North Africa:
1. Their Generals are not as good
2. They have a mixture of MIL and INF
3. Their doctrines/techs are not as good

If you introduce a major stacking penalty against them if they have army-sized forces of up to 150,000 men (say about 18 "small" divisions) led by a Gen that they want to deploy in battle against 50,000 British troops defending Tobruk (3 "large" divisions"), then you are going to weaken them in a way that is not justified. The chances of them scoring any victories whatsoever would just disappear.

 

[Akaki]

Every Soviet Infantry division had 155 tanks - like germany tank divisions - it would be nice to see that in game. After Chalchyn-Gol Sovient Infantry divisions were including 2 artillery regiment and 3 infantry regiments afair.

 

[unmerged(44751)]

Different divisions strengths and sizes have been implemented in the CORE mod. Look in the scenarios and modifications forum for download: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=289

 

[GFM]

All the guy was asking for was for someone to help him out with Nation Specific Division sizes by numbers of men. I don't recall him asking other people for their opinion on whether it could be done or not. Everybody here who did not try to answer his question is complainer and a most likely has no real idea how the HOI-2 unit system works, or how it can work.

Here's what I know in terms of number of regiments which is the core basis of a division:

German Infantry: 3 to 4 Regiments
German Panzer:3 Regiments (Usually mix of Tanks and Mechanized Infantry)

British Infantry:3 Regiments
British Armor:2 Regiments

Japanese Infantry:3 Regiments

Italian Infantry:2 or less Regiments

Soviet Infantry: 2 to 3 Regiments
Soviet Tank Corps: 3 Regiments

U.S Infantry: 3 Regiments
U.S. Armor:3 Regiments
(If you do your homework, you will find American Divisions have tons of extra Battalion sized units attached to them, which is why they were so big. This was called the "Independen Battalion" system)

Hope this helps!

Thank you, lad! The first one who actually understands me