HOI4 Dev Diary - Air Improvements

[Alex_brunius]

Any reason why we cant bomb units not in combat?

I mean if I know an enemy is sitting across the river, why wouldnt/shouldnt i be able to bomb them for afew days to soften them, then engage?

Well if your not fighting the enemy units how do you know they are actually there, or at least know the specific location of them?

Historically it was almost impossible to damage stationary land units behind the front since they would dig in, camouflage up or move equipment into forests where they would be impossible to spot.

There is a good historical example of this in preparation for D-Day when great efforts where put into bomb out a German artillery strongpoint turning several square km of land into moon-crater landscape and allotting special forces to knock it out early on in the invasion. When they arrived they realized the Germans had moved their guns a few km inland a week prior to the bombing and that they had basically been bombing nothing but dirt and empty trenches...

 

[DoctorDanny]

That's looking good! I hope naval improvements are also due soon as the naval game suffers the same problems the air game has.

 

[Praetori]

Well if your not fighting the enemy units how do you know they are actually there, or at least know the specific location of them?

Historically it was almost impossible to damage stationary land units behind the front since they would dig in, camouflage up or move equipment into forests where they would be impossible to spot.

There is a good historical example of this in preparation for D-Day when great efforts where put into bomb out a German artillery strongpoint turning several square km of land into moon-crater landscape and allotting special forces to knock it out early on in the invasion. When they arrived they realized the Germans had moved their guns a few km inland a week prior to the bombing and that they had basically been bombing nothing but dirt and empty trenches...

I would argue that airborne recon was quite darn good at getting at least partial information on enemy dispositions, especially on the Steppes of Southern USSR and in the Desert but even in denser types of terrain (Jungle often being the hardest ofc). Dispersed/Deployed formations were not that vulnerable to air-attacks or unspotted artillery behind the lines but marching ones were, especially to air. At least some form of increased attrition would make sense and especially for units moving under hostile air owning the skies.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I would argue that airborne recon was quite darn good at getting at least partial information on enemy dispositions, especially on the Steppes of Southern USSR and in the Desert but even in denser types of terrain (Jungle often being the hardest ofc). Dispersed/Deployed formations were not that vulnerable to air-attacks or unspotted artillery behind the lines but marching ones were, especially to air. At least some form of increased attrition would make sense and especially for units moving under hostile air owning the skies.

Sure, but in this case he was asking specifically to bomb units "sitting at a river" which I interpreted both as stationary, and as with access to vegetation cover nearby.

 

[Praetori]

Sure, but in this case he was asking specifically to bomb units "sitting at a river" which I interpreted both as stationary, and as with access to vegetation cover nearby.

Ok. I could see some minor attrition through adjacency though, especially with artillery involved. There are limitations to the "movement-is-attack" mechanics as there's no "stance" in regard to combat. It's either full out assault or phony-war handkerchief waving when in reality you'd have combat patrols, recon by fire and artillery harassment missions even on calm fronts or in the dead of winter (such modifiers or mechanics would tie nicely into partisan action as well).
I do agree that softening the enemy before an attack is kinda covered in the normal combat though it would be nice with a tactic "rolling barrage" as a tactical opener by some doctrines and assuming enough artillery which deals damage but doesn't provide any movement forward during that tactic, just to have it represented.

 

[Wraith11B]

The problem, @Praetori is that is a tactical level consideration versus our strategic level of operation. I would like to see a mechanic which has the front line increase in attrition to cover such things (when at war) more than the rest of the front.

 

[Praetori]

The problem, @Praetori is that is a tactical level consideration versus our strategic level of operation. I would like to see a mechanic which has the front line increase in attrition to cover such things (when at war) more than the rest of the front.

I'm not sure I follow. Adjacency attrition would to all intents and purposes mean that division up front rubbing against hostile divisions (when at war but not in an outright battle) would lose equipment and manpower while those sitting behind the lines wouldn't (unless subject to "normal" attrition). Isn't that the same you're describing?

 

[Alex_brunius]

Ok. I could see some minor attrition through adjacency though, especially with artillery involved. There are limitations to the "movement-is-attack" mechanics as there's no "stance" in regard to combat. It's either full out assault or phony-war handkerchief waving when in reality you'd have combat patrols, recon by fire and artillery harassment missions even on calm fronts or in the dead of winter (such modifiers or mechanics would tie nicely into partisan action as well).
I do agree that softening the enemy before an attack is kinda covered in the normal combat though it would be nice with a tactic "rolling barrage" as a tactical opener by some doctrines and assuming enough artillery which deals damage but doesn't provide any movement forward during that tactic, just to have it represented.

For artillery attrition/fighting to make sense though I feel that a better model for logistics is needed where you can tell your divisions to either conserve and save up supplies/ammo for future offensives, or expend their surplus in skirmishes/recon in force and artillery bombardment ( giving the enemy a bit of attrition ).

But now I think we are moving away from topic here which should be air improvements

 

[ScramX]

Congratulations, you made Air Combat sexy!

Also, did you fix that rocket site glitch where it says rocket sites are in a random province even in '37?

The bug is not that it shows where Rocket Sites are, the game shows where air bases and rocket sites are even in provinces where there are none and that aren't controlled by you (It's just where they will be when they're built or currently are) which is extremely helpful when trying to figure out which province the US is bombing you from so you can take that over and cut off their plane flow xD

 

[Praetori]

For artillery attrition/fighting to make sense though I feel that a better model for logistics is needed where you can tell your divisions to conserve and save up supplies for future offensives, or expend their surplus in skirmishes and artillery bombardment ( giving the enemy a bit of attrition ).

But now I think we are moving away from topic here which should be air improvements

That would be even better yes. Attack stances is one step in the right direction and supply stance would be even better. Sadly enough the current stances doesn't affect combat per-se, but then we'd have to have a different pinning mechanic dependent on width as well (or it could be exploited). And then you'd have to have the AI being able to handle it correctly which might be simple or might be a nightmare.

The reason I even brought it up was in relation to air. It would make sense to look at attrition as a way of implementing air dominance other than just movement. Divisions arriving piecemeal at the Second Battle of Kharkov or Normandy with half of their tanks or motorized gone/delayed/damaged due to Air was pretty decisive (and those are just two examples out of literally thousands). Not so in-game. Supply is another thing that should really struggle with loads of TACs and CAS running around uncontested. Not sure if just modelling the supply would do it justice though as it's pretty binary. And if you're going through attrition mechanics then it would be sound to also look any other such measures straight away for development and balancing efficiency's sake.

I was thinking yesterday that maybe divisions should have a internal "delayed" pool for equipment that isn't outright destroyed but still not readily available (like a three colored stacked bar for STR) since straight up-and-down air attrition to equipment would be either a bit harsh or not effective enough. The balance affected by air is combat effectiveness vs time and airpower was great at disrupting marching units aside from intervening in direct CAS roles (which required some pretty fancy coordination, training and experience).
The speed penalties well represent some of the good things of air superiority but having the entire RAF and USAAF sitting down for tea and biscuits (or coffee) despite perfect flying weather just because there's no ground combat going on just feels weird.

 

[Balesir]

I was thinking yesterday that maybe divisions should have a internal "delayed" pool for equipment that isn't outright destroyed but still not readily available (like a three colored stacked bar for STR) since straight up-and-down air attrition to equipment would be either a bit harsh or not effective enough. The balance affected by air is combat effectiveness vs time and airpower was great at disrupting marching units aside from intervening in direct CAS roles (which required some pretty fancy coordination, training and experience).

For me, this is part of what is represented by ORG loss; the unit still has strength but has reduced effectiveness due to lack of organisation/troops and equipment not in the right places. What tends to happen then is that the engaged sections fight hard - giving good effect, but there is no "depth" or resilience to the effort, so when ORG runs out the unit ceases to have any offensive effect after a rapid "tail off".

 

[Constans]

I'm not sure if this is what is being discussed or not, but I would love a return to the HoI3 system of having Air Wings use "organization" just like ground units.

Prolonged operations and combat would whittle down the organization, decreasing effectiveness and maybe also increasing time between sorties. I know this is not adding simplicity and is certainly adding a bit more micro, but it would help represent the "fatigue" factor of maintaining an air campaign that was a big factor in the war.

 

[Praetori]

For me, this is part of what is represented by ORG loss; the unit still has strength but has reduced effectiveness due to lack of organisation/troops and equipment not in the right places. What tends to happen then is that the engaged sections fight hard - giving good effect, but there is no "depth" or resilience to the effort, so when ORG runs out the unit ceases to have any offensive effect after a rapid "tail off".

I understand what you're saying and I've reasoned along those lines myself but that interpretation doesn't really connect with the combat width and other such mechanic logic though. Low strength, missing armor, guns etc is paramount to the hitting power of a division and PDS decided to represent equipment but didn't really exploit the possibilities of the concept beyond the production-system.

ORG in general is somewhat of a relic that hasn't developed in the same way as the other mechanics between the games. HOI4 generally has the same basic combat foundation as HOI2 which rested on a completely different framework in regard to everything else.
When they moved to individual equipment as part of the STR in HOI4 it opened up a lot of other doors that makes ORG kind of an odd bird in its current iteration tbh.

ORG does make sense in terms of being a target for air as in air-attacks disorganizing the divisions but losing ORG itself doesn't really affect anything else than arbitrary staying-power. Hitpoints, Strength and the derived values for Defense and Breakthrough being completely decoupled which makes it pretty darn unintuitive (and that's something that HOI4 in other areas really tries to avoid, which is basically my point).

The air system is completely new for HOI4 and it kinda shows since it's not interfacing with ground warfare and logistics in all the ways that it could. There's huge potential here so I really hope for some insightful improvement.

 

[Balesir]

ORG in general is somewhat of a relic that hasn't developed in the same way as the other mechanics between the games. HOI4 generally has the same basic combat foundation as HOI2 which rested on a completely different framework in regard to everything else.
When they moved to individual equipment as part of the STR in HOI4 it opened up a lot of other doors that makes ORG kind of an odd bird in its current iteration tbh.

I don't think I agree. ORG represents what Operational Research has termed "friction" (after von Clauswitz). OR on WW2 and subsequent conflicts has shown that military units can take surprising amounts of punishment without significantly losing fighting capability. Once a certain "critical" point is reached, however, fighting effectiveness degrades sharply and morale and cohesion tend to collapse soon afterwards (and casualty rates actually escalate sharply at this point, too - it is generally a command objective to withdraw the unit from action before this occurs). This is what I have always seen ORG as modelling, and I think it does it tolerably well.

 

[bERt0r]

I'm not sure I follow. Adjacency attrition would to all intents and purposes mean that division up front rubbing against hostile divisions (when at war but not in an outright battle) would lose equipment and manpower while those sitting behind the lines wouldn't (unless subject to "normal" attrition). Isn't that the same you're describing?

As of now, attrition does not affect manpower in any way. Be careful when you use the term. Having any kind of bombing only damage equipment seems pretty strange to me.

 

[elcargador]

when will be released the new patch?

 

[Praetori]

As of now, attrition does not affect manpower in any way. Be careful when you use the term. Having any kind of bombing only damage equipment seems pretty strange to me.

Yes and that's outright strange tbh which is why I injected the MP bit since I think it should be represented. It's been discussed in previous threads that no amount of starvation or cold will cause actual personnel losses. Bombing in combat does hit manpower though the HP is quite significant compared to equipment. I've honestly wondered why PDS didn't treat manpower in a similar manner as they do equipment. That way you could actually train personnel and trace trained personnel in different categories through a pool.

The reference to attrition as an example of air affecting ground is founded solely on simplicity. Attrition of various sorts is already in the game for units not in ground combat so it would make sense or rather be the simplest method to throw in attrition from air as well.

 

[Praetori]

I don't think I agree. ORG represents what Operational Research has termed "friction" (after von Clauswitz). OR on WW2 and subsequent conflicts has shown that military units can take surprising amounts of punishment without significantly losing fighting capability. Once a certain "critical" point is reached, however, fighting effectiveness degrades sharply and morale and cohesion tend to collapse soon afterwards (and casualty rates actually escalate sharply at this point, too - it is generally a command objective to withdraw the unit from action before this occurs). This is what I have always seen ORG as modelling, and I think it does it tolerably well.

Yes and I understand why they included it in the previous iterations of HOI (it made more sense in HOI2 though). It's just that now that they've basically changed the foundations of everything else the mechanic should be tuned to reflect that. As it currently stands you almost never see units taking severe equipment-losses while taking less hits to ORG. As far as HOI4 goes it's just a mana-meter that doesn't interact with the rest of the mechanics. It's not bad, just odd compared to the rest of the parameters.

 

[Balesir]

Yes and I understand why they included it in the previous iterations of HOI (it made more sense in HOI2 though). It's just that now that they've basically changed the foundations of everything else the mechanic should be tuned to reflect that. As it currently stands you almost never see units taking severe equipment-losses while taking less hits to ORG. As far as HOI4 goes it's just a mana-meter that doesn't interact with the rest of the mechanics. It's not bad, just odd compared to the rest of the parameters.

Yeah, tune it by all means, but it still represents something important about combat units.

 

[Praetori]

Yeah, tune it by all means, but it still represents something important about combat units.

Indeed it does but the current iteration doesn't really serve any purpose. It doesn't really scale with experience, it doesn't affect the damage output or the ability to fight (until it's gone which=retreat). In HOI3 it was at least partly tied to leadership (officers). It honestly feels pretty detached as a mechanic and there are many ways on how it could be mechanically be improved, both in terms of intuitiveness for players as well as tool for other mechanics to hook into.
Another problem is that there's no comparing ORG between two units without actually mouse-overing and studying the overlay popups (which is just poor GUI design) because two full blue bars can represent 10 or 100 depending on the unit composition. It's basically just a retreat-bar right now which is a bit sad considering what it hails from.