I have started to get into Hearts of iron 4 and I am quite new to the game. Whenever I play in most fronts I am fighting a war on a pattern happens as to where most of my troops are deployed and are able to stop enemy offensives however, they are not able to breakthrough enemy lines. Is there anything I could use to breakthrough the enemy lines?
How to Breakthrough enemy Lines
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Planning bonus, tanks and high soft attack infantry(14inf/4art), combined with air superiority and CAS.
HoI4 land combat goes through a series of escalations, with big gaps in necessary MIC investment to get from one to the next. I find this to be the basic progression.
1) Any infantry to man the front and keep the enemy from walking in and taking what they want without a fight
2) Decently supported infantry to fight well on the defensive
3) As #2, except in sufficient numbers to saturate the combat width
3a) Motorized infantry to respond to naval invasions, exploit breakthroughs, or hold territory taken by the armor (Situational)
4) Armor divisions to break through a well-defended front and/or exploit said breakthrough
Usually, whatever stage your opponent is at, you should be able to break through if you can be at the next stage or above, all other things being equal. The bigger the gap in capabilities, the more dramatic this will be.
1) Any infantry to man the front and keep the enemy from walking in and taking what they want without a fight
2) Decently supported infantry to fight well on the defensive
3) As #2, except in sufficient numbers to saturate the combat width
3a) Motorized infantry to respond to naval invasions, exploit breakthroughs, or hold territory taken by the armor (Situational)
4) Armor divisions to break through a well-defended front and/or exploit said breakthrough
Usually, whatever stage your opponent is at, you should be able to break through if you can be at the next stage or above, all other things being equal. The bigger the gap in capabilities, the more dramatic this will be.
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It seems with 1.9 the AI has started using 40 width divisions much more frequently. You'll have to use some pretty beefy divisions or 40 width divisions yourself to push through a a tile of half a dozen 40 width infantry divisions.
The way the the attack and defense stats in the game work disproportionately work in favor of higher width divisions. Two divisions with 500 attack will do much less damage, in most cases, than a single division with 1000 attack.
I'm not sure exactly how it works, but if attack does not exceed defense, then the damage done to the defending division is reduced significantly. Given a 40 width infantry division will have a significantly higher total defense than a 20width division, it magically performs far better in combat than two 20 width infantry divisions which in theory should perform identically(or close to it) if the system was actually logical. The purely illogical nature of how the width system works and how there is such an inflexible and optimal meta is one of my biggest bugbears with the game right now. A lot of the game's mechanics become wonky when you have these late game, huge width divisions with staggeringly high defense and attack stats. It can make naval invasions a serious PITA as even with crack marine divisions they will be defeated so quickly your air superiority and bombers won't have time to do much, if anything.
In single player, stacking soft attack is the way to go usually. A division template with motorized and a lot of self-propelled artillery battalions can usually serve that need. If you've got a beefy enough industry, they can be swapped out for medium or heavy SP artillery later on. In this case from what I remember, it's not worth transitioning from 1936 light SP artillery to medium SP artillery until you have the 1941 model rather than the 1939 model.
The way the the attack and defense stats in the game work disproportionately work in favor of higher width divisions. Two divisions with 500 attack will do much less damage, in most cases, than a single division with 1000 attack.
I'm not sure exactly how it works, but if attack does not exceed defense, then the damage done to the defending division is reduced significantly. Given a 40 width infantry division will have a significantly higher total defense than a 20width division, it magically performs far better in combat than two 20 width infantry divisions which in theory should perform identically(or close to it) if the system was actually logical. The purely illogical nature of how the width system works and how there is such an inflexible and optimal meta is one of my biggest bugbears with the game right now. A lot of the game's mechanics become wonky when you have these late game, huge width divisions with staggeringly high defense and attack stats. It can make naval invasions a serious PITA as even with crack marine divisions they will be defeated so quickly your air superiority and bombers won't have time to do much, if anything.
In single player, stacking soft attack is the way to go usually. A division template with motorized and a lot of self-propelled artillery battalions can usually serve that need. If you've got a beefy enough industry, they can be swapped out for medium or heavy SP artillery later on. In this case from what I remember, it's not worth transitioning from 1936 light SP artillery to medium SP artillery until you have the 1941 model rather than the 1939 model.
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Or do the AI-approved strat of ramming your divisions into enemy lines until they break.
That being said, if you want to break through without heavy armour, counterattacks are your friend. Wait for the enemy to attack, and then counterattack once their ORG is mostly drained. This is why GBP isn't as bad as many people say it is.
Or, well, just use tanks. It really does depend on the situation.
That being said, if you want to break through without heavy armour, counterattacks are your friend. Wait for the enemy to attack, and then counterattack once their ORG is mostly drained. This is why GBP isn't as bad as many people say it is.
Or, well, just use tanks. It really does depend on the situation.
+1 everything said already.
OP welcome to HOI! Since I'm not sure if you're playing a major or a minor country, allow me to streamline a little further.
If you're a major, yeah build tanks, and CAS, and win the air war, and SPART, and Rocket Art, and Space Marines (1 HTD in each Infantry unit) and 40 width everything. Then just right click on your enemy's capital and go make a sandwich, wait for the peace conference to proc.
If you're a minor country, or somewhere in between figure out what you're capable of with your country limitations. Do you have manpower? 40w is really good. If not use artillery everywhere (or both ideally). Put artillery in support companies, but also as battalions within your infantry division (this is called line artillery). The soft attack from artillery is fantastic for chewing up enemy lines. Rocket artillery is slightly better if/when you can research it (and build it).
Then once you have these, you can push fairly effectively with infantry using the battle planner to build up a planning bonus (attack bonus) and then, rather than clicking execute (which you can do but its a waste of manpower), find a few provinces that are either under-defended and/or can be attacked by multiple adjacent provinces at once. Use CTRL-RIght Click to order a unit to support attack in an adjacent province but not actually move into that province. Attacking from multiple directions gives a bonus to attack, and expands the combat width which allows more units to participate in the active combat. This should help burn down defenders even more quickly. If a defender from an adjacent province starts moving into the province that you're attacking (to reinforce the active battle), use an adjacent unit of yours to initiate combat on that unit BEFORE it can reinforce (even if you know you can't win). By pinning all potential reserves you stop them from reinforcing the battle you really care about.
Once you win, exploit quickly. Move into that gap, and try and hit the province behind the gap, not adjacent provinces that are still part of the old line (and thus have dug in units). The units that you just defeated will be disorganized with no entrenchment so attack them immediately because you have a big org advantage. Bounce them into the another, deeper province. Keep bouncing them, don't give them time to rest, reorganize and entrench. Smash them!
If you don't have a huge industry, cavalry is REALLY effective at exploiting gaps and running wild behind enemy lines. Make them.
At some point if you've made a truly deep push the AI will start to strategically redeploy to cover your push (you've broken the lines). This is where the fun starts, keep pushing but now start looking at old parts of the line. You should see gaps, under-defended provinces and provinces that have units with little to no organization. Start smashing those areas too using the tips above, and keep pushing (bouncing) them back.
Good luck, our addiction meeting is every Tuesday at the local YMCA
OP welcome to HOI! Since I'm not sure if you're playing a major or a minor country, allow me to streamline a little further.
If you're a major, yeah build tanks, and CAS, and win the air war, and SPART, and Rocket Art, and Space Marines (1 HTD in each Infantry unit) and 40 width everything. Then just right click on your enemy's capital and go make a sandwich, wait for the peace conference to proc.
If you're a minor country, or somewhere in between figure out what you're capable of with your country limitations. Do you have manpower? 40w is really good. If not use artillery everywhere (or both ideally). Put artillery in support companies, but also as battalions within your infantry division (this is called line artillery). The soft attack from artillery is fantastic for chewing up enemy lines. Rocket artillery is slightly better if/when you can research it (and build it).
Then once you have these, you can push fairly effectively with infantry using the battle planner to build up a planning bonus (attack bonus) and then, rather than clicking execute (which you can do but its a waste of manpower), find a few provinces that are either under-defended and/or can be attacked by multiple adjacent provinces at once. Use CTRL-RIght Click to order a unit to support attack in an adjacent province but not actually move into that province. Attacking from multiple directions gives a bonus to attack, and expands the combat width which allows more units to participate in the active combat. This should help burn down defenders even more quickly. If a defender from an adjacent province starts moving into the province that you're attacking (to reinforce the active battle), use an adjacent unit of yours to initiate combat on that unit BEFORE it can reinforce (even if you know you can't win). By pinning all potential reserves you stop them from reinforcing the battle you really care about.
Once you win, exploit quickly. Move into that gap, and try and hit the province behind the gap, not adjacent provinces that are still part of the old line (and thus have dug in units). The units that you just defeated will be disorganized with no entrenchment so attack them immediately because you have a big org advantage. Bounce them into the another, deeper province. Keep bouncing them, don't give them time to rest, reorganize and entrench. Smash them!
If you don't have a huge industry, cavalry is REALLY effective at exploiting gaps and running wild behind enemy lines. Make them.
At some point if you've made a truly deep push the AI will start to strategically redeploy to cover your push (you've broken the lines). This is where the fun starts, keep pushing but now start looking at old parts of the line. You should see gaps, under-defended provinces and provinces that have units with little to no organization. Start smashing those areas too using the tips above, and keep pushing (bouncing) them back.
Good luck, our addiction meeting is every Tuesday at the local YMCA
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Two things are very important on the offense: Breakthrough, and Organization.
Organization is diminished by damage taken in combat. The more organization your units have, the longer they can stay in combat before having to break off the attack. Breakthrough is a defensive stat used when attacking (a division's defence stat is used when defending) that decreases damage done to your units while attacking. These two together allow attacking units to stay in the fight longer.
You can give infantry divisions more of a chance at successfully attacking by giving them artillery, as it increases the damage done to defending force; however, artillery provides no organization to the division, meaning every artillery battalion lowers the division's overall organization, so it has diminishing returns; people generally follow a 1 artillery per 10 combat width rule (so, 4 in an optimal 40-width division). However, this will only work against inferior enemy forces - if a 40-width infantry division attacks another 40-width infantry division, all else being equal, the defending division will win every time. The best way to overcome enemy defences is with armor, as tanks, while they have very low org (though not 0 like artillery), have very high breakthrough and have an armor stat that minimizes damage done to them by anything that doesn't have a high enough armor piercing stat to overpower their armor value, meaning infantry divisions will, unless packed with AT guns or tanks destroyers (which will, however, make them ineffective against infantry), typically lose to armor except in circumstances that mitigate the advantages of tanks, such as defensible terrain (mountains/jungles/etc) or air support. You need to put motorized or mechanized infantry battalions in your armored divisions though, as without them the org of an armored division is too low to last in combat; most people will say 2 or even 3:1 tanks to infantry is fine. I prefer 1:1 but that's just me.
When attacked, stopping the enemy is a good thing, so it looks like you are learning the game. To get a quicker read on the game, it might help if you thought in terms of defending armies and attacking armies. What I mean by that is man your front with armies containing defensive infantry divisions. Discover what it takes to hold the front using the least amount of resources. This can be a game in itself.
Once you have figured out an efficient defense, then try to make a single attacking army with your remaining resources. With just the one army to think about, it may help your focus when building something that can breakthrough. There are good posts here about what that offensive army could contain. Depending on the resources your country has, tanks and CAS are the go to workhorses in penetrating a line. With your first games, learning what makes an offensive army unstoppable can be a lot of fun.
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Also manually control all your armor. For some reason the AI (still terrible after all these years) will use armor last in an attack. So if you pick 4 INF and 2 armor divisions it will lead the attack with INF which will almost always lose unless you can attack from more than 2 provinces. So manually attack with Armor, then an hour later manually attack with INF.