Integrated or Independent Heavy Armour

[Lither]

For the purposes of the thread, let's put aside the discussion over whether or not producing heavy armour is worth it at all.

Now that we know for certain that we can produce individual one-battalion units in the field, it does allow us to recreate the much smaller sizes of heavy tank units that were historically used.
Germany set up the "Schwere Panzerabteilung", heavy tank battalions, that were usually kept independent of a division and shuffled around the frontlines as needed. To my knowledge, only the Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland ever had an integrated Tiger/II battalion.

So of course, the question is, should heavy armour battalions be integrated into divisions or kept seperate?
I can find and/or project pros and cons for both sides.

Independent pros:

• More flexible, allowing precise use of extremely valuable, hard to build tanks
• Allows mobile divisions to leave the slow heavy tanks behind and exploit the breaches they create

Cons:

• Probably more frequent attrition (historically, ping-ponging the Tiger around the frontlines made the Tiger suffer an unfortunate amount of mechanical failures, this contributed a great deal to the perception that it was an extremely unreliable tank)
• Micromanagement, and the AI may not be helpful either

Integrated pros

• May (if it's anything like HoI 3) give its armour bonuses to the entire division, reducing total casualties in combat
• More efficient to pay for a maintenance company for a whole division over just one battalion

Cons:

• Will most likely tank the speed of any mobile division, and foot divisions are too slow for tank work (maybe unless a lot of points are spent in engine variant)
• May impart serious terrain penalties to the rest of the division in non-breakthrough engagements
• More wasteful to funnel an entire division around the frontline
• May suffer worse supply penalties, as a whole division must also be supplied instead of one extra battalion of heavy armour. Not to mention that heavy armour was historically some of the worst affected by supply issues.

 

[XenJang]

I think the options of having them integrated or independent weigh on whether or not you can produce enough of them to keep on the front lines. The question is how much they will consume in supplies, etc in game. But for smaller nations (such as the axis ones) I would much rather have an independant branch of Schwere Panzer, speaking from Hoi3 black ice experience, heavy panzers (and super-heavy) were mostly used to breach cities and heavily fortified lines, and since you need to use all the industrial capacity you have as efficiently as possibly as Germany it would just be bad to build more heavy panzers and put them in your panzerdivisions then to have more medium tanks.

While micromanagement is a con, if you want a plan to run to perfection you most certainly will have to micromanage, I usually tend to be a meddling general when the AI was performing invasions in Hoi3, rearranging units for better or worse and when (and if) I build a unit of Heavy Panzers (The most famous tiger tank) I would not let the AI waste them on driving at 3km/ph over plains in Southern Russia.

Since efficiency play a big deal in Hoi4, you might find yourself unable to produce as many heavy tanks as you want. If I recall correctly from the World War Wednesday, the efficiency resets once you replace one production line with the next one in tech line, so weapons I to II means goodbye to efficiency. If you are only going to produce one heavy tank for the remainder of the war you might as well step up production if you have the efficiency for it. The efficiency and the numbers available to your nation will affect if they are integrated or independent.

As stated by the OP, the Wehrmacht and the SS had independent branches of schwere Panzer-Abtelliung, according to the statistics on this website:



The Germans were able to use heavy tanks very efficiently as independent units...

The very concept of Blitzkrieg is to attack on the entire frontline making it impossible for the enemy to find out where the main force will strike. Since it focuses on breakthroughs on single weak points from where you do encirclements I would rather see independent heavy tank units that help perform the breakthrough, who then will let lighter armoured units pass through and encircle the enemy. As Guderian put it... "Don't knock... Strike!." Independent units of Heavy Armour on specific points on the front that can deal with obstacles that you know your mainstay and air force will have a tough time dealing with can help speed up the invasion and make sure it doesn't turn into a standstill, since capturing cities is important for supplies in states I think the importance of being quickly able to overrun them can't be understated. Especially in the frozen supply and attrition hell of the USSR.

I will have to look further into France's 1940 army composition since I think they used heavy tanks as the mainstay of their army. If they were integrated or not I'm uncertain.



source of image: http://www.alanhamby.com/losses.shtml

 

[Lolkar]

Independent armor divisions may be vulnerable to tank destroyers/anti tank. What happens if full heavy tank division met full tank destroyer division? I will create divisions similar how i did it in HOI3. So for me integrated and depends what i need so i can add tank destroyer or self propelled artillery, etc.

 

[Number 7]

in general, ARM will be better off by itself due to its ability to leverage its speed, and the concentration of force allowing breakthroughs rather than spreading all your tanks through your troops, as france did.

However, "Heavy armour" might have a case for the otherwise. heavy ARM might be too expensive both in research and practicality for some nations to mass produce, however i imagine integrating some heavy ARM into elite, well supplied garrison forces (for example: defending Berlin, Moscow, Stalingrad etc, key cities) would create a hedgehog that is incredibly difficult for standard forces to take, basically forcing an encirclement.

Even then it could be imagine that they would hold out for quite some time, giving time for forces to break through / out of hte encirclement as states now produce some resources themselves, so a heavily dug in and elite garrison of a key location might prove incredibly tenacious

 

[Shatterfury]

Having battalions might be a bit too micro intensive but having brigades might be worthwhile.

Ironically Germany has no incentive to field heavy armour in comparison to medium armour or even light.

Germany will get bonuses to panzers if it goes the historical way and focuses on panzers not on mech/mot infantry.
So that means that it would be far more productive to stick with medium armour or even light armour so that Germany can produce far more of those divisions and thus having a larger part of your armed forces that benefits from that bonus.

If Germany focuses on mech/mot than it could field a handful of armour divisions with heavy armour just so that it can act as the focal point - tip of the spear, that is followed by the large number of mech/mot divisions.

This is just theory, we will need to play the game to figure out how to play the game.

 

[LordOfWar16]

In my oppinion it makes even more sense if we take support companies into account. Overall, we only have 5 slots per division, so splitting up the heavy tanks makes room for other companies in the other divisions. If you decide to make very small heavy tank divisions, the logistics company for example wont nessesariely be needed due to its small size. Of course it would make alot of sense to attatch maintenance, recon, artillery, signal and maybe even anti-aircraft support companies for obvious reasons.

• The maintenance crew will make sure the tanks wont break down as often
• The recon company will increase the divisions speed slightly and also add valueable intel to the battle
• The signal company will make sure your tanks have a good chance to be able to support an ongoing battle.
• The Anti-Aircraft support will make sure your tanks wont suffer as much from enemy close-air-support and tactical bomber attacks. (can be replaced with engineers if sufficient air-superiority is present, making the division better suited for attacks over rivers and excelent in the defense due to the entrenchment bonus)
• The artillery will add soft attack to increase the damage against infantry divisions.

That in return of course means alot of extra cost in support equipment if you decide to go with smaller divisions, but you probably wont mass produce heavy tanks on such an scale that it would be a problem anyway.

In my oppinion, if you can affort it and you like to play that way, why not?

 

[jamesd]

In HOI3 I made a lot of use of Corps Troops "divisions", and intend on doing that again in HOI4. Heavy tanks are perfect for slotting into such a unit. That way they can be injected into the fight at key locations rather than being tied to a specific division but their slower speed won't act as a brake on the armoured divisions. For a German panzer corps I'd be looking at heavy arm, 1-2 mobile infantry, engineers, recon, AA, TD & rocket battalions, plus signals & maintenance.

 

[Midden]

It's great that we have the option to build a "Schwere Panzerabteilung" if we want, something I am looking forward to.

They look to be super expensive so building say 3 independent battalions and keeping them at full strength may be all you can afford, just like RL.

 

[BrotherSurplice]

Oh I will definitely be making Army Tank Brigades of not-Matildas (still salty about that) and then Churchills in my UK playthrough. Should be interesting to see if the AI handles independent brigade and battalion sized units the same way it handles divisions.

 

[Maizel]

It all ofcourse depends on your industrial capability. Even a Heavy tank battalion or two could make a huge difference to a division. When I see the amazing stats of the Tanks, I start thinking of using pure tank divisions to force a breakthrough, with pure motorized divisions to exploit it, with the latter tanks follow up with the foot in the rear.

 

[parkerg12]

I see heavy armor being used as a busting force or a stone wall.

-as a busting force there will be a large concentration of heavy armor and other support units in the division to give is massive attack values to break a defensive line. once the hole is open they will pull back to avoid the supply penalty if possible and let the lighter faster divisions take over -thus it would act independently in the case of offensives.

or

- as a stone wall a single battalion of heavy armor allocated to an otherwise infantry division would enable that division to punish an advancing armor force which is not heavily concentrated. also by being on the defensive there is less risk of being out of supply and in terrain which will punish the tanks for poor reliability. however these integrated divisions would rarely go on the offensive due the heavy industrial cost of losing the heavy tanks.


However I don't really think heavy tanks ever operated independently technically. being as expensive as they are they almost always had supporting units in think a better way to define them is as the core of a division or a supporting piece to the division. with a core being maybe a full brigade being heavy armor and a supporting only having a spare battalion.

Italy for instance would have a tough time having enough heavy armor to be a core part of a division but in placed like north Africa I could see attaching heavy armor to an elite division to enable it to crush a British assault due to the need to maximize the amount of firepower with the smallest possible combat width.

 

[Number 7]

one nice place for heavy arm could be in your very initial sledgehammer divisions. using a 2 stage battle plan, one could have 10-12 divisions dedicated to creating a breakthrough and then exploiting it. out of those, imagine 2-3 of them are basically super heavy. Heavy tanks, mechanised, signal company, recon, SP-ART, anti air support company, engineers, everything they need for success, no costs cut. that way they are essentially undefeatable with planning bonus and doctrine support slamming into the enemy line. then the troops that follow them are just motorised and ARM in a much much more economical "mass produced" build that rush through the gap.

the gap that will be extremely hard for an enemy to close because there is a few super heavy divisions entrenching themselves in key locations in it

 

[Veer]

One of the main reasons heavy tanks (and SPGs) were in independent battalions rather than integrated was because of logistics.

Specifically the heavy Tigers and IS-2s only had certain railway crossings and bridges they could use to get to the battlefield. Rather than burdening the divisional staff with the responsibility for sending these units on separate routes from it was easier to give the Corp or Army level staff that responsibility.

There were other reasons as well - operational flexibility, maintainence, etc.

 

[panzerzombie]

Ironically Germany has no incentive to field heavy armour in comparison to medium armour or vene light.

Hm, one thing - in game ofc - is that it is very hard for germany to obtain the needed tungsten for medium tanks once the war starts, otoh chrome for heavy tanks are abundant in easily reachable Yougoslavia, Greece and Turkey ( Spain may bring Tungsten later but it is a long way through NF or can be traded with after france falls ).

I don´t know if there are boni for the research of heavy tanks but lets say I don´t go the light/medium branch then I won´t need the german-russian treaty and can choose another NF.

 

[Number 7]

Hm, one thing - in game ofc - is that it is very hard for germany to obtain the needed tungsten for medium tanks once the war starts, otoh chrome for heavy tanks are abundant in easily reachable Yougoslavia, Greece and Turkey ( Spain may bring Tungsten later but it is a long way through NF ).

I don´t know if there are boni for the research of heavy tanks but lets say I don´t go the light/medium branch then I won´t need the german-russian treaty and can choose another NF.

that's actually quite an interesting observation, maybe balance wise the devs are rewarding the production of heavier tanks for germany after its initial victories capture lots of additional factories and its sitting on chrome from yugoslavia and greece. i'll have to have a playthrough that prioritises Tigers!

 

[77Hawk77]

Independant tank units were used by many countries. As far as I know, all 3000 IS-2 tanks were in independent tank brigades, and the British also had independent tank brigades.

 

[Shatterfury]

Hm, one thing - in game ofc - is that it is very hard for germany to obtain the needed tungsten for medium tanks once the war starts, otoh chrome for heavy tanks are abundant in easily reachable Yougoslavia, Greece and Turkey ( Spain may bring Tungsten later but it is a long way through NF or can be traded with after france falls ).

I don´t know if there are boni for the research of heavy tanks but lets say I don´t go the light/medium branch then I won´t need the german-russian treaty and can choose another NF.

Good observation.
So mediums require tungsten and heavies require chromium in addition to steel ?

Even with this stranglehold on tungsten production heavies cost too much to even be considered as a replacement for medium panzers.

Even for countries like USSR and USA heavy tanks are a bonus rather than a replacement.

Germany, if goes with panzer focus, is far better served by mixing light with medium panzers so that it has far more panzer divisions rather than some independent brigades.

Maybe tungsten can be linked to heavies and chromium with mediums if you say Germany has better access to chromium.
The vast majority of panzers built were medium not heavy.

If anyone wants Tigers can very well build them but I figure light and medium panzers will get the job done.

 

[panzerzombie]

Yeah reality vs. HOI

I think both medium and heavy tanks should use chrome ( for high quality armor steel ) and tungsten ( for the production of machine tools for gun tubes and APCR ammo), I don´t get it why the one should need only tungsten and the other only chrome......... ( perhaps heavies more chrome by favoring heavier armor in regards to overall weight)

Since its beta until release I think they should think about that. I appreciate that they try to simulate the available resources of the world at that time and region but then they should also put a bit of logic into production ( no I won´t mention oil ... duh ).

In another thread I pointed out that RocketArtillery also needs lots of tungsten which I find also ridiculous.

 

[Shatterfury]

Yeah reality vs. HOI

I think both medium and heavy tanks should use chrome ( for high quality armor steel ) and tungsten ( for the production of machine tools for gun tubes and APCR ammo), I don´t get it why the one should need only tungsten and the other only chrome......... ( perhaps heavies more chrome by favoring heavier armor in regards to overall weight)

Since its beta until release I think they should think about that. I appreciate that they try to simulate the available resources of the world at that time and region but then they should also put a bit of logic into production ( no I won´t mention oil ... duh ).

In another thread I pointed out that RocketArtillery also needs lots of tungsten which I find also ridiculous.

True, true.

The game isn`t out yet.

How about normal artillery, does it still need tungsten ?
I hope that AT doesn`t require tungsten as well.

Those two are basic helpful battalions that should require only iron so that anyone can actually field those properly.

I also think that they need to tweak the production system a bit and actually require you to have steel and oil if you want to build.
I can understand building tanks without tungsten or chromium, you find replacements or harden the steel further thus consuming more time producing them, but I can`t get my head around how Japan was building Battleships without ...you know ... steel ?!?!

 

[panzerzombie]

How about normal artillery, does it still need tungsten ?
I hope that AT doesn`t require tungsten as well.

According to the latest WWW ( Japan Single Player #2, minute 54:12) Artillery still needs 1 Tung+2 Steel )
AT-Guns were not researched yet by Daniel but I think they still require 2 Tung +2 Steel as they used to need.

And for the Yamato ... if the japanese don´t have enough steel they just use the oil to produce plastic sheets in place of steel armor, just works the same....