Landmines?

[Axe99]

and what materials would be expended with auto-building trenches? I don't mean like a fully fortified complex with concrete pillboxes and command centers, i just mean 1000+ people with trench shovels digging away and creating a veritable maze or corridors. more or less exactly like WWI.

Beyond the wear and tear on shovels, there are materials that go into it. Most trenches beyond the most basic involve some kind of wooden shoring/cover, and once you're looking at WW1-style trenches there'll generally be underground safe points, with boarded reinforcing. Then you've got barbed wire and mines - so there would be a need for supplies to make even 'advanced dig-in' fortifications work at maximum efficiency. If you think about Kursk or El Alamein, neither were 'fortifications' in the HoI sense, but the Russian and Axis/Allied fortification belts would have required significant amounts of supplies to put in place.

 

[aruon]

Beyond the wear and tear on shovels, there are materials that go into it. Most trenches beyond the most basic involve some kind of wooden shoring/cover, and once you're looking at WW1-style trenches there'll generally be underground safe points, with boarded reinforcing. Then you've got barbed wire and mines - so there would be a need for supplies to make even 'advanced dig-in' fortifications work at maximum efficiency. If you think about Kursk or El Alamein, neither were 'fortifications' in the HoI sense, but the Russian and Axis/Allied fortification belts would have required significant amounts of supplies to put in place.

yeah. in that case now i really hope there's a long time for trench building. that'd be a hilarious way to win as the french in HOI 4, with your Great Wall of Maginot and super trenches holding the invincible german army (and your wrecked economy) to a standstill while the british arrive in force. just completely cockblock the blitzkrieg.

 

[safe-keeper]

Beyond the wear and tear on shovels, there are materials that go into it. Most trenches beyond the most basic involve some kind of wooden shoring/cover, and once you're looking at WW1-style trenches there'll generally be underground safe points, with boarded reinforcing. Then you've got barbed wire and mines - so there would be a need for supplies to make even 'advanced dig-in' fortifications work at maximum efficiency. If you think about Kursk or El Alamein, neither were 'fortifications' in the HoI sense, but the Russian and Axis/Allied fortification belts would have required significant amounts of supplies to put in place.

Also things like (speaking as a layman) tank obstacles, sandbags, radios, wires, lamps, and so on.

 

[Beagá]

Seriously, just improve Entrenchment as a variable.

an army with engineers and better tech should be able to get like, 30% Entrenchment over time, while a pure militia with poor tech should be limited to 5%.

Land mine research could improve defensiveness or entrenchment maximum value

 

[AchedTeacher]

I don't think the "dug in" bonus really would represent mines, and neither would building fortifications.. but maybe?

Do you think that "dug in" literally means they just dug some trenches? A full army rests for ~2 days and you think they didn't set up sandbag walls, barbed wire fences and mines?

 

[Shootist]

they're too tactical for a GS game to handle in most ways.

I would suggest that land minds are handled just fine by whatever "attrition" model is used.

 

[aruon]

I would suggest that land minds are handled just fine by whatever "attrition" model is used.

that's what i've said. but other people have better ideas

 

[Praetori]

Landmines should probably be seen as a organic part of other defensive values. A completely undefended minefield (and I'm talking about the operational scale here, empty province) is pretty useless in any case. Sure it might cause a few casualties but on the grand scale of things it's not even noteworthy on a divisional level as pioneers will have cleared a path within hours and that's that. In defended areas it's another story though as it forces the opponent to either clear a path, possibly under fire, or force him to maneuver elsewhere (and here's where the defensive bonuses comes into play, ie entrenchment/fortification).

Mines were and are common, seeing them as something "special" that needs to be tracked is way beyond the scale of a GSG and it's about the same as tracking ammunition and shovels down to squad-level. If explosives and mines were available they were used, just as rifles, machine guns and rations were, every equipment that a soldier needs or uses is "assumed" as long as they have their infantry equipment.

As others have mentioned however it wouldn't be a bad idea to increase attrition for the attacker in defended entrenched areas (if that's not already being done) to emulate stuff such as minefields, pre-measured artillery ranges etc.

 

[Gethsemani]

I don't think the "dug in" bonus really would represent mines, and neither would building fortifications.. but maybe?

it would be interesting if they added more than just "build fortifications"available but maybe 2 different ones , light fortifications with small barriers and mines and heavy fortifications where heavy bunkers would be made. and the players could pick between the two. and if they lacked enough resources to make the heavy bunkers like germany did they could instead put mines at the shores or something like that

"Build fortifications" has, in previous HoI games, been the option that represents concrete bunkers, artillery turrets, "forts" (Eben Emeal, Brest Fortress, Maginot Line etc.) and other kind of defenses that takes time to erect and requires strategic resources (concrete, reinforced steel, manual labor etc.) but can be very hard to get past if you don't come prepared.

"Dug In" has represented the routine practice of military formations to fortify and entrench their own position when not moving, by digging foxholes/trenches, pre-ranging artillery, setting up barbed wire, placing mines, setting up sandbags, concealing its' own positions etc.. As anyone who's been in the army can tell you, one of the first things you do whenever you re-locate to a new position is to start making defenses. The longer you stay, the more advanced they become. What starts out as a bunch of foxholes the first day is likely to be a trench network with barbed wire, mine fields, pre-ranged mortars and several alternative fighting positions after a week. This is especially true for infantry and engineer formations, who have historically excelled at quickly creating advanced defensive positions with relatively sparse materials.

 

[mteir]

To have an discussion about this we first need to identify what the landmine is, an area denial instrument. Just as any barbed wire and tank trap, the landmine is there to slow down an assault or funnel in the enemy to a killing field. The effective impact of a minefield in men and material is unlikely to be more than 5-10 men out of action or 1-3 tanks tracked. So as stated earlier in this thread it is well represented by incorporating it into the defense and dug-in stats. And if there isn't a tech for it then you can mod it in if you want to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_mine#Warfare

What could be interesting is , what gnome109 already mentioned, naval mines. The impact of a naval mine hitting a ship is sufficient enough to fit into a grand strategy game. It could even be modeled as a probability in a sea zone's coastal waters to hit a mine. With the probability being ( (amount of mines) / (maximum amount of mines) ) / (factor for maximum chance). This could be interesting for a DLC in 1+ years.

 

[safe-keeper]

I would suggest that land minds are handled just fine by whatever "attrition" model is used.

Shouldn't mines also affect advance speed, due to the time it takes to bypass or clear minefields?

 

[Praetori]

Shouldn't mines also affect advance speed, due to the time it takes to bypass or clear minefields?

There's already a penalty for moving under combat, one must assume, and any defensive actions (including landmines) should probably be seen as the reason for that penalty. Undefended minefields are cleared (as in a cleared path through them at least) within hours or just ignored and bypassed so the operational or strategic effect should be negligible as far as the scale of HOI games go. IMO.

That being said it would be good for immersion at least to have them included, by name/word/mentioning at least, in the engineering techs or infantry equipment even if it's bundled with the rest of the equipment.

 

[JamesJameson]

I always thought that Engineer's was the representative of earthworks and earth defenses, no matter what type of defense they were. I think that adding a option to dig in more is good besides the ability to build fortifications.

 

[Axe99]

Shouldn't mines also affect advance speed, due to the time it takes to bypass or clear minefields?

This is a good point - minefields had a significant impact on the speed of advance at both El Alamein and Kursk (that's off the top of my head - just because I'm only mentioning those two, doesn't mean it didn't have an impact elsewhere ).

There's already a penalty for moving under combat, one must assume, and any defensive actions (including landmines) should probably be seen as the reason for that penalty. Undefended minefields are cleared (as in a cleared path through them at least) within hours or just ignored and bypassed so the operational or strategic effect should be negligible as far as the scale of HOI games go. IMO.

That being said it would be good for immersion at least to have them included, by name/word/mentioning at least, in the engineering techs or infantry equipment even if it's bundled with the rest of the equipment.

Aye, but there's a difference between general movement under combat, and having to work your way through deep minefields involving tens (or hundreds) of thousands of mines. The provision for an optional 'dig in+' option, that costs supplies (as a hundred thousand mines and associated barbwire and tank traps) don't grow on trees, and attackíng through a 'dig in+' zone could be slower (as attacking through fortifications should probably be as well).

 

[Praetori]

Aye, but there's a difference between general movement under combat, and having to work your way through deep minefields involving tens (or hundreds) of thousands of mines. The provision for an optional 'dig in+' option, that costs supplies (as a hundred thousand mines and associated barbwire and tank traps) don't grow on trees, and attackíng through a 'dig in+' zone could be slower (as attacking through fortifications should probably be as well).

Point taken but wouldn't that be best emulated by the supplies spent by the force being there doing the entrenchment/digging-in?
In a perfect world the stationary unit would draw less fuel and instead put the surplus supplies not spent on moving about (with everything that brings in broken equipment, spares and accidents) into its defensive measures.
Every unit not moving about but on or near the frontline will disperse into combat formations and dig in in one way or another. Given time the minefields, trenches and communications will grow, if nothing else then just to keep the soldiers occupied.
In HOI3 the dig-in bonus could be modded for great effect and just raising the number of dig-in days possible provided some really interesting results favoring the well prepared defender in ways that really provided some historical possible outcomes like Stalingrad and Kursk.
Larger fixed fortifications is another story though and the availability of engineers/pioneers should greatly affect any bonuses a well prepared defender gets (and this is where stuff like minefields can be assumed to be extensive).

 

[Axe99]

Point taken but wouldn't that be best emulated by the supplies spent by the force being there doing the entrenchment/digging-in?
In a perfect world the stationary unit would draw less fuel and instead put the surplus supplies not spent on moving about (with everything that brings in broken equipment, spares and accidents) into its defensive measures.
Every unit not moving about but on or near the frontline will disperse into combat formations and dig in in one way or another. Given time the minefields, trenches and communications will grow, if nothing else then just to keep the soldiers occupied.
In HOI3 the dig-in bonus could be modded for great effect and just raising the number of dig-in days possible provided some really interesting results favoring the well prepared defender in ways that really provided some historical possible outcomes like Stalingrad and Kursk.
Larger fixed fortifications is another story though and the availability of engineers/pioneers should greatly affect any bonuses a well prepared defender gets (and this is where stuff like minefields can be assumed to be extensive).

I'm not an expert, so I'm not sure about this, but I'd expect that units digging in at Kursk or El Alamein to have used a decent amount more supplies than, say, a division doing garrison duty in Bombay (that in game terms would still get a dig-in bonus). HoI's up until now have either had proper fortifications (Stalin, Maginot, Siegfried lines and the like) or general digging in, but no way to model temporary but extensive fortifications such as Kursk or El Alamein. Modding the overall dig-in bonus means you have some units crazily dug in (for no extra cost), and I'm not sure that's the best way to model it (as, in effect, it would mean in 1943 the whole of both the Russian and German lines in mid-1943 would be as dug-in as Kursk was!) While soldiers are kept occupied, after they've dug in past a certain point my understanding is that this is generally accomplished through patrols, training and drills, rather than the Bombay Garrison creating fifteen lines of trenches around the outskirts of the city, say.

 

[safe-keeper]

Also, as others have suggested, the-dig in bonus should stay when the soldiers leave. They don't exactly take the trenches with them. This would open up some interesting gameplay possibilities, too. I like the idea of playing as the Soviet Union and leaving engineer divisions to set up defensive earthworks behind my frontlines, for my main army to retreat to.

Edit:
I agree with the ideas above, too. Would love for there to be a basic dig-in (which could increase with doctrines and whatnot), an "advanced dig-in" that you order your troops to do and which costs supplies, and an edded bonus from having engineer units in your division.

 

[Gethsemani]

Also, as others have suggested, the-dig in bonus should stay when the soldiers leave. They don't exactly take the trenches with them. This would open up some interesting gameplay possibilities, too. I like the idea of playing as the Soviet Union and leaving engineer divisions to set up defensive earthworks behind my frontlines, for my main army to retreat to.

They don't take their trenches with them, but they are going to fill them up before leaving. Dug In is a bonus that represents many things, part of which is the actual defenses the unit has been creating, such as barbed wire, minefields and trenches. It also represents things like pre-ranging fire support, setting up fields of fire, having alternative fighting positions and scouting the area. Some of these things immediately get lost once you leave the area, such as patrols, pre-ranged fire support etc. but no sensible soldier would leave their defenses to be exploited by the enemy, nor would you leave assets like barbed wire or dragon's teeth behind if you can help it. Losing the dug-in bonus and not carrying it over makes sense in most cases, apart from the times when you want to simulate a "rotation" on the front, such as having one division take the place of another, depleted, division.

 

[Praetori]

I always thought that Engineer's was the representative of earthworks and earth defenses, no matter what type of defense they were. I think that adding a option to dig in more is good besides the ability to build fortifications.

Part of the battleplanner maybe when assigning "defensive" lines making it possible for the AI to use it as well. Favouring engineering heavy forces for the task which get bonuses.
Then on the other hand the most important aspect of fortifications is manpower and time available. They didn't call out all those hundreds of thousands of civilians, militia and constructions companies to dig trenches, earthworks, chopping trees and building roads in the defensive areas for fun (and it's still not maginot-style fortifications).

 

[podcat]

Shouldn't mines also affect advance speed, due to the time it takes to bypass or clear minefields?

"If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there."
- Georgy Zhukov