Not all armies are so insanely tolerant, to huge manpower losses...
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Landmines?
- Thread starter henzington
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“There are things in Russia which are not as they seem.”
- Georgy Zhukov
He also said:-
“Generalissimo Stalin directed every move... made every decision... He is the greatest and wisest military genius who ever lived...”
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This is why the defensive entrenchment bonus can range from 1% to 10% in vanilla. It translates in the game what you describe.
The entrenchment is a parameter in the defines.lua file, so it's set. You can increase the maximum level in that file, but I don't think you can increase it outside..
Options left could be to :
- add a tech that would give more defensiveness to non-armour units
- add a tech that would give additional tactic_ambush bonus (for example)
- add a unit that would provide, when attached, specific defensive bonus (trough specific techs)
- add a building "landmines" that gives additionnal fort_level bonus but you would need to remove it after, which makes things more complicated (unless you categorize it as "partisans" and you rely on the suppress mechanism but it would be a stretch and could lead to strange results)
etc.
Landmines should not be alluded to beyond the abstracted defensive bonuses. This is a game about strategic command - people on that level don't spend time thinking about each little piece of equipment and each weapon.
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Well, developping landmines & sea mines was part of the tech choices made during WWII. It so true that mines were laid almost everywhere and some world areas are still struggling with leftovers...
On that basis, some could want to go there. Some levels of abstraction are good, other are not. It's a matter of preferences, more than anything else. You can have "grand" strategy games, straegy games and tactical games... the latter does not cover tech choices, while the 1st 2 do. Then, it's up to you to assess the level of abstraction you want. Too much and you lack details and lack possibilities. Too many, you end up entagnled between choices.
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It would be kind of odd to make landmines their own tech. Couldn't it be included in something like "Defence Technologies" or something?
Naval mines and landmines are two entirely different affairs though. Then again I'm not aware of a single major surface combatant sunk by mines in WW2. I might be wrong here but I've never heard of it (other than pure diver sabotage operations vs ships at port which IMO is an entirely different story).
Well, considering that any well placed minefield would also be the spot for an ambush, it often boils down to pick you poison. Do try and clear the mines and get gunned down as a sitting duck or do you charge through the mines and get blown up?
As said before, an undefended minefield is pretty trivial.
How about using artilery + mine clearing tanks to make a way?
Clearing mines with artillery? I could see it for suppressing the ambushers but actually blowing the mines up I find very unlikely.
As for mine clearing tanks, well, this depends on what kind of situation we are talking about here. I we are talking about a major well planed battle like El Alamein, sure, if your intelligence is good enough that you don't bumble into a minefield you didn't know about. And that they don't get shot by defending AT guns. And that you have enough of them.
In a surprise encounter, well, there might not even be mine clearing tanks available to you. And even if you have any available, they would become a priority target.
And here is the full version:
From discussion between Zhukov and Eisenhower about anti-tank minefields:
Highly illuminating to me was his description of the Russian method of attacking through minefields. The German minefields, covered by defensive fire, were tactical obstacles that caused us many casualties and delays. It was out laborious business to break through them, even though our technicians invented every conceivable kind of mechanical appliance to destroy mines safely. Marshal Zhukov gave me a matter-of-fact statement of his practice, which was roughtly
There are two kinds of mines; one is the personnel mine and the other is the vehicular mine. When we come to a minefield our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with minefields. The attacking infantry does not set off the vehicular mines, so after they have penetrated to the far side of the field they form a bridgehead, after which the engineers come up and dig out channels through which our vehicles can go».
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How about using artilery + mine clearing tanks to make a way?
Imagine few square kilometers of heavily fortified positions with AT guns and mines, how many artillery shells will you need to clear it and what the field would look like afterwards?
You are correct!
It would take tons of ammunition and what's more important time to clear the minefield and afterwards it would be quite a challenge for tanks not to stuck or slow down.
If minesweeper tank is destroyed all other tanks will stop after it. I think you can imagine what will happen to tank column standing in the open field?
IRL, armies were able to penetrate defenses supported by minefields without using tactics, which results in excessive manpower losses. Usually by concentrating on penetration of enemy line in a single, or a few points, while getting every possible support from engineers, artilery and airpower.
Walking through the minefiled is NOT an effective tactics, unless you dont care about you losses. And people should remember, that by the end of WW2 even USSR was running out of manpower, and if war was longer, they might have been in deep trouble as a result of their past decisions, which caused large manpower losses.
"The attacking infantry does not set off the vehicular mines, so after they have penetrated to the far side of the field they form a bridgehead, after which the engineers come up and dig out channels through which our vehicles can go" - is one of the tactics to penetrate defenses supported by minefields.
The one thing people truly should remember is that most of losses of RKKA during WW2 was in thirst years of war when army was totally inexperienced, disorganised and used old types of tactics, weapons and equipment. The only thing inexperienced commanders could do is attack with rifles against tanks and massively die to slow enemy a bit.
I understand that the idea of "drunk stupid Ivans massively attacking under commissars machine guns" is easier to accept but try to use your head and logic. If that was true your country wouldn't exist by now, and mine would probably be a huge labor camp or worse.
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Infantry, for sure, but the main strategic impact of minefields was to slow the advance of armour. El Alamein and Kursk are the two examples that I'm aware of enough to put them forward, but I'm sure there's more. In both cases, the minefields were elaborate and deep, and had an impact on the battle that was felt at the strategic level (in both cases, slowing the attackers' advance, and in the case of the Germans at Kursk, who were a tad devil-may-care about the whole minefield thing, causing quite a few tank losses to boot). At the moment, the HoI series has no mechanic to model the strategic impacts of mines and other defenses (as it wasn't just mines) in those and similar battles. Not saying it needs them, it's an 'added bonus' kind of mechanic and I'm deffo aware that it may overcomplicate things, but if the mechanic isn't there, then we're likely to see things like the war in North Africa swing back and forth more than frequently it did historically, because the extensive defensive lines aren't there to hold things up.
Many convoys were sunk that way tough, as sea mines were targetting them specifically.
Germans were dropping them from the sky, or laying them using subs. Funny thing is, while it was very cheap and pretty effective, the KM never really invest a lot in that. Part is linked to the conflict between the Luftwaffe and KM. The 1st refusing to support the 2nd.
Mines are largely tactical defensive measures. Not even that, mines are but a single element of tactical defensive measures. One of several.
There may be some argument made about naval mines, but land?..
If we start tinkering on such a level, then we might as well make decisions about quality of the stitching on the uniforms as well.
We've been there before - HOI3 had a vast sea of minor tech. HOI4 is making a conscious effort not to be bogged down in minutiae, and bring out the essence of military high command.
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Both commercial and military ships were lost to naval mines during WW2. The most significant impact to a single country was probably when Finland lost its flagship to naval mines.
ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_coastal_defence_ship_Ilmarinen
"In World War II, some 534 merchant vessels of 1,406,037 GRT were sunk by German mines. At least ten UK and US destroyers were sunk by German mines, but the only major Allied warship sunk was the cruiser HMS Neptune and the mines that sunk her were actually deployed by Italian ships. The peak success came in 1939-1940, when German aircraft, destroyers and minelayers were actively laying minefields off British harbors and no counter-measure against the magnetic mine had yet been developed. However, the greatest single success ever achieved by a minefield was by the one laid off Cape Juminda in the Gulf of Finland. This field inflicted great damage to the Soviet forces withdrawing from Tallinn (Reval) in August 1941. Out of the 195 warships, transport vessels, auxiliaries and 23,000 people that evacuated Tallinn, 53 ships and 4,000 lives were lost en route. Among the ships sunk were 25 out 29 of the larger transports, five destroyers, two corvettes, two submarines and two patrol boats. Some 2,828 German and Finnish moored mines were laid, mostly contact types along with some antenna types. In addition, about 1,500 explosive anti-sweeping devices were deployed in this field."
ref: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMGER_Mines.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ships_sunk_by_mines
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I could see a way to use mines.
Let the units dig in to level 9, and then the player can decide if he wants to dig in to level 10 by pressing some kind of button on the unit card. This would cost a fraction of IC and also give the unit som kind of AP value so that if attacked by tanks the attacker would lose more tanks in the attack of a dug in unit at level 10. The IC is not revocable
Let the units dig in to level 9, and then the player can decide if he wants to dig in to level 10 by pressing some kind of button on the unit card. This would cost a fraction of IC and also give the unit som kind of AP value so that if attacked by tanks the attacker would lose more tanks in the attack of a dug in unit at level 10. The IC is not revocable
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