I recently ran into a thread discussing the roles of coastal forts and land forts and how they would behave against different attacks. I then realized that the emergence of airborne troops in many ways made land forts obsolete and that during Nazigermans' blitz against Belgium and Netherlands airborne troops were used in great effect to incapacitate huge and formidable fortresses, thinking in particular of the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Eben-Emael).
I wish to question the fact that land forts give the same penalties to airborne troops (if they do) as they do to land based troops. A fort is surely only useful if the enemy is attacking in front of it from the outside, but becomes useless if you attack from above and from within as paratroopers would.
My suggestion is that perhaps the attack penalty for airborne troops should be reduced by a significant percentage when they paradrop (or glidefly, which game mechanic wise is the same) onto the same province as the fort. It would also make sense for them to be able to do a large amount of damage to the fort if they paradrop onto it. This would simulate the use of paratroopers during WW2 where they mostly served to sabotage infrastructure and fortresses and cleared the way for the main forces.
This would be balanced out by the fact that they are light infantry and thus can't be on par with regular infantry since they have less equipment and do less damage (and also have less supplies stored), they also are limited in their number since the production of transports are required and will be a severe limit (not sure how this is handled in HOI4, from what I have seen in the streams there are no transport planes to produce). The only way for paratroopers to compensate for this is by having a higher training level, the latest equipment and their innate maneuverability. Perhaps their movement speed should be less reduced in difficult terrain considering the fact that they don't have a lot of heavy equipment? Or perhaps they should be more heavily penalized since they have to carry a lot of their equipment on their back or on light trucks? Either way there are plenty of penalties for paratroopers to balance their fort-destroying capabilities.
That's my opinion, I am curious to see what other players (and developers) have to say!
I wish to question the fact that land forts give the same penalties to airborne troops (if they do) as they do to land based troops. A fort is surely only useful if the enemy is attacking in front of it from the outside, but becomes useless if you attack from above and from within as paratroopers would.
My suggestion is that perhaps the attack penalty for airborne troops should be reduced by a significant percentage when they paradrop (or glidefly, which game mechanic wise is the same) onto the same province as the fort. It would also make sense for them to be able to do a large amount of damage to the fort if they paradrop onto it. This would simulate the use of paratroopers during WW2 where they mostly served to sabotage infrastructure and fortresses and cleared the way for the main forces.
This would be balanced out by the fact that they are light infantry and thus can't be on par with regular infantry since they have less equipment and do less damage (and also have less supplies stored), they also are limited in their number since the production of transports are required and will be a severe limit (not sure how this is handled in HOI4, from what I have seen in the streams there are no transport planes to produce). The only way for paratroopers to compensate for this is by having a higher training level, the latest equipment and their innate maneuverability. Perhaps their movement speed should be less reduced in difficult terrain considering the fact that they don't have a lot of heavy equipment? Or perhaps they should be more heavily penalized since they have to carry a lot of their equipment on their back or on light trucks? Either way there are plenty of penalties for paratroopers to balance their fort-destroying capabilities.
That's my opinion, I am curious to see what other players (and developers) have to say!
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