Power of armored divisions

[GLENN]

Jorgen, please keep an eye on the weather on your tests.

It change, which may effect the outcome.

These tests have to be re-done since the effect of Officers and patch 1.2

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

The problem is that you're not normalizing their huge costs at all. You can't simply compare brigade to brigade or division to division, it's like comparing a battleship to a destroyer.

You need to hold a constant, like IC-days...manpower...supply drain...and balance the two sides using that as the fulcrum. What you're trying to do is going to generate 3 more leaks in the pipe every time you patch one.

I don't agree with this at all. My changes or points have nothing to do with production, this has more to do with how each unit should act in the game. Totally disregarded from production costs in this instance.

When I speak about armor it is only in difficult terrain they get these penalties, not in other terrain types (plain, hills, woods, river crossings, dessert etc..). So basically I'm trying to create a slightly more realistic outcome of the battles going on. You will just have to consider the consequences if you want to assault a forest with your (3xArm,1xAC) divisions.

once again, I want to make pure armor stacks worthless on these terrain types, not regular armor divisions that are balanced correctly. In a balanced divisions these penalties will get so polluted that they will not effect the outcome in the same way. I have tested this. If I take a (2xArm,1xMot,1xEng) for example, it will do quite well assaulting infantry in a forest.

It is just the pure armor formations with no infantry support that will suffer from that particular change.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Jorgen, please keep an eye on the weather on your tests.

It change, which may effect the outcome.

These tests have to be re-done since the effect of Officers and patch 1.2

Yes, I know weather will effect the outcome of the battles, that is also why they need to be done several times. Though, they have all had almost the same outcome so far and they have all been very close to the mathematical outcome.

I try to do the tests in zones where weather changes are small and during the summer. This will provide the best results.

The effect of officers will mainly effect organizations so I presume that setting the officer percentage to 100 for both involved countries are needed after the patch.

I also saw something mentioned about a change to how strength relates to combat damage against ORG. I will have to see what that is all about.

 

[pnt]

If I take a (2xArm,1xMot,1xEng) for example, it will do quite well assaulting infantry in a forest.

It is just the pure armor formations with no infantry support that will suffer from that particular change.

Hm, the problem here is that with such bonuses there is no incentive at all in bringing the armor into the forest. A much simpler solution is just to take the forest with your infantry and then drive the armor through it.

Thus, you are providing an interesting tactical challenge that may improve game play (but could potentially confuse the AI). Still, this is not really an argument for different division compositions.

 

[icon41gimp]

once again, I want to make pure armor stacks worthless on these terrain types

So what's the point of this thread then? Just set armor to -99% for those terrains and be done with it.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

It is just the pure armor formations with no infantry support that will suffer from that particular change.

Panzer have INF support in HoI3.
At least thats the only way why they have 3000 strengh (imo). I always imagine that there are some Panzergrenadiers keeping up with these tanks.

If you want more diversified divisions, just double or triple terrain penalty for all ARM.

PS: But don't overdo it. ARM has still only decent stats for it's cost (though it is finally cost effective, unlike in HoI2).

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Hm, the problem here is that with such bonuses there is no incentive at all in bringing the armor into the forest. A much simpler solution is just to take the forest with your infantry and then drive the armor through it.

Thus, you are providing an interesting tactical challenge that may improve game play (but could potentially confuse the AI). Still, this is not really an argument for different division compositions.

As it stands right now, with the tests that I have done it will still be viable to attack if you don't put only armor brigades in the divisions. Mixed divisions will do just fine.

For the record, the changes that I have done are not that extensive actually.

In the vanilla game using armor are basically the only brigade you need to do breakthrough, even assaulting urban terrain will be one of their specialties. Unless defended by TD and lots of AT.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

So what's the point of this thread then? Just set armor to -99% for those terrains and be done with it.

That will make combat way imbalanced.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Panzer have INF support in HoI3.
At least thats the only way why they have 3000 strengh (imo). I always imagine that there are some Panzergrenadiers keeping up with these tanks.

If you want more diversified divisions, just double or triple terrain penalty for all ARM.

PS: But don't overdo it. ARM has still only decent stats for it's cost (though it is finally cost effective, unlike in HoI2).

Yes, that is my opinion as well. As well as a Mechanized brigade will have a few tanks and other armored assets.
Though the infantry support in an armor brigade are in my opinion most probably relatively small, they only have a softness rating of 20%. And it is this value that make them just a tad to tough, even in mountain fighting.

I will do more extensive testing this weekend after we get the new patch, and I will be able to play a campaign with the change and will share my findings in a real settings as well.

The thing that I'm mostly looking forward to in my change are the changes to defense in general. This will make concentration in force much more important. I actually believe that this will help the AI more than not. But I will have to wait and see.

 

[jju_57]

Panzer have INF support in HoI3.
At least thats the only way why they have 3000 strengh (imo). I always imagine that there are some Panzergrenadiers keeping up with these tanks.

A very great observation and this invalidates the whole discussion. If it was just tanks then the manpower would be way less then 3000.

The OP can mod his game anyway he wants but to try and make it a norm is wrong. He is saying that an infantry force in forests in real life would beat a tank force. Maybe but then since when do these provices represent real life? Just because the game showed a tank force beating mtn. trrops in the mountains doesn't mean a thing. Maybe the tank force captured the only supply area. Just because the province says mountains doesn't mean there aren't valleys in it and after all this is where the fighting would take place.

In these fights the losing infantry lost not beacuse all 9000 men were killed but because of Org. I make the argument that the 3000 panzer brigade (tanks and men) got behind and bypassed the infantry that were picking flowers in the forest and they had to retreat due to being cut off. Its a game not simulator right?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

And it is this value that make them just a tad to tough, even in mountain fighting.

Agreed. For rough terrain, armour is too strong, esp. with the improved CA bonus. As it is now, you can normally fight at 100%+ in difficult territory like mountains or cities - and I totally agree, a nerf is required.

However, in a way HoI3 is much better at applying this penalies. The major disadvantage of tanks is their operational dependence on terrain. If you played games on a smaller tactical scope like Combat Mission you know what I mean. But with the smaller and more numerous provinces in HoI3, terrain is stronger diversified, so there is a bit more accuraccy at this one.

Large provinces that once where mountains are now split into 3x mountains, 1x hills and 1x forest, so tanks *can* actually better plot a route around the bad terrain (and thus should be a bit more penalized for fighting in wrong areas).

A perfect system would be the random terrain system from EU3: There every province had X% of a certain terrain - and combat terrain was randomly choosen at the start of the battle. So if you fought in a province with 80% plains, 10% forest and 10% hills, you had a 8-in-a-10 chance for good attacking odds and a 2-in-a-10 chance for bad attacking odds. If the same could apply for the HoI3 combat system (and maybe terrain could change randomly as the attacker advances through the province), we would have a great system to simulate the weakness of ARM, MOT and MECH in rough terrain... *drools as he imagines the perfect HoI3 combat system*

 

[unmerged(141861)]

Agreed. For rough terrain, armour is too strong, esp. with the improved CA bonus. As it is now, you can normally fight at 100%+ in difficult territory like mountains or cities - and I totally agree, a nerf is required.

However, in a way HoI3 is much better at applying this penalies. The major disadvantage of tanks is their operational dependence on terrain. If you played games on a smaller tactical scope like Combat Mission you know what I mean. But with the smaller and more numerous provinces in HoI3, terrain is stronger diversified, so there is a bit more accuraccy at this one.

Large provinces that once where mountains are now split into 3x mountains, 1x hills and 1x forest, so tanks *can* actually better plot a route around the bad terrain (and thus should be a bit more penalized for fighting in wrong areas).

Even if the tank plots a route through the easy terrain, it is left open to counter-attacks from multiple directions, which is what DID happen in reality.

Also tanks were still king of the battlefield, even in rough terrain. Read carefully about the invasion of Norway. Germany brought a few light tanks and they kicked butt...until the enemy got AT weapons on them.

So you are onto something here, but the best way to correct it, as I said in another post, is not a general penalty to tanks, but RATHER a seperate penalty/bonus for Hard vs Soft values. So a forest may give only a 20% reduction to a tanks attack value, but it should give something like +50% bonus to hard attack values of the defenders.

This is the way all serious wargames treat Hard vs Soft values. Look at V for Victory series, each terrain has a different affect on Soft, armor, anti-tank values.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Even if the tank plots a route through the easy terrain, it is left open to counter-attacks from multiple directions, which is what DID happen in reality.

Also tanks were still king of the battlefield, even in rough terrain. Read carefully about the invasion of Norway. Germany brought a few light tanks and they kicked butt...until the enemy got AT weapons on them.

So you are onto something here, but the best way to correct it, as I said in another post, is not a general penalty to tanks, but RATHER a seperate penalty/bonus for Hard vs Soft values. So a forest may give only a 20% reduction to a tanks attack value, but it should give something like +50% bonus to hard attack values of the defenders.

This is the way all serious wargames treat Hard vs Soft values. Look at V for Victory series, each terrain has a different affect on Soft, armor, anti-tank values.

I agree, though that is sadly not possible to mod. Giving a slightly higher penalty for low softness brigades are the only thing that you can do. Less penalties for light tanks, more fot medium and worse for heavy and so on.

This is both for balance sake and for the feel of realism.

Germany used light tanks in Norway, that is true... but there were also lots of infantry to support them. They were hardly sending divisions with a composition like (3xL.Arm, 1xAC) or something. More likely it was (1xL.Arm,1xMot,1xAC) or something like that.

What needs to be nerfed are the total dominance of the armored brigade. If you Min/Max everything in the game you would build all your armor division with (3xArm,1xAC,0-1xTD) becasue that will produce the most powerful divisions able to take on everything in ANY terrain almost twice its size.
I don't care if they cost four times the amount of IC to produce. That constellation of troops didn't exist during the war other than small temporary battle-groups in terrain that allowed them to be used. These things are abstracted into the game completely.

And for those that advocate that the Armor brigade include infantry... I agree, it will include infantry in addition to the tanks. But that infantry support are very minor in comparison to the real world examples that have been bought up in this thread.
I would say that the infantry component in an armored brigade are relegated to a few motorized or mechanized companies, tops. The rest are made up of other support troops such as artillery, engineers, AA etc...
The strength numbers are not to be taken literally, the total personnel in a brigade are much closer to 5-6000 anyway. The strength are basically just a game mechanics and an approximation of a brigades total combat manpower.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

A perfect system would be the random terrain system from EU3: There every province had X% of a certain terrain - and combat terrain was randomly choosen at the start of the battle. So if you fought in a province with 80% plains, 10% forest and 10% hills, you had a 8-in-a-10 chance for good attacking odds and a 2-in-a-10 chance for bad attacking odds. If the same could apply for the HoI3 combat system (and maybe terrain could change randomly as the attacker advances through the province), we would have a great system to simulate the weakness of ARM, MOT and MECH in rough terrain... *drools as he imagines the perfect HoI3 combat system*

This would indeed be a nice addition to the game...

 

[unmerged(85014)]

It might have been said before and I missed it, but in a Forest there is no way that an Armoured Division should take casualties from a regular Infantry Division. You cannot blow up tanks with rifles and hand grenades but you can still be blown to bits by blind tank fire moving in radians.

The technicalities are no doubt nigh on impossible to code but normal infantry should not be damaging panzer formations in any terrain.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

So a forest may give only a 20% reduction to a tanks attack value, but it should give something like +50% bonus to hard attack values of the defenders.

The idea is nice, yet Clausewitz lacks the ability to boost individual values.

Btw: different penalties depending on softness are already applied, because penalties are equaled amoung all modifiers along the division.

It might have been said before and I missed it, but in a Forest there is no way that an Armoured Division should take casualties from a regular Infantry Division. You cannot blow up tanks with rifles and hand grenades but you can still be blown to bits by blind tank fire moving in radians.

You can in fact kill tanks by using grenades. A common example is the grenade bundle, thrown at a track it had a good chance to immobilize the tank, placed at the right point you could even blow the vital parts so the crew has to bail.
Tanks are "eggshells with hammers" - and while they have superiour firepower, esp. on range, they often lack short range protection. So you want to keep them away from your enemy. Even a tank with a turret is totally helpless if infantry gets close, basicly you can jump on its hatch and it can't do much about it. A commen early AT tactic was for example to blind a tank in melee by cracking the external mirrors or even just laying linen over them. Thats why tanks are extremly vulnerable in cities: One bazooka or panzerfaust shot from a winow at close range and *boom* goes your tank. And from upper floors you can even aim at the weak top armor.

To reduce this weakness, tanks got additional MG guns (like the remote controlled Hetzer MG) and close range mortars (like the german Nahverteidigungswaffe), but tanks are always prone to close range assaults, esp. in the heat of battle and when lacking protection from combined arms assistance.

And about the forest, well, there are two things to keep in mind:
First, if tanks drive into a forest, they have very limited LOS. They will probably see about 10-100m deep, depending on the flora around them. In short: They are blind.
So in general, if the whole province was full of forests, tanks should suffer even higher penalties on offense and thoughness.

However (second point): A "forest" province does not consist of 100% forests, so the tanks actually don't have to drive into one. They can't fully utilize their attack power and the defender gets a defence bonus, since some forests inside the province aid the defenders.
This also the reason why ART has a penalty in forests instead of a bonus: In reality mortars and other ART fire were esp. dangerous in forests due to treebursts (ever had a tree explode above you and send hundrets of wooden shrapnells at your face?)...

The technicalities are no doubt nigh on impossible to code but normal infantry should not be damaging panzer formations in any terrain.

Normal infantry carries AT weapons in HoI3. They have small calibre AT, like AT rifles and 20-50mm towable AT guns, as well as grenadebundles, satchel charges, grenades, sticky bombs and alike. So they have the ability do attack tanks, both on long and short range. However, they are ineffective, and thats why they have only ~1/4th of their SA in HA.

edit: @espen below:

 

[unmerged(18427)]

It might have been said before and I missed it, but in a Forest there is no way that an Armoured Division should take casualties from a regular Infantry Division. You cannot blow up tanks with rifles and hand grenades but you can still be blown to bits by blind tank fire moving in radians.

The technicalities are no doubt nigh on impossible to code but normal infantry should not be damaging panzer formations in any terrain.

Infantry divisions contain plenty of AT capabilities, especially at the ranges which combat might occur at in forested areas. AT-guns, AT-mines, artillery guns, infantry guns, demolition charges, AT-rifles and grenade bundles seem to be an integral part of a HoI3 infantry brigade. As they should be, in my opinion.

Edit: Emu'd

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

In these fights the losing infantry lost not beacuse all 9000 men were killed but because of Org. I make the argument that the 3000 panzer brigade (tanks and men) got behind and bypassed the infantry that were picking flowers in the forest and they had to retreat due to being cut off. Its a game not simulator right?

and...

It might have been said before and I missed it, but in a Forest there is no way that an Armoured Division should take casualties from a regular Infantry Division. You cannot blow up tanks with rifles and hand grenades but you can still be blown to bits by blind tank fire moving in radians.

The technicalities are no doubt nigh on impossible to code but normal infantry should not be damaging panzer formations in any terrain.

Some additional thoughts on tank vs. infantry.

Have you ever heard of mines and AT weapons, those were quite lethal to tanks. We are talking about infantry divisions who have had time to entrench themselves in an area filled with difficult terrain. That have created zones of control and will dictate where tanks can get through.

Ambushing tank formations are quite easy in that kind of terrain, ask the Finnish... they certainly knew how to do it. A single Molotov cocktail (preferably several though) and that's one less tank to worry about.

 

[unmerged(141861)]

I agree, though that is sadly not possible to mod.
Germany used light tanks in Norway, that is true... but there were also lots of infantry to support them. They were hardly sending divisions with a composition like (3xL.Arm, 1xAC) or something. More likely it was (1xL.Arm,1xMot,1xAC) or something like that.

I was not talking MODding the different terrain effects for HA vs SA. It should be in the original game mechanic. WE all KNOW that terrain affects tanks and men differently, the game just doe snot do a good job of abstracting it.

As for Norway, there were lots of infantry supporting them, showing the usefulness and accuracy of the combined arms bonus, even in rough terrain. Many times the tanks are the reason the Norweigians and British had to retreat. Early infantry was weak on AT.