There was some topics before with other's player suggestions, but no get my vote. So here I'd decided to suggest mine. Well, not sure, but if moderator decides its better to move into earlier topic, okay then. I just prefer to start new discussion from scratch.
HoI model and those, I've read here - all of them are just about "should the armour be in 1.4 stronger than infantry or in 2.0?"
I mean there is just two parameters: SA and HA and all we can do is to change them.
In my opinion, this is wrong. All kinds of military were needed for their own purpose. Lets see it in very simplified (bit still deeper than it is now) view:
1. Aviation suppreses and kills.
2. Artillery does the same
3. Infantry defends against tanks and another infantry, takes the land and makes tactical breakthrough.
4. Armour develops tactical breakthrough into operational, wreaks chaos in rear by quick breakthroughs and encirclements. Well, I think most of readers have heard about mr. Guderian. Thats the main purpose of tanks, though they are good in firing as well, of course.
As I've said this is very simplified view: there are different kinds of tanks and ways/doctrines of ground bombing. But its enough.
What I propose.
1. Way one, very simple: increase combined arms bonus (or let it be moddable); aviation should have a bonus if attacking more than 5 divisions. Lets say if we have 10 divs in province, aviation makes twice more casualties or losses in generals (to different divisions or to one...not sure).
2. Way two. More realistic, but harder to implement.
a. Artillery and aviation both get a bonus against "many" (this term is relative) divisions. Thats similar as I've described above. They disrupts strength mostly (most of casualties in infantry were from artillery fire), if we assume that air division is on "ground support" mission.
b. Armour gets bonus to making org damage. Armour is more vulnerable than infantry and takes more str losses from general "enemy division" (this "more losses", of course, increases as enemy division becomes more advanced -> get better AT and art.), I do not even talk about inf+art. Its like subs: makes much losses (in our case "org" losses mostly) but takes much losses too.
c. Infantry is "somewhere in the middle"
d. Combined arms should be slightly increased, to 25% probably.
e. Increase combat time (though not as it is in TRP or WiF)
f. Decrease infantry movement time. 1.5 km/h - here is the rough speed of '41 inf on more or less plain terrain.
g. Put some quite little but growing supply penalty if amount of divisions in new "little" province exceed 10.
So, the basically it will be that art/air makes more str damage, arm - makes more org damage and inf - in the middle. Sounds like useless change but it is not.
Lets try to see what it leads us to.
Assume that our enemy is just a bit weaker, than we are (thats why we attack actually).
First, I take 9 inf divisions and try to attack. I will relatively slowly disrupt their org (slowly moving in + heavy art. fire) and str. (inf. + art. fire). Enemy could retreat or it will be forced to do when his org will go too low. The time of battle will be, lets say, X hours, where X - is relatively big value and our enemy certainly will manage to move in his reserves (or yawn several times). Here we get what was named "positional crisis of WWI".
Lets take 9 inf+art divisions. All will be the same except that enemy will take more casualties (or retreat earlier). The time of battle will be less than X (we have more artillery). But his str losses will be noticeable more now. Perhaps we would be able to finish enemy quickly enough to make operational breakthrough. Especially if he has not motorized inf.
Lets take 9 arm divisions. If they will just stay front vs front against inf. divisions they will be destroyed or take very heavy str. losses. But they would not. They would (at least, try) make "spearhead" and breakthrough somewhere and move in. They wont kill as much as inf+art divisions and they will take heavy losses (this should be reduced while division becomes more advanced), but they will force enemy to retreat...maybe it wont be too late otherwise enemy get itself encircled. And the battle will last much quicker than in first two cases.
Now lets move one step up - on strategical scale, where we have some limited IC-days to spend. We can spend them on 9 inf. divisions and play with them attacking or defending, but its doubtful we could make breakthrough somewhere before enemy moves in his reserves. We can spend them on 6 arm. divisions and make an operational breakthrough somewhere against those 9 divisions of enemy. Whoa! But we got 30% str. losses, some org. losses while enemies inf. divisions got only 15% str losses and are retreating. We can not fight with arm. divisions only (unless our IC > 800). Or we will make one breakthrough in a month and then reinforce our losses.
Lets mix inf and arm? We still breakthrew enemies position quickly enough, we did not got such heavy losses because of "combined arms" bonus and because our inf. divisions took some hits. We have infantry divisions to send them on what they deserve - cover our flangs in operational breakthrough while we can continue and continue to move with our spearhead to another province while enemy is not organized yet.
How to implement this quite easily? Well, perhaps to add some multiplier to some .txt file (there are some now) which will set amount of org and str damage for armor, infantry and so on? The same way can be used to implement armor divisions relatively high str. losses
Huh. Any opinions?
Update. I decide to "bind" this to historical examples of '41 year.
French school: we rely mostly on inf+art+fort and armour as infantry support. No quick breakthroughs, but heavy manpower and equipment losses for enemy. Combat is long.
German school: we rely on good mix of independant arm+mot divisions and inf+art. Breakthrough in key points, huge enemy losses due to encirclements, our losses are relatively low, combat is quick.
Soviet school: heavy armoured corps with very low inf and art support. Infantry acts independantly. Our armour forces take heavy losses, gaining no results. Our infantry divisions are decent in defence but can not move quickly enough as reserves to "key points" where Germans attacked.
HoI model and those, I've read here - all of them are just about "should the armour be in 1.4 stronger than infantry or in 2.0?"
I mean there is just two parameters: SA and HA and all we can do is to change them.
In my opinion, this is wrong. All kinds of military were needed for their own purpose. Lets see it in very simplified (bit still deeper than it is now) view:
1. Aviation suppreses and kills.
2. Artillery does the same
3. Infantry defends against tanks and another infantry, takes the land and makes tactical breakthrough.
4. Armour develops tactical breakthrough into operational, wreaks chaos in rear by quick breakthroughs and encirclements. Well, I think most of readers have heard about mr. Guderian. Thats the main purpose of tanks, though they are good in firing as well, of course.
As I've said this is very simplified view: there are different kinds of tanks and ways/doctrines of ground bombing. But its enough.
What I propose.
1. Way one, very simple: increase combined arms bonus (or let it be moddable); aviation should have a bonus if attacking more than 5 divisions. Lets say if we have 10 divs in province, aviation makes twice more casualties or losses in generals (to different divisions or to one...not sure).
2. Way two. More realistic, but harder to implement.
a. Artillery and aviation both get a bonus against "many" (this term is relative) divisions. Thats similar as I've described above. They disrupts strength mostly (most of casualties in infantry were from artillery fire), if we assume that air division is on "ground support" mission.
b. Armour gets bonus to making org damage. Armour is more vulnerable than infantry and takes more str losses from general "enemy division" (this "more losses", of course, increases as enemy division becomes more advanced -> get better AT and art.), I do not even talk about inf+art. Its like subs: makes much losses (in our case "org" losses mostly) but takes much losses too.
c. Infantry is "somewhere in the middle"
d. Combined arms should be slightly increased, to 25% probably.
e. Increase combat time (though not as it is in TRP or WiF)
f. Decrease infantry movement time. 1.5 km/h - here is the rough speed of '41 inf on more or less plain terrain.
g. Put some quite little but growing supply penalty if amount of divisions in new "little" province exceed 10.
So, the basically it will be that art/air makes more str damage, arm - makes more org damage and inf - in the middle. Sounds like useless change but it is not.
Lets try to see what it leads us to.
Assume that our enemy is just a bit weaker, than we are (thats why we attack actually).
First, I take 9 inf divisions and try to attack. I will relatively slowly disrupt their org (slowly moving in + heavy art. fire) and str. (inf. + art. fire). Enemy could retreat or it will be forced to do when his org will go too low. The time of battle will be, lets say, X hours, where X - is relatively big value and our enemy certainly will manage to move in his reserves (or yawn several times). Here we get what was named "positional crisis of WWI".
Lets take 9 inf+art divisions. All will be the same except that enemy will take more casualties (or retreat earlier). The time of battle will be less than X (we have more artillery). But his str losses will be noticeable more now. Perhaps we would be able to finish enemy quickly enough to make operational breakthrough. Especially if he has not motorized inf.
Lets take 9 arm divisions. If they will just stay front vs front against inf. divisions they will be destroyed or take very heavy str. losses. But they would not. They would (at least, try) make "spearhead" and breakthrough somewhere and move in. They wont kill as much as inf+art divisions and they will take heavy losses (this should be reduced while division becomes more advanced), but they will force enemy to retreat...maybe it wont be too late otherwise enemy get itself encircled. And the battle will last much quicker than in first two cases.
Now lets move one step up - on strategical scale, where we have some limited IC-days to spend. We can spend them on 9 inf. divisions and play with them attacking or defending, but its doubtful we could make breakthrough somewhere before enemy moves in his reserves. We can spend them on 6 arm. divisions and make an operational breakthrough somewhere against those 9 divisions of enemy. Whoa! But we got 30% str. losses, some org. losses while enemies inf. divisions got only 15% str losses and are retreating. We can not fight with arm. divisions only (unless our IC > 800). Or we will make one breakthrough in a month and then reinforce our losses.
Lets mix inf and arm? We still breakthrew enemies position quickly enough, we did not got such heavy losses because of "combined arms" bonus and because our inf. divisions took some hits. We have infantry divisions to send them on what they deserve - cover our flangs in operational breakthrough while we can continue and continue to move with our spearhead to another province while enemy is not organized yet.
How to implement this quite easily? Well, perhaps to add some multiplier to some .txt file (there are some now) which will set amount of org and str damage for armor, infantry and so on? The same way can be used to implement armor divisions relatively high str. losses
Huh. Any opinions?
Update. I decide to "bind" this to historical examples of '41 year.
French school: we rely mostly on inf+art+fort and armour as infantry support. No quick breakthroughs, but heavy manpower and equipment losses for enemy. Combat is long.
German school: we rely on good mix of independant arm+mot divisions and inf+art. Breakthrough in key points, huge enemy losses due to encirclements, our losses are relatively low, combat is quick.
Soviet school: heavy armoured corps with very low inf and art support. Infantry acts independantly. Our armour forces take heavy losses, gaining no results. Our infantry divisions are decent in defence but can not move quickly enough as reserves to "key points" where Germans attacked.
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