Realistic Mobilization

[unmerged(102628)]

HOI 3 should include an expanded mobilization system on infantry divisions. Instead of producing normal infantry divisions, their should be an option to produce a skeleton division which is similar in strength to a HQ, but can quickly draw manpower (similar to how reinforcing works) when you order it to.

Prior to war, armies did not have all of their divisions at full alert. Maybe when war seems more likely the player can choose to build up their skeleton divisions. But why use supplies when there is no war. And when you need full strength infantry divisions, you can just reinforce them to a certain level.

 

[nwinther]

Like it. Then experience would actually count for something.

By making a system where a division is made from a (group of) brigade(s), taking an experienced brigade as the backbone, the, say two other novice brigades follow the veterans and gain experience themselves. Sometimes they are destroyed - or loose manpower, which in turn "use" experience.

This way you can triple your army size pretty quickly at the expence of professionalism/experience.

Add the option to "build" infantry divisions like today, that are highly trained and thus have some built-in experience, but taking much longer to make and are very (rather) expensive.

You should also be able to make large divisions of, say 5 brigades (a division should be anything between 1-5 brigades).

Oh, and I'd love it if we could make a corps, where we have a lt. general that's in command with each division commanded by a mj. general and each brigade commanded by a colonel or brigadeer, but still in "one" formation, like in HOI2.

 

[ggm]

doctrine and gearing limits

it would would good if doctrine limits the amount of divisions of a certain type which can be produced, thus forcing countries like early france and russia from producing to many armoured divisions until they research the specific doctrine.
also doctrine should limit the number of brigades in a division. thus as doctrines are researched the larger the divisions can get. although perhaps large divisions can be built early in the game but at a large morale or organisation hit, as the communications and control don't yet exist to effectively control the whole division.

ggtm

 

[unmerged(102628)]

Experience is something I did not think about. I was thinking in terms more of manpower and supplies. But experience adds another element to mobilization. In most armies of the time you would have a core of well-trained and experienced soldiers during peacetime. When war begins you would add newly-trained, inexperienced brigades. Thus in peacetime, when there is time and resources, you can train the experienced element; and in war, when you need soldiers quickly, you can add the inexperienced brigades, which are cheaper and quicker to produce.

Also, I think that regiments should be the building blocks of divisions. I know that it is just a name, but a brigade seems to me is something more independent . Perhaps divisions can be made out of regiments; and brigades can be added to corps or armies.

 

[unmerged(105989)]

Experience is something I did not think about. I was thinking in terms more of manpower and supplies. But experience adds another element to mobilization. In most armies of the time you would have a core of well-trained and experienced soldiers during peacetime. When war begins you would add newly-trained, inexperienced brigades. Thus in peacetime, when there is time and resources, you can train the experienced element; and in war, when you need soldiers quickly, you can add the inexperienced brigades, which are cheaper and quicker to produce.

Also, I think that regiments should be the building blocks of divisions. I know that it is just a name, but a brigade seems to me is something more independent . Perhaps divisions can be made out of regiments; and brigades can be added to corps or armies.

I like your idea. It is somewhat in line with what the US did in WW II. They took their original, very small professional army, and created cadres that raised new divisions. As those units grew, the best were again siphoned off to cadre yet another new unit. Created a large army relatively quickly, but at the expense of experience.

As a side note (if you're interested or care) on the whole regiment / brigade terms. They are nearly interchangeable in size terms and both are really equally independent. Really the differences come about in how the armies were organized. The UK, US and German armies were all based off of a regimental structure, but didn't necessarily organize and fight that way. In the WW II Brit Army, parts of Regiments were "brigaded" together to form Brigades, the building block of the division. The WW II US and German armies generally kept regiments pure as building blocks of divisions, but even then sub-divided out into Combat Commands or kampfgruppes, both of which could be considered Brigades by modern day terms, but were much more ad-hoc. Generally a CC or kampfgruppe was centered around a regiment, with added enablers (tank destroyers, heavy armor, artillery, etc) added.

edit - for those that care - Combat commands were primarily in US armored divisions. The US infantry divisions fought with regiments pure.

Sorry for going slightly off-topic.

 

[Ironhead 5]

I'm not sure how much different this is than, say, starting with a bunch of divisions at 50% or 25% strength, and having to allocate IC to reinforce them. To make this option significantly different than HoI2, I think you would have to include an option to have a division cannibalized to form the cadres of several other divisions, all of which would be at significantly reduced manpower strength. You then allocate IC to bring these divisions up to par.

Ideally, the IC/days cost of this would be the same as the IC cost of creating all new divisions; the difference would be that the experience of the initial division gets diffused to all the new divisions, as opposed to having the initial division retain all of its experience and having the new divisions start with 0 experience.

 

[Hansag]

When it comes to mobilization, one might also model in the fact that some don't show up at first, or just deserts before even arriving at the assembly area etc.

 

[Lazy_Boy]

Yeah that's a good idea. Much more realistic army formation.

Imo all army manpower that becomes available should be formed for just a small amount of supplies on the map as skeleton equipped divisions. From there you equip and train them to be Inf/Panzer/Mech/Motor fighting divisions. The under equipped divisions can be used as garrison forces and/or set to reserve forces.

Something like that would be much more realistic imo. Real world armies don't form by recruiting men and then building each division from scratch. Armies are drafted by the masses and then equipped from there. As the war went on armies on all sides didn't grow much in manpower after the first few years but became MASSIVELY more powerful with the mass production of tanks and equipment. Just look at any chart of arms manufacturing. '44 is peak for all countries. In Hoi2 you've prettmuch built every division you're going to by '42.

Also that would give more realism in the way of front line fighting. In Hoi2 you've got almost everything on the front lines. In real life only small portions of armies were fully equipped front line fighters. Divisions should have statistics of numbers of Mortars/Artillery/Machine Guns/TDs/Tanks/Trucks, ect.

 

[unmerged(94130)]

By making a system where a division is made from a (group of) brigade(s), taking an experienced brigade as the backbone, the, say two other novice brigades follow the veterans and gain experience themselves. Sometimes they are destroyed - or loose manpower, which in turn "use" experience.

It's the French mobilization system. And probably the same system for other countries.
So when the mobilization is lauched, an artillery regiment for example, become 2 regiments, the light (75/105) and the heavy (155).

But for HoI, i think it's complex.

We would can create a new division, using manpower from population and may be an officers pool, and when this division is ready you can choose the reserve status. The manpower won't be available for producing new divisions. And when you need this division, you won't use IC (you haven't to produce new equipement) but you will wait that all the division staff has arrived and is ready.

But some divisions can't be on reserve status. Armoured, mechanized, amphibious, airborne, hq divisions...

 

[unmerged(110676)]

It might make the drafted slider a bit more worthwhile.

 

[Kriegsspieler]

I can't say whether this idea is feasible, but I think it's a good one. It would also be interesting if it could be combined with something of a time lag to fill skeletal divisions to full strength.

 

[LordGazer]

Maybe the fraction of manpower that goes into the officer pool could be tied to doctrines events and tech. That would be a practical way of limiting the number of effective fighting units. If you go over the limit you get something like what Red Army had in the beginning of WW2.

LordG

It's the French mobilization system. And probably the same system for other countries.
So when the mobilization is lauched, an artillery regiment for example, become 2 regiments, the light (75/105) and the heavy (155).

But for HoI, i think it's complex.

We would can create a new division, using manpower from population and may be an officers pool, and when this division is ready you can choose the reserve status. The manpower won't be available for producing new divisions. And when you need this division, you won't use IC (you haven't to produce new equipement) but you will wait that all the division staff has arrived and is ready.

But some divisions can't be on reserve status. Armoured, mechanized, amphibious, airborne, hq divisions...

 

[unmerged(94130)]

Maybe the fraction of manpower that goes into the officer pool could be tied to doctrines events and tech. That would be a practical way of limiting the number of effective fighting units. If you go over the limit you get something like what Red Army had in the beginning of WW2.

LordG

And the possibility to creat new academies or military school.

 

[Ithron]

And, there should be limit to how much manpower can country draw from population. Total available manpower should be limited, and available from the start.. Also, total amount of divisons that country holds, should depend on country's economics. Most of the countries could never keep all of their reserves deployed.

 

[Ironhead 5]

And, there should be limit to how much manpower can country draw from population. Total available manpower should be limited, and available from the start..

How is this different from what HoI2 did?

Also, total amount of divisons that country holds, should depend on country's economics. Most of the countries could never keep all of their reserves deployed.

I think this is referring to how much manpower the country could spare from its workforce, right? Or are you referring to how much the country could afford to field?

 

[Carroarmato-P40]

Honestly, I like some of the suggestions here, and although I am a bit of a fan of micromanagement, I have to speak out in saying that Paradox shouldn't go about making mobilisation too contrived and complicated. Honestly, I'd like to see maybe this much...

Maybe there should be a slider, near the production window, that limits the strength of a newly formed division (anywhere from say 5% of 100%). This gives the player the option of spitting out full power, full strength, battle ready formations. Or otherwise producing some reserves with a low upkeep to be reinforced with time. Obviously a lower strength division would use less supplies whilst a full strength one would use more supplies, but would essentially be battle ready. This would also allow the player to chose 'how' they spend their manpower on producing units. A one off, full price cost, or a lower initial cost with a slow manpower feed until the unit reaches full strength.

I suppose there should also be a button that prevents reinforcement, if you are are at peace and have no threat of war, the player should be able to retain their divisions at whatever strength they please...

I think the standing-drafted slider should come into this.. A slider more 'draft' orientated should be built quicker, and acquire full manpower quicker (ie: initial division reinforcement, not battle-casualty reinforcement). However, like in HOI2, standing armies should cost less to refit and upgrade..

I really don't think it should be much more complex than that, otherwise it just takes away from the game... I want to spend my time throwing my Panzers towards Minsk, Moscow and Miami!

 

[bbasgen]

To follow on Carroarmato-P40's comments, I'm not sure I see the gameplay usefulness here. Mobilization in Victoria was very good and realistic -- when you mobilize, your economy is just devastated! In WW2, the effect would be similar, but the economy would recover far more quickly since modern industrialization allowed women, children, and the elderly to go to work.

In WW2, in some sense you could say every nation "mobilized" at some point to reflect "total war", yet -- for what countries did pre-mobilization versus post-mobilization have a significant military impact? In other words, the aggressors wouldn't really need such a system. The Allies were certainly effected, but isn't this already modeled by IC penalties? Further, look at mods like WIF, that prevent unit building. Why not use those existing approaches, rather than create another layer of complexity?

 

[The Albatross]

Good Point...

HOI 3 should include an expanded mobilization system on infantry divisions. Instead of producing normal infantry divisions, their should be an option to produce a skeleton division which is similar in strength to a HQ, but can quickly draw manpower (similar to how reinforcing works) when you order it to.

Prior to war, armies did not have all of their divisions at full alert. Maybe when war seems more likely the player can choose to build up their skeleton divisions. But why use supplies when there is no war. And when you need full strength infantry divisions, you can just reinforce them to a certain level.

This is an excellent idea -- use cadre staff from previous conflicts [perhaps similar to the Swiss Reservist type role] to educate, train, and develop core/embryo elements for emerging/expanding units so that military skills are preserved and developed in times of peace......ready for times of war.

Cheers

 

[Carroarmato-P40]

This is an excellent idea -- use cadre staff from previous conflicts [perhaps similar to the Swiss Reservist type role] to educate, train, and develop core/embryo elements for emerging/expanding units so that military skills are preserved and developed in times of peace......ready for times of war.

Cheers

Maybe we could have that so it is event driven??? Otherwise it will become a very convoluted and complicated process, possibly game-killing..

 

[The Albatross]

Maybe we could have that so it is event driven??? Otherwise it will become a very convoluted and complicated process, possibly game-killing..

Even better --HOI3 will no doubt be bigger, and hopefully better, than the previous versions -- there will necessarily be more "stuff" to manage -- so any way to reduce micromanagement would be a real bonus.

Cheers