Something that's bugged me about HoI4 and even HoI3 for the longest time is how the only reliable piece of artillery for pretty much every single battle is your regular artillery or rocket artillery in combat.... while Anti Air and especially Anti Tank arty seem to be so rarely used meaningfully in combat.
Regular and Rocket artillery arguably is objectively beneficial and a big multiplier in Soft Damage and more. Sure, AA helps reduce Air Superiority a bit, and AT does a lot of Hard Attack. But I don't think they have much general use in head to head battles. They feel like slight buffs to units, imo.
Yes, the problem is that the AI doesn't build enough tank divisions or combine armored brigades with their infantry divisions. But the AI also spreads its armored divisions out so there's no armored thrust where you can allocate your AT units effectively in that area.
It's also a let down that Anti Air units don't get a buff while in Urban terrain, even though historically Anti Air artillery proved effective in urban CQC battle.
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With that all said, I wonder if a better solution to make the best use of all three artillery types is to abstract them into perhaps four types of Support brigades: Horse-Towed Artillery, Truck-Towed Artillery, Mechanized Artillery, and Armored Artillery.
The first benefit being that all four types would at least cover the three artillery branches, Artillery, AA, and AT. So your average infantry unit likely will at least be using Horse-Towed to offer some basic soft damage, AA support, and AT defense as one package without sacrificing Brigade Slots and other costs like it does in HoI4 now.
Horse Drawn Arty being a mixed of light and medium artillery pieces because poor horsies can't pull that much weight.
I see Truck Towed Artillery being a slightly more expensive and decently buffed up version of Horse artillery. Being able to tow light, medium, and some heavy artillery.
Mechanized Support though, I see adding significant buffs to all three branches thanks to more horsepower to bring in more heavy artillery (as shown below), armor protection, self-propelled units, and rocket artillery a la Katyushas, Xylophones, Panzerwerfers.
(Mechanized towed Flak 88)
And lastly Armored Artillery would have the best overall stats, being tanks converted for artillery roles. The only downside would be fuel consumption, more expensive to produce, and maybe terrain.
Yes i know we have variants and while they're cool that they're modeled, i do feel like having multiple models of Light Tank II AA, Medium Tank III SPG, and all the additional upgraded models adds more unnecessary micro and juggling around units. I find myself usually just researching the base tanks and sometimes SPGs (again, AA and AT just seem so rarely and effectively used in head to head battles) most of the time.
In practice, what I'd ideally see as a result in division templates is:
Horse Drawn Arty = Inter-War, Early War infantry units. Late War infantry usage if low on resources i.e. German Volks divisions. Minor Countries.
Truck Arty = Early-Mid-Late War Infantry units if industry supports it. Motorized divisions. Early War tank divisions
Mechanized Arty = Elite units throughout the war. Mechanized divisions. Tank Divisions.
Armored Arty = Elite Armored Divisions
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I understand this would change the research tree quite a bit. I don't know how it would exactly look like if you abstracted arty like I did, but i think I'd be okay just giving simple upgrade levels that improves soft damage, hard damage, AA support, defense each time you rank it up. The cost could either be really long research durations, or maybe it increases the production costs.
Thoughts?
Regular and Rocket artillery arguably is objectively beneficial and a big multiplier in Soft Damage and more. Sure, AA helps reduce Air Superiority a bit, and AT does a lot of Hard Attack. But I don't think they have much general use in head to head battles. They feel like slight buffs to units, imo.
Yes, the problem is that the AI doesn't build enough tank divisions or combine armored brigades with their infantry divisions. But the AI also spreads its armored divisions out so there's no armored thrust where you can allocate your AT units effectively in that area.
It's also a let down that Anti Air units don't get a buff while in Urban terrain, even though historically Anti Air artillery proved effective in urban CQC battle.
---
With that all said, I wonder if a better solution to make the best use of all three artillery types is to abstract them into perhaps four types of Support brigades: Horse-Towed Artillery, Truck-Towed Artillery, Mechanized Artillery, and Armored Artillery.
The first benefit being that all four types would at least cover the three artillery branches, Artillery, AA, and AT. So your average infantry unit likely will at least be using Horse-Towed to offer some basic soft damage, AA support, and AT defense as one package without sacrificing Brigade Slots and other costs like it does in HoI4 now.
Horse Drawn Arty being a mixed of light and medium artillery pieces because poor horsies can't pull that much weight.
I see Truck Towed Artillery being a slightly more expensive and decently buffed up version of Horse artillery. Being able to tow light, medium, and some heavy artillery.
Mechanized Support though, I see adding significant buffs to all three branches thanks to more horsepower to bring in more heavy artillery (as shown below), armor protection, self-propelled units, and rocket artillery a la Katyushas, Xylophones, Panzerwerfers.
(Mechanized towed Flak 88)
And lastly Armored Artillery would have the best overall stats, being tanks converted for artillery roles. The only downside would be fuel consumption, more expensive to produce, and maybe terrain.
Yes i know we have variants and while they're cool that they're modeled, i do feel like having multiple models of Light Tank II AA, Medium Tank III SPG, and all the additional upgraded models adds more unnecessary micro and juggling around units. I find myself usually just researching the base tanks and sometimes SPGs (again, AA and AT just seem so rarely and effectively used in head to head battles) most of the time.
In practice, what I'd ideally see as a result in division templates is:
Horse Drawn Arty = Inter-War, Early War infantry units. Late War infantry usage if low on resources i.e. German Volks divisions. Minor Countries.
Truck Arty = Early-Mid-Late War Infantry units if industry supports it. Motorized divisions. Early War tank divisions
Mechanized Arty = Elite units throughout the war. Mechanized divisions. Tank Divisions.
Armored Arty = Elite Armored Divisions
---
I understand this would change the research tree quite a bit. I don't know how it would exactly look like if you abstracted arty like I did, but i think I'd be okay just giving simple upgrade levels that improves soft damage, hard damage, AA support, defense each time you rank it up. The cost could either be really long research durations, or maybe it increases the production costs.
Thoughts?
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