Infantry battalions only need 50 at the moment. A 36 gun artillery regiment is going to need at least ~2 times the manpower of an infantry battalion so I'd consider that 100 (in-game) an absolute minimum.
Shouldn't Mechanized be cheaper?
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Infantry battalions only need 50 at the moment. A 36 gun artillery regiment is going to need at least ~2 times the manpower of an infantry battalion so I'd consider that 100 (in-game) an absolute minimum.
Yeah right ( I confused the number with the guns, sorry ), that means it makes even less sense for towed Artillery to require that many trucks...
36 guns of artillery in game requires half the manpower that Infantry does in game (or even less if comparing to motorized infantry), so not sure what your going on about there
36 guns of artillery in game requires half the manpower that Infantry does in game (or even less if comparing to motorized infantry), so not sure what your going on about there
That's absolutely fanciful though. I'm pretty sure I've seen you remark previously too that the in-game artillery is grossly understrength.
And anyway, you did note that the German motorized division's artillery regiment normalized to 36 guns had more automobiles than an entire infantry regiment of three battalions, right?
Aside from width/frontage rounding I can't wrap my head around why they chose to mix battalions and regiments in the template builder with the same icons. Even though it's just GUI it would be a lot more logical if unit sizes were represented as such and the template GUI showing each regiment/brigade with the battalions as the smallest part.Yeah right ( I confused the number with the guns, sorry ), that means it makes even less sense for towed Artillery to require that many trucks...
36 guns of artillery in game requires half the manpower that Infantry does in game (or even less if comparing to motorized infantry), so not sure what your going on about there
That's probably because it seems to have started out as a battalion but somewhere along they way it got muddled up into regimental size (in terms of guns).
No I think the manpower numbers for artillery is correct since the number of men represented in HoI4 is FRONTLINE men.
None of the support, logistics or administration personnel in HoI4 is represented, so neither should their trucks be.
I mean sure, it would be nice if they were represented, but then they must be represented for all units, not just artillery!
None of the support, logistics or administration personnel in HoI4 is represented, so neither should their trucks be.
I mean sure, it would be nice if they were represented, but then they must be represented for all units, not just artillery!
If only immediate front line is supposed to be represented cut at least 500 from the infantry battalions. That's how many men US infantry battalion had in rifle/mortar/MG squads. 1000 is perfect for entire battalion + it's regimental slice though (US regiment of 3 battalions had 3,100 men).
Though I think generally (in tooth-to-tail ratios for example) the entire divisional strength is regarded as front line.
Though I think generally (in tooth-to-tail ratios for example) the entire divisional strength is regarded as front line.
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So how many real divisions of 12000 men would have 5000 manpower assigned to their artillery then? ( Which is what a standard HoI4 7+2 infantry division would end up with going by your suggestion of an Artillery battalion requiring over 2x of what an infantry battalion does ).
No division of any size had 96 organic artillery pieces in this period. Maybe the Soviets had during cold war. Ultimately, if we are using ahistorically large number of artillery I think we should expect ahistorically large proportion of artillerymen (or you can rationalize that large number of those guns/men aren't from the division but represent a relatively large corps artillery park).
I would accept 1500/1000 strength artillery too, though that's still about twice the size of typical WW2 infantry battalion (~800). That would give 4000 men for the standard division which is in the ballpark of Japanese mountain gun equipped divisions (though they had half the guns).
This guy seems to disagree with you about how many real guns each unit in HoI4 should represent and I'd say he knows what hes talking about when it comes to military history:
He says right in the start that he ignored the number of guns and counted by battalion and advices to divide by three if you disagree.
Anyway US divisions: 36 105mm, 12 155mm, 18 105mm infantry guns; Germany: also 36 105mm, 12 150mm, 6 150mm infantry guns; UK 72 25 pounder (88mm) guns; Japan 36-48 guns, typically 75mm + 12 75mm infantry guns. I ignored the lightest German and Japanese infantry guns as infantry equipment due to combination low payload and range as well as the 107mm mortars (mostly pyrotechnic IIRC).
If you are willing to count 120mm mortars as artillery at ratio of 2-to-1 the Soviet mechanized corps would come close to 96 (122 artillery pieces including 66 heavy mortars). However it also has equivalent of around 14 motorized battalions, 3 medium tank and 2 medium TD battalions. Truly a corps.
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I'm quite confident that artillerymen to all effects are counted as fighting men and not support/backhaul. Historically they're counted as combat-arms/fighting-arms or fighting-hands, just like infantry or tankers as opposed to other support functions that don't wield around weapon systems. Whether this is the case in-game or not I don't really know.
I do agree that it'd be nice to have every aspect of a division and army represented (if only in the numbers and equipment off-map) and adjusted according to the various doctrines and techs. Then you could truly get the "softness" of a division right in terms of different types of action, attrition etc.
So would a motorised artillery unit of 24 artillery equipment plus 48 motorised equipment be a reasonable start point? I'm not sure if a 36artillery 72motorised unit is reasonable.
Since the SP Artillery also have similar amounts ( 40 units ) anything other then 36 artillery equipment would be pretty strange IMO.
If it was 24 then logically it's width and whole lot of other stuff should also be different which kind of would mess up stuff.
will give lowering cost a try and see if it makes them attractive enough. The game doesnt support reduced mud modifier for mech since its not a real terrain etc, otherwise I think that is a good direction to go to give them a clear niche.
Mech is not only about the vehicle hardware, the halftracks or full tracks. One of the smart design ideas in HOI IV is that new tech development encompasses what in reality is a combination of the hardware and development of the tactical doctrine and methodology how it is used. This is further extended in the operational and strategy level doctrine trees.
To produce mech units is about developing both the vehicles and a completely new unit approach for blitz warfare. With the emergence of mech units, combined arms of tanks and infantry could fire and attack while moving. This was a new paradigm of warfare and it should cost to develop, as it cost a lot of time and methodology development in reality. In the game a well balanced armoured division is an awesome combat unit, just as it should be.
The German general Guderian "invented" blitzkrieg tactics in the1930s, influenced by the British military theorist Fuller. But Guderians blitzkrieg was combined arms warfare with tanks supported by Stuka dive bombers and fighter planes. The role of infantry was to mop up any resistance left after the tanks had passed. But this was a very costly approach to offensive, as the tanks were easily defeated by small infantry units with mobile anti-tank weapons.
Only from approx 1943, full combined arms armoured warfare was developed and tried in the Kursk battle. It did not work well in the Russian prepared Kursk defences, but that is not the point. The point is that the tactics and ability for armour - mech offensive action was invented there and then, and then well utilised by Patton in France in 1944-1945, and thereafter by the frozen armies of the cold war from 1946 to 1989. Combined arms doctrine did not change much after 1943, with the exception of new armoured helicopter units from the early 1970s.
Real combined arms action is not possible without BOTH tanks and infantry in armoured fighting vehicles, where infantry can fire while the vehicle moves. So yes, it does and should cost to produce such units.
Blitzkrieg is bewegungskrieg, it`s a Prussian way of conducting war dating back to at least 18th century.
Fuller was a rambling loon obsessed with magic and Fascism - look him up - and Guderian was an egomaniac who considered the chain of command to be optional when it came to him - an attitude that eventually got him shitcanned. Soviet theoreticians were working on more complex - and in the case of Fuller, sane - and highly developed theories of mechanized and operational warfare in the 20s than either of those two managed to come up with.