That thread only touches on the concept of commandos and active special forces, focusing more on intelligence and spies. I want this thread to focus on the topic as above.
Special Operations and Commando Raids
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That thread only touches on the concept of commandos and active special forces, focusing more on intelligence and spies. I want this thread to focus on the topic as above.
Hitler had 13 million troops on all fronts put together in 1943-44, 250000 is a drop in the bucket. Do the maths, it works out to less than 2% of total troops. Also most of these troops were actually garrisons to keep the Norweigans in check and help in transporting vital ore from Sweden. The actual loss in combat capable troops was more like a "Full Mountain Corps" i.e. 50-60k troops which works out to about 0.5% of total troops mobilised.
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Fighter ACES are not actual "ACES" in game, think of them as AIR LEADERS, since you no longer have AIR and LAND detailed OOBs, the ACES are used to showcase leaders.
Individual Tanks are "purchased from countries" or "built in factories", individually they do not matter, collectively losses matter.
Overall, the Cost to Benefit ratio if done for all commando and airborne troops in the war, the Americans, British and Russians actually spent a whooping amount on them for miniscule bang for bucks. The Germans got the benefits pre 1941 but after that "costly paratroopers" were used as "ground infantry", similarly Italian Folgore (Paratroopers) were used as Ground infantry and Italian Frogmen though they had a "major success in Alexandria", the cost to train, arm and equip them was too much for a country like Italy.
LRDG, Brandenburgers, SAS etc also weren't too viable as "operational units" in a Grand Strategic sense.
It will be funny if Joseph Stalin has to decide among 1000 T34 Tanks for Zhukov's offensive, 300 IL2 Sturmoviks for supporting Konev or 100 Commandos to knock out a supply dump (supply dumps are not present in HOI series and thus the whole operation will become a myth).
Only part of that number was actually from the army, the rest was KM and Luftwaffe. Most of the heer personnel were in 3rd rate units, only the Geibrgskorps Norwegen(later 20th mountain army) was a regular unit, but they were fightning against Soviet Union near Murmansk.
The commando raids may had a minor impact on german garrison strength, but the main reasons for such a big occupication force were:
1. Importance of iron ore shipped from norway.
2. U-boat bases.
Both were of strategic importance to Germany.
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Add you might add:
3. Expected Problems of providing additional troops in case of invasion (the Brits would have been absolutely able to block the seaways between Denmark and Norway)
3. Expected Problems of providing additional troops in case of invasion (the Brits would have been absolutely able to block the seaways between Denmark and Norway)
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I proposed that there were specific operations that could be enabled within the game a while back.
Each country would have specific missions/operations that triggered with specific criteria.
I was thinking
Dambusters raid
Doolittle raid
Attack on the French fleet after the fall of France.
The shooting down of Yamamoto
Italian attack on the battleships in alexandria
Invasion of Crete
Para assault on Fort Eben-Emael
Atack on the Pacific fleet prior to Japanese declaration of war. (knowing that ships may not be in Perl)
Operation Aphrodite
When you tick yes to the operation the units/equipment/aircraft/ships are removed from your inventory until the mission/operation is undertaken and you are told if it was successful. There would be the possibility of the units/equipment/aircraft/ships being lost.
This adds flavor to the game with possible effects in the game. It also adds interest.
It would be possible to have some non historical missions/operations pending on specific criteria.
Each country would have specific missions/operations that triggered with specific criteria.
I was thinking
Dambusters raid
Doolittle raid
Attack on the French fleet after the fall of France.
The shooting down of Yamamoto
Italian attack on the battleships in alexandria
Invasion of Crete
Para assault on Fort Eben-Emael
Atack on the Pacific fleet prior to Japanese declaration of war. (knowing that ships may not be in Perl)
Operation Aphrodite
When you tick yes to the operation the units/equipment/aircraft/ships are removed from your inventory until the mission/operation is undertaken and you are told if it was successful. There would be the possibility of the units/equipment/aircraft/ships being lost.
This adds flavor to the game with possible effects in the game. It also adds interest.
It would be possible to have some non historical missions/operations pending on specific criteria.
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More than a quarter million troops is more than a quarter million troops. If they had been deployed elsewhere, they would collectively have made a difference. I'm sure the Allied troops who had to actually fight their way into Germany were more than happy that about 300 000 of the enemy troops were tucked away in a place that saw pretty much no action after 1940, apart from the fighting going on in the north against the Russians, of course.
They are aces. I seem to recall they are even given famous aces' names in-game.
Even so, tanks are built individually, not in brigades like in HOI3. If individual tanks truly didn't matter any, HOI4 could've just stuck with you building tanks by the brigade.
You can say the same for a lot of things in the war that are still represented in HOI3 and 4.
Yet the militaries around the world did, and do, decide to train commandos in reality. Funny, that.
@Swinds I don't really disagree; it'll work as a compromise. The problem with that approach, though, is that it relies on specific situations, in a sandbox game. Oftentimes the conditions simply wouldn't be there for the events/decisions to happen. For example, let's say there's an event that allows the Germans to sink ships at Scapa Flow, like Günther Prien did in 1939. Knowing the Germans can fire this event, the British player simply stations his fleet elsewhere, and the event basically becomes useless except as a deterrent from stationing ships at Scapa Flow.
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In a game with the scale of divisions, commando raids are something which rarely had an impact that could be noticed.
I could see commandos being made available as a support unit, if they could be limited in number (or by high cost), but I'd rather see them added in down the road as an aspect of a larger gameplay DLC built to cover intelligence and special operations.
I could see commandos being made available as a support unit, if they could be limited in number (or by high cost), but I'd rather see them added in down the road as an aspect of a larger gameplay DLC built to cover intelligence and special operations.
Covert ops had some value in HOI3. But covert ops covered more than commando raids. They tended to fall into either the "spam to maximize" category or the "useless" category, depending on the mission.
I didn't use the system all that much once I learned that the sabotage facility code was buggy (using commandos to destroy things like heavy water or ball bearings was usually a waste, depending on version of the game).
But I did like the UR system, which isn't technically a commando system, but it was unobtrusive, not overpowered (except when used against the AI in certain ways), and had practical effects without requiring massive clicking or stupid "try again" spam. And it had a practical counter in the form of suppression.
If the UR rose up and killed your logistics network, it was your own damn fault for not properly garrisoning and suppressing occupied areas.
I didn't use the system all that much once I learned that the sabotage facility code was buggy (using commandos to destroy things like heavy water or ball bearings was usually a waste, depending on version of the game).
But I did like the UR system, which isn't technically a commando system, but it was unobtrusive, not overpowered (except when used against the AI in certain ways), and had practical effects without requiring massive clicking or stupid "try again" spam. And it had a practical counter in the form of suppression.
If the UR rose up and killed your logistics network, it was your own damn fault for not properly garrisoning and suppressing occupied areas.
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People seriously believe commando raids had little impact? Operation Chariot was a disaster for the Kriegsmarine. If the navy had got the Tirpitz through to the western Atlantic it would have constituted a grave threat to shipping if based on the Loire.
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You mean a grave threat like the Bismarck with its victorious rampage across the shipping of the atlantic... oh, wait...
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250000 of those troops were useless for offensive and poor on the defensive, they would have been as useful in combat against the Russians in 1944 as the Volsturm units. As for the Gerbisjager Corps, it kept Norway safe from Russian threat, not only British and kept the flow of Iron Ore, Ball Bearings etc from Sweden open till the Winter of 1944.
You are repeating ACES ACES, have you seen the WWW, there are no AIR LEADERS, so instead of Leaders, Aces are used (as and when you get them, not all are present at the start).
The whole "Tanks by the Brigade" was proved conclusively wrong in HOI3 forums and thus the decisions were taken to portray individual trucks, tanks and weapons systems.
Post war, cost to benefit studies were done, most armies did away with their enormous amount of "Paratroop Divisions".
Yet, these commandos couldn't fill one full division. Their whole impact on a Grand Strategic game tends to "0", a number tending to zero is often written off, thus they are written off.
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So sorry, but I disagree.
Consider the succesful GER elite paratroop attack on perhaps the worlds strongest fortress = Eben Emael.
I am sure that there were also other significant examples too.
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Not quite.
Newer research indicates that while the paratroopers did land, the real work was done by combat engineers coming by boat.
Anyways, Eben Emael is hardly a point of 'commando raids' unless you consider everytime paratroopers did anything a 'commando raid'.
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The problem with small-scale commando operations is that they're too dependent on dice rolls to decide something that can create a strategic impact lasting for months. Italian raid on Alexandria successfully put two battleships into drydocks, while Japanese raid on Sydney suffered from all kind of bad luck and end up with only psychological impacts.
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Again, I disagree -- clearly you believe that only members of a Commando Unit can conduct commando-style raids.
Other secret behind-the-lines raids conducted by RN, RAN, RNVR, AIF personnel also fit commando-raid criteria.
Example: Operation Jaywick and Rimau = Singapore raid by Z Force.
And your reference for this the "new research" about Eben Emael is.............?
The Emael raid was conducted chiefly by combat engineers, true.. Who trained and qualified as paratroopers.. And they entered the battle in the way of glider infantry. So call them whatever you want, they did just about every infantry role that night.
Another group of combat engineers [Pionere] who didn't train as paratroops actually were intended to reinforce the initial attack but arrived 26 hours later than planned - so they only came onto the scene at the start of day2 of the battle.
Eben Emael was actually surrendered to a line infantry regiment, the 151st, rather than the paratroop/engineer/glider infantrymen.
Commando raids are too low-level for HoI. I hope they aren't included.
Another group of combat engineers [Pionere] who didn't train as paratroops actually were intended to reinforce the initial attack but arrived 26 hours later than planned - so they only came onto the scene at the start of day2 of the battle.
Eben Emael was actually surrendered to a line infantry regiment, the 151st, rather than the paratroop/engineer/glider infantrymen.
Commando raids are too low-level for HoI. I hope they aren't included.
Thanks - the reference you provided was already included in my post - #33.
This is the critical element;
"According to glider historian Robert Mrazek, the Germans had concluded that a conventional assault on Eben Emael would cost thousands of lives and take months—too long for a blitzkrieg."
Relevance: This 4 pronged commando-style assault played a critical part in the subjugation of Belgium.
Therefore this tactical raid had strategic implications.
HOI IV is a strategic game and I refer to this description from the PI website;
"Total strategic war – The war is not only won on land, on the seas and in the air, but also in the laboratories, the factories, the backrooms, in international trade and in the hearts and minds of men and women.
The most authentic real-time simulation of the war – Let the greatest commanders of WW2 fight your war with the tools of the time; tanks, planes, ships, guns and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction."
Now --- time for me to drink heavily too.....
