Each state produce supplies and these can then be transported. Each division need a certain amount of supplies otherwise it will get the out of supply penalty. Factories produce equipment which each division use and if the division don't have all the equipment it need it will get penalties.
Superior firepower doctrine
- Thread starter Denkt
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
.png){kind=avatar}
I think how much supplies each state is a static value (generally cities produce supplies so they are key targets) and you can not increase supply production.
I'm just wondering how much of a real concern that will be... Hopefully targeting enemy supply production at home would be a legitimate tactic to hurt armies in the field and not a non-issue. Could be pretty interesting.
Supplies aren't built at home like in HoI3.
From what I understand each state produces a certain number of supplies per day and surplus moves to next state, I'm not sure how you would go about blocking the supply routes but I would assume port strikes could work. I didnt see logistical bombing as an option in WWW but I could have missed it and you may need Strategic or tactical bombers to do it.
Allow me to explain better; SF doctrine, like Grand Battleplan (and Mass Warfare, and early Deep Battle), is based on attritional concepts, which is the most traditional type of thinking; the belief that utilitising superior resources (manpower, industrial capacity) will atterere the opposing force down until it cannot continue fighting. It's a low-intellectual effort form of warfare that's inherently wasteful. Flinging shells/men at the front line until you blunder into a weakpoint or artificially force one open will get the job done. Eventually. At god-knows how much cost to local economy and young men. But if firepower alone could force open a hole in enemy lines and facilitate rapid movement, 1914-18 would look a lot different.
EDIT: I'd like to make one more comment here; the mark of a competent doctrine is if it can achieve its goals. The mark of an effective doctrine is if it can achieve its goals with a minimum of force.
- 4
if you watch the www when he selects tactical bombers they can do ground strike industry strike [pretty sure they just bomb the area causing it to not be able to support as many troops] and naval strike, not too sure how effective they will be though thats something we will have to see
- 1
No doctrine in HOI4 do force you to attritional warfare. The doctrines on the allied side was quite effective given the low casulties USA and UK took during WW2. The superior firepower doctrine make your artillery and airforce more effective which can quickly punch holes in the enemy defensive lines which your armor can then exploit. The same about grand battle plan doctrine.
- 3
- 1
what is mass mobilisation
Casualty-oriented planning is a very attractive school of thought ever since Jomini penned the prototypical doctrine around which modern attritional thinking is formed. The problem is in that it is completely the wrong way to approach planning. The US jackbooted their way into Vietnam and obsessed over casualty reports, casualty-minimisation programs and casualty recoveries which kept deaths on their side down. And also lost them the war.
And yet here it is where it comes back to attrition; maximise firepower in friendly forces, minimise it in enemy forces. Firepower leads into mobility. Compared to the opposing school of thought, mobility leads into firepower.
I also note here that the US armed forces struggled immensely whenever they were put out of their favoured element; a well-formed logistical trail to supply the vast amount of fuel and supplies to the front lines. Far, far worse than their contemporary forces when under the same pressure. Being that terminally dependent on logistics when operating over ten thousand of kilometres away is not a positive trait.
And of course, it might punch holes in an enemy force. After attritioning their force away. Or re-enact Verdun. Or nearly let the Germans into Paris because there were too many clouds.
- 2
A defensive focused doctrine. What you call attrition is some kind of static warfare there two sides fire at each other without advancing. Mass mobilization strength lies in its strong partisans, less dependency on supplies, strong recovery rate and extra manpower. These bonuses don't encourage what you call attritional warfare but encourage the same encirclements as the other doctrines do.
I don't see how these are opposing each other. With firepower you can suppres enemy mobility and with mobility you can put up more firepower. In HOI4 one will give the other and in the end the enemy is encircled and defeated.
You just need to reduce enemy org to zero so their divisions break and then you can exploit the holes. Artillery will destoy the enemy org very quickly because each attack do a set amount of org damage and artillery have many attacks each hour.
- 1
- 1
wat
that is
absolutely
not what I've been saying
ignoring, of course, the complete inanity in attempting to encircle a WW2-era military force with ill-equipped partisans, what do you call a doctrine that leverages superior numbers and focuses on destruction of enemy manpower and materiel in the field with multiple aggressive actions utilising superior numbers if not attritional warfare
They are fundamentally different. Focus on one, lose out the other. Firepower v Mobility is about how you achieve military success and goals. Do you punch a wall until it breaks or walk around the wall. Do you attack a fortress or find another route. Do you attack through the Maginot Line or gamble in the Ardennes. Do you look for the schwerpunk or blindly hammer at them hoping to stumble into one.
If it comes down to it, firepower is (broadly speaking) more effective than mobility in tactical engagements, but mobility has the edge in strategy.
- 1
Ground strike is the bombing of military hardware and manpower, it is CAS. Industry strike is targetting industry/factories in an air zone. Neither of these affect supplies directly although ground strike will cause increased attrition which may put pressure on the supply infrastructure. None of these target the infrastructure itself though which is what logistical bombing in HoI3 was for.
I am not sure I agree, because am not sure if I know what you mean here. Is this what you mean?
"Well, we could fire some more HE into that grid square. We have plenty of howitzers to do it. There might still be enemies in that trench network."
"Nah. Let's just attack it now. We want to use minimum force."
I would say that the mark of an effective battlefield doctrine is whether it achieves its goal without consuming too many of a nation's resources. This may include, but not be limited to, manpower, equipment, ammunition, fuel, and so on.
With superior firepower, your goal is to use lots of ammunition and supporting stuff to conserve resources like manpower and equipment. This only works if you can afford to expend ammunition to this degree while conserving manpower. If you have the manpower, but not the resources required to carpet areas with explosives, maybe this doctrine is not for you.
- 3
No matter what doctrine you use, the best way to defeat the enemy is to encircle them. All doctrine have their own advantages:
- Mobile Warfare have the highest org by far and very quick planing but don't have any "firepower boost".
- Mass Assault allow you to put more divisions at the front because each division need less supplies.
- Grand Battle Plan have the highest planing cap which allow it to launch a very powerful attack and encircle the enemy before the bonus is gone.
- Superior Firepower is the least known doctrine but it have been mentioned to have artillery and air superiority boosts.
- Make a hole in the enemy line by massing firepower in a few provinces so to break the defenders very quickly before reinforcement can be sent.
- Fast moving divisions exploit these hole and quickly encircle parts of the enemy army before the enemy can respond.
- The encircled army is quickly destroyed by massed firepower.
Last edited:
- 1
There is nothing wrong with attritional warfare if it means that your own resources are conserved while the enemy's are eroded. Superior Firepower is probably a very strong doctrine if you have enough manpower not to need Mass Assault's manpower bonuses and you have enough IC to take advantage of artillery and air superiority boosts. If you are IC starved, this is not the doctrine for you. If you need more manpower just to fill your lines, better to take Mass Assault.
Mass Assault seems best if you have a lot of manpower and can pump out divisions or if you need more manpower. Superior Firepower seems best for nations that have a medium or high amount of manpower but really high amounts of IC.
It seems almost like a necessity to have combat artillery with large fat divisions with lots of special companies if you are going down the Firepower doctrine. For the US for example, it would be better to just continue production of old artillery equipment and equip more divisions instead of switching to the cutting edge and losing that (big) efficiency bonus which multiplies the US's industrial advantage.
Mass Assault seems best if you have a lot of manpower and can pump out divisions or if you need more manpower. Superior Firepower seems best for nations that have a medium or high amount of manpower but really high amounts of IC.
It seems almost like a necessity to have combat artillery with large fat divisions with lots of special companies if you are going down the Firepower doctrine. For the US for example, it would be better to just continue production of old artillery equipment and equip more divisions instead of switching to the cutting edge and losing that (big) efficiency bonus which multiplies the US's industrial advantage.
With mobile warfare you could defeat nation that is larger and much better eguipped and that had 30 years of unrestricted time to prepare to fight you and actually fought way better than most people think: France. Germany, that had less men, weapons, vehicles and time to prepare defeated France in just over month with their mobile doctorine and with only 27 000 killed, and 157 000 casualties in total.
Using superior firepower doctorine USA with allies, far superior forces and with Germany fighting on 3 fronts (Italy, east, west) took a year with nearly 200 000 killed and over 700 00 total casualties to defeat Germany. Granted, size of forces was over twice as large, but still.
Late war German force had far higher numbers of tactically immobile troops like Volksgrenadiers and Volksturm. But American doctorine decided to throw shells at the enemy, in effect modernised WW1 doctorine. Encircling Germans would have been easily possible with different approach to battles. American careful tactics cost them more men than was necessary - especially when Germans were surrendering en masse to them.
Using superior firepower doctorine USA with allies, far superior forces and with Germany fighting on 3 fronts (Italy, east, west) took a year with nearly 200 000 killed and over 700 00 total casualties to defeat Germany. Granted, size of forces was over twice as large, but still.
Late war German force had far higher numbers of tactically immobile troops like Volksgrenadiers and Volksturm. But American doctorine decided to throw shells at the enemy, in effect modernised WW1 doctorine. Encircling Germans would have been easily possible with different approach to battles. American careful tactics cost them more men than was necessary - especially when Germans were surrendering en masse to them.
- 3
- 1
Pretty nice strawman there. Germany was facing a France in 1939 that doctrinally fought like France in 1918. The USA was facing a Germany that was at the cutting edge of doctrines and did pretty well. Germany suffered more than 1 million casualties in 1944-1945 on the Western Front. The Allies in total suffered less than 750,000 casualties, the majority of soldiers being American, operating on foreign soil, away from US strategic depth with horribly complicated supply lines.
And of course, Germany had a highly educated and powerful officer corps from the start of the war. American military doctrine was in some ways inferior to France in 1939 and had a lot of catching up to do. By 1944, all major nations had adopted a lot of German blitzkrieg tactics.
My point is that Germany's early war performance is more to do with luck, timing, innovative tactics like using radios, and bad tactical assumptions on France's part instead of some inherent flaw in American military doctrine which had nothing to do with France. Remember, by 1944, the US was outperforming German armies on a casualty basis and also achieving their strategic objectives while Germany was losing.
- 4
- 1
Now if we look at the Eastern front, we have the ratio of Soviet to Axis losses something like 6 or 7 to 1 in 1941, about 2 to 1 in 1942, and close to 1 to 1 in the latter part of the war (1944-1945). The numbers will change depending on the study you look at but these seem to be approximate ratios. The point is that even the Soviets who adopt a far more attritional model of warfare can match German combat performance once they get more experienced leadership and better equipment.
All of which HOI 4 should model well BTW.
All of which HOI 4 should model well BTW.
But Germans were outnumbered MORE than 2 to 1. 5 million allies facing 2 million Germans. And Germans were under eguipped. Hell, even standard rifle was bolt action, while Americans (as only nation) had semi automatics as standard. And German army`s training was always less than ideal, even during operatio Barbarossa Germans freguently had to pull soldiers from rear duties not meant to fight into battle, and replacements were constantly less and less trained. So higher casualties are to be expected in every way. American supply lines were complicated, but German supply lines were bombed mercilessy by allied air forces with their air superiority.
And German "cutting edge" doctrines did not in large part exist in 1944 becouse German forces were under eguipped. You can´t pull of Blitzkrieg if you don`t have tanks or trucks or fuel. Germany had army designed to fight mobile warfare but without ability to fight mobile warfare. Americans and other allies on other hand could operate without restrictions like that.
My point is that Germans were getting weaker and weaker while allies stronger and stronger. Yet Allies suffered huge casualties in 1944 against enemy that was defeated and weaker in every way expect experience.
- 2
- 1