Tungsten in HOI4

[Gen. Skobelev]

By that logic they start "conserving" in the first battle as soon as they fire 1 round. In reality, if they would not be rationing until they got below 50% or less. I know I wouldn't want my troops conserving ammo on an offensive because they fired one round and now are at 99%, 98% etc.

That's why supply stock is increased before attack. But it was far from unheard in the war to limit for example ammunition usage of artillery in situations that weren't critical, especially if the nominal ammunition requirement wasn't being met. There's some problems with reduced efficiency in the game (like you said, there should be some floor before it would start to decrease) but neither is "use all supplies without regard, then run completely dry" very accurate, either.

 

[Filou]

The way to do it is to split 'supply' into all sort of specifics. That way you don't bother with equipment mechanics but rather let the supply engine deal with ammo.

Didn't they say that supply will not be this all or nothing approach, or am I projecting the resource stockpile mechanics onto the supply system?

 

[unmerged(748229)]

I'm starting to get concerned with some of the things I'm seeing regarding the use of tungsten in HOI4.

To be clear, this metal had two major uses in WWII.

1) Machine Tools (Tungsten carbide is an extremely hard metal and is used as a coating on cutting tools)
- Therefore if you lack tungsten your industrial efficiency goes down because your tools don't last nearly as long and you can't cut hard metals
2) Armor Piercing A/T rounds (Again, Tungsten carbide is extremely hard and dense which was why it was used in armour piercing rounds)

The germans had much difficulty getting enough Tungsten to support both production of high quality machine tools and tungsten AP rounds. They basically made the decision to use their tungsten in machine tools and abandoned it's use in AP rounds late in the war.

I don't see how tungsten can be needed as a resource to build a tank. Tungsten wasn't used in steel it was used in AP rounds, so it needs a hard attack modifier like in HOI3.

It may make plausible sense that any factory requires X amount of tungsten to run for a day since tungsten is required for the machine tools.

I just checked HOI3... and you're right, tungsten gives +15% to Hard Attack.

 

[podcat]

No, my question is rather is it possible to make munitions to specifically work, as munition, not equipment.
To be consumed rather than lost, and to be more binary in a sense that you either have munitions and fight at full efficiency, or you don`t and can`t shoot back, at all, not in a sense that if you have 90% of munition stock for a week, you fight at 90% efficiency like equipment is supposed to work.

you can make ammo an equipment type and put all the damage stats on it, or say all piercing value. that way a tank in a division with no ammo cant do any damage. However it will only really decrease from taking combat damage but it will get reasonably ok I think if you tweak hp per shell etc

anyway, it would be kinda terrible and hard to play with.

 

[adz106]

Given the limitations of the AI to prioritize reinforcement and supply I think modeling with an out of supply modifier is the correct approach. In real life if an infantry division was truly of out bullets they would have gotten priority in resupply.

I've read a lot of WWII literature and I can say I don't ever recall accounts that the Germans were 'out of ammunition' that caused them to retreat. Were they short on manpower, yes, short on artillery, yes, short on tanks, yes, short on ammo to supply any of these? No, not really.

The Soviet army was actually short on small arms, but I think modeling supply and equipment differently as your suggest leaves the door open to too much exploitation by the player. The only recollection I have of shortages on the German side was that from late 44' onward they were using salt fillers as a substitute to high explosives in their artillery rounds (same density so it didn't affect the ballistic trajectories).

So +1 to Podcat's response, I think the devs have it right and they are even giving us the option to model it in more detail if it bothers someone that much so that is great!

 

[varsovie]

Given the limitations of the AI to prioritize reinforcement and supply I think modeling with an out of supply modifier is the correct approach. In real life if an infantry division was truly of out bullets they would have gotten priority in resupply.

I've read a lot of WWII literature and I can say I don't ever recall accounts that the Germans were 'out of ammunition' that caused them to retreat. Were they short on manpower, yes, short on artillery, yes, short on tanks, yes, short on ammo to supply any of these? No, not really.

They weren't short of manpower, but short of time to train them. They had shortages of certain kind of ammunition locally (and food, and fuel and cloth during Winter 41 on the frontline) and of some very specific types (like APCNR), but overall they assessed their needs pretty well. During the polish invasion they've literally burnt their 105mm 37mm more than twice the rate expected, and still used only 12% and 30% of their stockpile respectively. http://www.sturmvogel.orbat.com/GermAmmoPoland.html

For artillery I don't have any data, sure they had less guns than the SU, but I couldn't say if this resulted in a shortage across the front more than any other hardware.
For tanks they did maintain a 1-2 ratio in the east up until very late in 45 http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.ca/2013/01/tank-strength-and-losses-eastern-front.html
For aircraft yes they got screwed for multiple reasons (bad planning, bad usage, bad planes, western allies emphasis on airwar...)

 

[1alexey]

Well if you have 90% of required ammunition you can still shoot, can't you ?

The way i'd mod it is to have ammunition that is a piece of equipment that breaks quasi-instantly and as such you'd need to maintain constant supply of it or else your unit is pretty much doomed.

Why should they fight at reduced efficency? They should fight at 100% for a week, and then just collapse if they haven't received any supplies during that time.

Well, If shells are modeled like equipment, it would mean that you have to designate certain amount of shells as 100%, and then deplete the stock, and the combat value would decrease instantly, like when a division has 90% of tanks, it fights with 90% efficiency, and it would work similar if shells are modeled as equipment.

My point is that it is not how it is supposed to work, it should either be : they have munition, or they don`t.

you can make ammo an equipment type and put all the damage stats on it, or say all piercing value. that way a tank in a division with no ammo cant do any damage. However it will only really decrease from taking combat damage but it will get reasonably ok I think if you tweak hp per shell etc
anyway, it would be kinda terrible and hard to play with.

Well, indeed with such mechanics it would be terrible. But if it was possible to for it to work in a different way, to be consumed by each hour of combat and only decrease efficiency if none is left, it would be great and would allow a lot of good things.

Granted I don`t want to make specific munitions for each tank and stuff, but for example making artillery munition a separate type to create a better representation of importance of supply dumps, the necessary industry allocation, and that your army can`t attack constantly everywhere without running out of munition and having to stop would be great.

Also differentiate states like China who could supply themselves with bullets and rifles, but artillery and shells were in far worse supply.

 

[Filou]

you can make ammo an equipment type and put all the damage stats on it, or say all piercing value. that way a tank in a division with no ammo cant do any damage. However it will only really decrease from taking combat damage but it will get reasonably ok I think if you tweak hp per shell etc

anyway, it would be kinda terrible and hard to play with.

Can we add different supply needs to units though like I proposed?

Presumably a tank brigade will require oil and supply. So the idea is to add another type of supply needed like 'tank supply' to represent tank ammo. So that way you open the possibility of specific types of ammo for the different types of units.
The more detailed oriented players might want to break that down even more... at their own peril. I can already foresee many issues even with just the basic version of this approach.

Or maybe you just don't want to answer anything supply related at this point to avoid that can of worms.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

My point is that it is not how it is supposed to work, it should either be : they have munition, or they don`t.

Not really, it could be that they have ammunition but still fight at 60% efficiency because they are conserving ammo, and hence not as aggressive in attack.

 

[scroggin]

Unless there is a long shopping list of specific strategic materials, I expect Tungsten is being used as a proxy for a range of minerals more specific than the generic "rares" in HOI3, in which case having a historically recognizable contextual name adds good flavor compared with "Category B minerals," for example.

I agree with you. It could be called metal alloys instead of tungsten, but the end result in game would be the same. So tungsten is near enough to have an interesting game.

The most critical mineral that the Germans were short of for making good quality hardened steel was actually molybdenum. A lot of the problems that german tanks had with uneven hardness, brittle armour, cracking around welds etc was due to a lack of molybdenum in their steels.

 

[Wyrm]

By that logic they start "conserving" in the first battle as soon as they fire 1 round. In reality, if they would not be rationing until they got below 50% or less. I know I wouldn't want my troops conserving ammo on an offensive because they fired one round and now are at 99%, 98% etc.

They would probably ration at 100% if the supply situation is such as they do not know when they will get new ammunition. So being cut off from supply should lower efficiency somewhat even if they are at max capacity.

 

[Beagá]

you can make ammo an equipment type and put all the damage stats on it, or say all piercing value. that way a tank in a division with no ammo cant do any damage. However it will only really decrease from taking combat damage but it will get reasonably ok I think if you tweak hp per shell etc

anyway, it would be kinda terrible and hard to play with.

Yes agree but it could me maybe moddable to allow to hame small arms ammo and "big" gun ammo, So 3INF ART with 0 big gun ammo = the artillery would not be used in combat.

Naturally that would require each unit to have its own supply like happens in, say, Arsenal of Democracy.

 

[Issac1709]

No, my question is rather is it possible to make munitions to specifically work, as munition, not equipment.
To be consumed rather than lost, and to be more binary in a sense that you either have munitions and fight at full efficiency, or you don`t and can`t shoot back, at all, not in a sense that if you have 90% of munition stock for a week, you fight at 90% efficiency like equipment is supposed to work.

Good luck tiring to make the ai understand it needs ammo and make ammo for its guns

 

[Centurion1973]

Good luck tiring to make the ai understand it needs ammo and make ammo for its guns

I agree - such significant modification of game would work only in large MP games where all important states are controlled by players. AI wouldnt be able to handle such change at all (and I wouldnt be surprised if it resulted in game crashing).