What does Camouflage Expert do?

[ecpgieicg]

What does the modifier air_superiority_bonus_in_combat = -0.5 in general traits Camouflage Expert do?

Does it nerf friendly air superiority penalty on enemy divisions or does it nerf enemy air superiority bonus on friendly division or does it nerf friendly air support bonus?

 

[bitmode]

Does it nerf friendly air superiority penalty on enemy divisions or does it nerf enemy air superiority bonus on friendly division or does it nerf friendly air support bonus?

As far as I can tell it is the last option. The AIR_SUPPORT_BASE (25%) gets scaled by how much CAS there actually is, then by air_cas_present_factor (e.g. from doctrines or Tactical Bombing advisor) and then by air_superiority_bonus_in_combat. So Camouflage Expert reduces damage taken from enemy air support but reduces the combat bonus from friendly air support.

 

[pheonicia]

Is it ever worth picking up camouflage expert then since you generally want to operate under friendly air cover? It might work early on, but as you win it becomes more and more a dead weight on your commander.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Is it ever worth picking up camouflage expert then since you generally want to operate under friendly air cover? It might work early on, but as you win it becomes more and more a dead weight on your commander.

If your Japan or germany game plays out historical, you want that.

 

[Secret Master]

Is it ever worth picking up camouflage expert then since you generally want to operate under friendly air cover? It might work early on, but as you win it becomes more and more a dead weight on your commander.

If you are running a "No Air" strategy as the Soviets or someone else, then it makes sense.

This isn't something you would do in SP as most countries.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Nasty that the tooltip doesn't indicate it has sideffects, also nasty that the "air superiority" modifier affects "air support", so it's completely missnamed?

 

[ecpgieicg]

I'll try to remember to test the effect and include a screenshot in the wiki's talk page.

 

[pheonicia]

If your Japan or germany game plays out historical, you want that.

If you are running a "No Air" strategy as the Soviets or someone else, then it makes sense.

This isn't something you would do in SP as most countries.

I feel then that the trait's applications are niche to the point of irrelevance.

 

[Secret Master]

I feel then that the trait's applications are niche to the point of irrelevance.

I've seen it used in MP with good results.

It may be niche, but I wouldn't say it's irrelevant. Especially considering the potency of AA guns in HOI4. If you can lower bombing damage and have no planes of your own, but you have plenty of AA to shoot down enemy planes, then you can effectively increase the planes lost to ground damage inflicted ratio.

 

[Zauberelefant]

I've seen it used in MP with good results.

It may be niche, but I wouldn't say it's irrelevant. Especially considering the potency of AA guns in HOI4. If you can lower bombing damage and have no planes of your own, but you have plenty of AA to shoot down enemy planes, then you can effectively increase the planes lost to ground damage inflicted ratio.

Also, AA doubles nicely as non-tungsten AT...

 

[sekelsenmat]

Also, AA doubles nicely as non-tungsten AT...

Arguably too much, I don't feel any need for AT guns in single player.

 

[pheonicia]

I've seen it used in MP with good results.

It may be niche, but I wouldn't say it's irrelevant. Especially considering the potency of AA guns in HOI4. If you can lower bombing damage and have no planes of your own, but you have plenty of AA to shoot down enemy planes, then you can effectively increase the planes lost to ground damage inflicted ratio.

Still, making it so it only affected enemy air would make the trait better in general. Also I don't quite grasp how hiding your own troops better is supposed to make the enemy's harder to hit, but that might just have been unintentional.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Arguably too much, I don't feel any need for AT guns in single player.

Well, a German 8.8 cm Flak would not be spread out enough amongst infantry to kill loads of tanks, but be a great dissuasion for enemy armour to just run about. You arguably don't get a lot of hard attack, just piercing.
So, while AA denies armour one important edge, AT does make them pay more.

 

[walt526]

My main concern with producing AT is that it's so costly in terms of tungsten (and you have other needs for it, like artillery and medium tanks). If you have to trade for it, then it's cost-prohibitive, IMHO. Unless you're endowed with an adequate tungsten supply, there's essentially the MIC cost plus at least one CIC to trade for the tungsten (or an opportunity cost in not being able to build artillery or medium tanks with it). If AA gives you the piercing advantage, then I'd rather use that even without the hard attack because it only requires steel to produce.

 

[Secret Master]

Also, AA doubles nicely as non-tungsten AT...

Yep. You don't even need FlaK 88 quality guns.

True story:

Many months ago, I was co-op on the Soviet Union with another player. For complicated reasons, WW2 had turned into a giant cluster of a war. The Soviet front in 1943 stretched from Murmansk to Mongolia. I was managing the Euro-Axis front, and my buddy was managing the war against Japan.

At a certain point, we started seeing significant Japanese LARM. Not crappy old tanks, but some decent higher tech ones. All the AT and the TDs were in Europe, obviously.

My co-op starts begging for AT guns. He can't pierce the Japanese with the second and third tier divisions he has in Siberia and Mongolia. I counter that in 70 days, we'll have the infantry AT techs done, and that should be good enough against most of the Japanese tanks. But there would still be some he couldn't pierce. He once again pressed his case and pleaded for AT guns. (The use of the word "plead" here might seem to be hyperbole, but things were pretty damn tense at that moment for a whole list of reasons.)

Then I showed him an ad hoc template with his second and third tier divisions, but with an AA support company attached. I asked him what he thought.

He was like, "Oh, yeah, that's fine. Send me some AA guns, and Japan is screwed." The pleading ended.

 

[sekelsenmat]

Well, a German 8.8 cm Flak would not be spread out enough amongst infantry to kill loads of tanks, but be a great dissuasion for enemy armour to just run about. You arguably don't get a lot of hard attack, just piercing.
So, while AA denies armour one important edge, AT does make them pay more.

I think that the problem is that AA tech adds a lot of piercing in higher tiers. Arguably newer AA guns weren't any better against tanks, so it shouldn't add so much piercing in the 1940 and 43 tier. Maybe the initial one should have a little more. There must be a reason why everyone was building tons of AT guns in ww2..... Even more then artillery and AA.

 

[pheonicia]

I think that the problem is that AA tech adds a lot of piercing in higher tiers. Arguably newer AA guns weren't any better against tanks, so it shouldn't add so much piercing in the 1940 and 43 tier. Maybe the initial one should have a little more. There must be a reason why everyone was building tons of AT guns in ww2..... Even more then artillery and AA.

A lack of imagination on the part of command staff? Difficulty in remounting aa guns to shoot horizontally? Anti air and anti tank guns had similar calibers and muzzle velocity.

Edit: looking at wikipedia really fast,

 

[Secret Master]

I think that the problem is that AA tech adds a lot of piercing in higher tiers.

That's only against the AI or weaker countries, though. When you have solid panzer formations, AA guns simply don't cut it.

Against a competent Germany or Soviet Union, you really need proper AT or TDs or both.

 

[sekelsenmat]

A lack of imagination on the part of command staff? Difficulty in remounting aa guns to shoot horizontally? Anti air and anti tank guns had similar calibers and muzzle velocity.

Edit: looking at wikipedia really fast,

Yes, sure, obviously it must be that the Allied, Soviet and German command staff were all stupid...

I don't know what exactly is the issue, but obviously there must be some reason we are not aware of. And besides the germans I'm not aware of anyone using AA guns against tanks widely, and the germans were only using the heavy AA 88, not lighter AA like 20mm or 37mm

I'm not sure why the soviets built so many 45mm AT guns, I think it is well know they couldn't penetrate the better armoured tanks like Tiger, T-34 and Panther. Maybe they could penetrate Panzer 4's?

Edit: It looks like the soviets learned their mistake of using 45mm too:>>>Appearance of the heavy Tiger I and then the Panther changed the balance in favour of the Germans. 45 mm guns model 1942 could only pierce the side armour of the Panther while the ZiS-3 managed to penetrate the sides from a greater distance. Against the Tiger the ZiS-3 was effective only from the side at close range (up to 300 m) and 45 mm pieces were nearly helpless. A more powerful gun was needed and on 15 June 1943 the ZiS-2 once again entered service as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1943. Until 1945 9,645 units were produced.
<<<

57 mm anti-tank gun M1943 (ZiS-2) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And even the 76mm ZiS-3 (A regular, non-AT artillery) armour penetration was only average despite it having a much, much stronger punch then a 40mm bofors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)#Ammunition_data

Summing up, I'd expect that the 40mm bofors cannot even penetrate Panzer III or IV. It probably was only effective against light tanks.

So 1940 Anti-Air should not have a piercing of 60, which penetrates Medium Armor 39. It should have a penetration of about 40.

 

[Zauberelefant]

Yes, sure, obviously it must be that the Allied, Soviet and German command staff were all stupid...

I don't know what exactly is the issue, but obviously there must be some reason we are not aware of. And besides the germans I'm not aware of anyone using AA guns against tanks widely, and the germans were only using the heavy AA 88, not lighter AA like 20mm or 37mm

I'm not sure why the soviets built so many 45mm AT guns, I think it is well know they couldn't penetrate the better armoured tanks like Tiger, T-34 and Panther. Maybe they could penetrate Panzer 4's?

Edit: It looks like the soviets learned their mistake of using 45mm too:>>>Appearance of the heavy Tiger I and then the Panther changed the balance in favour of the Germans. 45 mm guns model 1942 could only pierce the side armour of the Panther while the ZiS-3 managed to penetrate the sides from a greater distance. Against the Tiger the ZiS-3 was effective only from the side at close range (up to 300 m) and 45 mm pieces were nearly helpless. A more powerful gun was needed and on 15 June 1943 the ZiS-2 once again entered service as 57-mm anti-tank gun model 1943. Until 1945 9,645 units were produced.
<<<

57 mm anti-tank gun M1943 (ZiS-2) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And even the 76mm ZiS-3 (A regular, non-AT artillery) armour penetration was only average despite it having a much, much stronger punch then a 40mm bofors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)#Ammunition_data

Summing up, I'd expect that the 40mm bofors cannot even penetrate Panzer III or IV. It probably was only effective against light tanks.

So 1940 Anti-Air should not have a piercing of 60, which penetrates Medium Armor 39. It should have a penetration of about 40.

The Germans learned to use AA in a pinch, but their default AT peace Up until 41 was the infamous 37mm door knocking device, with 50mm AT slowly entering the theatre and 75mm still out until late 42.
I think this comes down to bereaucracy in procurement for the army: consider that Germany would have needed some 3600 AT pieces in 1939 and double the number in 41, If you take paper strength of Divisions, plus several hundred pieces for Independent battalions and such.
That's a tall order, given that your likely suppliers also need to make the AA guns, artillery, infantry guns and tank guns, as the only companies capable of machining and producing artillery are Krupp, Rheinmetall...and that pretty much is it.
So, you draw up the plan in 1928, expecting the 37mm to be viable for the next 20 years or so, start manufacturing in 1936, but only slowly, and suddenly in 1940/41, you find out that no one bothered to keep with your expectations.
The advances in Tank tech were immense and caught all war participants by surprise at several points.

The Sherman was the product of very careful planning and consideration, but it was not designed to face German tanks 10-30 tons heavier. Same principle applied.