And one more footnote: typical 1944 units like mech and armor have MORE soft attack than ground defense. So the "dogpile" will happen even if you're 1 on 1.
-
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.
Thanks for the explanations.
I think a dogpile is realistic if implemented correctly. I often heard statements that for a successful breakthrough of the attacker the ratio should be at least 3:1 for the attacker. It seems to be general consensus. This ratio applies probably to opponents that are equally strong, without surprise attacks or other circumstances that would change the ratio, only straight attack.
And what happens if the ratio is fulfilled and the attack is successful? On some point the attackers will break through and roll up the defense line. The casualties of the defenders will mount and they have to retreat. Wouldn't the dogpile effect appropriately feature this?
Anyway, the battle system seems unrealistic. A had a game for the Commodore 64, 'D.A.K.' (Deutsches Afrika-Korps), which had a better battle system in my opinion. I always assumed the GD values would increase the strength of the defender, delay attacks, cause more casualties to the attacker, decrease the casualties of the defender.
Now I read in another post some time ago that in a battle the sides change all the time. So the defender will attacker and his attack value gets applied, while the attacker defends and his GD gets applied. Does nobody else take this as nonsense? It makes both equal. The attacker will get a bonus for his mines to stall the defender attack, though he is the one who attacks. I have given GD for mines to tank units, including a small SA for the casualties that mines inflict. But that means that tanks will attack with mines, and they use mines to reject the attacks of the defenders. This makes attackers and defenders equall, not taking into account anymore who actually is the attacker and who is the defender. And you can't apply techs to the attacker or defender. The attackers will always use mines to attack, even if you don't give them an SA bonus as I did. The change of roles will make the GD bonus of the mines be taken into account.
Also there is this stupid differentiation between HA and SA. Mechs and armor divisions as hard targets have infantry which are soft. Therefore mines, rifles and all other weapons with SA will in HOI not inflict casualties to them, while in reality they would. And mines and AT-mines would be treated the same in GD. Some people complained that the 'hard' units don't get enough damage. Now this is probably the reason, that their infantry does not get heard by SA, though the infantry brigade is about half of the unit.
And now I have additionally recognised that the GD does not work in the way i thought. Consider this: An attacker attacks the defender and the GD of the defender is high enough to match all SA of the attacker. The defender gets new techs: MGs, mines, rifles, mortars, body armors, basic versions, improved, advanced, etc. Will this improve his defense? In reality? I am sure. In HOI? I am sure that not.
My conclusion is that almost all infantry weapons have to get SA and even HA, the GD has to be tripled, and the GDE has to be taken into account. The problem with the GDE is that it can't be applied for specific unit types and instead raises the defense of all types. But I think that would not be as wrong as leaving it completely out.
This should also be applied to artillery and land doctrines. But the standard GDE starts very high, so there is only a small range of 19% from 80% standard to 99% maximum. It sounds logical to me that techs, weapons, doctrines, artillery can increase the defense ability and lower the casualties. That means the GDE should rise. If the attacker stays on the same tech level, he will have more difficulties with a higher teched defender.
Some people said that the old GDE bug was good for modders. That is only half true. You could of course use it to lower the enemy GDE, which is logical for attacker techs, like Mine Clearing Equippment. But the command to change the defender GDE was missing. Now it's just the other way around.
With the tech research the SA and HA will also increase. So with equally high teched opponents the GD and GDE of both are higer, so less hits will get through. But their SA and HA are also higher, so they will inflict more damage, if they get through. I think it is not exactly appropriate, but the overall casualties might remain rather equal.
But a problem is the small range of GDE. I think it is realistic that many techs contribute to it. But with this small range they get only a small part of it. I have now assigned 5% GD increase to the Infantry branch and distributed it over the weapons and other techs. But I had to tone them down heavily. The Divisional Signal Command Systems have only 0.5% now, Rifles 0.1%, Basic MG and Basic Mines 0.5%. I think it's too less. The same problem will occur with Artillery and Land techs.
To give them an appropriate value to permit a realistical GDE increase, the starting GDE has to be lowered, maybe to 50%, maybe to less, but I guess many people would complain about too high casualties. But the SA values would also be lower at a low tech level. What GDE value would be right at the start, without Basic Rifles, MGs, Mines? It was said in the tech text that these weapons increased the defense greatly, so I think it would be right, that the starting GDE is much lower. Most of the GDE will be contributed by these first infantry and artillery weapons and doctrines, that date back to WW1. In 1936 most of the techs are already researched by most of the countries. Further techs are just improvements and refinements of the basic techs, and would contribute less GDE. If the GDE starts with about 50% this could be increased by the basic techs to 70%, leaving about 25% for the rest.
The question is from which point the GDE should start and to which point it should increase. I think that 99% is too high. The increase at higher values might need some further consideration. The increase of the GDE seems linear, but the effects are probably not. An increase of the GDE from 50% to 59% has probably to be considered differently than an increase from 90% to 99%. At 90% 10 hits of 100 get through, at 99% 1 hit of 100 gets through, that's only 10% of the hits at 90%. This difference seems much higher than at lower GDE values. If I did not mistake something, the hits that get through at 59% GDE are 82% of the hits at GDE 50% That means a GDE of 1% of an Assault Rifle is not the same as a GDE of 1% of the Basic Rifle. Depending on which techs, even of other branches are researched first, the effects of the values will change. On higher levels the techs should provide lesser GDE, not only because the later techs are only improvements of existing basic techs that provide the most boost, but also because they will increase the GDE from higher values, thus causing bigger effects on the enemy, by decreasing the percentage of unmet hits significantly.
Maybe the different GDE values and their effects are not that much of a problem, as it actually seems to me. Anyway this still leaves the question where the GDE should start and to which value it should rise. Originially in HOI the Divisional Signal Command Systems raised the GDE from 80% to 95%, so 95% was meant to be the upper limit. Just it seems unappropriate that other techs should not contribute. For the lower limit, I think it should be taken into account, that CORE has added many weapons, that in my opinion really lacked, and should contribute greatly in GD and GDE, but they were not previously in the game and thus the GDE of 80% should at least be considered to include the GDE of these basic techs already. So by including these techs with GDE increases, the starting GDE should also appropriately be lowered.
So far most techs were distributed to only a few unit types. I think this is wrong. It should be considered which units these techs would serve in reality, and to which units these techs would be distributed inreality. For example militia, cavalry, mots, mechs, armor have often been excluded from infantry weapons. But militia, cavalry, mots, mechs, paras, marines, mountaineers are all infantry, just special types. Even armor units consist of an armor and an infantry brigade, which should get half the benefit. If for example a new type of rifles are developed, than why should elite units be excluded? They would more likely be the first to get it. So I have excluded only sometimes a unit type from the benefit of a weapon. I excluded Militia from subMGs and AT launchers, but Improved Assault Rifles, after becoming the standard infantry weapons would also be distributed to them. That may take a while in reality, as elder models in reality don't get immediately scrapped as in HOI.
Most people seem to have more concepts about unit types that seem strange to me. But I might bring this up in detail at another time. Here I want only to state the most strange concepts:
Cavalry: Most people seem to expect cavalry to be a horde of idiots, that can handle only a few weapons. This causes that cavalry is rather useless in HOI. As I understood it, cavalry is infantry, equipped with horses. I give them all weapons that the infantry gets, they are just faster and need more supplies, and they don't suffer as much terrain penalties as motorised units.
Mountaineers: They seem to be treated as elite units. Once somebody told me, that the rangers (ger: Rangers) get the hardest training in the army. I asked him what a ranger is. He said this unit type is from America, they get handfight training learn to eat worms and other such things to survive in the wilderness. Now, wilderness is hardly imaginable in the middle of Europe. And I never heard that fight without firearms has ever been trained in the german or austrian army during the last centuries. I am sure that our mountaineers are completely different than american rangers. They derive from game hunters in the mountains. They were euipped with firearms, already in peace times, so if there was a conflict, they were the first one to be called upon. There main purpose was to use their guns in mountainious terrain. So in first place they are militia; if better trained they can become light infantry, with additional mountain warfare euippment; but in no way I could see how they are an elite unit, like paras and marines.
But mots, mechs and armor are. They get all techs that normal infantry gets.
Now I hope some people get interest in this GD and GDE matter and find some historical and realistical stats.
I think a dogpile is realistic if implemented correctly. I often heard statements that for a successful breakthrough of the attacker the ratio should be at least 3:1 for the attacker. It seems to be general consensus. This ratio applies probably to opponents that are equally strong, without surprise attacks or other circumstances that would change the ratio, only straight attack.
And what happens if the ratio is fulfilled and the attack is successful? On some point the attackers will break through and roll up the defense line. The casualties of the defenders will mount and they have to retreat. Wouldn't the dogpile effect appropriately feature this?
Anyway, the battle system seems unrealistic. A had a game for the Commodore 64, 'D.A.K.' (Deutsches Afrika-Korps), which had a better battle system in my opinion. I always assumed the GD values would increase the strength of the defender, delay attacks, cause more casualties to the attacker, decrease the casualties of the defender.
Now I read in another post some time ago that in a battle the sides change all the time. So the defender will attacker and his attack value gets applied, while the attacker defends and his GD gets applied. Does nobody else take this as nonsense? It makes both equal. The attacker will get a bonus for his mines to stall the defender attack, though he is the one who attacks. I have given GD for mines to tank units, including a small SA for the casualties that mines inflict. But that means that tanks will attack with mines, and they use mines to reject the attacks of the defenders. This makes attackers and defenders equall, not taking into account anymore who actually is the attacker and who is the defender. And you can't apply techs to the attacker or defender. The attackers will always use mines to attack, even if you don't give them an SA bonus as I did. The change of roles will make the GD bonus of the mines be taken into account.
Also there is this stupid differentiation between HA and SA. Mechs and armor divisions as hard targets have infantry which are soft. Therefore mines, rifles and all other weapons with SA will in HOI not inflict casualties to them, while in reality they would. And mines and AT-mines would be treated the same in GD. Some people complained that the 'hard' units don't get enough damage. Now this is probably the reason, that their infantry does not get heard by SA, though the infantry brigade is about half of the unit.
And now I have additionally recognised that the GD does not work in the way i thought. Consider this: An attacker attacks the defender and the GD of the defender is high enough to match all SA of the attacker. The defender gets new techs: MGs, mines, rifles, mortars, body armors, basic versions, improved, advanced, etc. Will this improve his defense? In reality? I am sure. In HOI? I am sure that not.
My conclusion is that almost all infantry weapons have to get SA and even HA, the GD has to be tripled, and the GDE has to be taken into account. The problem with the GDE is that it can't be applied for specific unit types and instead raises the defense of all types. But I think that would not be as wrong as leaving it completely out.
This should also be applied to artillery and land doctrines. But the standard GDE starts very high, so there is only a small range of 19% from 80% standard to 99% maximum. It sounds logical to me that techs, weapons, doctrines, artillery can increase the defense ability and lower the casualties. That means the GDE should rise. If the attacker stays on the same tech level, he will have more difficulties with a higher teched defender.
Some people said that the old GDE bug was good for modders. That is only half true. You could of course use it to lower the enemy GDE, which is logical for attacker techs, like Mine Clearing Equippment. But the command to change the defender GDE was missing. Now it's just the other way around.
With the tech research the SA and HA will also increase. So with equally high teched opponents the GD and GDE of both are higer, so less hits will get through. But their SA and HA are also higher, so they will inflict more damage, if they get through. I think it is not exactly appropriate, but the overall casualties might remain rather equal.
But a problem is the small range of GDE. I think it is realistic that many techs contribute to it. But with this small range they get only a small part of it. I have now assigned 5% GD increase to the Infantry branch and distributed it over the weapons and other techs. But I had to tone them down heavily. The Divisional Signal Command Systems have only 0.5% now, Rifles 0.1%, Basic MG and Basic Mines 0.5%. I think it's too less. The same problem will occur with Artillery and Land techs.
To give them an appropriate value to permit a realistical GDE increase, the starting GDE has to be lowered, maybe to 50%, maybe to less, but I guess many people would complain about too high casualties. But the SA values would also be lower at a low tech level. What GDE value would be right at the start, without Basic Rifles, MGs, Mines? It was said in the tech text that these weapons increased the defense greatly, so I think it would be right, that the starting GDE is much lower. Most of the GDE will be contributed by these first infantry and artillery weapons and doctrines, that date back to WW1. In 1936 most of the techs are already researched by most of the countries. Further techs are just improvements and refinements of the basic techs, and would contribute less GDE. If the GDE starts with about 50% this could be increased by the basic techs to 70%, leaving about 25% for the rest.
The question is from which point the GDE should start and to which point it should increase. I think that 99% is too high. The increase at higher values might need some further consideration. The increase of the GDE seems linear, but the effects are probably not. An increase of the GDE from 50% to 59% has probably to be considered differently than an increase from 90% to 99%. At 90% 10 hits of 100 get through, at 99% 1 hit of 100 gets through, that's only 10% of the hits at 90%. This difference seems much higher than at lower GDE values. If I did not mistake something, the hits that get through at 59% GDE are 82% of the hits at GDE 50% That means a GDE of 1% of an Assault Rifle is not the same as a GDE of 1% of the Basic Rifle. Depending on which techs, even of other branches are researched first, the effects of the values will change. On higher levels the techs should provide lesser GDE, not only because the later techs are only improvements of existing basic techs that provide the most boost, but also because they will increase the GDE from higher values, thus causing bigger effects on the enemy, by decreasing the percentage of unmet hits significantly.
Maybe the different GDE values and their effects are not that much of a problem, as it actually seems to me. Anyway this still leaves the question where the GDE should start and to which value it should rise. Originially in HOI the Divisional Signal Command Systems raised the GDE from 80% to 95%, so 95% was meant to be the upper limit. Just it seems unappropriate that other techs should not contribute. For the lower limit, I think it should be taken into account, that CORE has added many weapons, that in my opinion really lacked, and should contribute greatly in GD and GDE, but they were not previously in the game and thus the GDE of 80% should at least be considered to include the GDE of these basic techs already. So by including these techs with GDE increases, the starting GDE should also appropriately be lowered.
So far most techs were distributed to only a few unit types. I think this is wrong. It should be considered which units these techs would serve in reality, and to which units these techs would be distributed inreality. For example militia, cavalry, mots, mechs, armor have often been excluded from infantry weapons. But militia, cavalry, mots, mechs, paras, marines, mountaineers are all infantry, just special types. Even armor units consist of an armor and an infantry brigade, which should get half the benefit. If for example a new type of rifles are developed, than why should elite units be excluded? They would more likely be the first to get it. So I have excluded only sometimes a unit type from the benefit of a weapon. I excluded Militia from subMGs and AT launchers, but Improved Assault Rifles, after becoming the standard infantry weapons would also be distributed to them. That may take a while in reality, as elder models in reality don't get immediately scrapped as in HOI.
Most people seem to have more concepts about unit types that seem strange to me. But I might bring this up in detail at another time. Here I want only to state the most strange concepts:
Cavalry: Most people seem to expect cavalry to be a horde of idiots, that can handle only a few weapons. This causes that cavalry is rather useless in HOI. As I understood it, cavalry is infantry, equipped with horses. I give them all weapons that the infantry gets, they are just faster and need more supplies, and they don't suffer as much terrain penalties as motorised units.
Mountaineers: They seem to be treated as elite units. Once somebody told me, that the rangers (ger: Rangers) get the hardest training in the army. I asked him what a ranger is. He said this unit type is from America, they get handfight training learn to eat worms and other such things to survive in the wilderness. Now, wilderness is hardly imaginable in the middle of Europe. And I never heard that fight without firearms has ever been trained in the german or austrian army during the last centuries. I am sure that our mountaineers are completely different than american rangers. They derive from game hunters in the mountains. They were euipped with firearms, already in peace times, so if there was a conflict, they were the first one to be called upon. There main purpose was to use their guns in mountainious terrain. So in first place they are militia; if better trained they can become light infantry, with additional mountain warfare euippment; but in no way I could see how they are an elite unit, like paras and marines.
But mots, mechs and armor are. They get all techs that normal infantry gets.
Now I hope some people get interest in this GD and GDE matter and find some historical and realistical stats.
I want to add, concerning the dogpile, that I think it should occur, else you would probably have a rather linear fight over a long time. But the point in bringing an outnumbering group of units against the enemy, is to achieve this dogpile effect, break the lines in a short time and to defeat the defender.
Maybe the casualties from the dogpile are overall too high; that I don't know. I read posts where people seem to want longer battles are slowly mounting, and they should be the general course how battles should happen, especially for the war in Russia. Now such battles happened sometimes, and most times when Hitler demanded this. But this is not the german Blitz. The point was to avoid such battles, but to encircle the enemy troops and force them to capitulate. The german army had too few soldiers to fight long battles. Even during the first successful Blitz campaigns in summer 1941 the army lost more soldiers than were reinforced, while the soviet forces seem despite their losses to triple. The german army could not effort head to head battles with the Red Army.
This should be featured somehow. Unfortunately HOI is a very bad similutation. It starts with a completely wrong map. This could work with EU2 time frame, but obviously not anymore with WW2. I could have told them befor, but they need to put the game out as fast as possible, as soon they had something that could be started from the desktop.
If the dogpile effect is not considered appropriate, and if people think it causes too much casualties, then there should be something other to feature Blitz actions. Doctrines with the words 'Encirclement' or 'Blitz' in their name and giving only 1 SA or 1 Speed will not be enough. The should have an ability that features a successfull breakthrough, and maybe even an encirclement. I don't know if this can be featured somehow with the existing parameters.
At the moment I think it is not possible at provincial level without the dogpile effect. On a bigger level it is of course posible to apply this, as long as you are fighting in europe, where the provinces are small enough to encirclement. But even than it has to happen fast, or the enemy will deploy some units just out of nowhere before the attacker and prevent the encirclement. But if this happens fast the attacker can very fast be near Moskau. That happens because of another problem: you can reinforce instantly within a second with pressing a button.
The german tank troops in Russia moved on for about 3 weeks and reached Smolensk and were 2/3 on the way to Moskau. I read that Hoth reported about 80% loss of tanks, most not through battle, but because of dust and other technical wearout. So most of them could be repaired, but it took awhile. Also they waited for the reinforcements, supplies, and infantry to clear the pockets.
The provinces in Europe are still too big. A successful encirclement brings the attacker too close to Moskau, and then he can move on without resupplying. A completely different map without provinces is needed, at least for the campaign simulation. But I am drifting off into map discussion.
Maybe the casualties from the dogpile are overall too high; that I don't know. I read posts where people seem to want longer battles are slowly mounting, and they should be the general course how battles should happen, especially for the war in Russia. Now such battles happened sometimes, and most times when Hitler demanded this. But this is not the german Blitz. The point was to avoid such battles, but to encircle the enemy troops and force them to capitulate. The german army had too few soldiers to fight long battles. Even during the first successful Blitz campaigns in summer 1941 the army lost more soldiers than were reinforced, while the soviet forces seem despite their losses to triple. The german army could not effort head to head battles with the Red Army.
This should be featured somehow. Unfortunately HOI is a very bad similutation. It starts with a completely wrong map. This could work with EU2 time frame, but obviously not anymore with WW2. I could have told them befor, but they need to put the game out as fast as possible, as soon they had something that could be started from the desktop.
If the dogpile effect is not considered appropriate, and if people think it causes too much casualties, then there should be something other to feature Blitz actions. Doctrines with the words 'Encirclement' or 'Blitz' in their name and giving only 1 SA or 1 Speed will not be enough. The should have an ability that features a successfull breakthrough, and maybe even an encirclement. I don't know if this can be featured somehow with the existing parameters.
At the moment I think it is not possible at provincial level without the dogpile effect. On a bigger level it is of course posible to apply this, as long as you are fighting in europe, where the provinces are small enough to encirclement. But even than it has to happen fast, or the enemy will deploy some units just out of nowhere before the attacker and prevent the encirclement. But if this happens fast the attacker can very fast be near Moskau. That happens because of another problem: you can reinforce instantly within a second with pressing a button.
The german tank troops in Russia moved on for about 3 weeks and reached Smolensk and were 2/3 on the way to Moskau. I read that Hoth reported about 80% loss of tanks, most not through battle, but because of dust and other technical wearout. So most of them could be repaired, but it took awhile. Also they waited for the reinforcements, supplies, and infantry to clear the pockets.
The provinces in Europe are still too big. A successful encirclement brings the attacker too close to Moskau, and then he can move on without resupplying. A completely different map without provinces is needed, at least for the campaign simulation. But I am drifting off into map discussion.
Yes, I also read a Landser roman that showed Rangers like that. If you thought I would have misunderstood the concept of 'Rangers', you misunderstood. I understood clearly this concept, and that is why I explained what mountaineers are, in differentiation to what rangers are understood to be. That's why I concluded that there is a misinterpretation of 'mountaineers'. I take your post as confirmation of my post. As I explained they are clearly not like rangers and in no way meant to be an elite unit. Obviously they have been confused with the US rangers and treated as elite and commando unit throughout the game. That's why I elaborated about them. OK, Rangers might be treated as elite and commando units, but mountaineers are not. This is a clear bug, WAD in HOI terms, and should be repaired.
Truchses said:
I dont think Mountain troops in HOI are interpeted as equivelient to special forces. They do however have special equipment and training that allow them to work better in mountain terrain then regular infantry. They do not get benefits from most artillery techs and such and are in fact inferior to normal infantry divisions except for when they fight in the terrain they are trained/equiped for.
Ghost_dk
So it should be. But that is not all. I noticed they are considered commando units, which is wrong. And I noticed they often get benefits from techs that are intended to benefit elite units, like marines and paras, which is also wrong. For this they get too much benefit. I often noticed, even out of mountain terrain they have higher defense values than plain infantry, which is obviously wrong, alone for their lighter guns. I always consider them to be light infantry, just a bit better than militia, and equipped with mountain equippment. Accordingly I treat militia as 'Feldjaeger' ~ 'field hunters' - light field infantry (accordingly mountaineers are in german called 'Gebirgsjaeger' ~ 'mountain hunters').
Last edited:
But militia aren't light infantry. They're militia. Poorly equiped, and poorly trained. Light infantry is lightly armed and mobile to employ skirmish tactics, and they must be well trained in those tactics. There is no light infantry like that in HOI, except the mountain troops. And that kind of tactics, avoiding direct confrontation, hitting by surprise, etc, could very well be abstracted as a kind of "special forces" type of engagement.
Besides, the germans weren't the only ones to have mountain troops, the italians had them, so did the french, and in both cases the mountaineers were, AFAIK, seen as special, tougher and more capable of engaging the enemy.
Besides, the germans weren't the only ones to have mountain troops, the italians had them, so did the french, and in both cases the mountaineers were, AFAIK, seen as special, tougher and more capable of engaging the enemy.
As to militia being poorly equipped and poorly trained in contrary to infantry, there are different concepts. The swiss militia was always considered to be highly trained and equipped, consisting of veterans with their weapons at home, ready at any time. On the other side I read about the soviet army in WW2 that the regular infantry and tank troops were often poorly or even not at all trained and equipped. I read that, at least in some cases, only the first wave of soviet assault troops had weapons. The task of the first wave was to carry the weapons a part of the way to the german defense line, until they are shot. The following wave has to pick up the weapons and carry them a further part of the way, until they are also shot. This is repeated until finally a wave reaches the enemy. I read about tank troops that were raised by factory labourers producting tanks, manning them themselves, driving out and attacking the germans. But in HOI they need many months to be built and they are treated like a normal armor division.
As to mounaineers, yes, exactly that was my point, that mountaineers should more likely be considered to be light infantry. And I criticised that in HOI they are treated like heavy infantry. And I never heard that they used such special forces tactics like you say. I have again the impression that you describe american rangers instead of european mountaineers.
Also I did not say that only the germans had mountain troops. I would in contrary think that the germans did not have mountain troops and were not interested in mountain warfare. I think the troops they later had were inhereted from Austria. I know that the french and italians had also mountain troops, but I never heard that they were special and tougher. I believe you, but I am surprised. I have no detailed information about austrian mountaineer training, but because of reports from some relatives I am sure that this concept of tougher combat troops was not applied to austrian mountaineers. Of course, from this I have my perception of what mountaineers are.
As to mounaineers, yes, exactly that was my point, that mountaineers should more likely be considered to be light infantry. And I criticised that in HOI they are treated like heavy infantry. And I never heard that they used such special forces tactics like you say. I have again the impression that you describe american rangers instead of european mountaineers.
Also I did not say that only the germans had mountain troops. I would in contrary think that the germans did not have mountain troops and were not interested in mountain warfare. I think the troops they later had were inhereted from Austria. I know that the french and italians had also mountain troops, but I never heard that they were special and tougher. I believe you, but I am surprised. I have no detailed information about austrian mountaineer training, but because of reports from some relatives I am sure that this concept of tougher combat troops was not applied to austrian mountaineers. Of course, from this I have my perception of what mountaineers are.