Why build tank destroyers?

[Eh up me duck]

Irl they were the most produced armoured fighting vehicle of the war, but is there any point to building them in hoi 4?

Hoi 4 doesn't really simulate tanks impact on tactical level combat, which is where tank destroyers were useful at. So what is their purpose in this game?

 

[Pz. Los]

They’re cheaper than tanks to build and possess most of the same stats. You can also build them using old tanks in your inventory which further lowers their cost and increased production speed. I usually create tank hunter divisions that substitute TDs for tanks and build them to supplement my armored forces

 

[RolandRahn]

If you compare TDs and Tanks, TDs have less Breakthrough and Soft Attack, but more Hard Attack and piercing.

1941 Heavy Tank:
Breakthrough: 52
Hard Attack: 30
Piercing: 111
Soft Attack: 28.3

1941 Heavy TD:
Breakthrough: 1.5
Hard Attack: 42
Piercing: 140
Soft Attack: 8.4
​

Imagine that you have an infantry division and you want to add ONE armored battalion to give it some stand against enemy armor...would you go with a tank or a TD battalion?

Assuming that the division will be on the defensive, the breakthrough value is less relevant.

So, for an infantry division used in the defensive that needs to get better hard attack/piercing values, a TD is better suited than a tank.

 

[GeorgieBest]

Pretty substantial increase in heavy attack and piercing compared to normal tank divisions.

I do think that specialised variants should be faster and use less fuel than the normal tank they are designed from though.

 

[Poopfaust]

Not an expert, but I thought the armor is the most important factor, vs AI. I am probably wrong, but because of this, I never build TDs. Let me know if I am totally wrong.

 

[RolandRahn]

Not an expert, but I thought the armor is the most important factor, vs AI. I am probably wrong, but because of this, I never build TDs. Let me know if I am totally wrong.

I am also not an expert, but AFAIK, the armor is the same for tanks and TDs.

The differences are in Soft attack, Breakthrough, Hard attack and Piercing.

 

[kaguravitro]

In theory, adding pricing let you pin and reduce the dice of armor units (I always understood that need to be treated as armor unit not just have tanks to have the 6 dice in attack). So fighting armor units in similar composition there's a reason.
But, in game, submit units are a proportion of the army, they don't search tanks battles like it was in ww2. So is randomized in some point, battle plan need to focus on terrain and before armor zones.
So, I think it doesn't matter so much at the end. They are quiet similar, but td have a little advantage in armor vs armor fights with similar sized templates.

 

[spartansociety]

You need less in a unit so they are way cheaper. 600 production cost for MT and only 288 for medium TD. They seem to fill the historical role pretty well. They are cheaper to produce and almost as good on defence but are very limited when attacking.

 

[DicRoNero]

You need half as many Heavy TDs as you need Heavy Tanks to get the same Armour bonus. If getting that shiny shield against AI is what you need/lack most, then TDs might be a superior choice compared to tanks.
Heavy tanks on the other hand would give you a bit of extra Soft Attack and a decent amount of Breakthrough, so they're generally better on offense despite that extra cost.

Another drawback to consider for TDs is that later you won't upgrade them into next gen SPA/SPAA.

In general, it's a decision you make based on your IC to manpower ratio: equipping your huge foot army with HT battalions will probably be prohibitively expensive, while going for TDs instead might turn out affordable. HTDs will also save you fuel.

 

[Poopfaust]

Do all TDs (medium and light) have the same formula for armor - you get same armor value for half as many units? If so, wow, I wish there was a way to see that in the game. I never build TDs so there is no way I would know that about the difference in production numbers. If the production of 50% less than a tank is correct, I may only build TDs from here on out.

 

[Voigt]

Tank Destroyers are quite usefull to have in multiplayer to reliabile pierce the enemy armor. Having 1 TD is your tank division increases their piercing value by quite alot, since for piercing most of it is generated by the highest piercing value you have in the division. So even one TD makes a big difference. Especially if you increate the gun of the td by +5 in a variant. Only costs 100 xp, and since you need to produce so little the decreased reliabitly doesn't really matter.

 

[Beagá]

Irl they were the most produced armoured fighting vehicle of the war, but is there any point to building them in hoi 4?

Hoi 4 doesn't really simulate tanks impact on tactical level combat, which is where tank destroyers were useful at. So what is their purpose in this game?

The StuG had more than decent anti-infantry capability (same with the likes of SU 122 or ISU 152), it´s more that the game doesn´t know how to not make them too good since there is also self propelled artillery. So you are stuck with pure AT. Which begs the question of why not simply use motorized AT all the time.

 

[davidc929]

The StuG had more than decent anti-infantry capability (same with the likes of SU 122 or ISU 152), it´s more that the game doesn´t know how to not make them too good since there is also self propelled artillery. So you are stuck with pure AT. Which begs the question of why not simply use motorized AT all the time.

The StuG were primarily designed as direct fire artillery to support infantry attacks. It just turned out they were effective tank killers as well. But originally that was not their purpose.

The original plan was that each infantry Division would have a battalion to support them. But they didn't manage to produce enough pre/early in the war for that.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

TD by themselves aren't that great on infantry. Yes, you get armor and that does help if AI forgets to put support AT on, but otherwise you still have low-ish hard + soft attack, still have low breakthrough (so you will take bad damage vs anything that pierces, and still significant when they don't).

An exception is if you load up on TD to get good hard attack values and use them to counter-attack pushing armor. Tank-heavy divisions have low defense compared to breakthrough and low HP, so attacks against them that pierce + have solid hard attack values will badly damage them/de org/drain lots of equipment. Something like 11/9 infantry + heavy TD will absolutely demolish pretty much any tank-heavy division, and costs ~1/3 of the production that a 15/5 heavy tank costs (or just over half of a 15/5 medium tank setup). Not so good vs other infantry unless they can't pierce it though. This is nice because you can convert pretty lackluster '34 heavy tanks into '41 TD and SPG, doing tons of damage to hard/soft targets respectively.

Really in SP just making divisions with a lot of soft attack and using planning bonus + multi direction attack will tend to break the AI lines regardless of unit count there. Their divisions aren't good enough to survive the damage or reinforce quickly. Once you shove them off a spot in the line it's not that hard to pin adjacent troops and keep going. To me the main difficulty with this isn't enemy units but that even 1-2 provinces in the game can just randomly decide that you're 12/4 in supply and start heaping stat + speed penalties on you shortly after. Whenever this happens tanks are basically glorified infantry and that's pretty annoying.

 

[Iskulya]

In singleplayer there is no point. The AI hardly builds tanks, and when they do, they're dispersed along the front to the point that even infantry with AA support companies can stop them.

In multiplayer tank destroyers are essential to dealing with concentrated enemy armor formations. The AI cannot use armor effectively, players can.

 

[ltccone]

In singleplayer there is no point. The AI hardly builds tanks, and when they do, they're dispersed along the front to the point that even infantry with AA support companies can stop them.

In multiplayer tank destroyers are essential to dealing with concentrated enemy armor formations. The AI cannot use armor effectively, players can.

I only play SP, and I only build tanks. There is no need in SP for anything else. The research and MIC would just be a waste.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I only play SP, and I only build tanks. There is no need in SP for anything else. The research and MIC would just be a waste.

In SP I'd prefer air advantage if I can get it. Sometimes that's infeasible, but when you have green air surrounds/air supply/overruns are pretty trivial. In an extreme example I overran > 200 divisions of soviet troops with cavalry as Austria-Hungary once.

I also disagree on "only tanks" in SP. Converting old tanks into SPG is pretty efficient, and takes very little marginal research (tank variant research is typically in the ~50-70 day range). Heavy SPG in particular is the highest source of soft attack per width in the game, and the advantage over artillery is non-trivial (more than 200SA in favor of '41 heavy SPG at 8 battalions, compared to ADVANCED artillery!). This also lets you get a particular year's tanks out sooner via conversions of pre-built older stock, particularly important for heavy tanks since they have a big jump.

For situations where you can't get air superiority SPAA on tanks you've already researched is also much faster than researching all the way down AA. It's pretty much just TD that aren't amazing in SP, and that's because the AI doesn't make effective tank divisions with big armor or hardness values.

 

[Secret Master]

Irl they were the most produced armoured fighting vehicle of the war, but is there any point to building them in hoi 4?

In my current HOI4 MP game, Soviet heavy tank destroyers attached to a few select Soviet infantry divisions are killing German medium tanks at a 4:1 ratio.

I'd say they are just fine.

 

[ltccone]

In SP I'd prefer air advantage if I can get it. Sometimes that's infeasible, but when you have green air surrounds/air supply/overruns are pretty trivial. In an extreme example I overran > 200 divisions of soviet troops with cavalry as Austria-Hungary once.

I also disagree on "only tanks" in SP. Converting old tanks into SPG is pretty efficient, and takes very little marginal research (tank variant research is typically in the ~50-70 day range). Heavy SPG in particular is the highest source of soft attack per width in the game, and the advantage over artillery is non-trivial (more than 200SA in favor of '41 heavy SPG at 8 battalions, compared to ADVANCED artillery!). This also lets you get a particular year's tanks out sooner via conversions of pre-built older stock, particularly important for heavy tanks since they have a big jump.

For situations where you can't get air superiority SPAA on tanks you've already researched is also much faster than researching all the way down AA. It's pretty much just TD that aren't amazing in SP, and that's because the AI doesn't make effective tank divisions with big armor or hardness values.

For air superiority, I prefer to put that MIC into fighters instead of SPAA. My one exception if for the USSR. I play EAI, so I can only get local air superiority for a short time, so I build AA and SPAA for them.

I used to be a big believer in SPA, but I just don't see much benefit anymore. Where would you put SPGs? It would balloon the supply and fuel cost of an infantry division, and I prefer them 'lean and mean' as I have more problems with supply than anything else.

 

[ltccone]

In my current HOI4 MP game, Soviet heavy tank destroyers attached to a few select Soviet infantry divisions are killing German medium tanks at a 4:1 ratio.

I'd say they are just fine.

In MP I can see where they are useful; in SP, not so much.