WWW: The German player does not use artillery

[EleventhAvenue]

My Idea:

INF:
Stats are focused on "Defensiveness" , Pure INF should be extremly terrible in makeing an offensive. But pretty good to defend things.
So if we have 2 Pure Infantries army face each other, it ends in a stalemate. You need to out maneuver, massivley outnumber or let the enemy run out of supply to win.

ART:
stats are focused on "Soft Attack" , Artillery allows to deal casualties to the enemy makeing the manpower grind more efficent for you, potentially enough to push the enemy back.

Planes and tanks can replace ART in its function of dealing casulties.

ARM:
stats give good soft (+hard) attack, armor and toughness. Tanks allow to make an offensive without suffering too much casulties, achieving a breakthrough.
An army haveing access to tanks will be able to breakthrough the enemy line and encircle the enemy.
Two armies with tanks faceing each other will end in a war of maneuver.

An Army without ART would work. They are not an automatic choice. But if you have no access to Tanks or Planes, it is the only tool left to make an offensive.

But is that not how it works right now? I don't know the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure that artillery has superiour Soft Attack and Infantry Defeensiveness + Organization, which will lead to what you describe. I don't really see what's so problematic with how things are working now.

 

[dav77-b]

But is that not how it works right now? I don't know the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure that artillery has superiour Soft Attack and Infantry Defeensiveness + Organization, which will lead to what you describe. I don't really see what's so problematic with how things are working now.

Atm Infantry overperforms at offensive. And underperforms in defense.

 

[Radioactive]

The germans had some impressive railway gun artillery although i don't know how effective they were in battle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav#History

 

[agentgb]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerer_Gustav#History

The Langer Gustav was a long cannon with 52 centimetre caliber and a 43-metre barrel. It was intended to fire super-long-range rocket projectiles weighing 680 kilograms to a range of 190 kilometres. This gave it the range to hit London from Calais, France.

i doubt were ever see heavy artillery represented as such, being able to use it 2-3 provinces back from the frontline. Which is a shame. Schwerer with a range of 30km and still deadly accurate, wow.

 

[phantomrider]

Seems to me that, for example, a highly developed and overwhelming close air support could be a substitute to ground artillery, in theory.
Also, as has been said already, infantry division in the game implies support weapons as well, including light artillery.

Just because something hasn't been done before, doesn't necessarily mean it is impossible to do. Otherwise we'd still be a cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers.

Now there is some support for this point of view (using fixed or rotary wing {helicopters} aircraft as mobile artillery/anit-armor). The problem with that for HOI4 is that the communications technology that allows Forward Air Support personnel (in US forces these are Air Force guys that ground pound with the army and either call in or laser designate targets) did not exist in WWII. The ability to coordinate like infantry did with their artillery just was not there.

 

[EleventhAvenue]

Atm Infantry overperforms at offensive. And underperforms in defense.

Do we have the stats for equal-tech inf and arty battalions anywhere?
I can't remember seeing it, but there's been a lot of screenshots.

 

[Denkt]

Stats can change under beta testing because they probably do a whole lot of balancing during that phase. What I know is that artillery have very powerful soft attack and rather low manpower cost.

 

[Acaios]

ART:
stats are focused on "Soft Attack" , Artillery allows to deal casualties to the enemy makeing the manpower grind more efficent for you, potentially enough to push the enemy back.

Planes and tanks can replace ART in its function of dealing casulties.

arty main purpose is not to make casualties. just saying.

 

[Axe99]

Do we have the stats for equal-tech inf and arty battalions anywhere?
I can't remember seeing it, but there's been a lot of screenshots.

Here you go:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...om-johans-netherlands-game-on-twitter.907000/

However, keep in mind that.....

Stats can change under beta testing because they probably do a whole lot of balancing during that phase.

 

[EleventhAvenue]

Here you go:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...om-johans-netherlands-game-on-twitter.907000/

However, keep in mind that.....

Oh! I remember seeing that screenshot, but I must've forgotten.
Almost three times the soft attack of infantry, I think that looks good. We don't know things like hard attack, toughness, defensiveness and organization (unless there's more screenshots that I don't know of) but I guess that artillery differs from infantry here to counter the significantly larger soft attack.

So, most likely, we get infantry with good organization and defensiveness, while artillery has higher Soft attack?

 

[Aleksi_i]

From the beginning the "Artillery battalion" has made my brains hurt.
It should be regiment!
Is it still possible to have these artillery battalions in the "fighting" organization not support and have a full regiment.
Like...
I. inf+inf+inf
II. inf+inf+inf
III. inf+inf+inf
IV. art+art+art+art
If you can, why it is not like the default infantry formation in the game.
Infantry and artillery formations in the normal divisions are regiments and other units are usually battalions.

If these WWW german infantry would meet the division with artillery battalion or regiment or what ever module that artillery support is.
They should be very weak.
These light divisions he has could be on the other hand good in the deep forrest areas where artillery is not that effective and mobile.

 

[Cardus]

Has there been a discussion about the feasability of changing artillery from a brigade unit into something like whats done with airpower? As in you place them somwhere and they attack in a radius. The germans had some impressive railway gun artillery although i don't know how effective they were in battle. I don't think these massive guns are represented by the artillery brigades you attach to your fighting units. I have never refrained from producing and using artillery in my HOI games because i don't think the artillery brigades are worth it.

Not very much effective

The main fortifications, forts Stalin, Molotov, and Maxim Gorky (which lay in the path of LIV Corps) remained active. It was not until the afternoon of 6 June when a single 60 cm calibre mortar shell from the Karl-Gerät self-propelled mortar no. III, nicknamed Thor, knocked out Maxim Gorky's second turret, damaging the weapon. This was the only success of the German super-heavy guns, which did not have an impact commensurate with their expense. The Luftwaffe had a greater impact, using its Ju 87s to knock out the communications systems of the fort

 

[Invader_Canuck]

No.

Please reread.

I was being sarcastic towards someone who said diversity is more important than gameplay.

Whooooosh, the sound of my point vrooming over your head like an airplane ;p

 

[Invader_Canuck]

Well it is more important to me, but why does this hurt you so much? The game lets you build the historically correct divisions, so you can play your way.

BTW don't misunderstand me. I never said that they should be equal, read my posts again.

So then we agree. If someone wants to forgoe artillery in their divisions they can, but they will suck, as they should, unless they have a very specific specialized need, like say mountain divisions or marine divisions doing an amphibious landing, or paratroopers being para-dropped. Basically any situation where the logistical footprint of artillery would hamper the divisions ability to fight, at all.

 

[EleventhAvenue]

So then we agree. If someone wants to forgoe artillery in their divisions they can, but they will suck, as they should, unless they have a very specific specialized need, like say mountain divisions or marine divisions doing an amphibious landing, or paratroopers being para-dropped. Basically any situation where the logistical footprint of artillery would hamper the divisions ability to fight, at all.

What do you propose?
I see a lot of people in this thread saying ''this type of division should do this to this division'' and that's okay, I guess, but I wonder, when you imagine an infantry division that ''sucks'', what are the stats of your infantry battalions? Your artillery battalions?

We already have artillery with almost triple the soft attack of infantry. I don't know where the limit to ''sucking'' goes, but a division with three infantry brigades and an art brigade will have a lot more soft attack than one with four infantry brigades, at the cost of lower organization and speed (and possibly toughness/defensiveness). I don't see why this isn't sufficent? It seems like it will work well to me.

 

[Axe99]

From the beginning the "Artillery battalion" has made my brains hurt.
It should be regiment!
Is it still possible to have these artillery battalions in the "fighting" organization not support and have a full regiment.
Like...
I. inf+inf+inf
II. inf+inf+inf
III. inf+inf+inf
IV. art+art+art+art
If you can, why it is not like the default infantry formation in the game.
Infantry and artillery formations in the normal divisions are regiments and other units are usually battalions.

If these WWW german infantry would meet the division with artillery battalion or regiment or what ever module that artillery support is.
They should be very weak.
These light divisions he has could be on the other hand good in the deep forrest areas where artillery is not that effective and mobile.

I'm fairly sure how it works is that each column in the division designer is a brigade/regiment, and each 'block' in that column is a battalion, but there are also 'support' blocks that are 'companies' (the devs have said that the term company is used here very loosely, so really these formations could be anything). So you could have a division organised like you've listed there (I think we've got at least five brigade/regimental columns). There are restrictions on mixing battalions within regiments, though - I can't recall them precisely, but I'm pretty sure we can't have INF and ARM in the same column.

There are, however, also artillery support 'companies', which have fewer guns than an artillery battalion, but add some heavy artillery capability to a division without giving them a normal complement.

Hope that helps, sorry if I've missed the point and rambled on aimlessly .

 

[tom_jones]

Germany player in the WWW is running a very focused, organization-oriented set of doctrines. So he chooses not to include artillery support because, if I understood him right, he believes the organization penalty hurts his units more than they gain with the increased soft attack.

But this shouldn't be imo misinterpreted as some sort of universal rule, for all doctrine builds in the game. It doesn't even mean the player wouldn't have performed even better* had he actually included artillery in his units -- so far he hasn't faced any significant and/or well organized opposition, so his infantry units helped by tanks and/or numbers advantage were able to roll over weaker enemies. How they'll fare against similarly strong units actually equipped with artillery and enjoying good supply, we have yet to see.

*) obv. this will depend on one's definition of 'better' -- for one it will be 'my units kill more stuff' while for another it may be 'my units kill stuff cheaper', etc.

 

[dav77-b]

Germany player in the WWW is running a very focused, organization-oriented set of doctrines. So he chooses not to include artillery support because, if I understood him right, he believes the organization penalty hurts his units more than they gain with the increased soft attack.

But this shouldn't be imo misinterpreted as some sort of universal rule, for all doctrine builds in the game. It doesn't even mean the player wouldn't have performed even better* had he actually included artillery in his units -- so far he hasn't faced any significant and/or well organized opposition, so his infantry units helped by tanks and/or numbers advantage were able to roll over weaker enemies. How they'll fare against similarly strong units actually equipped with artillery and enjoying good supply, we have yet to see.

*) obv. this will depend on one's definition of 'better' -- for one it will be 'my units kill more stuff' while for another it may be 'my units kill stuff cheaper', etc.

I always thought ART was skipped in WWW to avoid supply problems during the russian Winter?

 

[Gort11]

Germany player in the WWW is running a very focused, organization-oriented set of doctrines. So he chooses not to include artillery support because, if I understood him right, he believes the organization penalty hurts his units more than they gain with the increased soft attack.

What I got from his explanation was that the previous player had designed his divisions to include artillery, but had barely built any artillery. Therefore he was getting all the penalties from including artillery, but very few of the bonuses. So he stripped the artillery from the divisions.

I think it's quite likely that had he been playing Germany from day 1 he would've included artillery in his divisions, but in the flawed setup he inherited stripping artillery was an obvious move to make.

 

[Zaku]

So then we agree. If someone wants to forgoe artillery in their divisions they can, but they will suck, as they should, unless they have a very specific specialized need, like say mountain divisions or marine divisions doing an amphibious landing, or paratroopers being para-dropped. Basically any situation where the logistical footprint of artillery would hamper the divisions ability to fight, at all.

I don't think it matters if we agree or not, because it's not us who are designing the game. I already made my points, if you are interested you can read them they are very clear. However do not wish to sway you either way, because this is entirely subjective. Nobody is "right" or "wrong", someone values diversity in a video game, others values historical accuracy. Hoi4 will allow both kind of players to do their thing.