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Jan 23, 2014 best marine division. What's the best division for naval invasions. Save hide report. 100% Upvoted. Continue browsing in r/hoi4. A place to share content, ask questions and/or talk about the grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV by Paradox Development Studio. Encircled Units. Aug 27, 2020 U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kenny Kuskowski, an infantry rifleman with 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, currently assigned to 3rd Marine Division under the. Honestly, templates for divisions haven’t changed much. Infantry wise, the same divisions is still good: 14 infantry, 4 artillery, with engineers, recon, logistics, sup artillery, and signal companies. These are good for attack; defense you can ha.
This article was written in collaboration with the Loresworn Order, who provided a lot of the theory-crafting behind today's piece. Also thanks to this Reddit thread, which has a lot of tips beyond what we talk about today. Additional thanks to reddit user 'billguncrash' for writing int with some additional tips and pointers.
If you're a wargamer who's into his/her videogames, you'll most likely have seen (if not played) Hearts of Iron IV. The fourth iteration of their 'grand strategy wargame', Hearts of Iron manages to keep the classic Paradox grand-strategy scale, but focus it into a wargame context by having players navigate the political, and then military landscape of the world between 1936 – 1948.
An integral part of the game, as you can imagine, involves fighting in the wars that erupt during this era. While history is directed a bit more than it is in other Paradox games, there's actually more flexibility here than previous iterations. So while you're always fighting, in a very general sense, the second 'War of the World' the nature and course of that war can be radically different every time.
Land, Sea and Air. And then more land
While HoI IV has dedicated mechanics and systems for fighting in the air as well as at sea, at its heart (… of iron?) this is a game about land wars. To fight the land wars, you need to create divisions using the wonderfully flexible, and slightly impenetrable Division Designer. What does it all mean? What do all those stats do? What defines the effectiveness of one Division vs. another? That's where we come in.
First off, you'll want to watch this video. TJ's done a great job at breaking down what all the stats mean, even if he is dropping F-bombs like its the Battle of Britain. With a basic understand of what everything does, you're ready to start looking at how to craft divisions.
There are a few basic things to remember:
- General consensus is that Combat Width of a division should be kept at or below 20 (see section below).
- Research & Doctrines will affect some of the basic principles laid out here, as will more advanced models of things. Always check the tool-tips.
- Always keep in mind the production capacity of your nation. If you're a smaller, poorer country you will need to scale down considerably.
- Changing division templates costs XP, which can be hard to get in the early game depending on who you are. Try to plan ahead how you want to set up your divisions, as you won't be able to afford too much trial and error.
- A good way to get XP while at peace is to train divisions, and send volunteers to other wars (which is dependant on ideology and World Tension). Training divisions costs equipment, but the combat bonus units get when they reach level 3 is invaluable, so you get dual benefits.
- A Division is made up of Regiments, which are in turn made up of Battalions. Regiments are columns, so the more battalions a regiment is the more troops it has to cycle though, but generally speaking you want to be as 'deep' as you are wide, especially at the 20 Combat Width size. A 3X3 grid or a 4/3/3 set-up usually works.
- In very general terms, Infantry provide a Division with HP, Defence and Organisation, while Armour provides the hitting power in terms of Hard Attack, Soft Attack (although infantry are good on this as well) & Breakthrough.
Combat Width
The basic combat width of a province (without any modifiers) is 80, which means each side can field up to 80 widths worth of Divisions (not account for any modifiers). In addition, an extra 40 width is applied per additional ‘front’. So if you’re attacking one territory from three, that’s a width of 160. In practice and sticking to the 20 width per division, you’ll be attacking with 4 divisions on the main thrust, and then two per flank. It’s worth noting that in this 3 v 1 scenario, only you get the extra width - the enemy has to stick with the 80 they get from their one province.
The reason you should stick to a combat width of 20 is down to how the game handles someone being ‘over’ the limit of a province. In simple terms, 4 x 20 = 80, but 4 x 21 is 84. This means an entire division gets sent to reserve resulting in you actually only attacking with 3x21, which is 63. If your enemy has stuck to 20 combat width, and assuming they've designed well, you’re at a 17 point disadvantage and will probably lose. Rogers powertone snare serial numbers.
Support Vs. Line
Support Battalions are a key part of a division's make-up. You'll notice certain types, like towed Artillery & Anti-Tank guns, can also be put in as 'Line' Battalions as part of dedicated Regiments. The main differences between whether a battalion is 'support' or 'line' is:
- Support slots don't change the speed of a division, which is set to the slowest unit. This means you can put support artillery with a motorized infantry division and it will still go as fast as the motorised units, for example.
- Support regiments can be air dropped along with paratroopers, which allows you to give some much needed backbone to these divisions.
- Support regiments require less equipment and manpower. But in the case of, say, artillery or AT, they also have less of an effect on the division's stats in comparison to a full regiment of the same type.
With this in mind, it's only really worth putting 'Line' versions of things like Artillery and AT on foot-infantry divisions. The speed penalty won't affect things as much, and you can give Infantry a lot more firepower. To keep within the 20 combat width limit you'll need to sacrifice an Infantry Regiment, but the trade-off in terms of HP and Organisation are worth it.
For armoured/combined arms divisions, generally you want to give them support battalions until you unlock the self-propelled tank chassis versions of Artillery & AT, so as not to be hit by speed penalties.
Combined Arms
While you can create divisions that work for a specific purpose, you generally want to mix things up. Depending on the role your division will be filling will dictate the make-up. As we mentioned above, Infantry provide a lot of HP, Organisation and Defence, while armour provide a lot of the punch.
Again TJ does some great videos talking in depth into general theory crafting for Infantry and Armour divisions:
There's also one for more motorised divisions, but it generally covers elements from the other videos, and until you get to mechanised I would personally advise against having all motorised infantry divisions because they cost 200 extra manpower per battalion, plus have severe terrain penalties. All you get in return is really the extra speed, but there are better combinations you can use.
A 'Light Armour W/ Motorised', for example, is a more rounded unit, but Light Armour has its own drawbacks - they cost as much 'Medium' tanks but aren't as good, some one school of thought is to wait until you hit Medium before adding tanks to divisions.
Make sure you check out this video on special forces design as well, including a dedicated Anti-Tank division. TJ also covers a land-based AA template, but we're getting conflicting reports over whether division-based AA actually has any effect right now. Personally, I never bother with it. Also worth keeping in mind is that Marine and Mountaineers are considered vastly superior to regular infantry due to the stat distribution (lower HP, but better organisation), so one option is to switch out all of your infantry for a specialist unit where possible.
We won't repeat too much of what TJ talks about, but there are some important lessons to always keep in mind when building and trying out new division templates:
- Organisation is important. You'll run of organisation a lot sooner than you'll run out of health, and you'll lose 99% of battles due to low organisation.
- Engineer and Recon support battalions are auto-include. If you've got motorised or amour, Maintenance is also a must, with Field Hospital being good for infantry divisions. If you're fighting outside of mainland Europe, Logistics can also be a life saver.
- Signalling support is a secret weapon – use it more.
- You'll want separate Divisions for attack and defence, although it's possible to design all-rounders as well. Generally Infantry are better on defence than they are on attack, but Mechanised Battalions change this dynamic some-what.
- Standard Division templates for Infantry is 4/3/3, same for Infantry. Working towards the 20 Combat width, you then add and subtract other Battalion types from there. E.G., 3/3/4 Tank/Tank/Infantry (Motorised or Mechanised).
- With regards to trying to fight armour, a single AT battalion/support AT per division is enough at a minimum: 'A division's piercing is equal to 40% of the highest piercing in the division plus 60% of the weighted-average piercing of all battalions in the division' - HoI4 Wiki
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Final Thoughts
There are exceptions to all the things above – terrain, who you're fighting, the production capacity of your nation, research. these will all dictate or otherwise change what your 'optimum' regiment builds will be. You won't need much AT fighting against China, but you'll want a f***ton for Russia. The mountains of Italy are going to be problematic for armour or combined arms divisions, so the Mountaineer special forces troops will shine here. Also, we're told to avoid mud at all costs, apparently.
If you've yet to dive into the game, don't forget to check our our review of Hearts of Iron IV, which James split into two parts covering the civilian and military aspects. For my part, I think it's infinitely more accessible than Hearts of Iron III was, but still suffers from the peculiar problem of the planning and preparing for war being more fun than fighting the war itself. Still it's worth getting and will only get better over time, so for now at least consider yourself armed and ready for whatever is thrown at you.
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Original video & script: HOI 4 – Historical Infantry Division Layouts – Early War #Hearts of Iron
Intro
Since my first historical division layout video was a major success and a lot of people asked for more, I will do more, but first I have to address the errors in my original layouts, so here is a short update were I discuss the errors, some community contributions and of course the updated layouts briefly.
Thank you
First, thank you all for the great feedback, especially on the paradox forums. Now, there are two people I want to mention explicitly:
First, the steam user ramadawn, who created a mod with various historical divisions, which is also available on the steam workshop.
Second, the paradox user elfiwolfe for giving a lot of good feedback and creating a wiki page with divisions that are derived from my layouts with additional ingame values.
In both cases I didn’t have time to check them out thoroughly, but from their conduct, comments and the data I looked at, I have a good initial impression.
First, the steam user ramadawn, who created a mod with various historical divisions, which is also available on the steam workshop.
Second, the paradox user elfiwolfe for giving a lot of good feedback and creating a wiki page with divisions that are derived from my layouts with additional ingame values.
In both cases I didn’t have time to check them out thoroughly, but from their conduct, comments and the data I looked at, I have a good initial impression.
Errors in my first video
Now, when I did my first video I missed a few things that lead to several errors, most notably:
1) Initially, I wasn’t sure if the Artillery Battalions ingame were actually artillery regiments or not.
2) I missed that the support units have less equipment and guns than their equivalent regular combat units.
3) I assigned far too small numbers of anti-tank units in the original video.
The first part, the ingame artillery battalions are actually 3 historical artillery battalions, additionally the game files calls them artillery brigade. Whereas a historical artillery battalion had 12 guns the ingame has 36. For this reason the number of artillery units in my original videos were way too high.
Second, I missed that the number of guns in the support units for anti-tank, artillery, and anti-aircraft is less than that of the regular combat battalions. Basically, a regular combat unit has 50 % more guns than the support version. This allows a bit more fine-tuning, but also note that the support units have special characteristics ingame that I won’t cover here.
1) Initially, I wasn’t sure if the Artillery Battalions ingame were actually artillery regiments or not.
2) I missed that the support units have less equipment and guns than their equivalent regular combat units.
3) I assigned far too small numbers of anti-tank units in the original video.
The first part, the ingame artillery battalions are actually 3 historical artillery battalions, additionally the game files calls them artillery brigade. Whereas a historical artillery battalion had 12 guns the ingame has 36. For this reason the number of artillery units in my original videos were way too high.
Second, I missed that the number of guns in the support units for anti-tank, artillery, and anti-aircraft is less than that of the regular combat battalions. Basically, a regular combat unit has 50 % more guns than the support version. This allows a bit more fine-tuning, but also note that the support units have special characteristics ingame that I won’t cover here.
Third, in my original video I was far too strict on the anti-tank units. For some reason I neglected the ingame number of guns and used the German Infantry division as reference, whereas in this video I will set the ingame numbers in direct reference to the historical numbers.
The Changes
Since I covered the historical division setups in the original video, I will not narrate the whole setup again, so if you are interested in the background and haven’t see the original video you might want to check it out beforehand, it is mostly military history.
Note that these units are optimized historical accuracy and not gameplay.
German Infantry Division 1940
So, let’s get started, the adapted setup for the German Infantry Division from 1940is as follows:
Due to the high number of more than 70 anti-tank guns, I recommend to use 2 regular anti-tank battalions and remove the support anti-tank gun unit. The number of artillery battalions should be reduced from 4 to 1, since the ingame artillery battalion are three times the size of historical ones.
Due to the high number of more than 70 anti-tank guns, I recommend to use 2 regular anti-tank battalions and remove the support anti-tank gun unit. The number of artillery battalions should be reduced from 4 to 1, since the ingame artillery battalion are three times the size of historical ones.
Now, since the historical unit had 48 artillery guns, an alternative setup would be to use no regular artillery unit, but two support artillery units, this would give the correct amount of artillery pieces for this unit.
Soviet Rifle Division 1941
Since, we covered fifty shades of grey, time to take a look at Big Red, well no that is too scary, so let’s go with the Soviet Rifle Division from April 1941 instead.
Based on the data, I propose the following changes:
Reduce the number of artillery battalions to 1 or 2 units. Since, the division had 54 anti-tank guns and my original proposal had a regular anti-tank battalion included, one could add an additional support anti-tank unit. This would bring up the total ingame number of 60 guns, which slightly above that of the historical numbers.
Based on the data, I propose the following changes:
Reduce the number of artillery battalions to 1 or 2 units. Since, the division had 54 anti-tank guns and my original proposal had a regular anti-tank battalion included, one could add an additional support anti-tank unit. This would bring up the total ingame number of 60 guns, which slightly above that of the historical numbers.
Source: Sharp, Charles: Soviet Order of Battle World War II – Volume VIII Bobcat 25 hp zero turn mower repair manual.
US Army Infantry Division 1943
Yeah, well, the Fourth of July is over, but freedom never ends, so next is the US Army Infantry division layout from July 1943.
The changes are very similar to the German and Soviet unit. Reduction of the artillery units to just 1 artillery battalion. Then adding a regular anti-tank unit and also an optional support anti-tank unit, since the historical division had a total of 57 anti-tank guns, thus just being short 3 guns to be on point. Also similar to the German division, it had 48 artillery guns, so an alternative setup could be no regular artillery unit, but two support artillery units, to get the same amount of artillery pieces as the original division layout.
The changes are very similar to the German and Soviet unit. Reduction of the artillery units to just 1 artillery battalion. Then adding a regular anti-tank unit and also an optional support anti-tank unit, since the historical division had a total of 57 anti-tank guns, thus just being short 3 guns to be on point. Also similar to the German division, it had 48 artillery guns, so an alternative setup could be no regular artillery unit, but two support artillery units, to get the same amount of artillery pieces as the original division layout.
Source: Stanton, Shelby: Order of Battle of the US Army in World War II
British Infantry Division 1939
Now, if you like to call things Spandau, here we go, the British Infantry Division in 1939 of the British Expeditionary Force.
The changed layout for the British is as follows:
I would add an anti-tank battalion and maybe an anti-tank support unit, although the real division had only 48 anti-tank guns, it had a large amount of anti-tank rifles. Also only one artillery battalion. The rest stays the same.
I would add an anti-tank battalion and maybe an anti-tank support unit, although the real division had only 48 anti-tank guns, it had a large amount of anti-tank rifles. Also only one artillery battalion. The rest stays the same.
Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20150702060849/http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/CGSC/CARL/nafziger/939BXIA.pdf (Note: that it lists 147 pieces of the 25mm anti-tank gun, a number that seems completely off and likely is, because it was a French anti-tank gun and I doubt they received so many of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_mm_Hotchkiss_anti-tank_gun )
Japanese Infantry Division 1940 Standard B
Now the war situation may still not necessarily develop to your advantage, nevertheless here is the update for the Japanese Infantry division Standard B around 1940.
The changed layout for the Rising Sun is as follows:
No regular artillery battalion, because of the very limited amount of firepower provided by the Japanese. At most one artillery support unit should be added.
(Source: Rottmann, Gordon: Japanese Army in World War II – Conquest of the Pacific 1941-1942)
The changed layout for the Rising Sun is as follows:
No regular artillery battalion, because of the very limited amount of firepower provided by the Japanese. At most one artillery support unit should be added.
(Source: Rottmann, Gordon: Japanese Army in World War II – Conquest of the Pacific 1941-1942)
Italian Infantry Division 1940
In case you want to go full duce, here is the changed layout for one of the most dangerous pizza delivery services in history, the Italian Infantry division from 1940:
I would make the optional anti-tank support unit a definite one, since the original division had 24 anti-tank guns, which is exactly the number of the ingame unit. No regular artillery unit, but one support artillery unit, although the historical unit had 36 artillery guns those had limited firepower. (12 guns with 100mm and 24 with 75mm, thus of rather weak firepower.)
Source: Schreiber, Gerhard: S.56-62, in Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 3;
Soruce: Handbook on the Italian Military Forces, August 1943, Military Intelligence Service – TME 30-420
I would make the optional anti-tank support unit a definite one, since the original division had 24 anti-tank guns, which is exactly the number of the ingame unit. No regular artillery unit, but one support artillery unit, although the historical unit had 36 artillery guns those had limited firepower. (12 guns with 100mm and 24 with 75mm, thus of rather weak firepower.)
Source: Schreiber, Gerhard: S.56-62, in Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, Band 3;
Soruce: Handbook on the Italian Military Forces, August 1943, Military Intelligence Service – TME 30-420
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French Infantry Division 1940
What is faster than a pizza delivery, well, some argue it is the United Baguette Division, so, let’s look at the changes for the French Infantry division of 1940:
There should be a reduction of the regular artillery battalions to just one. Instead of the support anti-tank unit a regular anti-tank battalion and optional an additional one as support, similar to the US and Soviet division, because the French division had 58 anti-tank guns historically. Installing asterisk on synology dsm. Aoki ookami to shiroki mejika iv genghis khan rar file.
Source: Sumner, Ian; et. al: The French Army: 1939-45
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20111208085020/http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/940FXXE.PDF
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20111208085020/http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/940FXXE.PDF
Polish Infantry Division 1939
Now, of course this is for Hearts of Iron IV and not Space Invaders, nevertheless, some update on the Polish Space Division is necessary, the changes for the Polish infantry division of 1939, is as follows:
The once optional support anti-tank unit is now definitely a part of the division, because the historical division had 27 guns. Since the historical artillery was quite similar to that of the Italian division, no regular artillery battalion neither, just one support artillery unit.
The once optional support anti-tank unit is now definitely a part of the division, because the historical division had 27 guns. Since the historical artillery was quite similar to that of the Italian division, no regular artillery battalion neither, just one support artillery unit.
Sources:
Ellis, Johen World War II – A Statistical Survey – The Essential Facts & Figures for All the Combatants, Edition: 1995 reprinted with corrections
http://niehorster.org/029_poland/organizations/div-inf.html
http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/939PXPG.PDF
Ellis, Johen World War II – A Statistical Survey – The Essential Facts & Figures for All the Combatants, Edition: 1995 reprinted with corrections
http://niehorster.org/029_poland/organizations/div-inf.html
http://www.cgsc.edu/CARL/nafziger/939PXPG.PDF
Romanian Infantry Division 1941
And the last division layout for this video, the setup of the Romanian Infantry Division of 1941.
Now, the updated Vampire Legions are as follows:
The historical division had 30 anti-tank guns, hence either a regular anti-tank battalion or support anti-tank unit are possible. The artillery battalions should be reduced to one support artillery battalion, since their firepower is just a bit more than that of the Polish or Italian divisions. (36 field guns with 75mm and 16 howitzers with 100mm present. )
Now, the updated Vampire Legions are as follows:
The historical division had 30 anti-tank guns, hence either a regular anti-tank battalion or support anti-tank unit are possible. The artillery battalions should be reduced to one support artillery battalion, since their firepower is just a bit more than that of the Polish or Italian divisions. (36 field guns with 75mm and 16 howitzers with 100mm present. )
(Source: Axworthy, Mark: Third Axis, Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941-1945)
Suggestion for Proper Artillery Battalions
Now, once I realized that the ingame artillery battalions are actually the size of 3 historical artillery battalions, I added a suggestion to the Paradox Forums. Maybe there is a good reason for this, but I haven’t found one so far. Because, well there are enough slots in the division designer to support very large units. Additionally, the other battalions have mostly correct values for manpower and equipment numbers that are on par with historical numbers.
If you think the same or otherwise, please check the link below to my suggestion post on the forums and add your thoughts and/or support there.
If you think the same or otherwise, please check the link below to my suggestion post on the forums and add your thoughts and/or support there.
Sources
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