Joshua Happytree said:
You can do a quick calc. Say...
- You need to defend 20 tiles.
- You opponent is using some standard 7/2 INF DIVs plus some line AT and AA/AT/ARTy/ENG plus whatever stuff you like. Say your opponent''s DIV density is 4 DIVs per tile.
- The opponent is attacks along the whole front.
So the questions are:
- How much SA, defense and org you'd buy for a set amount of IC if you go for the same standard DIV INF DIVs and covering the whole front? Same with some standard ARM/MOT?
- How much SA and damage you'd deal to your opponent having some standard tank designs? How much damage you'll receive having in mind that your ARM/MOT DIVs have much higher hardness?
Ok, let's start from scratch.
1. You don't need to fully defend 20 tiles because there is no way in hell, every single one of those tiles will be under attack (unless your enemy has already suffered a catastrophic encirclement and has 1 division per tile).
Normally, you see 1-4 tiles under attack. That is both due to your enemy lacking tanks as well as the fact that not all tiles have good terrain.
That's why you have a mobile reserve: whether it's meant to join the battle on the defending tile, or attack the attacking tile, it's supposed to reinforce areas under attack.
2. Attacking with 7/2s: is suicide unless you are in very specific circ*mstances. 7/2s you can beat with org cycling fairly well. Check how people play the Japan-China war. China almost never can afford artillery, yet holds through pure org cycling.
Joshua Happytree said:
How come it's usual? You can't say something is usual before you do the calc I mentioned before.
I can. I did such calculations, myself.
One area I know well: France, Western Front.
You have 21 tiles facing Germany & Italy. 6 are in the Alpine mountains, 7 are on the Maginot (of which 6 are either covered by a river or are hilly), 7 are in Belgium-Ardennes, of which just 3 are forest/hills tiles, 2 are urban (Nice/Lille) and 3 are plains.
If your opponent is going to try to push in all those areas at once: he's simply not wise. He will focus on the plains tiles first, and if he has spare resources he will focus on trying to punch a hole in other tiles.
Joshua Happytree said:
And how you plan to hold the line? If you don't then you'd be encircled and stackwiped yourself in no time. Remember HoI4 has so unrealistic combat model that tactical-operational mobility -- both in offense and defense -- has much less relevance compared to RL. Due to its origins (EU4) HoI4 is 17th-18th century warfare on steroids.
Simple. Pure line infantry with AT/AA support, maybe with support Artillery. You used to use engineers to add on entrenchment, but now they've been nerfed and don't seem worth it anymore. Only if you're manpower constrained, you would add artillery.
Joshua Happytree said:
That's obvious
Yet:
- Orgwalls and unit cycling does work.
- Do the calc on how much IC you need to hold the line. FIRST you hold the line THEN you add some tank DIVs to plug the holes or do the encirclements. Because if you cannot hold the line you're dead. So calculate how high the share of tank IC will be in the whole IC budget. Because the lower the share the less useful MW will be.
- As a side note I'm not arguing MW is bad IN EVERY CASE. I'm just saying your statement that MW is the most efficient in defense is incorrect.
1. I would argue you don't need to hold the line; you just need to cover it long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the rear. You can't be strong everywhere, or else you're wasting resources.
2. Well let me think. On defense what matters is defense & soft attack scaled by combat width.
Artillery 1936: 25 soft attack, 10 defense, 126 IC & 3 combat width
Infantry 1936: 6 soft attack, 22 defense, 50 IC, 2 combat width
Artillery only works well against attacking infantry. It is more expensive ICwise, it has lower defense. I would rather spend the IC on tanks which can do what artillery can + a ton more for a bit larger cost.
If you're facing an opponent you know is fielding 7/2s: yes artillery is most efficient. But you will never see a competent player adopt 7/2s as his common offensive tool, only as something situational that gambles on a very specific situation. It's not normal.
If you don't know what he's doing, it's better to build pure infantry to cover your frontline, and concentrate extra IC in your mobile reserve forces that can be either soft-attack centric or hard-attack centric.
3. Ok, to be clear: in the European war between major powers, MW is the safest bet.
MW is the safest bet. Not the best doctrine, SF can be better in certain situations, GBP could also be better even Mass Assault could also be better.
But MW is best to choose if you're not sure what your opponent is doing or if you are not sure if you have a massive advantage or not.
Joshua Happytree said:
That's obvious again. Yet this is not what you said in initial post:
- MW is the best of best doctrine.
- MW is most efficient in defense.
I never said MW is the best of best doctrine. I said it's the most versatile: aka most applicable to all situation, safest bet. That's a little different.
There are exceptions to every case. But you can't defend long successfully without tanks in the current game state. If you want to talk about a highly specific situation like Greece defending against Germany; yes, maybe when you have -50% attack due to mountaneous terrain, that extra 20% defense from entrenchment GBP gives could become relevant. But that's not a normal situation, that's a highly circ*mstantial case which is worth noting, but not worth considering in general.
