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HOI4 Dev Diary - Railway guns never tire

Hello there, C0RAX again.

It’s time again to reveal some more secret information that was hinted at in the last dev diary. Specifically this week will be revolving around the final part of railways and trains. So without any more need for introduction here are our stars of the show today.

The railway guns.

So to start off I'll go through how you get a railway gun on the map because it’s a little different to normal land units. First of all you are going to want to research railway guns which comes after armoured trains.
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Then you can find it in your production tab just like building normal equipment. But unlike other equipment you build, these production lines are limited to 5 factories and the railway gun won't be added to your stockpile.
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Instead, once completed, your brand new railway gun will appear in your capital, in this way they are built similar to capital ships.
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Moving your railway gun is limited to provinces with railways, and so to get to the front you must have a rail connection. Taking into account the rail conversion time when capturing territory is important as you will have to wait for the big guns to be able to help you out.
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You can also attach railway guns to armies just like with planes and they will attempt to place themselves relative to the frontline. If you have several, they will be distributed where possible to support your army. There is also a quick select button on the army to select all railways guns attached to an army should you need to.
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Finally, the last bit of control understanding is range. Railway guns have a range in which they can support and so from any one point are limited in which provinces they can support. This range is shown by hovering over the unit icon.
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On to combat now, here we can see a combat with a supporting railway gun, we have added the useful icon on the combat progress indicator that there is a supporting bombardment. This new icon will also show if there is shore bombardment happening in the combat.
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The combat effects of railway gun bombardment work just like shore bombardment, causing negative combat stat modifiers to those on the receiving end of the big guns. These modifiers affect both soft and hard attack as well as defense values. Notably, these effects do not stack - it becomes more important to spread out your railway artillery than to concentrate it.
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Finally we need to talk about capture and damage, railway guns can be captured via encircling them and damaged by damaging the railway they are placed upon.

Now railway guns are the biggest guns by far used on land and so it's important that we have representations of those built by the major powers. So now we look at the unique guns for the major powers.

This is the German Schwerer Gustav model you will see when playing as the Germans. It's perhaps the most famous railway gun and definitely the biggest and so had to have a part in this feature.
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This is the BL 9.2inch railway gun, a relic of the first world war but these big guns were kept in service until 1945.
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Following that we have the French Canon de 305 another veteran of the first world war.
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Next up is the USA’s 8-inch Mk. VI which remarkably first entered service as late as 1941!
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Type 90 240 mm railway gun whose claim to fame is being destroyed by the retreating Japanese in the soviet invasion manchuria.
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And finally the TM-3-12, three of these were made in 1938 and were used in the winter war against finland, unbelievably these where in service until 1999 (a whopping 61 years of service)
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Finally here's a cool clip of the Schwerer Gustav firing in game.
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I see a loot of interest in this, so I'm sorry for this: It will be possible destroying railway guns with bombers?, I ask it because this kind of weapon become obsolete in WW2 because they were easy to destroy from the air
 
After looking at Soviet railway artillery systems, the following information was indicated: In the USSR, by the beginning of World War II, all available railway artillery was subordinated to the Navy - only long-range naval guns were used, and are intended for coastal defense and defense of their own naval bases. And I had a question, is it possible to do something similar in the game? Coastal defense against naval invasion and shooting at the enemy fleet?
 
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Deben dañar pasivamente los edificios enemigos en su radio. Si encuentra que una línea del frente se vuelve inamovible debido a las fortificaciones y el atrincheramiento, puede llevar armas de ferrocarril para debilitar la línea antes de una ofensiva. El otro lado también tendría que intentar sacar esas armas antes de que sus defensas se debiliten. De esa manera, las armas se pueden usar como armas de asedio reales.
Necesita una vida propia, solo existe si hay una batalla, debe tener el control de todo lo que esté a su alcance, por lo que si se acerca un enemigo, será atacado automáticamente.
 
Veo el problema en el costo de mantenerlo con vida, necesita divisiones antiaéreas mecanizadas y superioridad aérea. ¿Será rentable todo por un apoyo del 15%?
It should not. That is one of the reasons because armies don't use them very often, are spensive, need a huge amount of manpower and support, and are vulnerable to an air atack.
I've reading some wikipedia articles about Gustav, the true is that cannon was only used in Sevastopol, and only fire 48 times! I think this was a wepon more for WW1, but of course since some armies have it in his arsenal they used it. Like big capital ships, they build a lot during pace time... but during warfare it was clear that carriers were better choice.

Also, why bother making railguns when you have air superiority?. Germans make gustav because they have a bonner with big guns, they also spend a lot of money looking for the Holly Grial (in Spain and other places), but that don't make it a good choice. Alies relay on air atack, in fact when they start having air superiority over europe and destroy all german railways, this kind of weapon become a waste of resources... Like a lot of other Nazi Ideas
 
based on the german wiki the: "
The M65 gun is seen as a further development from the Cold War era, but it was transported by road and was intended for use with nuclear shells. However, this gun had a shorter range of about 29 km." based on the Krupss K5 series. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/28-cm-Kanone_5_(E)

I also strongly suggests that if germany player choose Krupp for industry they may receive a huge huge bonus for railway gun production as well as a huge bonus for locomotive production. That seems to be must be change for the dev team!
 
It should not. That is one of the reasons because armies don't use them very often, are spensive, need a huge amount of manpower and support, and are vulnerable to an air atack.
I've reading some wikipedia articles about Gustav, the true is that cannon was only used in Sevastopol, and only fire 48 times! I think this was a wepon more for WW1, but of course since some armies have it in his arsenal they used it. Like big capital ships, they build a lot during pace time... but during warfare it was clear that carriers were better choice.

Also, why bother making railguns when you have air superiority?. Germans make gustav because they have a bonner with big guns, they also spend a lot of money looking for the Holly Grial (in Spain and other places), but that don't make it a good choice. Alies relay on air atack, in fact when they start having air superiority over europe and destroy all german railways, this kind of weapon become a waste of resources... Like a lot of other Nazi Ideas
Did you know that Germany had 2 Gustavs? Krupp gave Hitler 1(schwere gustav) and then they built 1(schwere gustav 2).
 
Cheers for the DD C0RAX, and the extra info Arheo and Cranium Muppet :) Finally land warfare gets at least a small fraction of the style and panache of naval combat :cool: The implementations sounds great - lots to love. The only question I'd have in relation to railway guns is whether there was any consideration of making them help wear down forts a bit easier (so perhaps have a small reduction on the fort malus for attackers) - note, I'm not sure if this is a good idea, just mentioning in case useful.



This is super-cool :) Would there be any scope to allow this for ships, perhaps by ship type as a simplification? Most of those railway guns (with some key exceptions) are relatively lightweight compared with naval artillery, and yet naval artillery is perhaps a bit more limited than it was historically (noting that any range for naval artillery shouldn't be at the shore, but taken from some distance offshore). Also a good argument for allowing the construction of monitors (not used a lot historically, but if frontlines in Europe had bogged down and there weren't enough BBs to go around they may well have got more use).



Very nice :)



Lots of action going on in that screenshot - very cool.



Well, when you're talking in terms of land warfare at least :p After the railway gun, the largest piece of equipment in land warfare is something like a 190-ton tank - in naval terms that's the weight of just one of the four twin turrets on a County Class cruiser. Gustav was heavier - about the weight of a standard interwar British/American destroyer, or a bit less than the weight of one of the Littorio's three triple turrets. In terms of industrial cost, benchmarking to these might help with consistency (which the 5 MIC and resource cost may do already, I'm a bit tired to crunch the numbers this evening).

For a naval-themed pic for a DD that mentions shore bombardment, it's a bit easy - and I wouldn't want to take attention away from railway guns that, did, after all, often use barrels originally designed or made for naval artillery. So in the spirit of today's DD, here's a pic of a model of HMG (His Majesty's Gun) Gladiator, that was used to fire over the Channel at Calais, as well as at German coastal convoys passing through - it used a 13.5in Mk V gun originally designed for (and probably used, but I don't have any books on railway guns, so that's a guess) in WW1-era battleships (that were all scrapped after the Washington Treaty).

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They took my JOB!!! : P

Also, what's this? It's different from all the other Soviet flags we've seen.
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There's also the yellow and white one seen in Germany, which I assume is a releasable for balkanization of the Reich?
 
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No debería. Esa es una de las razones por las que los ejércitos no los usan con mucha frecuencia, son caros, necesitan una gran cantidad de mano de obra y apoyo, y son vulnerables a un ataque aéreo.
He leído algunos artículos de Wikipedia sobre Gustav, lo cierto es que el cañón solo se usó en Sebastopol, ¡y solo se disparó 48 veces! Creo que esta fue una arma más para la Primera Guerra Mundial, pero por supuesto, dado que algunos ejércitos la tienen en su arsenal, la usaron. Al igual que las grandes naves capitales, construyen mucho durante el tiempo de paso ... pero durante la guerra estaba claro que los portaaviones eran una mejor opción.

Además, ¿por qué molestarse en fabricar cañones de riel cuando tienes superioridad aérea? Los alemanes hacen gustav porque tienen un bonner con grandes armas, también gastan mucho dinero buscando el Holly Grial (en España y otros lugares), pero eso no lo convierte en una buena elección. Los aliados transmiten un ataque aéreo, de hecho, cuando comienzan a tener superioridad aérea sobre Europa y destruyen todos los ferrocarriles alemanes, este tipo de arma se convierte en un desperdicio de recursos ... Como muchas otras ideas nazis
Totalmente de acuerdo, es que realmente existe solo si hay una batalla dentro de su rango, cualquier enemigo puede entrar en su espacio y no lo ataca, no tiene vida propia, creo que deberían poner un ataque directo al tropas enemigas que entran en su espacio
 
They took my JOB!!! : P

Hahaha, I'm very sorry, I promise more maritime-focussed pics now, and no sneaky pics of naval artillery on trains :)
 
Instead, once completed, your brand new railway gun will appear in your capital, in this way they are built similar to capital ships.
Wait, what? Why was this change made? How will I get them to the ocean?
 
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Wait, what? Why was this change made? How will I get them to the ocean?

Inspired by the Ottoman sieges of Constantinople, we've implemented a highly complex series of land-tracks designed to transport your capital ships from your landlocked capital, to the coast.
 
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I think I'm the only one who is not stoked about the addition of railway guns. IIRC they were really quite pointless irl and didn't do much than some sieging here and there but cost huge amounts of resources. In game they look a lot more useful but also kinda gamey. Idk..
On the other hand I would find it more interesting if a similar or comparible system could be made to account for coastal defense guns. They could have a radius in which they counter shore bombardment from ships.
 
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If the AI is good at actually placing them behind the lines, trying to break through to capture them would be an interesting challenge. And a shore bombardment bonus away from the ocean? Sure, I'll take it, will be useful. But am I really that stoked about them? Not too much. Would rather they had a fortress-busting role, to be honest.
 
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Would other non-railway carried heavy artillery with similar firing range as Railway guns (around 20 km and more) like 24 cm Kanone 3,152 mm gun M1935 (Br-2) and 8-inch gun M1 implement to the game with the Railway guns' range mechanism?