HOI4 Dev Diary - Future and Cornflakes

[Modestus]

Funny, NATO Map Symbols weren't adopted until 1986 (31 years ago, although they are based on US Army Corps of Engineers map symbols adopted 100 years ago), strategy games have been around for literally millennia (Mancala ~5000 years old, Go ~2500 years old, Chess ~1400 years old, etc). In fact even most recent computer strategy games don't use them anymore, and only did in the past because of graphics limitations.

How you represent a unit on a map is subjective however the best way to represent a large amount of units on a map is to use a simplified model such as a counter and while an animated individual soldier or tank is also a simplified model there is a tendency for the latter to make the map more confusing especially as more and more units are added.

Oddly Paradox decided to make this even worse by having both an animated model to represent a unit but also a rectangular box to represent units within a province\region\country.

Some players make the actual unit invisible and only use the box that tells you what units you have within a province\region\country which of course means they cannot tell in what direction a unit is moving, it also means that if you zoom out you cannot tell what province contains what units.

Paradox carried the approach from EUIV over to HOI IV but ignored the fact that you would have more units in HOI IV and that those units would tend to mass along Front-lines which makes a bad situation even worse, Province names being removed to prevent an even greater mess.


Paradox tried to combine an animated model that would appeal to one audience with a half-baked counter system that would satisfy another audience in my opinion it is a failure, using a NATO symbol instead of a helmet is irrelevant.

 

[Axe99]

electronic warfare was already quite important during the second world war but mainly for the navy and airforce.
the far larger effect comes from guided missiles of all sorts as the massively increase the lethaity of combat and drastically reduce the weight requirements for the launch platform (an at gun may weigh 2 tons while an atgm is maybe 15kg + 10kg missile also anti sip missiles let destroyers have comparable firepower to a battleship)

Guided anti-air missiles are still pretty heavy - I've only read about them in the naval context, but the last British all-gun DD, the Daring class, had 408 tons of weapons, while the Bristol class (the first DD with only one 4.5 inch gun and the rest of the armament as missiles (38 Sea Dart missiles) or Torpedoes (Ikara) had 536 tons of armament. It's worth noting that while Sea Dart had some anti-ship capability, it in no way gave destroyers better firepower than a battleship. Even more modern destroyers can't match the firepower of a WW2 era BB (and by some margin - the most firepower a British small ship (the Type 23 Frigate) had in the last century was 8 Harpoon missiles - dangers to be sure, but not the equivalent of being pounded by a BB) - but they do have greater range and precision.

The thing I was getting at, though, was that these weapons relied on electronic warfare to function. They needed CIC rooms with modern (for the time) displays and often required multiple radar sets to function. In many ways, the quality of the electronic warfare capabilities (in both offense and defense) dictated how effective any missile armament was. This goes for electronic warfare in WW2 as well - it was a key component of the US victory in the Pacific (although weight of production would have got them their in the end regardless, as long as they had the staying power).

I'm afraid I can only really ramble on about the naval side of this though - I'll have to take your word on the ATGMs, but when did they come into service? Things like naval guided anti-aircraft missiles began development before the end of WW2 (although didn't go into service until well into the 1950s), but when were the first guided anti-tank missiles in service?

 

[holoween]

Guided anti-air missiles are still pretty heavy - I've only read about them in the naval context, but the last British all-gun DD, the Daring class, had 408 tons of weapons, while the Bristol class (the first DD with only one 4.5 inch gun and the rest of the armament as missiles (38 Sea Dart missiles) or Torpedoes (Ikara) had 536 tons of armament. It's worth noting that while Sea Dart had some anti-ship capability, it in no way gave destroyers better firepower than a battleship. Even more modern destroyers can't match the firepower of a WW2 era BB (and by some margin - the most firepower a British small ship (the Type 23 Frigate) had in the last century was 8 Harpoon missiles - dangers to be sure, but not the equivalent of being pounded by a BB) - but they do have greater range and precision.

if you measure firepower by total kg of shells (or he filler) delivered then nothing gets close to battleships. if you measure it as kg of he actually delivered (read hit the target) then modern missile destroyers have a good chance of keeping up as long as they are at range.

The thing I was getting at, though, was that these weapons relied on electronic warfare to function. They needed CIC rooms with modern (for the time) displays and often required multiple radar sets to function. In many ways, the quality of the electronic warfare capabilities (in both offense and defense) dictated how effective any missile armament was. This goes for electronic warfare in WW2 as well - it was a key component of the US victory in the Pacific (although weight of production would have got them their in the end regardless, as long as they had the staying power).

i fully agree

I'm afraid I can only really ramble on about the naval side of this though - I'll have to take your word on the ATGMs, but when did they come into service? Things like naval guided anti-aircraft missiles began development before the end of WW2 (although didn't go into service until well into the 1950s), but when were the first guided anti-tank missiles in service?

http://www.oocities.org/augusta/8172/panzerfaust12.htm
first link i could find in english. germany did have atgm at the very end of ww2 the next and then actually entering active service one being the SS.10.

also the germans were quite a bit ahead on anti air missiles aswell for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserfall

 

[Gamer_1745]

....

Modestus my friend,

I know now they tested the HoI 3 style counters with HOI IV. They just didn't work with the 3D map. The counters we love so much need a 2D map. I wonder if someone would make a 2D map for HOI IV???? I think I could get them to make/release the traditional counters for HOI IV.

Maybe it could be part of a Counters & Map DLC????

 

[Alex_brunius]

if you measure firepower by total kg of shells (or he filler) delivered then nothing gets close to battleships. if you measure it as kg of he actually delivered (read hit the target) then modern missile destroyers have a good chance of keeping up as long as they are at range.

In a Battleship shell the majority of damage comes from the kinetic energy though, not from the explosives contained. Explosive energy can dissipate mostly into the air (depending on where it goes off) while all kinetic energy must be absorbed by the ship to stop the shell.

The Yamatos 18 inch AP shells for example contained 34 kg of explosives, but when impacting at a typical 500 meter / second the kinetic impact energy would be 0.5*1640kg*(500m/s)^2 = 205MJ =49 kg TNT equivalent.

The Yamatos "Common type" (HE) had 62 kg of explosives.


So I think it's fair to say that each Battleship shell would have similar destructive power to a Anti Ship missile with warheads of around 50-200kg explosives.

I also agree that most Battleships at long range would have pretty bad hit percentages, but a battleship would carry around 900-1200 shells total though, so even if only 4% of them hit that's equivalent to up to 36 direct hits from anti ship missiles, which IMHO would be outside the reach of any cold war destroyer, or even modern destroyers to pull off.

A typical Modern Aleigh Burke class loadout would consist of 88 SAM missiles + 10 Tomahawk land attack missiles + 8 Harpoon Anti Ship missiles, so assuming even 100% hit rate you would need 5 of them until you reach the destructive potential of a single fully loaded WW2 era Battleship with a 4% hit ratio. This is without counting any of the Battleships numerous secondary guns.

 

[Dracolithfiend]

electronic warfare was already quite important during the second world war but mainly for the navy and airforce.

It was a big deal in armies too. Just look up forces such as the 23rd ghost army or what German signalmen accomplished on operation dragoon.

 

[homerCCCP]

Explosive energy can dissipate mostly into the air (depending on where it goes off) while all kinetic energy must be absorbed by the ship to stop the shell.

While I find your post very interesting, I have to disagree here partly.
Kinetic energy does not have to be totaly absorbed by the target. The mass also can translate its energy into bouncing off (for big shells this can easily partly happen) and also you use very much of the destructive power when the ernergy is spread around a huge area. There is a lot of room for optimization here and that makes modern KE warheads far more powerful in anti armor capabilities.
It's similar missile warheads. They are much more than simple explosives. Modern explosive warheads are fairly good in translating their energy towards the target. If you compare 1950's HEAT warheads to 1990's ones there is a huge difference.

 

[Alex_brunius]

While I find your post very interesting, I have to disagree here partly.
Kinetic energy does not have to be totaly absorbed by the target. The mass also can translate its energy into bouncing off (for big shells this can easily partly happen) and also you use very much of the destructive power when the ernergy is spread around a huge area. There is a lot of room for optimization here and that makes modern KE warheads far more powerful in anti armor capabilities.
It's similar missile warheads. They are much more than simple explosives. Modern explosive warheads are fairly good in translating their energy towards the target. If you compare 1950's HEAT warheads to 1990's ones there is a huge difference.

HEAT and directed explosives is a very different thing compared to modern Anti Ship Missiles though.

Since all modern warships are essentially unarmored and rely on stealth and active defenses there is no actual armor to penetrate there, which means that the explosives in the warhead of anti ship missiles is mostly just that, explosives/fragmentation combinations for use against an unarmored target.

This means we go into semantics a bit here since an AP Battleship shell designed to defeat heavy armor would be very ineffective against a modern unarmored warship (go right through it), while a modern ASM designed to defeat unarmored targets would be pretty ineffective against Battleship levels of armor as well.


If you watch a video of a modern ASM hitting a ship though ( there are plenty on youtube ), it's easy to see how much of the explosive power that's dissipated and goes everywhere except into the ship, and what I meant is that compared to the optimal scenario for a battleship shell where it bursts after fully passing through the armor belt of another battleship much more of the energy is "wasted".

 

[BlueAndGrey]

Have doctrines more strongly affect division designing to get away from cookie cutter solutions and too ahistorical gamey setups

Could you make nation's division templates match up in size and support companies to what they had in 1936

 

[Axe99]

if you measure firepower by total kg of shells (or he filler) delivered then nothing gets close to battleships. if you measure it as kg of he actually delivered (read hit the target) then modern missile destroyers have a good chance of keeping up as long as they are at range.

In a Battleship shell the majority of damage comes from the kinetic energy though, not from the explosives contained. Explosive energy can dissipate mostly into the air (depending on where it goes off) while all kinetic energy must be absorbed by the ship to stop the shell.

A typical Modern Aleigh Burke class loadout would consist of 88 SAM missiles + 10 Tomahawk land attack missiles + 8 Harpoon Anti Ship missiles, so assuming even 100% hit rate you would need 5 of them until you reach the destructive potential of a single fully loaded WW2 era Battleship with a 4% hit ratio. This is without counting any of the Battleships numerous secondary guns.

One other thing to keep in mind with 'dumbfire shells' is that they can't be jammed. Modern destroyers have countermeasures against missiles, but there's no frequency or jamming technique that'll stop a shell.

It's also worth noting that there was research into 'guided' shells from battleships, using similar technology to smart bombs (these, of course, could be jammed) - were this pursued (and we're talking a cold war world where that kind of firepower is useful - historically the relative weakness of the Soviet fleet meant development was focussed in other areas like ASW.

It's similar missile warheads. They are much more than simple explosives. Modern explosive warheads are fairly good in translating their energy towards the target. If you compare 1950's HEAT warheads to 1990's ones there is a huge difference.

Aye, but there's no reason BB warheads wouldn't have continued to evolve as well if they had continued to be thought of as a mainly anti-ship weapon while missiles also developed. The thing that killed "the big gun" wasn't ship-to-ship missiles, as far as I've read, but rather air-launched anti-ship missiles (which could be fired far further from the launching ship (the carrier) than any ship-launched missile could counter (vs the carrier, not the aircraft - but aircraft are harder to hit and far cheaper than ships) - and the beauty of air-launched anti-ship missiles was that they could be fired so far out that it made it impossible for anti-aircraft gunnery to counter (until the development of modern naval CIWS) and ship-launched anti-air guided missiles turned out to be very difficult to get to work well.

 

[Rotteknokkel]

Funny, NATO Map Symbols weren't adopted until 1986 (31 years ago, although they are based on US Army Corps of Engineers map symbols adopted 100 years ago), strategy games have been around for literally millennia (Mancala ~5000 years old, Go ~2500 years old, Chess ~1400 years old, etc). In fact even most recent computer strategy games don't use them anymore, and only did in the past because of graphics limitations.

Perhaps true. but "forever" in my book, means as long as I can remember them

Also, I believe they are older, I have read books with these symbols in that are older than 1986.

 

[Rotteknokkel]

Maybe it could be part of a Counters & Map DLC????

Have not bought a single DLC yet, as I still wait for the one DLC to make the game playable (by my preferences), this would be it... We "need" a 2D map and map modes, and normal and stack-able counters.

 

[vengen]

Also, I believe they are older, I have read books with these symbols in that are older than 1986.

"NATO" type map symbols have been around since at least the mid-1950s, when the first U.S. paper and cardboard commercial wargames were published. They have been that industry's standard since then.

 

[Wraith11B]

Have not bought a single DLC yet, as I still wait for the one DLC to make the game playable (by my preferences), this would be it... We "need" a 2D map and map modes, and normal and stack-able counters.

Really what needs to happen is that the current counters need to more accurately reflect the situation of the unit that they represent, and (this is more of what I think they should do): when zooming, the counters should "merge" into their higher commands. What I mean by this is that as I zoom out, divisions become their army command, and if I zoom out more they become the army group or the theater. I don't think it would take much in the way of changes to the code, and it would be clearer than seeing random divisions from different nations grouping together in a confusing manner.

 

[Milance12]

can you make having enough trucks/horses important for having supplies delivered to your troops.The current system makes no damn sense.Yes,having good roads is important,but having miles long highways when you have 2 old horses to supply your armies is kinda dumb.

 

[xtfoster]

Could you make nation's division templates match up in size and support companies to what they had in 1936

My quick answer is no. Mostly because it never actually happened in real life.
1) Even on paper, no 2 countries divisions were the same in terms of manpower, weapons mix, etc.
2) Only on paper were 2 divisions from the same country the same in terms of manpower, weapons mix, etc.

 

[Gandarn]

Sound great , but we need also air supply and air recon.

 

[agus92]

A very, VERY nice list!

Howewer, I think there is an important omission, and that is the improvement of the convoy system. I've seen Italy losing >1M manpower in a few months after declaring, trying to cross the Med and/or reaching Germany's ports.

 

[hermod]

These counters are not "true" counters in my opinion... I hate the stupid merging etc. I wish they could make normal (square and stacking counters) like in every normal strategy game. Instead of trying to make these tiny counters that merge and you can't tell where they actually are located etc. And again. TINY. Extremely tiny. I do use NATO symbols, of course, I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone actually use the new comic looking ones. Nato symbols have been used in "every" normal strategy game as far back as I can remember, why try to make new symbols?

But. These counters are not normal counters

There's a mod that's called WW's Map+ that significantly reduces the merger of counters that i really like.
I also really hate the merger a cant believe how they thought of doing it like it is cause it's shit.
Together with counter mods like HOIIP or whatever it looks ok.

 

[holoween]

In a Battleship shell the majority of damage comes from the kinetic energy though, not from the explosives contained. Explosive energy can dissipate mostly into the air (depending on where it goes off) while all kinetic energy must be absorbed by the ship to stop the shell.

The Yamatos 18 inch AP shells for example contained 34 kg of explosives, but when impacting at a typical 500 meter / second the kinetic impact energy would be 0.5*1640kg*(500m/s)^2 = 205MJ =49 kg TNT equivalent.

The Yamatos "Common type" (HE) had 62 kg of explosives.


So I think it's fair to say that each Battleship shell would have similar destructive power to a Anti Ship missile with warheads of around 50-200kg explosives.

I also agree that most Battleships at long range would have pretty bad hit percentages, but a battleship would carry around 900-1200 shells total though, so even if only 4% of them hit that's equivalent to up to 36 direct hits from anti ship missiles, which IMHO would be outside the reach of any cold war destroyer, or even modern destroyers to pull off.

A typical Modern Aleigh Burke class loadout would consist of 88 SAM missiles + 10 Tomahawk land attack missiles + 8 Harpoon Anti Ship missiles, so assuming even 100% hit rate you would need 5 of them until you reach the destructive potential of a single fully loaded WW2 era Battleship with a 4% hit ratio. This is without counting any of the Battleships numerous secondary guns.

the kinetic energy is not what causes the majority of the damage of a hit its purpose is to defeat the armour so the shell can explode inside.
with 9 guns firing 2 rounds a minute it would take about an hour to fire all your shells while the destroyer can fire its anti ship missiles way faster and while the destroyer doesnt have the total shells of a battleship being able to do all the dmage in the first 10 min is far more beneficial than being able to keep up firing for hours (at least in naval battels) also while no current estroyer (or equivalent) carries more than 8 anti ship missiles that to me seems more an issue of simply not needing it as they could easily carry enough if they removed some sam.

One other thing to keep in mind with 'dumbfire shells' is that they can't be jammed. Modern destroyers have countermeasures against missiles, but there's no frequency or jamming technique that'll stop a shell.

It's also worth noting that there was research into 'guided' shells from battleships, using similar technology to smart bombs (these, of course, could be jammed) - were this pursued (and we're talking a cold war world where that kind of firepower is useful - historically the relative weakness of the Soviet fleet meant development was focussed in other areas like ASW.



Aye, but there's no reason BB warheads wouldn't have continued to evolve as well if they had continued to be thought of as a mainly anti-ship weapon while missiles also developed. The thing that killed "the big gun" wasn't ship-to-ship missiles, as far as I've read, but rather air-launched anti-ship missiles (which could be fired far further from the launching ship (the carrier) than any ship-launched missile could counter (vs the carrier, not the aircraft - but aircraft are harder to hit and far cheaper than ships) - and the beauty of air-launched anti-ship missiles was that they could be fired so far out that it made it impossible for anti-aircraft gunnery to counter (until the development of modern naval CIWS) and ship-launched anti-air guided missiles turned out to be very difficult to get to work well.

unless the shells are guided (which then could be jammed) at long ranges they can be dodged.

the core reaso BBs disapeared is that lage guns werent required anymore as bombs, torpedoes and missiles could do comparable damage while not requiring a hugely expensive ship that could potentially be disabled with a single hit.