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C.O.R.E. Tech Tree: Land units, techs and doctrines

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Well just making another route to motorised/mechanised/armour would be a bit redundant. An upgrade to cavalry would be the best way to go. Generic paths would be the best choice, although of course some countries had already chosen what doctrine to have by 1936.
 
Then perhaps we should rename?

Point well taken :) But if that's the case then I would humbly suggest renaming the US Mechanized divisions as cavalry as well as other nations w/c took that mechanized cavalry path. I mean, the US 1st Cavalry Division should be an early moto mech formation instead of horsed cavalry if we keep horsed cavalry horse mounted.

Richmond
 
There is something I just started to think about. My concern is with all the specialized unit equiptment. It really does not make sense to make nylon a requirement expect maybe for paratroopers. This did allow the US to make cheap parachutes. I think the category can be kept but some of the equiptment would an X warfare experience land doctrine as well and nylon need not be a requirement.

I am wondering if the cost of nylon should be reduced and it give a reduction in cost and time of building paratroopers. The specialized warfare equiptment would then be changed to experience under Land doctrines. Lets just take an example, the Japanese were well trained in jungle operations but no specific jungle equiptment, even when there standard equiptment was failing, ie. bullets that didn't seal and tropical moisture got to the powder. The US did not have specialized marine equiptment until late in the war and then it was the first camo, which faded and made things worse than the ODs. It seems jungle warfare equiptment would be better modeled as jungle warfare experience. Neither side had special equiptment for the jungle. I suppose you could make jungle warfare equiptment neccessary for jungle warfare equiptment but I wonder if that should be put under the semi-modern category. Really it wasn't until Veitnam that the US started to issue Tiger stripe camo to units in the jungle. The main "special" weapon for jungle warfare was a submachinegun, already covered.

This could also be tied to a japanese event so that if you were at war with China in the time period 1939 - 1946 there would be a chance every week they would get this experience. This would reflect using Hinan island as a jungle training center.

Mountain warfare equiptment has little to do with nylon either. However, mountain training and equiptment are important. Perhaps there should exist a Land Unit Doctrine Mountain Operations Training and it be needed to build mountain units. France, Italy, Germany, and Nat. China (?) would have this from the beginning while the US would have to research it, the first mountain division was formed in 1943. It just doesn't make sense to tie the equiptment to nylon.

Artic war equiptment is a necessity things like the snow white uniform and special equiptment were needed but it seems strange to require nylon. We have winter war experience this should be the required tech for winter war equiptment.

Paratrooper equiptment could be tied to nylon, parachutes, but it also make sense to require paratroops or one of the paratrooper doctrines to gain equiptment.

Desert warfare equiptment makes more sense as a land unit doctrine, ie. Desert warfare experience.

These are just a few ideas for the category.
 
Interesting point about Nylon, as well as the entire use of equipment for each theatre type.

Even though I heavily revised the Infantry and Artillery tech trees for 0.7 (yet to be released), I am still not happy with it. A lot of techs really don't make sense, and I am starting to believe a lot of these techs belong in a TACTICAL wargame, not a STRATEGIC one. Why should you have to research a specific gun in a Strategic wargame? Were 40mm Gunned tanks really significantly better than 37mm Gunned tanks when you take into account that we are talking about divisional warfare? Did NEW weaponry make an impact as much as new DEPLOYMENT of weaponry in this scale?

The point I am trying to make is that equipment quality really didn't play as much a part in strategic warfare as equipment use and quantity. The Allies had superior strategic units than the Axis based upon their units having lavish amounts of equipment. Rarely was an Allied unit caught without sufficient anti-tank defence late in the war, but this was a common problem for the Axis. The Axis were unable to supply sufficient equipment to their forces, so they attempted to maximize firepower through improving individual weapons. This wasn't as effective on a strategic scale (tactically it did pay off).

Basically, HoI technology trees are built upon a tactical experience, that the better guns will win you the battles. It doesn't take into account that the side with more guns tends to win you the battles.

What I am toying with is that tech trees should be half equipment, half deployment of equipment. For example, you research motorized field artillery (makes no sense to have specific barrel types, as in a strategic scale field artillery is field artillery, 75mm or 105mm it doesn't really matter), which then opens up other deployment techs (corps motorized field artillery regiments for example). Just having modern motorized artillery isn't where this tech ends off, you research new ways in deploying it. You don't physically create a new piece of equipment, just learn how to use them better.

Other techs would be based upon what do you do with obsolete weaponry? The Western Allies tended to throw away old weapons when new ones were developed. However, some nations like Russia kept a wide variety of old and new types in their division. This was a simple, yet supply expensive, way in increasing the firepower of your divisions, but your Militia forces would suffer as there would be no hand-me-downs.

Realistically most militaries used the same small arms from 1939-1945, with most changes being to decrease weight and construction complexity (to mass produce them). Main changes here were deployment of units. The creation of SMG Batallions impacted strategic scale warfare then the addition of an updated SMG type (which was issued one per squad). Researching the Sten Submachine Gun didn't increase British firepower over using the Thompson, it was just cheaper to produce. Russian SMG batallions definitely affected strategic warfare.
 
Another observation, I really don't believe that there should be two tech trees for Infantry (actually three when you take into account doctrines).

Small Arms and Artillery should REALLY be combined into one tech tree. It seems like HoI tried to squeeze every little possible development of Infantry and Artillery to try and make two separate trees, to the point where you have rediculously small and insignificant developments making substantial changes to the strategic picture (re: development of an improved SMG that historically just cost less, but in HoI significantly increases the firepower of a division, even though it was deployed 1 per squad).

Two separate tech trees make the life of the AI difficult as well. Infantry/Land is the only unit type to be split up between tech areas so much (if we include armour, there are 4 separate tech areas to research). Aircraft are divided between light and heavy, ships between surface warships and raiders, why not have land units divided up between JUST hard attack and soft attack types?

Dividing up the Artillery tech tree would put certain types of equipment in different areas.

Naval Artillery would go in the Surface Naval Tech Tree
AA, AT and SA Artillery would go in the Soft Attack Tech Tree
Mechanized AA, AT and SA Artillery would go in the Hard Attack Tech Tree
Aircraft Guns would go in the light/heavy Aircraft Tech Trees

This will have us just put in the techs (equipment and deployment) which really had an impact (combine new SMG, LMG, Grenades, Mortors, etc. into one technology instead of having them all separate research techs) would make land units a bit easier to research (especially for the AI), as well as get rid of what is really a redundant tech tree.

This will give us another tech tree which we could leave empty, or if we want to, create another area of technology (i.e., divide up land doctrines into Hard Attack Land Doctrine and Soft Attack Land Doctrine).
 
Interesting line of reasoning about eliminating the Arty tree. While I'm not opposed to the idea I think it should only be done if we have a good reason, ie can use category 14 for something else. I've got a feeling that a lot of players *like* seeing the specific equipment in the game and it allows for better replayability as you explore different paths. There's also a balance regarding the number of techs in a given tree (ie scrolling around trying to find something). Finally the differences in equipment give the different nations a little character rather than every nation just having "level 2 infantry weapons"...
 
Steel said:
Interesting line of reasoning about eliminating the Arty tree. While I'm not opposed to the idea I think it should only be done if we have a good reason, ie can use category 14 for something else. I've got a feeling that a lot of players *like* seeing the specific equipment in the game and it allows for better replayability as you explore different paths. There's also a balance regarding the number of techs in a given tree (ie scrolling around trying to find something). Finally the differences in equipment give the different nations a little character rather than every nation just having "level 2 infantry weapons"...
Click to expand...

I agree but there is something to how you deploy equiptment. The Japanese had one hell of a supply problem because they mixed old and new equiptment. There were several different types of rounds of the same calibre that would one fire from one model of a rifle.

I think the size of the gun did matter. The big guns were more effective than the old 75s. However, perhaps going to newer weapons could give a decrease in supply consumption. This sounds strange but it does make some sense, totally upgrading your army gets rid of supply headaches of mixing ammo types. So nations that do not upgrade will consume more supplies than nations that do not. As a nation begins to adopt one standard there are fewer supply headaches. The drawback is nations that already had a standard initially will have larger temporary headaces due to the standard changing.

I think the calibres do give a bit of interest even if they are not as important to a divisional level game. I think the throwing away weapons or upgrading is handled with the need to upgrade units periodicly to catch them up to your new advances.

There is also a point to how things are deployed as well. It is true the Germans only issued one machinepistol per a squad but the Soviets equipped whole batallions with them late in the war simply because they were so cheap. It might be worthwhile to change some of the small arm techs to how they are deployed. So the Germans could have their MP40's and still have different sorts of attack values for the Russians who issued a lot more. The US also used more than 1 machinegun per a squad in the PTO. Although this wasn't regulation and there were not issued Marines somehow "found" a lot of them. I think technologies could help to sort out these issues.

As to newer submachine guns being about the same firepower that is true. However, they were cheaper and in the case of the grease gun could even be converted to fire enemy ammo. Perhaps advances to small arms could lower the cost of producing infantry. Moving away from wood stocks and to machine pressed metal made outfiitting units a lot cheaper. The M1 was almost the last wood stock part work of art part killing machine that was made. I am not sure if this would be appropiate as a land doctrine or under economic techs. There could be a tech. Infantry Weapon assembly construction reflecting the mass production of more cheaply designed weapons but I do not think it should be available as early as Mass assembly production. It is arguable that tech. comes to soon anyway it may be better suited in between catalytic polymersation and Modular assembly construction.

The other option is that improve SMG would give no combat bonus but decrease cost and time of producing infantry. Basic assualt rifles would also decrease cost and time of producing infantry as well as give attack bonuses. These would represent the movement to cheaper stamped metal weapons as opposed to wood stock rifles.
 
US Motorized Divisions?

I am starting to get confused as to how to classify US infantry division. My belief was that they were all motorized, a common belief. However, when looking at the 4th infantry division, Ivy, history I found this may have been untrue. It seems the US attempted to have motorized divisions then abandoned the project. The meaning of motorized divisions however, meant that the division had its own organic transport. In regular infantry units transport was assigned as needed by the corps level. The army abandoned largely due to the increase in supplies, ie. a unit at rest doesn't need the trucks so send them to someone who could.

So that leaves some confusion as how to model the US. They did not have motorized divisions in the German sense, trucks permenantly assigned to the division. However, they had more transport than other nations. So would the high levels of transport make US troops motorized units in game terms since they seemed to have transport when needed?
 
tristam509 said:
I am starting to get confused as to how to classify US infantry division. My belief was that they were all motorized, a common belief. However, when looking at the 4th infantry division, Ivy, history I found this may have been untrue. It seems the US attempted to have motorized divisions then abandoned the project. The meaning of motorized divisions however, meant that the division had its own organic transport. In regular infantry units transport was assigned as needed by the corps level. The army abandoned largely due to the increase in supplies, ie. a unit at rest doesn't need the trucks so send them to someone who could.

So that leaves some confusion as how to model the US. They did not have motorized divisions in the German sense, trucks permenantly assigned to the division. However, they had more transport than other nations. So would the high levels of transport make US troops motorized units in game terms since they seemed to have transport when needed?
Click to expand...

I guess some sort of new doctrine, dealing with this organization would help... Basically US 'infantry' divisions were infantry with huge motor pool, with elements of mechanized division, and elements of tank support.

Not sure if it mean that we should consider those units as more mechanized or more motorized though...

Any ideas on that matter?
 
Copper Nicus said:
I guess some sort of new doctrine, dealing with this organization would help... Basically US 'infantry' divisions were infantry with huge motor pool, with elements of mechanized division, and elements of tank support.

Not sure if it mean that we should consider those units as more mechanized or more motorized though...

Any ideas on that matter?
Click to expand...

Well it cant really be said that this way of handling transport caused a decrease in supply use, but maybe in cunjunction to another doctrine describing the somewhat lavish overdose of supplies used by US divisions we could subtract a small amount of oil supply usage for regular inf divisions.

Ghost_dk
 
Ilkhold said:
You could give those infantry division one extra point of speed and reduce motorized divisions speed and oil/suplly use a bit.
Click to expand...

I agree on the speed, but since the increase in oil for the reg. inf. is purely cosmetic(game engine shows the modifier but doesnt count it in when calculating total oil used) I dont think we should decrease the oil use for the motorized division.

Ghost_dk
 
You have to put some special burden upon normal infantry, otherwise US might just build only normal infantry. Construction cost und Supply need could be higher. At the same time Contruction for motorized division could be a bit smaller.
 
Ghost_dk said:
Well it cant really be said that this way of handling transport caused a decrease in supply use, but maybe in cunjunction to another doctrine describing the somewhat lavish overdose of supplies used by US divisions we could subtract a small amount of oil supply usage for regular inf divisions.

Ghost_dk
Click to expand...

In some respects the increase in trucks could be seen as a decrease in supplies and an increase in oil. Horses need food as well men. So giving up horse drawn transport decreases supplies but those suppies are matched by increases in fuel. This is similar to industrial pastuerization decreasing supplies because you didn't have to carry the animals with you to make sure the meat didn't spoil.

The US army saw motorized units as an increase in "supply", oil in HOI terms, because there would be more trucks needed, hence more gas, if every division had its own trucks. They could cut back on the numbers by letting the Corps level assign as needed.
 
Ilkhold said:
You could give those infantry division one extra point of speed and reduce motorized divisions speed and oil/suplly use a bit.
Click to expand...

1 or 2 points of speed would be good. I think a doctrine could be the way to go. The US and Britain both had this format. Later Russia was able to adapt it due to US aid, a lot of GM trucks. So the US could research it and perhaps events or AI preferences could share it will the allies to simulate lend/lease and US aid to Russia.
 
Savings?

I think it would definitely be a savings of some sort but I'm not sure about the values. Horse units would need plenty of horses to do what relatively few machines can do - thats the whole point of mechanization right? But you have to do research and have the right supplies (fuel). Then there are support units - veterinary support, fodder gathering etc and in worst cases horses can live off the land as opposed to having processed oil fuel and trained mechanics for motor vehicles. Is this last point taken into account at all? I think it should be a tech requirement if you're planning wide scale industrialization/mechanization - government support for mechanical skills training. In fact, the civilian support aspect of the whole thing w/c is the basis for most of the 'techs' is virtually ignored. This could be another way to 'balance' tech researching by adding these techs for the 'human' player to research and just giving them to the AI free depending on the nation/tech path to hurry things along. They don't have to even be that many but they should take a while to research and have a bit of cost to them.

Just a thought,
Richmond
 
Brigades

I was rethinking brigades, and have come up with a few things.

Currently...

#1. 3 of the 4 brigades experience increases from one tech tree (artillery).

#2. Some brigades aren't very useful (notably AA brigades).

#3. Benefits of brigades usually don't match their cost.

#4. Benefits of brigades are fairly limited, and don't cover all aspects (i.e., they leave out ORG bonus')


I think that we should rethink brigades for CORE, so they would better reflect the entire tech tree, as well as be more distinct units (instead of mainly just variations of artillery).

I think that the new brigades should be variations of the following.

Engineer Brigade
----------------
-Improvements from Infantry Tech Tree
-Affects primarily speed and soft attack

Artillery Brigade
---------------
-Improvements from Artillery Tech Tree
-Instead of just artillery, this would simulate heavy artillery, and weapons not normally distributed to frontline forces (railroad guns, heavy seige mortors, heavy 120mm AA guns, 120mm AT guns, etc.).
-Affects primarily soft attack, plus some hard attack and AA.

Tank Brigade
------------
-Improvements from Armour Tech Tree
-This would represent tank forces attached to larger units ranging from tankette companies to heavy tank batallions.
-Affects primarily hard attack

Army Air Cooperation Brigade
---------------------------
-Improvements from Light Aircraft Tech Tree
-Something missing from HoI are air units directly attached to land military formations. Most militaries had some close support units for recon and limited ground attack throughout WW2.
-Affects primarily organization (recon increases the combat efficiency of troops).

This will solve problems like how would we represent some nations who had tank forces, but nothing the size of a division, or who had tank forces dispersed. It also spreads out the brigades so you don't just get bonus' from one tech tree. It also would provide a brigade which offers organization bonus' (something currently missing).
 
I like the idea of a tank brigade, especially for smaller countries, but replacing it from the original AT brigade (which I assume you're doing) is a big difference. Would AT go under Artillery or your proposed Army Air Cooperation Brigade? All in all I like the ideas and I wished Paradox gave us room to fiddle around and add as many different brigades as we wanted.
 
Semi-Lobster said:
I like the idea of a tank brigade, especially for smaller countries, but replacing it from the original AT brigade (which I assume you're doing) is a big difference. Would AT go under Artillery or your proposed Army Air Cooperation Brigade? All in all I like the ideas and I wished Paradox gave us room to fiddle around and add as many different brigades as we wanted.
Click to expand...

Planned theoretical replacement would be...

Artillery = Artillery
Anti-Tank = Armour
Anti-Air = Air Cooperation
Engineer = Engineer

Anti-Tank weapons would work their way into the Artillery brigade. An artillery brigade would be a formation incorporating the three branches of artillery, being, Artillery, AA, and AT, with the main focus being Artillery (divided 50:30:20 or so). With these units incorporating a more broad selection of equipment, the values can be increased a lot more, making them actually being worth the extra MP and cost. Instead of artillery brigades getting stronger once per Gold tech area, potentially three techs (A, AA, AT) will improve the brigade.
 
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