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Early game rushing, otherwise no. It's sad because light armour has a long history even after WW2.
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Yes. IW SP both G and AA are quite efficient in terms of stats per manpower*IC.
Also they quite conveniently turn an infantry division into armor to farm panzer leaders without resorting to a trick of single battalion divisions attached to a general but taking no part in actual combat.
Another thing is if course them sharing the chassis with your garrison tankettes, yes. This means ease of conversion for just a slight drop in line efficiency, provided you even switch it back and forth rather than use two lines (the problem I constantly face with two lines is severe overproduction of tankettes).
I do use subsequent light tanks too, but mostly just because I can rather than them being particularly useful, though.
Also they quite conveniently turn an infantry division into armor to farm panzer leaders without resorting to a trick of single battalion divisions attached to a general but taking no part in actual combat.
Another thing is if course them sharing the chassis with your garrison tankettes, yes. This means ease of conversion for just a slight drop in line efficiency, provided you even switch it back and forth rather than use two lines (the problem I constantly face with two lines is severe overproduction of tankettes).
I do use subsequent light tanks too, but mostly just because I can rather than them being particularly useful, though.
I’ll sometimes use light tank recon, esp to give my infantry a little extra oomph
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AFAIK, you can make a pure mech defeinsive division with light tank recon, while the light tank recon has a fixed superstructure and a medium HVC + support AA. This way you get decent piercing and some additional hard attack into the division. If necessary add support AT too. trades very well against tank divisions.
As far as I can see light tanks have a potential role if you are strictly resource limited and want to deploy a single player soft attack tank that only uses steel and, if possible, very little steel. This kind of assumes that you have also decided you either can't get enough armour levels to be useful or your enemy is so pitiful your don't need much. In this case light tanks are as good as medium tanks and somewhat cheaper (and faster) so they can performa a useful role. For me this is currently a fairly theoretical point but the argument for this usage is fairly sound, it's just not a mainstream game scenario.
However, I have made practical use of light tanks by using them to add some oomph to fast moving divisions. I often have some of these as the Soviets mixed in with the main offensive force. They use light tanks and motorised or, once available, fast mechanised to provide divisions that move sufficiently fast to outpace the AI response to a successful offensive and maximum the speed and depth of penetration before the offensive stalls. They need to be managed very carefully as they have last hitting power then "regular" armoured divisions but still enough to smack retreated divisions out of the way AND they will run out of fuel and you need to be very careful to stop them when (or just before) this happens. They can be suprisingly useful for those situations where speed matters as you can get a bunch of overruns that otherwise might not occur and achieve encirclements before anything gets in the way. They require a lot more micro management than regular armour. They do benefit from the properties of my first paragraph, they are cheap and use a tiny fraction of the resources of better tanks.
To emphasise the resource issue. I have had late game light tanks where the best tanks I was building took a total of 58 times the resources of the light tanks I was using.
However, I have made practical use of light tanks by using them to add some oomph to fast moving divisions. I often have some of these as the Soviets mixed in with the main offensive force. They use light tanks and motorised or, once available, fast mechanised to provide divisions that move sufficiently fast to outpace the AI response to a successful offensive and maximum the speed and depth of penetration before the offensive stalls. They need to be managed very carefully as they have last hitting power then "regular" armoured divisions but still enough to smack retreated divisions out of the way AND they will run out of fuel and you need to be very careful to stop them when (or just before) this happens. They can be suprisingly useful for those situations where speed matters as you can get a bunch of overruns that otherwise might not occur and achieve encirclements before anything gets in the way. They require a lot more micro management than regular armour. They do benefit from the properties of my first paragraph, they are cheap and use a tiny fraction of the resources of better tanks.
To emphasise the resource issue. I have had late game light tanks where the best tanks I was building took a total of 58 times the resources of the light tanks I was using.
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AFAIK light tank recon is meta in MP for more hard attack
I usually play with mods that makes the AI design more competent divisions so sometimes I put it on a dedicated TD division
Other than that, for me I don’t really care for them much. Light tank paratroopers are too cheesy for me
I usually play with mods that makes the AI design more competent divisions so sometimes I put it on a dedicated TD division
Other than that, for me I don’t really care for them much. Light tank paratroopers are too cheesy for me
Also for Japan they are okish as china cant bring piercing so the tanks are helpful to have armour bonus. You can eiter use absolut cheap builds in regular batalions or you build more expensive ones as recon support (which needs certain level of armour to hit the threshold). Not sure if they are allowed in MP though (Space marine rules and stuff).
light tanks are unrealistically gimped in multiple ways. they cannot mount guns that historical versions used with turrets. fixed superstructures are double-penalized, to a cartoony degree, yet they are forced to use them for all medium guns and this gets further penalized by forcing role designation.
their only selling point as a line battalion is if you're doing a 1936 or 1937 style war with them and already begin with the techs needed to produce them day 0. in this case they make a case over basic mediums (which won't be available yet), although interwar mediums also make a case in this hypothetical.
they are legit in garrison duty (strictly better than armored cars) and are reasonable when used as a support company since that gives your real tank battalions more hard damage. hard damage matters in mp. in that way, they are in a better place than some other things which saw use in actual ww2 but are meme options in hoi 4. but they are still not portrayed well. making something like marder 3 sucks. m18 hellcat is impossible to make.
stugs were not light tanks, but they are also massively penalized by hoi 4's rules.
their only selling point as a line battalion is if you're doing a 1936 or 1937 style war with them and already begin with the techs needed to produce them day 0. in this case they make a case over basic mediums (which won't be available yet), although interwar mediums also make a case in this hypothetical.
they are legit in garrison duty (strictly better than armored cars) and are reasonable when used as a support company since that gives your real tank battalions more hard damage. hard damage matters in mp. in that way, they are in a better place than some other things which saw use in actual ww2 but are meme options in hoi 4. but they are still not portrayed well. making something like marder 3 sucks. m18 hellcat is impossible to make.
stugs were not light tanks, but they are also massively penalized by hoi 4's rules.
an argument against this is that mediums barely cost more, and if resources are an issue you can launder them with equipment conversion to get much better soft attack tanks. hence there aren't many practical positions where you have enough factories to produce tanks at all, but are also resource strapped and don't quite have enough factories to make slightly fewer mediums more effectively.
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As Germany I use light armor against the West all the way up to Barbarossa. Once I'm getting ready to attack the Soviets I queue up medium armor. Light armor is useful and much cheaper I find.
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In real life Light Tanks (like at the start of Barbarossa) were used as substitutes in Divisions when heavier Tanks weren't available. There were like 6 Tank Divisions that were using Light Tanks I think.
I imagine that when Heavy/Medium Tanks weren't available for Battalions in Divisions, Light ones would be substituted in as a better than nothing replacement. But that's not a function the game has currently. I've wanted it for a long time.
I imagine that when Heavy/Medium Tanks weren't available for Battalions in Divisions, Light ones would be substituted in as a better than nothing replacement. But that's not a function the game has currently. I've wanted it for a long time.
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Double down on that if you are running Superior Firepower, give that recon tank a close support gun and pretend you're just over stacking artillery support...
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You can do that but you have to do it manuall be replacing a medium battalion with a light one.
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The only reason to use light tanks in this game is being able to use armour in low supply areas with low inftrastructure built up.
Areas like China, India, Indonesia, Africa etc.
Dont use lights in europe or other areas with proper intfrastructure. You can do some flanking encircling divisions with light tanks but they are a waste of time like 90% of the time because of the amount of micro that requires.
Areas like China, India, Indonesia, Africa etc.
Dont use lights in europe or other areas with proper intfrastructure. You can do some flanking encircling divisions with light tanks but they are a waste of time like 90% of the time because of the amount of micro that requires.
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Well at the start of Barbarossa every single German division was equiped with Pz. IIs with many also fielding Pz. Is, Pz. 38(t) and Pz. 35(t). The large stockpile of light tanks was diluted throughout the 17 panzer divisions that took part in Barbarossa and all prior light panzer divisions were disbanded/reorganized. Though there were indeed 6 divisions that lacked any Pz. IIIs and fielded only 1 to 2 medium tank companies with Pz. IVs.
Light tanks did still play an integral part and were mainly used for reconaissance, HQ security and communication. The light and medium tank companies both featured a light tank platoon of 5 Pz. IIs assigned to the company HQ which is something HoI4 doesn't currently reflect outside of the light recon company. We did get command tanks as part of the last expansion but for some reason they are subpar as a support company and I hope the devs will either rebalance them or perhaps restructure support companies.
"Substitutes" is not quite accurate as light tanks made up about 40% of the Panzerwaffe in June 41 and they remained in service long after but for obvious reasons their intended role was gradually reduced as more medium tanks were fielded on both sides. At the start of Barbarossa only the Pz. I was considered truly obsolete despite still being present on the frontline, as with the more advanced light tanks these were sufficient for the limited combat (mainly self-defense) they were intended to take part in. Now bear in mind the bulk of the Soviet armor was T-26s as well as BTs at the time and it took years for both sides to phase out or convert their fleets of light tanks.
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One thing to keep in mind about the cost of light tanks - you can put the exact same equipment on a medium tank, light turret, light gun, etc. The medium will trade speed for breakthrough and cost a little more per tank BUT you only need 50 of them for a battalion compared to 60 for light. You could go wheeled for lights but it's a pretty bad trade imo.
So in all but a few circumstances, directly comparable mediums are actually cheaper than lights.
So in all but a few circumstances, directly comparable mediums are actually cheaper than lights.
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in sp, you can also do this with pure mot divisions, at less expense. combination of putting mot into reserves of combat that gets the breakthrough + timing pin on adjacent provinces correctly lets the mot drive through uncontested at full 12 km/h (or penalty based on terrain or w/e, but still way faster/cheaper than light tanks).
mot is too fast for anything to run it down w/o strategic deployment, and mot + some support companies which deal soft attack can push strat redeployment stuff out of the way fine.
japan starts with some lights that china can't pierce, so you can use them in that war. even then, the pure mot divs are better for exploiting openings against ai.
only time wheels make a case is if you're trying to make light spg for as low cost as possible. they are absolute dogwater offensively, although they are better than line arty battalions if you have fuel and are actually somewhat adequate in the niche of "sit there entrenched and mulch attackers".
i can't think of many scenarios which actually exist where this would be more useful than alternatives.
Permanently changing the entire template isn't what I'm suggesting.
This is actually an important point that runs throughout the armoured vehicle scheme in HOI4. All weapons that you add to a tank design cost exactly the same per vehicle no matter what vehicle and yield exactly the same firepower per battalion no matter what the vehicle count. This strongly discriminates in favour of behicle types that attract low counts for their battalions. This is definitely a flaw in the game design and really ought to be addressed.
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