HOI4 trench warfare

[Firebird]

Still relatively new to the game, so take my observations with a grain of salt, but also, help please. It seems that whenever I play the game, it is only a matter of time before it devolves into trench warfare. I've noticed that the AI only knows how to make a ton of low quality troops, and just does human wave attacks one after another. Back before I thought the AI would use reasonable tactics, I wasn't prepared for this, however, I have adapted since, using superior firepower doctrine, having a whole line of artillery in my infantry divisions, engineer corps, logistics, armored car recon, radio, and field hospital. This kind of setup makes my infantry divisions invulnerable to human wave attacks, even when significantly outnumbered. They even do fairly well on the offensive as well, however I tend to keep them on the defense, and let my tanks take care of offense. It seems however, that as time goes by, even the AI ends up adapting heavily defensive tactics, and doing an infantry assault becomes impossible from either side. After a while, defensive lines become so heavily fortified, that even tanks have trouble doing attacks.

Random sidenote: I micro the ♥♥♥♥ out of my armies (mainly because I don't trust the AI to do any good), and one bug/problem I noticed with the game is how troops just randomly stop attacking the enemy, even when winning. It seems that if one division runs out of organization, the whole attack stops, which is very dumb. Also, I have noticed, that when making an offensive line, the same problem happens, sporadic ceasing of attack for no good reason, although its more gradual (individual armies with 90% org, stopping the attack, cause why tf not?) and eventually the same ♥♥♥♥ happens. It's annoying af to keep on clicking the same order over and over, until my attack succedes.

My first complete game, I was the USSR, I was lucky enough to be fighting against just Nazi Germany, and the above described phonemena didn't have a significant enough impact on the game for me to be able to notice, except in the very late war, when trench warefareish lines were begining to form, but my tanks could break them eventually. My current game however I am playing as Nazi Germany, and boy was I in for an adventure. I began the game by imediately securing control over Sweden for its tungsten and chromium. I then decided to invade Denmark to connect Germany to Sweden, and secure control over the baltic sea. I wanted to attack Norway as well, but Britian guaranteed it, and I didn't want a war with western powers too early, since I clearly wasn't ready. After building up a formidable army, I attacked Austria, which always seems to refuse anschluss for some wierd reason, even with my troops right at the border. I attacked czechoslovakia, and this is where the fun began. Pushing an offensive was a pain in the ass. Even with 24 tank divisions (5 tanks and 5 motorized in each division) up against 3-5 czech infantry, the offensive was slow. Often, I would be undersupplied, and need to make smaller pockets to connect supply lines. Italy got involved in a war with the western powers for no good reason, and was getting its ass handed to them. For some unknown reason, they managed to drag the whole axis (hungary, romania, japan and a few countries in the americas) into the war, even tho they themselves are not an axis power. Then they declare war on said axis powers, except for me (I was neutral in all of Italy's affairs the whole time). I decided to send a small force to intervene in northeast Italy, and set up a defensive line, so as to avoid getting flanked by the French, who were deep into Italian territory, and had recently declared war on me. Eventually, I made czechoslovakia surrender, and I disbanded all my tanks, which were light tanks, that were preforming poorly on the offensive, and switched my production to mediums, which had just become a thing. Almost a year has passed, and practically nothing has changed on the frontlines. British, French, and now Italian (they switched over to the allies) keep sending waves on my northeast Italian frontline, and the lines don't budge. I decided to invade Belgium (also ended up declaring war on Luxembourg), but what happened is they managed to human wave assault into one pesky province (or whatever the smallest unit of territory is in the game), got cut off by my troops, and only after waiting a few months for their supplies to run out, was I able to defeat the doom stack. Eventually, fresh reenforcements came, and I had a defensive line ready. On the offensive, I would send 30-40 armies into one battle (they were perfectly supplied), each army consisting of 20 infantry, and 5 artillery battalions, plus the aforementioned support companies. Even though the enemy had 2 armies, the offensive wouldn't succede, ever. Sure, I was always in the green in the battles, hovering at around 75 to 80, but the attack would keep stopping, and I would keep reordering the assault. After a year or so, still no changes in the frontline. In about a month, I will have medium tanks finally, so we'll see where that goes, but there is a plot twist. When Japan first entered the axis, I called them into my war against the western powers, and for some reason they refused. I wanted to kick them from my faction, but since they were new in it, I couldn't. However, they managed to drag the rest of the axis into the war against the USSR (except for me, again), so even though I wasn't worried about the Soviets, since there was Poland between us, and neither of us bothered to attack it (save for the Soviets taking a few eastern territories and then peacing out), the Soviets ended up raping Hungary and Romania, and I would think they are too busy with the Japanese, but they decided, why tf not declare war on Germany, even though we share a very short border. Sending troops to the eastern front, I can set up another defensive line, but I'm begining to get pretty sick and tired of trench warfare circa 1940. Is there any way out of this? Please help. Oh and also, the enemy uses heavily outdated aircraft, but due to them outnumbering me, win the air war. I am only able to get green air in one zone at best. I even have more military factories than the enemy, so in theory, I should be outproducing them, and since I invaded Sweden, I don't even need to import tungsten for artillery and tanks, but I guess giving soldiers pitchforks, and giving pilots biplanes (this isn't an exageration, I have yet to face anything besides biplanes, and its 1941) is what works. It's also possible that the AI cheats, but I don't know at the end of the day what I'm doing wrong.

[Firebird]

"On the offensive, I would send 30-40 armies into one battle (they were perfectly supplied), each army consisting of 20 infantry, and 5 artillery battalions, plus the aforementioned support companies. Even though the enemy had 2 armies, the offensive wouldn't succede, ever."
Here I meant to say divisions, not armies.

[JS Cross]

If you are fighting a major and you dont have air superiority you will struggle to push as close air support will drain your divisions org very quickly. I might even suggest its the most important aspect of the land battle is securing the air. Tanks are good as pushing sure but if you have air superiority you can push with anything.

[Firebird]

Originally posted by JS Cross:

If you are fighting a major and you dont have air superiority you will struggle to push as close air support will drain your divisions org very quickly. I might even suggest its the most important aspect of the land battle is securing the air. Tanks are good as pushing sure but if you have air superiority you can push with anything.

Duly noted, but what about the situations where I have green air, but I still can hardly push, if at all? There was plenty of situations like that before.

[indianna67]

It seems to me you will have to just sit and produce lots of planes and making your divisions better (Like 40 widths as it sounds like late game hoi4 but in 1941) as you said you are outproducing them also do you have green air over your military and civilian factories?

[NamelessOne]

I suspect you don't know how maximum combat width and reinforcement works.

20 infantry and 5 artillery is a 55 width division. Only 80 width is in a normal battle, so what is happening is that you are fighting with 1 55w division against 4 20w divisions. That one division loses org (since the ai has local superiority and is fighting defensively), and no reinforcement is allowed since they are too big to fight in the battle. Thus the battle instantly ends.

Make your divisions 10, 20, or 40 width depending on their role. 10 for garrison, 20 for line, 40 for offensive.

[Ryan]

Originally posted by NamelessOne:

I suspect you don't know how maximum combat width and reinforcement works.

20 infantry and 5 artillery is a 55 width division. Only 80 width is in a normal battle, so what is happening is that you are fighting with 1 55w division against 4 20w divisions. That one division loses org (since the ai has local superiority and is fighting defensively), and no reinforcement is allowed since they are too big to fight in the battle. Thus the battle instantly ends.

Make your divisions 10, 20, or 40 width depending on their role. 10 for garrison, 20 for line, 40 for offensive.

THIS
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Land_battle

[mark.r.hendrickson]

Combat stopping prematurely is due to bad reinforcement. Reinforcement is buffed by:

Radio tech
A field Marshall buff
Some army doctrine.
Signal company.

I usually have 3-4 of these buffs. Not having them is crazy.

Attacking with infantry is a WWI tactic, and is crazy. Attacks succeed because of breakthrough.

Breakthrough comes from:
Armor
Army doctrine.
Air superiority.

Enjoy.

[mark.r.hendrickson]

Also the checks are tough. They have a fortified line in the Sudetenland which is torture. Better to have Chamberlain just give it to you.

[NamelessOne]

Originally posted by mark.r.hendrickson:

Also the checks are tough. They have a fortified line in the Sudetenland which is torture. Better to have Chamberlain just give it to you.

There is a single unfortified tile in the upper right corner, and it's a hill province. 2 40w panzer divisions will cut through it like butter and you can railroad your trash units behind their forts while you cruise to the victory points.

[Firebird]

Originally posted by NamelessOne:

I suspect you don't know how maximum combat width and reinforcement works.

20 infantry and 5 artillery is a 55 width division. Only 80 width is in a normal battle, so what is happening is that you are fighting with 1 55w division against 4 20w divisions. That one division loses org (since the ai has local superiority and is fighting defensively), and no reinforcement is allowed since they are too big to fight in the battle. Thus the battle instantly ends.

Make your divisions 10, 20, or 40 width depending on their role. 10 for garrison, 20 for line, 40 for offensive.

Indeed I don't. Thank you for letting me know about combat width. It seems to explain why combat stops prematurely, even though my troops are more than supploed and reinforced. I will definitely look into this.

[NamelessOne]

They use the combat size restrictions to prevent doomstacking being a thing. You can still do it with navy though, hundreds of bathtubs (prewar subs with a single tube and no upgrades) can contest and win naval battles against balanced fleets of equal build value or higher.

[【Ｎｉｃｅ Ｈｉｓｓ】]

Didn't read everything, but if your lines are stagnating you likely aren't making very good divisions. Don't push with infantry most of the time. Break lines with tanks and other beefy 40-width divisions. Air superiority and CAS also make a huge difference.

[Rabob]

Don't forget terrain also. If you are pushing over rivers in marshlands or something, that won't have much effect. Mountains are even worse.

For instance in the Netherlands you will have a lot of river crossings and urban.

[NamelessOne]

Originally posted by Rabob:

Don't forget terrain also. If you are pushing over rivers in marshlands or something, that won't have much effect. Mountains are even worse.

For instance in the Netherlands you will have a lot of river crossings and urban.

With river crossings you can use generals with the makeshift bridges order to make it trivial

[gamer3213000]

Make shift bridges order? What do you mean by that? On another note has any one recently tried a campagin using historical forces to check if the game is still historically balanced. For example has any one tried to take France in early 1940 using the exact same number of armored units equiped with PZ1-3s, a few motorized divisions and the same number of inf divisions built historically with the same number of roughly 2500 air craft and be able to get the same historical results at least 50% of the time? If not than I would take that as a strong warning the Dev's have done something to make the div act none historical as far as make up, strength, etc. Sorry I know this question should probably be a seperate post. I am asking because as a German player taking on the neatherlands in 1940 it seemed all their divisions had good ability to pen my PZ4 armed tank divisions. There is no way this should be possible historically. There divisions were poorly equiped and certainly didn't have anti tank guns in large enough numbers or size to pen PZ4s, even the early models that only had around 50mm of front armor....??? The early war 37mm would not be able to do the job they would need at least 50mm AT guns and they didn't really start showing up until 1941-42 historically.