So I just want to run a set of ideas I've been working to integrate into TNO in an experimental build, gauge any reaction. Most of it is taken or derived from the ULTRA Mod.
- An HQ Brigade which would be required for all Divisions, granting flat bonuses to Organization, Initiative, Casualty Replenishment (60%), Experience Loss, and possibly one or two benefits I can't immediately remember. All of these values would remain static except for Organization, which itself would increase as your Land Doctrines become more advanced. Would also come in Motorized and Armored variants.
- By having the other values remain static, it allows for some of the other Brigades to still have a purpose. A Signaling Brigade for example will greatly increase the unit's initiative beyond what would be the base, representing a dedicated communications network within the unit that the HQ by itself cannot provide. Field Hospitals and by extension Transport Helicopters meanwhile are the only ways to push your Casualty Replenishment beyond sixty, but can also critically keep your units from losing experience if they are being routinely battered.
That is way too high a base casualty replenishment rate, especially for places like Russia where organization and technology should be rather poor until unification starts happening. It would basically make attritional losses irrelevant, which isn't realistic even for '60s-era warfare.
Also, because otherwise I'm going to explode, you're talking about support
companies, not support
brigades. None of the units you can add to a division in the division designer is a
brigade.
- All Armored Units (MBT's and IFV's) have a Combat Width of three instead of two, and provide little to no Organization to a Division.
- This was done primarily to prevent exclusively or heavily Armor-focused units given how strong they are in HOI4, while also recognizing that Armored Regiments need to be supported by Infantry in some form to be truly effective in the field. An Armored Division would ideally be made up of Regiments of Tanks and APC or Motorized Infantry for example.
It's already the case that tanks have a very low organization and low defense, and cannot stand their ground or even press attacks on their own. They have to have some amount of infantry to work. This is still lower than in reality, but popular armored division designs vary from 10/10 (that is, equal amounts of tanks and infantry) to 15/5 (that is, 15 tank battalions and 5 motorized or mechanized infantry battalions).
- Brigade variants for MBT's, IFV's, and the related Self-Propelled variants.
- Provides more options for the player and the AI, meaning you can also better fine-tune your Divisions. You shouldn't need to build Regular Artillery if you already have a dedicated line for SP-Art's, and a Brigade of Tanks can also provide a small bit of punch to a Division without expanding its Combat Width; the latter may be the favored approach if there is a struggle to procure or produce MBT's or IFV's.
Again, you mean support companies, not brigades. A brigade is a full-fat combat unit that is represented in-game by a combination of battalions in the regimental rows (regiments and brigades being by this point basically identical).
- MBT's take (1) Rubber per production line.
- I mean... why aren't they already? What are the tracks made of if not Rubber?
Metal? Anyway, resource consumption is based more on balance than a strict analysis of what resources are needed for different equipment. Requiring rubber for tanks, for example, would
seriously hurt the United States, which has no reliable ability to get rubber until the Japanese-American treaty lifting their mutual embargo. This probably should be adjusted, on two fronts. First, Indonesia, Japan, and Malaysia should probably produce less and other producers like Brazil and India (that are accessible to more countries) should probably produce more rubber. The breakdown of the global trading system caused by the Nazi-Co-Prosperity Sphere victory would incentivize areas like these, which were IOTL minor or secondary producers by the 1940s, to expand production to fill the sudden hole caused by the inaccessibility of Southeast Asian rubber to the largest market. Meanwhile, the Co-Prosperity Sphere probably can't actually
use all the rubber that it produces, which would probably lead them to reduce production and repurpose rubber plantations for other purposes.
Second, the U.S. should start with synthetic refineries or rubber production, to represent its OTL investment in synthetic rubber following the loss of Malaysia and Indonesia to the Japanese. By the 1960s in reality, natural rubber had fallen to become a decidedly secondary or tertiary part of the market, and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to suppose that this wouldn't be true in TNO, either (outside of the Co-Prosperity Sphere). Probably the effectiveness of synthetic refineries in producing rubber should be greatly increased so that a country like the United States doesn't need an unreasonable number of them to fill its rubber needs.
- A Division can have up to (10) Support Brigades, but lose the 4th and 5th rows of their Combat Regiments.
- This allows for more room for experimentation as, otherwise, you are only able to attach four Brigades excluding the HQ unit, and everyone has their favorite attachments. Reducing the number of Combat Regiments is in keeping with historical norms in terms of Divisional organization, though it also helps to Balance some of the other changes.
- Artillery is Reduced to a Combat Width of (1), but also Reduced to (12) Artillery Pieces.
- Part of this was to help in keeping with other Support Battalions like Anti-Air being reduced to one Width as well, but reducing the equipment number is meant to provide Balance to the sheer amount of strength Artillery Regiments provide to their Divisions, or to mitigate the desire of some players to try and stack their Divisions with them.
I have to point out that line anti-tank and anti-air battalions being one-width is actually a base game thing, not something that TNO did. That was done because anti-tank and anti-air capabilities are far less generally useful than the boosted soft attack provided by artillery. Reducing artillery to one width will just incentivize players to create artillery-heavy divisions, exactly like the tank divisions you complain about.
(Also, again, they're support
companies, not support
brigades)
- Motorized and (arguable) Armored variants for Marines, Rangers and Air Cavalry.
- It can be annoying at times that the Marines and Rangers are often left behind by their Mechanized compatriots, when the reality is that they often themselves were mechanized in some form. It would only be Marines that could have access to their own Armored units, but unless they are of an Amphibious variant there is a consequence that they'd injure the proficiency of the Division in Amphibious Assaults. Air Assault Divisions are technically already Motorized, but they need a significantly reduced roster of available Support Brigades; it wasn't possible for example for American Helicopters to transport the traditional Artillery pieces that would have made up Artillery Regiments and Brigades for example. Air Assault in those cases should have to depend on Attack Helicopters, as Support Brigades not Air Units.
This is either base game (mechanized and armored amphibious units) or already represented by having to put units in support companies (that is, long-range division fires units) to maintain divisional speed. Light artillery pieces like the 105 mm were certainly transportable by helicopter, too.
