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QuestionWhat's the strategic difference between Heavy Tanks and Light Tanks? (self.hoi4)

SignalTheSirens が 投稿

From what I've read, Heavy Tanks and Light Tanks have similar stats, but LTs have the higher soft attack and lighter weight; however, the way the tech tree branches, it seems that the game suggests switching to MT/HT at the end of the game, what's the functional difference between soft and hard attack?

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[–]Sephy88 20ポイント21ポイント  (4子コメント)

Soft attack is the number of attacks the unit can make against a target with low hardness. Hard attack is instead the number of attacks the unit can make against a target with high hardness.

MT and HT have ticker armor, therefore they're harder to pierce and their hardness is higher. Therefore to damage heavier tanks, the enemy will require units with higher Hard Attack and Piercing, compared to lighter tanks that have low armor and hardness and are much easier to deal with.

For example an infantry division with an Anti Tank support company might be able to pierce and reasonably damage a light tank division, but not a medium or heavy tank division. You're gonna require anti-tank brigades, tank destroyers or your own tanks to deal with heavier tanks.

The trade-off is that heavier tanks are slower and more expensive to build.

[–]A_California_Guy 11ポイント12ポイント  (3子コメント)

And more expensive to maintain and supply. Additionally, they require a lot of research to be effective, and their number of useful terrains is somewhat limited - for example, heavy tanks suuuuck at attacking in mountains.

This comment isn't meant to one up you, just point out that medium and heavy tanks have different situations they're intended for. The medium tank is a straight upgrade over the light tank, while the heavy tank is a sort of like a diagonal upgrade over the medium tank.

[–]Petros557 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

they require a lot of research to be effective

what do you mean?

[–]IcelandBestland 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's a heavy tank available in 1936, but from there it takes a while before you get a new heavy tank. Hence, its hard to get modern heavy tanks built and ready by the time the main war rolls around.

[–]A_California_Guy 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

In 1936, heavy tanks aren't much better than light tanks, meaning there's no real reason to build them. The next one usually (depends on the country) unlocks in 1942/43, which is well into the war. Secondly, without the appropiate doctrines, they're not nearly as useful, and those take a while to research down the tree.

[–]lurksalot3 7ポイント8ポイント  (25子コメント)

Honestly, the tanks just are not well balanced.

The single most important stat a tank can provide is breakthrough, because it's a critical stat (breakthrough replaces defense when you are attacking), and because it's so hard to get anywhere else. You can sub in self propelled artillery for soft attack, you can sub in motorized for defense and organization. tiny amounts of AT provide huge piercing bonuses. But you just can't get mass breakthrough from other sources.

And for some reason, light tanks have the same breakthrough as heavy tanks of the same year. I have no idea what the designers were thinking.

As a result, you can attack about as well against infantry with light tanks, which are cheaper, cost less resources, and move much quicker. As a result, I think it's kinda silly to build heavy tanks. They take a lot of production time, a lot of research, and a lot of resources, and while they are somewhat better against enemy armor, this is a game about killing infantry, which light tanks are far superior at.

the one noteworthy things about heavy tanks is that the self propelled guns based on their chassis do ridiculous damage. So if you choose to put them into infantry divisions, they do a lot of damage while not slowing the division down. I look forward to a patch which makes heavy tanks relevant, but at the moment, I just think that light tanks are better.

[–]G_Morgan 8ポイント9ポイント  (20子コメント)

Historically heavy tanks were useless while light and medium tanks dominated the war. Honestly if the game was historical heavy tanks would always be a mistake.

[–]dirkznbeertje 2ポイント3ポイント  (15子コメント)

Yes indeed, the Tiger was a useless tank.

[–]G_Morgan 17ポイント18ポイント  (14子コメント)

All the heavies were. The Tiger was particularly useless because Germany actually committed to building a large number of them. The allies decided that heavy tanks were shit and 99% of combat was tank v infantry anyway.

[–]Plugawy_Nedznik -2ポイント-1ポイント  (3子コメント)

Historically heavy tanks were useless

If by "heavy tank" you mean the WWI, multi-turreted Infantry tank. But for a "proper" heavy-heavy tank - that is, a medium tank just scaled up - they absolutely were not useless. I mean, every nation moved on from medium to heavy tanks eventually and heavy tanks are closest in size and tonnage to modern MBTs.

Sadly HoI4 does not seem to make this rather important distinction and the "heavy tank" is like a merge between an infantry heavy tank and a heavy-heavy tank that costs a shitload.

[–]G_Morgan 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Heavy tanks were useless in WW2. The Tiger 2 ran permanently at 95% of maximum engine power and thus broke down with alarming regularity. We had a direct contest between "any tank you want as long as it is a Sherman" and the Germans building absurd tanks which had guns capable of penetrating armour absolutely nobody had. The Shermans won the contest and it wasn't even close.

Tank duels were absurdly rare in WW2. The bulk of tank action was v infantry and most loses were to anti-tank guns which universally had no problems piercing any tank on the battlefield. If the Germans had dumped their entire heavy tank program (including the ever broken Panther hybrid) and just built Panzer IVs they'd have had a much stronger military.

This goes so far that the upgunned Shermans, like the Firefly model with the British heavy tank gun retrofitted into it, actually performed worse in the battlefield. The lighter guns had far greater flexibility against infantry. When the US finally rolled out their heavy gun variant nobody in the US Army actually wanted it. Indeed in a large number of theatres divisions were asking to be downgraded to the Lee as they felt the lighter gun, greater reliability and better speed were more useful than the bigger guns and armour.

[–]Plugawy_Nedznik -2ポイント-1ポイント  (1子コメント)

This is so fucking wrong I don't even know what to say to you.

Apparently, everyone in WW2 was a fucking idiot and pushed for heavier and heavier tanks(a trend that continued well into the Cold War) even though they weren't needed at all.

Similarly, since everyone was a fucking idiot, they phased out infantry tanks alltogether and/or upgunned them like the Panzer IV or the Sherman - even though "tank duels were very rare in WW2". And the idiot Americans dropped the "Tanks support infantry, TDs knock out enemy tanks" doctrine in favor of a single "tanks do everything" doctrine.

Apparently, Tiger was bad because it had a powerful cannon, but the same cannon out of the tank made all other heavy tanks obsolete. Apparently, all tank combat also took place at point blank range and range advantage didn't exist. Also, apparently Germans only ever fought American tanks on the western front so that is all they need to be compared to.

Apparently, all tanks only ever faced the most powerful enemy AT cannons firing the best AP rounds available...

You know what, I'm just going to downvote and move on.

[–]G_Morgan 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

everyone in WW2 was a fucking idiot and pushed for heavier and heavier tanks

They didn't. Everyone designed a model but only the Germans built any real number of them. Everyone else recognised them as entirely impractical, it is why the Allies built nearly only Shermans. That wasn't an historic mistake but an historic success.

Yes the Germans were idiots. Their obsession with building guns that countered tanks that didn't exist didn't cost them the war but it hurt them badly.

Take the wehraboo nonsense to somebody ignorant. The Panzer IV was a fine tank but the moment the Germans got obsessed with bigger they were immediately on the wrong track. The war was decided by T-34s, Shermans and Panzer IVs. The Germans badly hurt because they built Tigers instead of more Panzer IVs.

[–]blackbirdhm 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

You didn't mention Armor. In situations where the enemy can't pierce your divisions, you get a huge combat bonus: 50% more organization damage, while taking 50% less damage and 50% less organization damage (on top of the advantages to Breakthrough that you mentioned). This helps you clear away any blocking unit much faster.

Light Tanks usually don't contribute enough Armor to resist piercing past the earlygame, so that's one advantage specific to Medium and Heavy Tank setups.

[–]lurksalot3 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

True, there is armor as a factor, but I think it's quite minor in many game situations. A division of 20 width of basically any infantry/artillery mix is going to have about 3 penetration with 1936 weapons, 5 with 1939 weapons.

A single light tank brigade and 4 motorized in a division is going to have 6+ armor, and if you just look at germany's starting armor designs, they have 10 armor in a division with only 4 tanks and 3 motorized. using 1936 light tanks with no upgrades.

Armor can be relevant, but I am not at all sure it's a deciding factor, simply because it's so tough to micromanage units, and because in standard infantry versus armor battle, light tanks have enough armor. Even if you did need more armor, one could just designate a few light tank divisions as elite and start pumping out variant uparmored light tanks, which is far more realistic to micromanage than to design a divsion from scratch and start training.

[–]Plugawy_Nedznik 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The problem is the Infantry AT effort tech, which should make Light Tank armor completely obsolete.

Especially for a minor with a generic tree, which can get it midway through 1939 because of the Focuses.

[–]Brondi00 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yea. The only reason to go heavy, IMO, is for the SpArt and the TD variants. If you have the production capacity then pairing then with your infantry is amazingly good

[–]Zan88 4ポイント5ポイント  (4子コメント)

Light tanks encircle, heavy tanks go where they please.

[–]SignalTheSirens[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (3子コメント)

Can they cross the Maginot into Mordor?

[–]NightlinerSGS 5ポイント6ポイント  (1子コメント)

Actually they should be able to, unless France has upped it's anti-tank game a lot.

[–]DatRagnar 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

knoc knock motherfucker, make way for the panzers

[–]Cazador0 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes.

[–]PuruseeTheShakingCat 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Soft attack damage and hard attack damage are functions of how much hardness the target unit has or lacks. A unit with high hard attack will deal high damage against a unit with high hardness, and less against one with no hardness, and vice versa. At least I think that's how it works.

Honestly I don't think it's the game encouraging you to swap, but instead representative of the historical abandonment of niche weight classes of tanks in favor of a much smaller number of more advanced "main battle tanks". Which is exactly what it sounds like. It's just that those were historically based on medium and heavy tank designs. Light tanks evolved in role from "genuine" tanks to armored scout and infantry support because they couldn't actually fight medium or heavy tanks effectively, basically sharing many of the same characteristics of vehicles like the Bradley IFV or Sheridan tank. Those things would fit right in with the likes of the Panzer II. As for heavies, you can only keep slapping more armor on for so long before it becomes unfeasible to continue. It was more efficient, cheaper, and effective to use smarts in armor design instead of just piling more steel on. Thus, MBTs were born from the need to more efficiently make use of armor. Tanks like the Abrams or T-72 have effective armor thicknesses above even the heaviest super heavy, the Maus (Abrams has something like 500mm effective thickness) but that's because of the techs and strategies involved in armor design rather than the amount of steel on the frame.

[–]Plugawy_Nedznik 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Soft attack damage and hard attack damage are functions of how much hardness the target unit has or lacks. A unit with high hard attack will deal high damage against a unit with high hardness, and less against one with no hardness, and vice versa. At least I think that's how it works.

In theory. In practice it's very hard(lel) to get your Hardness up to any value where it would actually matter. Even if you jam your divisions with heavy tanks you likely won't go over 40-50%, making hard attack always secondary to just stacking more soft attack.

[–]Zeodex 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Once Mechanized Infantry hit the field they can bolster hardness by a pretty big amount, although the war would probably be decided by then.

[–]BestFriendWatermelon 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's more about armour vs piercing stats. A division with higher armour than the enemy has piercing will have a huge bonus in combat. A division with heavy tanks will cut through a light tank division with ease.

[–]CommanderSamWhines 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I suck at HOI in general but I've researched a lot of WW2 military history and it seems like light tanks and some medium tanks have excelled in rough terrain, like Burma, is this true for the game as well?

[–]Ascend3r 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Lots of big walls of text but simply put: Hardness. The % of hardness of an enemy unit determines how much of the damage they take comes from soft attack and how much from the hard attack. Typically the vast vast vast majority of an army is infantry and even armored units struggle to get past 40-50% hardness, so soft-attack will always remain your primary source of damage.

As for light vs heavy tanks, armor and piercing would be the main reason why you would take a heavy over a light tank. When they can't be pierced vehicles get a HUGE bonus in combat, while at the same time heavy tanks are able to pierce most things they run into. Also heavy tanks have a significantly higher hardness % than light tanks so they take significantly less damage in return as it is.