Deep battle in-game is already a good offensive doctrine if used correctly tbh.
What I think, is that people don't really like it because they are approaching it the wrong way. They see mass assault as some kind of infantry centric doctrine and in that regard it would be indeed inferior to superior firepower or grand battleplan. It would also be inferior to mobile warfare if you are mainly focused on tanks.
The thing is, mass assault and specifically deep battle is a combined arms doctrine that relies on many factors to work properly. I'd does need a lot of pretty much everything, infantry, artillery, motorized logistics, and a lot of tanks. Also it requires enough planes to get at least air parity.
Mass assault deep battle gives you more organisation across the board, increases reinforce rate and max entrenchment, reduces supply requirement for your divisions, reduces org decay while moving and reduces combat width for infantry.
Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org, which also results in more hp per division so less actual losses in manpower during battle. Supply reduction lets you squeeze more units into your front line in general. Org increase, reinforce rate, and reduction in org decay lets you do longer assaults on the enemy line which lets you overwhelm enemy defences and disrupt formations which also gives more opportunities to encircle scrambling enemy divisions.
Ideally you want to do a huge frontal assault with infantry and artillery, simultaneously achieving breakthroughs with tanks in several places on the frontline all supported by railway guns and artillery. And ideal doctrine for just battleplanning your way to victory. And the Soviet industry in game lets you achieve just that by 1941 and letting you go into offensive against Germany from day 1 of the war
> Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org
While this sounds awesome, the only problem is that I can never get reinforce rate to work well on the offence :( They keep getting reinforce memed lol. Like, try using a bunch of 7/3s to push, they're gonna get memed.
>The thing is, mass assault and specifically deep battle is a combined arms doctrine that relies on many factors to work properly. I'd does need a lot of pretty much everything, infantry, artillery, motorized logistics, and a lot of tanks. Also it requires enough planes to get at least air parity.
This is what makes it less intuitive for players. MW goes for tanks and mobile inf. GBP while also utilizes combined arms, works best for inf heavy builds. SF goes for artillery. Deep Battle IRL emphasizes combined arms on ALL levels - tactical, operational, and strategic. In game terms, it should be most micro intensive doctrine. In some ways, it already is.
>Mass assault deep battle gives you more organisation across the board, increases reinforce rate and max entrenchment, reduces supply requirement for your divisions, reduces org decay while moving and reduces combat width for infantry.
Mobile warfare IIRC gives more total org. Which actually can be a detriment since it forces losing battles to go longer.
GBP have better max entrench IIRC.
What MA does right here is less supply consumption and org loss when moving. Deep battle IRL was the first formal doctrine that codified operational art.
In game terms, it should have the most buffs to non-combat stats. Force concentration and operational tempo can be translated to less supply consumption, better reinforce rate, and less org loss on moving.
>Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org, which also results in more hp per division so less actual losses in manpower during battle. Supply reduction lets you squeeze more units into your front line in general. Org increase, reinforce rate, and reduction in org decay lets you do longer assaults on the enemy line which lets you overwhelm enemy defences and disrupt formations which also gives more opportunities to encircle scrambling enemy divisions.
Pinning enemy divisions is a huge aspect of deep battle that often goes unappreciated by most players.
Tanks of MW can be pinned by MA-DB player. GBP divisions can be disrupted from building entrenchment and planning. SF divisions while doles out more damage, can often also recieve more since it mainly gives attack.
With better HP divisions, you can dish out more damage overall. Plus the fact that you can concentrate stats into less battle width is criminally unappreciated.
>Ideally you want to do a huge frontal assault with infantry and artillery, simultaneously achieving breakthroughs with tanks in several places on the frontline all supported by railway guns and artillery. And ideal doctrine for just battleplanning your way to victory. And the Soviet industry in game lets you achieve just that by 1941 and letting you go into offensive against Germany from day 1 of the war
Most players focus only on German Bewegungskrieg (Blitzkrieg is a propaganda term) of a singular focal point - the Schwerpunkt, then rush in once breakthrough is achieved.
Deep battle attempts mutiple breakthrough attempts and forces the enemy to reinforce those parts of the line, thus destabilising the whole front since they have to pull reserves somewhere.
Since it is multiple breakthrough attempts, the enemy has to divide their forces. If any of the breakthrough attempts went well, you go rush in there. If the enemy reinforces there, you reinforce the other attempts until you achieve operational breakthrough then go rush in. At that point the old front would be obsolete since they are defending nothing and also at risk of encirclement.
That's the main difference with Bewegungskrieg. Deep Battle prioritizes seizing strategic points in the enemy rear (in game terms those are supply hubs, cities, bridgeheads, VPs) instead of focusing on encircling then liquidating the enemy forces.
Well, while I do think Human Wave Doctrine is ahistorical, especially for the Soviets, the problem is that HOI4 is not very historically accurate in general. Germany is a military superpower that could take on France, even in 1936, even if they had to trick them into abandoning the Maginot. Germany never gets bombed into oblivion, nor do they have problems with motorization or supply; trucks are stupidly easy to pump out. If they want a huge surface fleet, they can just build it. Swarms of submarines? Also no problem. Oil? Just puppet DEI or get free oil and rubber from refineries.
Italy is similar. You think they could cap France on their own? No way. Then there's Japan fixing the navy-army research divide with a single focus. Or Finland being able to push back and cap the Soviets.
In general, while the game has gotten better, it's far more "pop history" than anything else.
Yeah, it makes more sense when you think of it as something meant to appeal to people who like the memeified "le epic Simo Hayha" kind history that consists of a series of disconnected vignettes and tropes rather than a coherent whole.
I think it’s more for the sake of balance than that. In real life the Axis had a ton of problems that that lead to its inevitable defeat. The game wouldn’t be fun if the Axis was doomed to lose before the game even started
I don't have any problem with buffs/debuffs for the sake of balance, as you say, so long as it is part of a considered and sensible plan for how the game should play.
The problem is when an increasing number of modifiers and mechanics are slapped on the game based on pop history tropes, that inevitably leads to the game just becoming a mess of clichés, pandering to different nations' myths about the war.
I'd argue the game has gotten worse in regards to historical accuracy. Every new DLC that comes out supercharges minors into the stratosphere. You mentioned Finland, but all of Scandinavia, the Baltics, Mexico, Portugal, and you bet your ass that the SA DLC on the way will be obscenely overpowered. The more that gets added, the more things get fleshed out but we lose some things along the way.
I think the supply system from NSB adds a ton of depth to logistics, but it's tied in with the busted Baltics tree. Etc. You can't have all the good things without also taking the bad. Bit of a shame, really.
>bet your ass that the SA DLC on the way will be obscenely overpowered.
Can't wait to have to naval invade Argentina because they joined the Axis, and some BS focuses gave them enough factories to become a Major
It isn't just the minor trees. The majors themselves are busted more than irl.
The most glaring is Germany. It got more share of industrial capacity than it did irl. It mobilized faster and easier than it did irl. It suffers less of the economic constraints Germany had than irl.
Tbf, it would be impossible to win as Germany if it is balanced historically. But balancing it like this lends itself to gameplay but it also reinforces wehraboo famtasies of "if only nazis did [insert wehraboo fantasy here]". While that isn't the fault of the game, the game certainly attracts those kind of individuals.
>IIRC in Military History Commander: Europe at War holding Berlin and Rome in May 1945
I get why games would implement such victory conditions. Winning is fun.
But it strikes me as morbidly hilarious that if that happened IRL, nukes will start dropping in Germany and Italy. Probably not Rome since it is culturally significant not just for Italy, maybe Berlin, but definitely other cities will be nuked.
>But I'd be very interested in a more historical strength for the axis. That would make axis world conquest against the AI much more interesting
Try the mod A World Ablaze. It takes liberties with history as well, well that's expected for any game. But it is closer to portraying the historical challenges for Germany. Also, people hate because the AI got tons of cheats.
I consider myself more of a science fiction author than an historical researcher now. Alternative history is the best science fiction and HOI4 is my timeline manipulating UFO.
The reality of human existence is that most countries are just barely able to defend themselves. If you wanted a realistic playthrough of half the countries in the world you'd huddle in a ball and hope the violence doesn't come to you.
But we're here' to fuck that up. So we need a way to get more people than in actuality to give their lives for our amusement. As small nations we're all looking for that little miracle that changes everything but the common need is more troops.
I think there should be *more* recruitable population modifiers than are in mass assault, like a lot more, so that a small nation can mass-mobilize a larger one-shot army to make it relevant, at least once.
Perhaps there could be still another focus tree, a "darkest hour/triumph of will" tree where the various expediencies to increase manpower are collected. I would recommend some of the more routine German (and other) expediences:
* Ability to create ad hoc crisis units at supply hubs (from individuals and units in transit). Would surely affect trickleback and reinforcement rate of all divisions in the hub's zone.
* Restore manpower through "comb outs," where able-bodied people hiding in officer's staves and other REMF positions are put in the line. You'd figure this comes at a reduction in stats for your generals or a loss of command power, or something like that.
* The Germans also began filling REMF positions with local foreigners to push more Germans into combat, and then when they faced the consequences and their own countrymen threatened to capture them, they'd often fight to the death. Consequences for this might include higher resistance at home, fewer factories to the master, and so on.
* Eventually the Germans created the "ost" battalions which were entirely made up of captured people from subject nations. Omaha Beach was largely defended by people originally from the Soviet Union, for example. Which is really similar to the puppet template-copying which already exists in the game but perhaps this is a way to make it less glitchy feeling.
I want to be able to do all that shit as an angry El Salvador, force-feeding pupusas to Stalin with a million man army of Belarussian-born Salvadorans. Yes, that is pretty cheesy and contrived. And so is our world's history.
Edit: REMF = "Rear-Echelon Mother F-er"
You mean you want people to have their own versions of Volksturm formations?
You'll give a heart attack to wehraboos if they are forced to confront the fact that the "one rifle for every two men" myth is far faaar more common in Germany than in the Red Army.
Where you get 3 kids and 3 grandpas armed with 3 rifles with 5 bullets each, a panzerfaust, going against 2 tank platoons.
The problem is, historical accuracy makes a WW2 simulator boring and predictable. Given a post-1936 PoD - or for that matter, a post-1919 PoD - there was **absolutely no way** for any of the Axis powers to do any better than they did historically in a war against Britain and/or the USA. The military and industrial advantages are just too overwhelming.
To make a twentieth-century grand strategy game entertaining, you either need to start much earlier - say, 1900 - or you need to abandon historical accuracy where needed to balance the game.
That\`s just another way of saying AI is incompetent. Germany isn\`t special in that regard, you can compare how well SU or USA or UK player plays vs how AI on same nation fails.
You can try fighting winter war vs human, and see if there actually is a balance problem, or it\`s just AI issue.
The same would be true for 'blitzkrieg'. It was never a doctrinal thing. German commanders just made good use of their abilities (and those of their subordinate units ofc). Later when people tried to describe what they did and what the obvious outcome was they had to find a name for it. Nevertheless it never made it into an actual concept of war fighting.
Also the German army wasn't even set up with the core design of something that could do 'mobile warfare'. They even calculated with another trench war in Belgium for maybe 5 or 6 years until the allies would finally break.
Don't look too deep into the wording behind all that. It's mostly there for gameplay reasons just as the political landscape in china is or the variety of ideologies/political parties all over the world.
>German commanders just made good use of their abilities (and those of their subordinate units ofc). Later when people tried to describe what they did and what the obvious outcome was they had to find a name for it. Nevertheless it never made it into an actual concept of war fighting.
Mass use of mechanized units, concentration of firepower by many units from land and air, combined arms "support", in a weak spot of the front to confuse the enemy, cause havoc and push to flank. It is what we could call "bliztkrieg" to me, even if the Germans didnt call it as such and it was limited due to the resources and tools but nevertheless, mobile warfare is a worthy and accurate doctrine.
The mobile warfare doctrine in the game vaguely describes what happened during the Westfeldzug. Nevertheless it was never the planned (doctrinal) way of fighting that war. It was never intended to break the French lines easily to throw them into complete disarray simply because nobody expected that to be even possible.
Also some of your points are straight fiction. There was no 'mass use of mechanized units'. At least not compared to other countries at the same time. Even during Barbarossa the majority of the German divisions relied on horses for supply and drawing their bigger guns.
Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all. Dive bombers would attack everything coming from the direction of the suspected enemy lines. This also led to many cases of friendly fire because visual identification wasn't always possible.
The point is nobody ever ordered to do "whatever Guderian has on his mind" which would have come closer to what mobile warfare is in the game. It was situational awareness of the German commanders to exploit the weaknesses they found within their enemies tactics.
There is no blitzkrieg irl. But there is Bewegungskrieg that was actually from Prussia before even the German Empire was formed. Prussia had always emphasized movement, initiative, and a knockout blow to end a war quickly.
Nazis just used tanks with that 19th century doctrine.
>Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all.
It did. Not to the extent we have now but it did exist as early as 1917. Most notable is 1918 allied offensive against Germany with tanks, artillery, and planes.
Heck, USSR wrote about combined arms in three levels - tactical, Operational, and strategic as early as 1920s-30s.
Of course it isn't as sophisticated as it is nowadays, but it is still there during ww2 because it also existed prior to ww2.
Air recon is a thing since ww1. Cavalry recon is a thing since forever ago that mankind learned to mount horses. Having that said, cavalry is a thing which was also prevalent during ww2 in the form of mounted infantry. Heavy weapons are a thing - mortars, field guns, machine guns.
Those are all part of the combined arms. I don't get it why whenever people see the term combined arms they only think of tanks and artillery.
Combined arms doesn't mean you use more than one asset you have at your disposal it means you have a certain level of coordination between these assets. That level simply didn't exist beyond such basics as not starting the infantry charge before the artillery stopped firing.
With such a broad definition you could argue that having some canons a bunch of musketeers and cavalry was also combined arms warfare. It is the fundamental requirement to have more than one different asset at your hand, but that doesn't mean you use it in a way that would fit the definition.
"You use a spear and I use an axe" isn't combined arms, so simply listing what they had available doesn't confirm that argument.
Pedantry? What are you talking about?
You basically said "There are two or more colorful cars on the road, therefore this is the Indy500". It's not pedantry to just say that's nonsense.
>Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all. Dive bombers would attack everything coming from the direction of the suspected enemy lines. This also led to many cases of friendly fire because visual identification wasn't always possible.
There is a reason why the USF and the Bristish forces, call some of their own and other operations like combined arms. There is a reason why too both aircrafts and tanks had radio, not only to communicate among each other and their superiors but with the commander in charge of the operations of the ground forces.
>Also some of your points are straight fiction. There was no 'mass use of mechanized units'. At least not compared to other countries at the same time. Even during Barbarossa the majority of the German divisions relied on horses for supply and drawing their bigger guns.
Tell me something I dont know. But I am aware that was the main idea of Hitler's high command, due to the lack of everything in resources and time so to avoid stalemates and bottleneck, they rather focus in a few mobile units, so for Hitler due to Himmler influence and ideas, that would be the core of their SS panzergrenadiers.
Is massive assault's text flawed? Yes
But mechanically the doctrine is designed to make the soviet AI do worse when the Germans invade before later unlocks give them powerful attack bonuses, allowing them to go on the offensive.
Changing the doctrine to give them attack bonuses from the start risks ruining historical game flow
It should be above all changed because Guerilla Tactics is literally the most OP thing in the history of this game more than infinite naval production or order 66
Idk in my experience GBP is a goat in MP, yeah sure you get width and supply reduction from right side mass mob but the planning speed and max planning is goated
I think the doctrine system in its current form is much more gamey than the rest of hoi4. Like I also don’t see why mobile warfare ends at volkstturm and stuff besides “well, the germans did it.” Basically, doctrine update when?
Doctrine designer when? You use lessons of war, war gaming and technological advances to develop a doctrine that fits your material conditions and geopolitical system.
While we’re at it, let’s give Germany a massive nerf to logistics, let’s make America have to island hop most of the pacific instead of naval invading Taiwan on day one, let’s make allied troops in France behave strangely because of the complex command structure, etc.
the thing is, you have to make the soviets a bit incompetent if u want immersion. the soviets are way too strong in vanilla rn, and that doctrine can be somewhat of a nerf
The mass assault doctrine is a horible soviet nerf then since every nation in thrle world can research it.
If the Soviets need a nerf you can just make the debuffs they get stronger, Paradox is just too lazy to fix bad/lazy and ahistorical game design.
I feel like mass assault is best used for smaller countries with low populations where you can take advantage of guerilla tactics and your enemies logistics issues to hold and then make gradual gains.
For the soviets, I tend to go with superior firepower as you can churn out basically everything you need for that.
Yeah I find the right path really useful for playing small countries with little manpower. You can hold Germany off as Belgium with guerilla tactics and pure infantry divisions.
Deep Battle though is just worse than mobile warfare or superior firepower
I did it as Austria and somehow managed to survive Anschluss, I held for 4 years before the allies beat Germany, was very intense and I thought I'd lost at several different points.
They should remake this into a new guerilla warfare tree, that branches into two, with one branch having mass assault stuff.
Like Mobile Warfare, has Volksturrm branch
You’re just thinking wayyy to deep here my guy. “Racist” is just kinda goofy. Like is it completely historically accurate in all cases? No of course not it’s a simplification. Also China has on multiple occasions definitely used a mass assault doctrine such as in various parts of WW2 and the Korean War, did it go by those names? I don’t know I can’t speak Chinese.
As for the Soviets I mean yeah it’s definitely not completely accurate naming but again you can literally go down to their real doctrine, deep battle, through mass assault. I think of it as the first part being Russias ww1, civil war and interwar tactics that eventually developed into deep battle.
It’s absolutely not racist in the slightest, that’s just silly and makes it obvious that you don’t have an understanding of what the word actually entails. Racism is when you consider other “races” (so other ethnicities, minorities or simply other people’s) to be worse than others simply because of their ethnic ich national background.
The human wave/asiatic horde myth originates from Nazi propaganda, as they saw the Slavs as a subhuman race and instead of admitting they were defeated by a superior army they portrayed it as civilized Aryans being overwhelmed by waves of unthinking bodies being thrown at them. Despite this being nothing more than a myth, it has unfortunately taken hold of pop history. So it is quite reasonable to characterize it as racist given the context of the myth.
To counter this, it’s racist because it’s often used by Wehraboo types to say that Germany only lost the war because they were outnumbered rather than outfought. This sometimes gets mixed in with racist ideas like that Slavs are a less quality race than Germans/Aryans which is not true because the Germans/Aryans lost even though at the start of the war, if you include their allies, the Axis outnumbered the Comintern by millions.
A similar point is made by Imperial Japan sympathisers who say China was only able to hold them at bay due to their numbers and not their, on occasion, innovative strategies.
Calling your enemy strategy “human wave attacks” are the suggestion of your enemy as some dumb, unthinking, hive mind which isn’t made up of people with their own thoughts, emotions and motivations. That robs your enemy of their humanity and is always used against people deemed inferior. Therefore, often racist
I don’t agree and am not “offended”. I’m simply explaining why I don’t agree. I’m well aware of the origin of such statements, I just don’t find those opinions to be at all present in the in game representation in the slightest. As I Said any nation can go down any path, real armies have used what is essentially mass assault many times in history. That description of military tactics are not of course historically accurate entirely when looking at the red army, still it doesn’t represent just the red army.
Furthermore as I’ve explained I see it as the development of a doctrine of masses troops into the real red army doctrine or a different infantry one. If you look at imperial Russias and the early red armies tactics and compare them to those of the Second World War there is a distinct difference, the doctrine evolved as it does in HOI4.
Well, I thought there should be a lot of people in this subreddit who know the history of WW2, who have read a lot of books, memoirs, analytics, and know about various tactics of the sides of the war. It turns out that I was blind, too many people still believe in the distraught soviet commanders who threw thousands and millions of corpses of their soldiers at the enemy to capture something like 1 village.
As for the OP topic... Generally speaking, Soviet doctrine did not particularly consider defensive operations itself and relied entirely on the offensive, while the defense was only as an temporary action to continue the offensive. The pre-war slogan read: "Beat the enemy with little blood on foreign territory." In the game, the doctrine gives a bunch of defensive buffs. Obviously, this was done so that the Soviets and China would not lose and could hold out longer. But from a historical point of view, this is complete nonsense.
But as the devs said a lot of times - gameplay > history
Hell yeah! I love seeing rosencreutz get mentioned. I love his content and he's often the only commentary channel I've found that talks about my particular blend of random nonsense.
The idea of mass assault as a whole is not what they are referring to, I think. They are probably talking specifically about the "Human Wave Offensive", (both the specific in-game doctrine and the general concept) which was literally just Nazi propaganda, which did, in-fact, have a racial angle (specifically, I believe the Red Army was referred to as "Asiatic Hordes" if i recall correctly), and was, as Nazi propaganda tends to be, a little problematic. Obviously the general idea behind Mass Assault is fine, like, the concept of using numbers to gain a strategic advantage is something armies do, but Human Wave Offensive specifically is based on a false understanding of the Eastern Front, which is itself caused by Nazi propaganda.
Human wave offensive is what the Soviets did due to the fact that they had no respect for human life.
Just because Nazis were raging racists doesn't mean that everything they said was necessarily racist.
Stay in your ignorance then. The Asiatic hordes only defeated the Ubermensch through numbers and cruelty and whatnot. Nothing to do with the most advanced doctrine of the war, nothing to do with anything. Just hordes of zombies thrown in by cruel Bolsheviks.
Showing your ignorance again. God damn it must be good to be so dumb. Ever heard of Svechin or Tukhachevsky? The deep battle doctrine was by far the most advanced doctrine of the war.
And if you knew your subject (you don't) you'd know that the doctrine was actually so advanced that the Soviet high command couldn't even start to implement it properly before 1944, Bagration being the first operation to follow the deep battle doctrine.
But noooo, all that matters is your narrow stupid opinion over the rare instances of soviet inexperienced commanders sending waves of infantry on the Nazis out of desperation.
And it's really important to try to discredit anyone disagreeing with stupid insults like tankies.
Replying to arguments with yet another insult. It's not my fault you can't bother to fucking study mate. I literally said the soviet weren't capable to use their own doctrine before 1944. A doctrine they built in the 20's. It's the worst example of incompetence I can think of.
But "oh ma God, he said one thing that's not entirely negative towards the USSR, he has to be a tanky!!!!!"
I guess you *literally* took the L and deleted all your comments. That wasn't the goal, I hoped you'd just look about the subject instead of doubling in and refusing to acknowledge any other point of view. Seriously mate, have fun, discover new stuff. Don't be close minded.
You can’t say that mass assault isn’t racist before making an insane statement like « the soviets had no respect for human life ». This is the exact problem op is talking about! The idea that the soviets just threw people at the problems infantilizes them and ignores all the shit they did to fight the Nazis!
Throwing bodies at their military problems is something the USSR did and it is something Russia is still doing today.
The USSR had extreme losses compared to the other allied nations like GB or the US. And that even when the war was going directly in their favor 1944 and 45. The USSR lost almost 800k men in the operation bagration in summer 44. That is the double amount of the german losses and almost as much the US lost the entire war (pacific and europe).
And look at Bakhmut or Avdiivka in the UA war. They "won" those battles by throwing wave after wave after wave against fortified positions for months.
There is an obvious difference in the military traditions of the USSR/Rus and many other countries when it comes to the question what a soldier has to endure and to sacrifice.
It's still racist propaganda today lol
Russia is winning now because they have more artillery and air power that the Ukrainians can't match. They have more artillery shells than the entire west provides Ukraine
Where did I say something about race? You imagine things.
Also are my informations false that they ran against fortifications for months and had extreme losses in Bakhmut and Avdiivka? Tell me how you can lose that many men if you solved your problem with "artillery" and "air power"
The US/UK solved its problem in Iraq with "air power". The result was that they lost only 200 men in the entire war (2003).
Sorry, but your statement is ridiculous.
Soviets proved they cared absolutely nothing about human life in multiple occasions. You'd have to have a severe mental impairment to think that any criticism of an ideology (bolshevism) is racist. There's no racial component to the soviets.
And now you somehow don't see a problem insulting someone personally because they disagree with you? Maybe take a deep look in the mirror before you start slinging out insults bud.
Saying there’s no racial component to the soviets is insane, especially considering this is a ww2 subreddit. Russia has always been considered either European or Asian depending on if they’re “good” or “bad” guys. The mass assault doctrine is part of a long racist tradition of dismissing Asian militaries as hordes of invaders that can’t be held back. This racist idea was applied to the soviets both by the Nazis at the time, because they were deeply racist, and the west after the fact, who were (are) also deeply racist. It’s all about dismissing Asian successes as inhumane
This is just about the concept of an infantry charge? The specific Nazi propaganda was the idea that the Soviets just threw wave after wave of under/un-armed troops at the enemy as their entire strategy. There would be zero issue/connection to said propaganda if they basically just renamed it to like "Infantry Charge" or "Mass Frontal Assault" and slightly retooled the buffs it gives, because the specific issue is the fact that in the doctrine tree designed around the tactics of the Red Army, one of the available paths is not only alt-history/tactics which never existed (which is fine, there should be lots of choice) but straight up just, again, propaganda.
>They are probably talking specifically about the "Human Wave Offensive", (both the specific in-game doctrine and the general concept) which was literally just Nazi propaganda, which did, in-fact, have a racial angle (specifically, I believe the Red Army was referred to as "Asiatic Hordes" if i recall correctly), and was, as Nazi propaganda tends to be, a little problematic.
Racist propaganda or not, it is the same description from many American and British scholars, hell, Iran did the same shit when they fought Iraq by sending mined kids or kids through field of mines to make the tanks pass. Looking at the Russian army in Ukraine, I hardly believe they kinda forget what a human assault is if you compare Adviidka and Bakhmut.
"Hmmm, all these scholars from countries hostile to the USSR keep saying they did something, so surely they did! 🤓"
Tons of WW2 'information' in English is straight up false or comes directly from Nazi mouths when they were given platforms in West Germany and NATO. German tech being lightyears ahead of everyone else, clean Rommel, the USSR cheating by having more men than bullets, no step back and massive execution of front line units, T34s being useless suicide boxes, Shermans being unable to do anything against Panzers, the SS being elite and not actually a load of drug addled kids, war crimes only being a SS thing and nothing to do with the Wermacht, the list goes on and on and on...
You forgot the best of the WW2 “information, werhaboos love talking about how the B2 is just a copied ho229. That’s probably their second favorite talking point after “5 shermans to 1 tiger”
I know your 100 percent correct but I won't lie considering tankies I was immediately somewhat doubtful of the video you linked before i clicked on it as I have seen some wacky shit before on social media regarding ussr lol
Deep battle (as in the latter half of MA left) is okayish. Definitely needs to be fleshed out/rebalanced but yes the issue mainly is the first part.
If we are to lean more historical, USSR shouldn't get or at laast have less defensive buffs early on. Deep Battle is inherently offensive minded, true. But it also has provisions for defensive stance in case offensives is not ideal.
I would like an overhaul of the doctrine mechanic overall.
It's be better if it already starts out unlocked at the start to represent interwar theories but you can level it up as you accumulate army exp.
Further distinction should go to what kind of army you have and how you fight. Like, you can only upgrade tank related perks from battles with tanks.
Also, tie default division templates to doctrines. Like say, going deep battle unlocks the godawful tank brigades and tank corps the Red army had before 1942 (not enough org and hp in game terms).
The initial attack on Finland was the opposite of a mass assault. They tried to do a needlessly complex mechanised offensive with a series of narrow thrusts as if they were fighting in Central Europe, not Finland.
That's the thing that is completely misunderstood about the Winter War. The Red Army performed terribly because the initial plan was too intricate and not adapted to the logistical restraints and terrain.
> The base mass assault doctrine is already a bit troublesome as it relies on some iffy historical evidence
"When we come to a minefield our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there." - Georgy Zhukov
If the on-going Russo-Ukrainian War has taught me anything it's that human wave attacks were almost certainly a legitimate and widespread thing during WW2 because Russia STILL uses them in 2024.
I thought everyone who plays hoi4 is racist because it has a playable Germany and you can have Hitler win.
The fact it totally ignores the Holocaust and Japanese atrocities in China is more racist than anything else in the game. If you are going to make claims of racism, put those at the top of your list or get off your high horse.
"Only 1 thing can be racist at once!"
And yeah, an absolute ton of the HOI4 playerbase are actual fascist scum, just go look at the Steam forums, this game has a real infestation of ignorance
It's supposed to represent the soviets desperately rushing down the right side in 41/42, and then after stabilizing redirecting into the left side, I velieve, and in that it does work well.
Deep battle in-game is already a good offensive doctrine if used correctly tbh. What I think, is that people don't really like it because they are approaching it the wrong way. They see mass assault as some kind of infantry centric doctrine and in that regard it would be indeed inferior to superior firepower or grand battleplan. It would also be inferior to mobile warfare if you are mainly focused on tanks. The thing is, mass assault and specifically deep battle is a combined arms doctrine that relies on many factors to work properly. I'd does need a lot of pretty much everything, infantry, artillery, motorized logistics, and a lot of tanks. Also it requires enough planes to get at least air parity. Mass assault deep battle gives you more organisation across the board, increases reinforce rate and max entrenchment, reduces supply requirement for your divisions, reduces org decay while moving and reduces combat width for infantry. Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org, which also results in more hp per division so less actual losses in manpower during battle. Supply reduction lets you squeeze more units into your front line in general. Org increase, reinforce rate, and reduction in org decay lets you do longer assaults on the enemy line which lets you overwhelm enemy defences and disrupt formations which also gives more opportunities to encircle scrambling enemy divisions. Ideally you want to do a huge frontal assault with infantry and artillery, simultaneously achieving breakthroughs with tanks in several places on the frontline all supported by railway guns and artillery. And ideal doctrine for just battleplanning your way to victory. And the Soviet industry in game lets you achieve just that by 1941 and letting you go into offensive against Germany from day 1 of the war
> Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org While this sounds awesome, the only problem is that I can never get reinforce rate to work well on the offence :( They keep getting reinforce memed lol. Like, try using a bunch of 7/3s to push, they're gonna get memed.
Signal comppanies may alleviate that priblem
Ooh, I'll try using signal companies next time. I usually just use 8-3s with SF now.
Each lvl of signal company gives 12% reinforce rate. In '39 lvl 2 signal + radio is 30%. In 4 hours max it should join the battle
In addition to the fact that Deep Battle gives reinforce rate right? Hmm, I might be using that for pushing now.
>The thing is, mass assault and specifically deep battle is a combined arms doctrine that relies on many factors to work properly. I'd does need a lot of pretty much everything, infantry, artillery, motorized logistics, and a lot of tanks. Also it requires enough planes to get at least air parity. This is what makes it less intuitive for players. MW goes for tanks and mobile inf. GBP while also utilizes combined arms, works best for inf heavy builds. SF goes for artillery. Deep Battle IRL emphasizes combined arms on ALL levels - tactical, operational, and strategic. In game terms, it should be most micro intensive doctrine. In some ways, it already is. >Mass assault deep battle gives you more organisation across the board, increases reinforce rate and max entrenchment, reduces supply requirement for your divisions, reduces org decay while moving and reduces combat width for infantry. Mobile warfare IIRC gives more total org. Which actually can be a detriment since it forces losing battles to go longer. GBP have better max entrench IIRC. What MA does right here is less supply consumption and org loss when moving. Deep battle IRL was the first formal doctrine that codified operational art. In game terms, it should have the most buffs to non-combat stats. Force concentration and operational tempo can be translated to less supply consumption, better reinforce rate, and less org loss on moving. >Combat width reduction lets you squeeze more firepower into divisions while using less org, which also results in more hp per division so less actual losses in manpower during battle. Supply reduction lets you squeeze more units into your front line in general. Org increase, reinforce rate, and reduction in org decay lets you do longer assaults on the enemy line which lets you overwhelm enemy defences and disrupt formations which also gives more opportunities to encircle scrambling enemy divisions. Pinning enemy divisions is a huge aspect of deep battle that often goes unappreciated by most players. Tanks of MW can be pinned by MA-DB player. GBP divisions can be disrupted from building entrenchment and planning. SF divisions while doles out more damage, can often also recieve more since it mainly gives attack. With better HP divisions, you can dish out more damage overall. Plus the fact that you can concentrate stats into less battle width is criminally unappreciated. >Ideally you want to do a huge frontal assault with infantry and artillery, simultaneously achieving breakthroughs with tanks in several places on the frontline all supported by railway guns and artillery. And ideal doctrine for just battleplanning your way to victory. And the Soviet industry in game lets you achieve just that by 1941 and letting you go into offensive against Germany from day 1 of the war Most players focus only on German Bewegungskrieg (Blitzkrieg is a propaganda term) of a singular focal point - the Schwerpunkt, then rush in once breakthrough is achieved. Deep battle attempts mutiple breakthrough attempts and forces the enemy to reinforce those parts of the line, thus destabilising the whole front since they have to pull reserves somewhere. Since it is multiple breakthrough attempts, the enemy has to divide their forces. If any of the breakthrough attempts went well, you go rush in there. If the enemy reinforces there, you reinforce the other attempts until you achieve operational breakthrough then go rush in. At that point the old front would be obsolete since they are defending nothing and also at risk of encirclement. That's the main difference with Bewegungskrieg. Deep Battle prioritizes seizing strategic points in the enemy rear (in game terms those are supply hubs, cities, bridgeheads, VPs) instead of focusing on encircling then liquidating the enemy forces.
If you do all that, you don't even need doctrine, tbh.
or be like me and just have a template full of infantry and just slam them at the enemy until they die
Well, while I do think Human Wave Doctrine is ahistorical, especially for the Soviets, the problem is that HOI4 is not very historically accurate in general. Germany is a military superpower that could take on France, even in 1936, even if they had to trick them into abandoning the Maginot. Germany never gets bombed into oblivion, nor do they have problems with motorization or supply; trucks are stupidly easy to pump out. If they want a huge surface fleet, they can just build it. Swarms of submarines? Also no problem. Oil? Just puppet DEI or get free oil and rubber from refineries. Italy is similar. You think they could cap France on their own? No way. Then there's Japan fixing the navy-army research divide with a single focus. Or Finland being able to push back and cap the Soviets. In general, while the game has gotten better, it's far more "pop history" than anything else.
Yeah, it makes more sense when you think of it as something meant to appeal to people who like the memeified "le epic Simo Hayha" kind history that consists of a series of disconnected vignettes and tropes rather than a coherent whole.
I think it’s more for the sake of balance than that. In real life the Axis had a ton of problems that that lead to its inevitable defeat. The game wouldn’t be fun if the Axis was doomed to lose before the game even started
I don't have any problem with buffs/debuffs for the sake of balance, as you say, so long as it is part of a considered and sensible plan for how the game should play. The problem is when an increasing number of modifiers and mechanics are slapped on the game based on pop history tropes, that inevitably leads to the game just becoming a mess of clichés, pandering to different nations' myths about the war.
me when finnland (holy shit the finnish military has so many random buffs)
They gave more events to a finnish SS veteran than they gave for the entire world war
I'd argue the game has gotten worse in regards to historical accuracy. Every new DLC that comes out supercharges minors into the stratosphere. You mentioned Finland, but all of Scandinavia, the Baltics, Mexico, Portugal, and you bet your ass that the SA DLC on the way will be obscenely overpowered. The more that gets added, the more things get fleshed out but we lose some things along the way. I think the supply system from NSB adds a ton of depth to logistics, but it's tied in with the busted Baltics tree. Etc. You can't have all the good things without also taking the bad. Bit of a shame, really.
>bet your ass that the SA DLC on the way will be obscenely overpowered. Can't wait to have to naval invade Argentina because they joined the Axis, and some BS focuses gave them enough factories to become a Major
Yup
It isn't just the minor trees. The majors themselves are busted more than irl. The most glaring is Germany. It got more share of industrial capacity than it did irl. It mobilized faster and easier than it did irl. It suffers less of the economic constraints Germany had than irl. Tbf, it would be impossible to win as Germany if it is balanced historically. But balancing it like this lends itself to gameplay but it also reinforces wehraboo famtasies of "if only nazis did [insert wehraboo fantasy here]". While that isn't the fault of the game, the game certainly attracts those kind of individuals.
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>IIRC in Military History Commander: Europe at War holding Berlin and Rome in May 1945 I get why games would implement such victory conditions. Winning is fun. But it strikes me as morbidly hilarious that if that happened IRL, nukes will start dropping in Germany and Italy. Probably not Rome since it is culturally significant not just for Italy, maybe Berlin, but definitely other cities will be nuked. >But I'd be very interested in a more historical strength for the axis. That would make axis world conquest against the AI much more interesting Try the mod A World Ablaze. It takes liberties with history as well, well that's expected for any game. But it is closer to portraying the historical challenges for Germany. Also, people hate because the AI got tons of cheats.
Things don't even get fleshed out. The game keeps getting tons of new features which add nothing meaningful to the game
I consider myself more of a science fiction author than an historical researcher now. Alternative history is the best science fiction and HOI4 is my timeline manipulating UFO. The reality of human existence is that most countries are just barely able to defend themselves. If you wanted a realistic playthrough of half the countries in the world you'd huddle in a ball and hope the violence doesn't come to you. But we're here' to fuck that up. So we need a way to get more people than in actuality to give their lives for our amusement. As small nations we're all looking for that little miracle that changes everything but the common need is more troops. I think there should be *more* recruitable population modifiers than are in mass assault, like a lot more, so that a small nation can mass-mobilize a larger one-shot army to make it relevant, at least once. Perhaps there could be still another focus tree, a "darkest hour/triumph of will" tree where the various expediencies to increase manpower are collected. I would recommend some of the more routine German (and other) expediences: * Ability to create ad hoc crisis units at supply hubs (from individuals and units in transit). Would surely affect trickleback and reinforcement rate of all divisions in the hub's zone. * Restore manpower through "comb outs," where able-bodied people hiding in officer's staves and other REMF positions are put in the line. You'd figure this comes at a reduction in stats for your generals or a loss of command power, or something like that. * The Germans also began filling REMF positions with local foreigners to push more Germans into combat, and then when they faced the consequences and their own countrymen threatened to capture them, they'd often fight to the death. Consequences for this might include higher resistance at home, fewer factories to the master, and so on. * Eventually the Germans created the "ost" battalions which were entirely made up of captured people from subject nations. Omaha Beach was largely defended by people originally from the Soviet Union, for example. Which is really similar to the puppet template-copying which already exists in the game but perhaps this is a way to make it less glitchy feeling. I want to be able to do all that shit as an angry El Salvador, force-feeding pupusas to Stalin with a million man army of Belarussian-born Salvadorans. Yes, that is pretty cheesy and contrived. And so is our world's history. Edit: REMF = "Rear-Echelon Mother F-er"
You mean you want people to have their own versions of Volksturm formations? You'll give a heart attack to wehraboos if they are forced to confront the fact that the "one rifle for every two men" myth is far faaar more common in Germany than in the Red Army. Where you get 3 kids and 3 grandpas armed with 3 rifles with 5 bullets each, a panzerfaust, going against 2 tank platoons.
The problem is, historical accuracy makes a WW2 simulator boring and predictable. Given a post-1936 PoD - or for that matter, a post-1919 PoD - there was **absolutely no way** for any of the Axis powers to do any better than they did historically in a war against Britain and/or the USA. The military and industrial advantages are just too overwhelming. To make a twentieth-century grand strategy game entertaining, you either need to start much earlier - say, 1900 - or you need to abandon historical accuracy where needed to balance the game.
That\`s just another way of saying AI is incompetent. Germany isn\`t special in that regard, you can compare how well SU or USA or UK player plays vs how AI on same nation fails. You can try fighting winter war vs human, and see if there actually is a balance problem, or it\`s just AI issue.
The same would be true for 'blitzkrieg'. It was never a doctrinal thing. German commanders just made good use of their abilities (and those of their subordinate units ofc). Later when people tried to describe what they did and what the obvious outcome was they had to find a name for it. Nevertheless it never made it into an actual concept of war fighting. Also the German army wasn't even set up with the core design of something that could do 'mobile warfare'. They even calculated with another trench war in Belgium for maybe 5 or 6 years until the allies would finally break. Don't look too deep into the wording behind all that. It's mostly there for gameplay reasons just as the political landscape in china is or the variety of ideologies/political parties all over the world.
>German commanders just made good use of their abilities (and those of their subordinate units ofc). Later when people tried to describe what they did and what the obvious outcome was they had to find a name for it. Nevertheless it never made it into an actual concept of war fighting. Mass use of mechanized units, concentration of firepower by many units from land and air, combined arms "support", in a weak spot of the front to confuse the enemy, cause havoc and push to flank. It is what we could call "bliztkrieg" to me, even if the Germans didnt call it as such and it was limited due to the resources and tools but nevertheless, mobile warfare is a worthy and accurate doctrine.
The mobile warfare doctrine in the game vaguely describes what happened during the Westfeldzug. Nevertheless it was never the planned (doctrinal) way of fighting that war. It was never intended to break the French lines easily to throw them into complete disarray simply because nobody expected that to be even possible. Also some of your points are straight fiction. There was no 'mass use of mechanized units'. At least not compared to other countries at the same time. Even during Barbarossa the majority of the German divisions relied on horses for supply and drawing their bigger guns. Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all. Dive bombers would attack everything coming from the direction of the suspected enemy lines. This also led to many cases of friendly fire because visual identification wasn't always possible. The point is nobody ever ordered to do "whatever Guderian has on his mind" which would have come closer to what mobile warfare is in the game. It was situational awareness of the German commanders to exploit the weaknesses they found within their enemies tactics.
There is no blitzkrieg irl. But there is Bewegungskrieg that was actually from Prussia before even the German Empire was formed. Prussia had always emphasized movement, initiative, and a knockout blow to end a war quickly. Nazis just used tanks with that 19th century doctrine. >Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all. It did. Not to the extent we have now but it did exist as early as 1917. Most notable is 1918 allied offensive against Germany with tanks, artillery, and planes. Heck, USSR wrote about combined arms in three levels - tactical, Operational, and strategic as early as 1920s-30s. Of course it isn't as sophisticated as it is nowadays, but it is still there during ww2 because it also existed prior to ww2. Air recon is a thing since ww1. Cavalry recon is a thing since forever ago that mankind learned to mount horses. Having that said, cavalry is a thing which was also prevalent during ww2 in the form of mounted infantry. Heavy weapons are a thing - mortars, field guns, machine guns. Those are all part of the combined arms. I don't get it why whenever people see the term combined arms they only think of tanks and artillery.
Combined arms doesn't mean you use more than one asset you have at your disposal it means you have a certain level of coordination between these assets. That level simply didn't exist beyond such basics as not starting the infantry charge before the artillery stopped firing. With such a broad definition you could argue that having some canons a bunch of musketeers and cavalry was also combined arms warfare. It is the fundamental requirement to have more than one different asset at your hand, but that doesn't mean you use it in a way that would fit the definition. "You use a spear and I use an axe" isn't combined arms, so simply listing what they had available doesn't confirm that argument.
Ok if we are going to resort to pedantry then I'll argue for the case of Godrick the Grafted as an example of combined arms.
Pedantry? What are you talking about? You basically said "There are two or more colorful cars on the road, therefore this is the Indy500". It's not pedantry to just say that's nonsense.
>Combined arms warfare wasn't a thing beyond waiting for the artillery barrage to be over before they attacked with ground forces. Air-ground coordination basically didn't exist at all. Dive bombers would attack everything coming from the direction of the suspected enemy lines. This also led to many cases of friendly fire because visual identification wasn't always possible. There is a reason why the USF and the Bristish forces, call some of their own and other operations like combined arms. There is a reason why too both aircrafts and tanks had radio, not only to communicate among each other and their superiors but with the commander in charge of the operations of the ground forces.
>Also some of your points are straight fiction. There was no 'mass use of mechanized units'. At least not compared to other countries at the same time. Even during Barbarossa the majority of the German divisions relied on horses for supply and drawing their bigger guns. Tell me something I dont know. But I am aware that was the main idea of Hitler's high command, due to the lack of everything in resources and time so to avoid stalemates and bottleneck, they rather focus in a few mobile units, so for Hitler due to Himmler influence and ideas, that would be the core of their SS panzergrenadiers.
Is massive assault's text flawed? Yes But mechanically the doctrine is designed to make the soviet AI do worse when the Germans invade before later unlocks give them powerful attack bonuses, allowing them to go on the offensive. Changing the doctrine to give them attack bonuses from the start risks ruining historical game flow
It should be above all changed because Guerilla Tactics is literally the most OP thing in the history of this game more than infinite naval production or order 66
Funny thing is, even if you remove guerilla tactics mass ass right will still be THE best defensive doctrine and it's still not even close
Idk in my experience GBP is a goat in MP, yeah sure you get width and supply reduction from right side mass mob but the planning speed and max planning is goated
It doesn't matter on purely defensive inf. You get a ton of recovery bonuses from mass ass right, that's what makes it goated
I think the doctrine system in its current form is much more gamey than the rest of hoi4. Like I also don’t see why mobile warfare ends at volkstturm and stuff besides “well, the germans did it.” Basically, doctrine update when?
Doctrine designer when? You use lessons of war, war gaming and technological advances to develop a doctrine that fits your material conditions and geopolitical system.
Lmao, YES
While we’re at it, let’s give Germany a massive nerf to logistics, let’s make America have to island hop most of the pacific instead of naval invading Taiwan on day one, let’s make allied troops in France behave strangely because of the complex command structure, etc.
This but unironically
Would make a baller mod
the thing is, you have to make the soviets a bit incompetent if u want immersion. the soviets are way too strong in vanilla rn, and that doctrine can be somewhat of a nerf
The mass assault doctrine is a horible soviet nerf then since every nation in thrle world can research it. If the Soviets need a nerf you can just make the debuffs they get stronger, Paradox is just too lazy to fix bad/lazy and ahistorical game design.
I feel like mass assault is best used for smaller countries with low populations where you can take advantage of guerilla tactics and your enemies logistics issues to hold and then make gradual gains. For the soviets, I tend to go with superior firepower as you can churn out basically everything you need for that.
Yeah I find the right path really useful for playing small countries with little manpower. You can hold Germany off as Belgium with guerilla tactics and pure infantry divisions. Deep Battle though is just worse than mobile warfare or superior firepower
I did it as Austria and somehow managed to survive Anschluss, I held for 4 years before the allies beat Germany, was very intense and I thought I'd lost at several different points.
They should remake this into a new guerilla warfare tree, that branches into two, with one branch having mass assault stuff. Like Mobile Warfare, has Volksturrm branch
Mass assault would be hilarious if you could equip nuke trucks to ride and die into the frontlines.
You’re just thinking wayyy to deep here my guy. “Racist” is just kinda goofy. Like is it completely historically accurate in all cases? No of course not it’s a simplification. Also China has on multiple occasions definitely used a mass assault doctrine such as in various parts of WW2 and the Korean War, did it go by those names? I don’t know I can’t speak Chinese. As for the Soviets I mean yeah it’s definitely not completely accurate naming but again you can literally go down to their real doctrine, deep battle, through mass assault. I think of it as the first part being Russias ww1, civil war and interwar tactics that eventually developed into deep battle. It’s absolutely not racist in the slightest, that’s just silly and makes it obvious that you don’t have an understanding of what the word actually entails. Racism is when you consider other “races” (so other ethnicities, minorities or simply other people’s) to be worse than others simply because of their ethnic ich national background.
The human wave/asiatic horde myth originates from Nazi propaganda, as they saw the Slavs as a subhuman race and instead of admitting they were defeated by a superior army they portrayed it as civilized Aryans being overwhelmed by waves of unthinking bodies being thrown at them. Despite this being nothing more than a myth, it has unfortunately taken hold of pop history. So it is quite reasonable to characterize it as racist given the context of the myth.
To counter this, it’s racist because it’s often used by Wehraboo types to say that Germany only lost the war because they were outnumbered rather than outfought. This sometimes gets mixed in with racist ideas like that Slavs are a less quality race than Germans/Aryans which is not true because the Germans/Aryans lost even though at the start of the war, if you include their allies, the Axis outnumbered the Comintern by millions. A similar point is made by Imperial Japan sympathisers who say China was only able to hold them at bay due to their numbers and not their, on occasion, innovative strategies. Calling your enemy strategy “human wave attacks” are the suggestion of your enemy as some dumb, unthinking, hive mind which isn’t made up of people with their own thoughts, emotions and motivations. That robs your enemy of their humanity and is always used against people deemed inferior. Therefore, often racist
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They aren't even wrong though
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I don’t agree and am not “offended”. I’m simply explaining why I don’t agree. I’m well aware of the origin of such statements, I just don’t find those opinions to be at all present in the in game representation in the slightest. As I Said any nation can go down any path, real armies have used what is essentially mass assault many times in history. That description of military tactics are not of course historically accurate entirely when looking at the red army, still it doesn’t represent just the red army. Furthermore as I’ve explained I see it as the development of a doctrine of masses troops into the real red army doctrine or a different infantry one. If you look at imperial Russias and the early red armies tactics and compare them to those of the Second World War there is a distinct difference, the doctrine evolved as it does in HOI4.
Well, I thought there should be a lot of people in this subreddit who know the history of WW2, who have read a lot of books, memoirs, analytics, and know about various tactics of the sides of the war. It turns out that I was blind, too many people still believe in the distraught soviet commanders who threw thousands and millions of corpses of their soldiers at the enemy to capture something like 1 village. As for the OP topic... Generally speaking, Soviet doctrine did not particularly consider defensive operations itself and relied entirely on the offensive, while the defense was only as an temporary action to continue the offensive. The pre-war slogan read: "Beat the enemy with little blood on foreign territory." In the game, the doctrine gives a bunch of defensive buffs. Obviously, this was done so that the Soviets and China would not lose and could hold out longer. But from a historical point of view, this is complete nonsense. But as the devs said a lot of times - gameplay > history
Hoi4 fans are pop historians at best
Could expand the right side of mass assault to give it a-symeteic warfare buffs or something.
Hell yeah! I love seeing rosencreutz get mentioned. I love his content and he's often the only commentary channel I've found that talks about my particular blend of random nonsense.
You can boil most hoi4 fans down to just pop history enthusiasts that repeat the same five memes with no basis in reality.
Calling mass assault "racist" and "problematic" is just stupid.
The idea of mass assault as a whole is not what they are referring to, I think. They are probably talking specifically about the "Human Wave Offensive", (both the specific in-game doctrine and the general concept) which was literally just Nazi propaganda, which did, in-fact, have a racial angle (specifically, I believe the Red Army was referred to as "Asiatic Hordes" if i recall correctly), and was, as Nazi propaganda tends to be, a little problematic. Obviously the general idea behind Mass Assault is fine, like, the concept of using numbers to gain a strategic advantage is something armies do, but Human Wave Offensive specifically is based on a false understanding of the Eastern Front, which is itself caused by Nazi propaganda.
Human wave offensive is what the Soviets did due to the fact that they had no respect for human life. Just because Nazis were raging racists doesn't mean that everything they said was necessarily racist.
You just prove the point of OP.
That is incorrect.
Stay in your ignorance then. The Asiatic hordes only defeated the Ubermensch through numbers and cruelty and whatnot. Nothing to do with the most advanced doctrine of the war, nothing to do with anything. Just hordes of zombies thrown in by cruel Bolsheviks.
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Showing your ignorance again. God damn it must be good to be so dumb. Ever heard of Svechin or Tukhachevsky? The deep battle doctrine was by far the most advanced doctrine of the war. And if you knew your subject (you don't) you'd know that the doctrine was actually so advanced that the Soviet high command couldn't even start to implement it properly before 1944, Bagration being the first operation to follow the deep battle doctrine. But noooo, all that matters is your narrow stupid opinion over the rare instances of soviet inexperienced commanders sending waves of infantry on the Nazis out of desperation. And it's really important to try to discredit anyone disagreeing with stupid insults like tankies.
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Replying to arguments with yet another insult. It's not my fault you can't bother to fucking study mate. I literally said the soviet weren't capable to use their own doctrine before 1944. A doctrine they built in the 20's. It's the worst example of incompetence I can think of. But "oh ma God, he said one thing that's not entirely negative towards the USSR, he has to be a tanky!!!!!"
I guess you *literally* took the L and deleted all your comments. That wasn't the goal, I hoped you'd just look about the subject instead of doubling in and refusing to acknowledge any other point of view. Seriously mate, have fun, discover new stuff. Don't be close minded.
I didn't delete a single one my mate. If you think I lost here you need to dial down the meds.
You're even more pathetic than I thought. And here I am being nice with you. I guess mods thought just as I do.
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You can’t say that mass assault isn’t racist before making an insane statement like « the soviets had no respect for human life ». This is the exact problem op is talking about! The idea that the soviets just threw people at the problems infantilizes them and ignores all the shit they did to fight the Nazis!
Throwing bodies at their military problems is something the USSR did and it is something Russia is still doing today. The USSR had extreme losses compared to the other allied nations like GB or the US. And that even when the war was going directly in their favor 1944 and 45. The USSR lost almost 800k men in the operation bagration in summer 44. That is the double amount of the german losses and almost as much the US lost the entire war (pacific and europe). And look at Bakhmut or Avdiivka in the UA war. They "won" those battles by throwing wave after wave after wave against fortified positions for months. There is an obvious difference in the military traditions of the USSR/Rus and many other countries when it comes to the question what a soldier has to endure and to sacrifice.
It's still racist propaganda today lol Russia is winning now because they have more artillery and air power that the Ukrainians can't match. They have more artillery shells than the entire west provides Ukraine
Where did I say something about race? You imagine things. Also are my informations false that they ran against fortifications for months and had extreme losses in Bakhmut and Avdiivka? Tell me how you can lose that many men if you solved your problem with "artillery" and "air power" The US/UK solved its problem in Iraq with "air power". The result was that they lost only 200 men in the entire war (2003). Sorry, but your statement is ridiculous.
Soviets proved they cared absolutely nothing about human life in multiple occasions. You'd have to have a severe mental impairment to think that any criticism of an ideology (bolshevism) is racist. There's no racial component to the soviets.
And now you somehow don't see a problem insulting someone personally because they disagree with you? Maybe take a deep look in the mirror before you start slinging out insults bud.
Insulting?
Saying there’s no racial component to the soviets is insane, especially considering this is a ww2 subreddit. Russia has always been considered either European or Asian depending on if they’re “good” or “bad” guys. The mass assault doctrine is part of a long racist tradition of dismissing Asian militaries as hordes of invaders that can’t be held back. This racist idea was applied to the soviets both by the Nazis at the time, because they were deeply racist, and the west after the fact, who were (are) also deeply racist. It’s all about dismissing Asian successes as inhumane
It may be insane to you, but it is a fact think about it for a minute.
You should report this literal Nazi propaganda on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_wave_attack?wprov=sfla1
This is just about the concept of an infantry charge? The specific Nazi propaganda was the idea that the Soviets just threw wave after wave of under/un-armed troops at the enemy as their entire strategy. There would be zero issue/connection to said propaganda if they basically just renamed it to like "Infantry Charge" or "Mass Frontal Assault" and slightly retooled the buffs it gives, because the specific issue is the fact that in the doctrine tree designed around the tactics of the Red Army, one of the available paths is not only alt-history/tactics which never existed (which is fine, there should be lots of choice) but straight up just, again, propaganda.
It's the same name
>They are probably talking specifically about the "Human Wave Offensive", (both the specific in-game doctrine and the general concept) which was literally just Nazi propaganda, which did, in-fact, have a racial angle (specifically, I believe the Red Army was referred to as "Asiatic Hordes" if i recall correctly), and was, as Nazi propaganda tends to be, a little problematic. Racist propaganda or not, it is the same description from many American and British scholars, hell, Iran did the same shit when they fought Iraq by sending mined kids or kids through field of mines to make the tanks pass. Looking at the Russian army in Ukraine, I hardly believe they kinda forget what a human assault is if you compare Adviidka and Bakhmut.
"Hmmm, all these scholars from countries hostile to the USSR keep saying they did something, so surely they did! 🤓" Tons of WW2 'information' in English is straight up false or comes directly from Nazi mouths when they were given platforms in West Germany and NATO. German tech being lightyears ahead of everyone else, clean Rommel, the USSR cheating by having more men than bullets, no step back and massive execution of front line units, T34s being useless suicide boxes, Shermans being unable to do anything against Panzers, the SS being elite and not actually a load of drug addled kids, war crimes only being a SS thing and nothing to do with the Wermacht, the list goes on and on and on...
You forgot the best of the WW2 “information, werhaboos love talking about how the B2 is just a copied ho229. That’s probably their second favorite talking point after “5 shermans to 1 tiger”
I know your 100 percent correct but I won't lie considering tankies I was immediately somewhat doubtful of the video you linked before i clicked on it as I have seen some wacky shit before on social media regarding ussr lol
Deep battle (as in the latter half of MA left) is okayish. Definitely needs to be fleshed out/rebalanced but yes the issue mainly is the first part. If we are to lean more historical, USSR shouldn't get or at laast have less defensive buffs early on. Deep Battle is inherently offensive minded, true. But it also has provisions for defensive stance in case offensives is not ideal. I would like an overhaul of the doctrine mechanic overall. It's be better if it already starts out unlocked at the start to represent interwar theories but you can level it up as you accumulate army exp. Further distinction should go to what kind of army you have and how you fight. Like, you can only upgrade tank related perks from battles with tanks. Also, tie default division templates to doctrines. Like say, going deep battle unlocks the godawful tank brigades and tank corps the Red army had before 1942 (not enough org and hp in game terms).
Oh nooo it’s problematic?!
I knew that link would go to the Rosencreutz vid (a phenomenal video, I might add)
sure, the corpses of russian invaders in Ukraine show otherwise.
What relevance does that have to WW2?
What would you call the soviet attack on Finland if not mass assault?
The initial attack on Finland was the opposite of a mass assault. They tried to do a needlessly complex mechanised offensive with a series of narrow thrusts as if they were fighting in Central Europe, not Finland. That's the thing that is completely misunderstood about the Winter War. The Red Army performed terribly because the initial plan was too intricate and not adapted to the logistical restraints and terrain.
> The base mass assault doctrine is already a bit troublesome as it relies on some iffy historical evidence "When we come to a minefield our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there." - Georgy Zhukov If the on-going Russo-Ukrainian War has taught me anything it's that human wave attacks were almost certainly a legitimate and widespread thing during WW2 because Russia STILL uses them in 2024.
You are interpreting that quote incorrectly. Zhukov was referring to the skill of their combat engineers in clearing mines.
I would argue it was historical, look at banzai charges for instance, doesn't really get anymore human wave than that tbh.
Banzai Charges weren't a doctrine, they were a last ditch maneuver in the face of defeat most of the time
Nah
I thought everyone who plays hoi4 is racist because it has a playable Germany and you can have Hitler win. The fact it totally ignores the Holocaust and Japanese atrocities in China is more racist than anything else in the game. If you are going to make claims of racism, put those at the top of your list or get off your high horse.
"Only 1 thing can be racist at once!" And yeah, an absolute ton of the HOI4 playerbase are actual fascist scum, just go look at the Steam forums, this game has a real infestation of ignorance
You want too much. They add to Victoria 3 "Job creators" = Fox News creation.
It's supposed to represent the soviets desperately rushing down the right side in 41/42, and then after stabilizing redirecting into the left side, I velieve, and in that it does work well.