Improve Support Squads
Posted: Thu May 23, 2024 3:21 pm
Fairly straightforward suggestion:
Support squads are currently a strict negative for any combat or support unit TOE; the fewer, the better in all cases. The impacts are relative to the required support squads, which, again, means a TOE with fewer support squads is always better than one with more.
This factor means that certain units which should be quite weak due to the lack of support, eg. soviet cavalry divisions are unjustifiably strong. Additionally, it makes late-war soviet formations, which have a roughly 2:1 ratio of rifles to support, disproportionately stronger than comparable German formations, which have a roughly 1:1.5 ratio of rifles to support.
This is probably a large element of what contributes to the frustration of playing late-war Germany, where even when you fight numerically even battles, you are, in fact, vastly outnumbered in actual fighting units simply due to the deterioration of your TOEs which become increasingly bloated with support squads, going from 1:1 rifles to support to 1:1.5 and eventually 1:2 or even 1:2.5 . This leads to the fairly absurd situation where oftentimes, a Soviet 1943/4 division will have a higher CV than an equivalent (similar TOE, rest, CCP) German division simply due to the disparity in support squads, despite the German division still having a significant nominal advantage in both men, experience and morale.
There should be some sort of significant combat benefit to having a lower tooth-to-tail ratio, as the late-war Germans do, since all of those extra logistics guys, signals guys, medics and quartermasters should have some kind of benefit to making the soldiers fight more effectively and take fewer losses.
Possible options would be :
1. Adding an ammo requirement for the support squads which would increase the fire rate of other elements
2. Applying a reduction in combat / retreat losses depending on the ratio of support to rifle squads (which would help mitigate the issue with German formations simply disintegrating from 1943 onwards)
3. Providing support squads some CV by assigning them rifles similar to how rifles are assigned to labour squads.
Support squads are currently a strict negative for any combat or support unit TOE; the fewer, the better in all cases. The impacts are relative to the required support squads, which, again, means a TOE with fewer support squads is always better than one with more.
This factor means that certain units which should be quite weak due to the lack of support, eg. soviet cavalry divisions are unjustifiably strong. Additionally, it makes late-war soviet formations, which have a roughly 2:1 ratio of rifles to support, disproportionately stronger than comparable German formations, which have a roughly 1:1.5 ratio of rifles to support.
This is probably a large element of what contributes to the frustration of playing late-war Germany, where even when you fight numerically even battles, you are, in fact, vastly outnumbered in actual fighting units simply due to the deterioration of your TOEs which become increasingly bloated with support squads, going from 1:1 rifles to support to 1:1.5 and eventually 1:2 or even 1:2.5 . This leads to the fairly absurd situation where oftentimes, a Soviet 1943/4 division will have a higher CV than an equivalent (similar TOE, rest, CCP) German division simply due to the disparity in support squads, despite the German division still having a significant nominal advantage in both men, experience and morale.
There should be some sort of significant combat benefit to having a lower tooth-to-tail ratio, as the late-war Germans do, since all of those extra logistics guys, signals guys, medics and quartermasters should have some kind of benefit to making the soldiers fight more effectively and take fewer losses.
Possible options would be :
1. Adding an ammo requirement for the support squads which would increase the fire rate of other elements
2. Applying a reduction in combat / retreat losses depending on the ratio of support to rifle squads (which would help mitigate the issue with German formations simply disintegrating from 1943 onwards)
3. Providing support squads some CV by assigning them rifles similar to how rifles are assigned to labour squads.