HOI4 How to Make Tank Division Templates (Hearts of Iron 4 Guide Tutorial) 

Fun fact : German medium tanks like panther were considered actually heavy tanks by allied forces

9:33 epic rhyme

The nice thing about the light tanks having 14 speed compared to the 12 speed of motorized units is that you can upgrade your light tanks until the speed drops to 12 before you need to worry about upgrading the engine.

3:33 ahh the glorious chromemium the building material of meme tanks

Okay, new drinking game: everyone take a shot whenever he says "controversial".

Upgrade your maintenance and tank reliability and watch how much less you need to produce. Seriously.. its crazy how much you lose to reliability issues (stuff breaking down..) Adding maintenance and upgrading reliability can be the difference of several factories per day in your supply usage.

So i though i knew how to play this game, but now i realise i still have so much to learn

"BUT, TEACHER, DO THESE DIVISIONS PENETRATE THE MAGINOT LINE?!" By the way, logistics boys are very useful while at war with Venezuela too. 3:34 "Chrominium"... I think it's better to stop spoiling about Man The Guns DLC content. 9:15 "Mechagnised". Oh, come on, just stop.

Strongly disagree with some of the points raised. Reliability is important, I would say that the first thing you upgrade when making tank variants is always reliability because they're so expensive and you only want to be losing tanks in combat rather than to attrition. Secondly using a lot of support companies will reduce your division's armour and hardness, arguably the two most important stats for a tank since they massively reduce incoming damage meaning you can afford more tanks/SPGs rather than motorised because you don't need as much organisation. Tanks don't need logistics companies; even if a large tank division uses 3 points of supply or so, you're better off putting logistics companies on the infantry who are going to be using up most of your supply anyway and having better tank divisions to make your breakthroughs. 30 organisation is a lot for an armoured division because if you've got high hardness and breakthrough and your armour isn't being pierced you're not going to be taking much organisation damage. You would be better off with less organisation and higher soft attack (remember that each point of soft attack higher than the enemies defence is 4x more damaging) to get the enemy de-orged and out of the way so you can rush in and make your encirclements before the enemy can reinforce.

Now when I got time to watch entire video, I can comment on what I saw in it. Just to to be clear, I always play against AI, and I have no experience with playing with other humans. 1. It doesn't matter so much does armored division have more or less of 30 organization. It won't lose much of it anyways. But it is important, for every division, ratio of HP and organization. How the mathematical models go, about 30% of damage goes to HP, and 70% to organization, and division is defeated when it is out of any of those two. Than losses in HP are translated into loss of manpower and equipment. 2. The second important staff, and it is staff that armored divisions are made of, is hardness. Important is in two way, damage model, and battle tactics. If division have 0% of hardness, the enemy division that is attacking it will use 100 % of soft attack. If it have 50%, enemy will use 50% of soft, and 50% of hard attack. Infantry divisions have overwhelming soft attack over hard attack. We will talk about it later. Second thing is battle tactics. You don't really care about them if you are only HoI4 player, but if you play Crusaders Kings, you start to notice them. If you have over 50% of hardness, you are always eligible for breakthrough tactic, no matter any other condition, and it is also mandatory condition for Blitz tactic (which have other requirements as well). Those are two most powerful attacking tactics in the game. 3. So last two points comes into consideration would you use Motorized or Mechanized infantry. Mech also give higher HP per organization (and that reduce losses), and increases hardens of division by big margin. Also it gives twice the defensive points. By the way, the defensive points, when they cancel attack point gives enemy chance of successful attack of 10 %, instead of un-countered 40%. They also have really nice piercing when you reach year of 1944. 4. Stats aren't necessarily averaged. Things like soft attack, or HP, are added. Organization is averaged. Speed is the speed of the slowest battalion. But armor and piercing are pondered average. I believe that 40% of piercing and 30% of armor comes from subunit with the highest value, and rest comes from average of every subunit. So AT company can drastically increase piercing of the division, or single medium tank or even tank destroyer can increase armor of division. 5. First thing you need to upgrade with every new tank design is reliability. It isn't 100% proof solution, but helps a little. Armor is second if you play off line, against AI that uses infantry divisions with AT companies. If you are attacking armored divisions, gun upgrade could be better choice. 6. Also when you compare it, don't do it with 1936. technology. That 15 more attack in 1936 is much higher in 1943. Artillery company is something that is the closest to must have. So is logistical companies in most continents. Engineers are good, but you can also argue against them. In any case, more companies you added to armored division, less organization and armor it will have, so less is better. 7. Also what is important to mention in this video, and you failed to do so, is importance of armor. As long is armor of your division a little bit higher of enemy division piercing (even by 0.1), your division is effectively 3 times stronger. That and hardness is what makes armored divisions so great against infantry. 8. Maintenance companies are great for infantry and mechanized equipment. You are filling the difference. Rest of staff, not so much. Also there is one more very important staff: 9. Due rounding and other mathematical model deficiency, gear that you have less than 100, (and more less, bigger the problem is), you are having much higher lost gear due to attrition. So if you are in doubt should you put in one or two tanks battalions, put in two for this reason alone. The biggest reason why AI is losing the war is because it will run out of gear due to attrition or constant infantry attacks. When that happens, it doesn't matter what is your template, as long your net gear is positive and divisions are on full strength. So how somebody stupid division work, that is how. Also almost any armored division template will punch true almost any infantry division template. It doesn't need to be optimal, it will stile be good enough. So when we are talking about width, 20 is sort of how game is designed to be played, and it is the best. But what widths I consider good enough are: 14,16,20-21,24-25 and 38-42. They are having more than average 94% efficiency for 80 and 120 width battles. I multiplied width of the front (and it can go over or under 100%) with negative battle multiplier (and they multiply all other bonuses). 26 and 28 have 93,9% efficiency. The smaller division are stronger in the battle, but having higher combat losses (point 1), and the big 40 width divisions are weaker with less losses.

usually i make a 40 width tank with 1/3 motorized, when i have medium i slowly swap as i produce them, and convert the old light to spaa and add a single battalion to infantrie division, a frontline of spaa supported infantrie will MELT the enemy air force like nothing else. the main reason to have heavy/superheavy/mechanized is about hardness

Maintenance companies are pretty good. The bonus applies to everything including the rifles. Get some 40 width stacks of infantry, tossing a logistic, maintence, a general with scavenger- and you’ll probably be making a net positive in rifles.

There are few guidelines here: 1. Try to get hardness at least 51% because of Blitz and Breakthrough tactics, 2. Try to have armor of your armored division above penetration of enemy infantry divisions, 3. After you achieve this, try to have as many mechanized infantry battalions as you can until you fill 16 or 20 width division, 4. You should always have artillery company; self-propelled guns are better than motorized artillery and mechanized infantry is far better than motorized one. If enemy uses anti-tank guns, good templates are: 4 medium armor, and 4 mechanized battalion, or 5 medium armor, and 5 mechanized battalion, or even 6 medium armor, and 4 mechanized battalion. If enemy infantry doesn't have anti-tank guns good template is: 2 medium armor, 2 medium self-propelled guns and 5 mechanized battalion. Also I strongly suggest to have logistical companies, specially if you need to fight outside of west Europe.

Good video but disagre with upgrading armor because its a real gamble because if the soviet player upgrades GUN he can still peirce you AND i also think that signal company is important to that the infantry dosent reinforce the Battle before you

I don't think that's a mod giving you images for the German tank variants, those are in the base game, believe it or not.

They cost 1 more steel, but that is not really that big of a deal. BECOME A POET

Dustin here's a tip when comparing the spgs and spaas you should compare the stats at the same combat width and not just that but you should mention their production cost as you need less of them per brigade than regular tanks

Really enjoy you instructional videos Dustin.

I have been trying to min/max as turkey for a middle east empire and early game I have been doing well with light tanks and cav mix rather then the normal motorized (not enough factories and steel)

most important knowledge is that "breakthrough" sinks damage done to you in the attack extremely. So, having lots of normal tanks in the offensive is a must have when facing strong enemies.

This is really helpful! Thank you for making this! :)

I usually just put 1-2 factories on artillery, remove all artillery from my infantry and use motorised artillery in my tank divisions along with medium tanks. its a little bit of a simplification since SPGs would probably be better but its just my way of doing it lol

Would be useful to your beginner players out there to have a “Worst case scenario” Russian campaign (Ex: Molotov Ribbentrop pact, low air superiority and supplies) Basically the best way to reorganize and attack.

I'll break this down for you, so you have light tanks which are good for infantry and are cheap. mainly used to spaghetti. Medium spgs are bad, they can't fight other tanks very well. As Germany or soviet you are going to be fighting other tanks. The only nation where I can see them is Japan or maybe Bulgaria. You never use superheavies, the production cost is so absurd and for every super heavy tank division there is like 3 medium tank divisions. It's a meme unit. Can only be used on plains Heavys are ok, if you have adaptable then they are really good. Production cost and terrain is why nobody used them minus South Africa. Mediums are best: Cheap, Fast, does its job in most terrains. SPAA: you only need support AA to drop potential CAS damage from 10 to 4, adding SPAA doesn't change anything except for the fact that with SPAA you can rape enemy CAS. Tank Destroyers: Good for USA to fight Germany if USA had to make tanks, since he can realistically only get medium 2's by 41.

I usually mix mine. Light and medium tanks in the same division. Maintenance, logistics, signal and motorized recon support companies. Heavy tanks are in divisions of their own, same support companies.

I enjoy these analysis videos. It's oddly relaxing. Trying out a new tactic for Germany-- produce cavalry brigades, 4 per army group, save 25+ XP and upgrade them in early '39 when you get Tigers. Instant heavy tank brigade that doesn't move too slowly, and they'll actually be ready for Polish campaign :). Also keeps production costs down during interwar period.

chrominium? is that from the same table as aluminum? Edit: I thought it stopped there. But behold the "Mechagnised Divisions"...

a thing missed on the signal company, is it affects the tactics your generals use in battle, and it lets your general use a second tactic to counter the enemy general. so its not useless, especially when paired with recon detachments. both are op when attached to tank divisions, because the light tanks can speed into openings, mediums keep the battle going, while heavies obliterate the opposition.

Loved it! Only if I had an PC it would help me so much as I am a noob.

This was super helpful man. Thanks

Helpful vid. Would have been a bit more useful though if you had given some template examples for scenarios, for instance, a 20 width to fight infantry, a 20 width to fight tanks or a 40 width with a balanced approach. Still helpful though! Another important thing you missed which is VERY important is the hardness stat. By swapping out all motorised companies with mechanized (or adding more tanks instead of mobile inf) your division hardness shoots up, which is super useful if the enemy has good piercing/soft attack in their divs, but overall low hard attack. Tanks also have slightly differing hardness values. If you know enemy piercing values, it's super important to keep your tanks division's armour above enemy piercing, that way you take 50% less damage from ALL attacks. It would also be great if you could discuss this in a vid: What's better with a tank division, high hardness/armour or high organisation?? Obviously with org you fight longer, but with good armour/hardness you take less damage, so you fight longer. It's hard to tell which is more useful in what scenarios, so it would be good if you could do a video on that. Can you also address if it's ever worth building heavy tanks, unless to specifically counter enemy armour? Also, what's the best way to build a heavy tank template?

This game gives me a headache, but I just love it so much

I usually put Heavy tanks on the Maginot line and then use a bunch of light and heavy tanks to go around the Maginot.

The 1 aa per 10 with its a good to know xD

When you added that heavy tank to that light tank division it also makes everyone the heavy tank's speed so there is always a backslash on everything. Same goes on adding heavy tank to a infantry division. Ofc if the division is already slow then it won't matter. I don't know I just fear people might not have noticed this :p

im in a game right now against a really good Germany, i see this.. im saved

I Think You Need Defense Plan Your Division Like 5 infantry 1 Heavy and maintence and Engineer if you need a breakthrought Use Light Tanks And Signal Company And support art

Mix tanks if you want more armour, almost always put motorized in the template, 10 width in africa, 20-40 in europe depending on what and where you are attacking. Lights for speed, medium for jack of all trades, heavy for armour and super heavy for forts. TD if there are heavies (or use support AT if you can), SPA for infantry and AA for air if it is a big problem.

I tend to go 16/4 tank/mot with mobile warfare, 15/5 with superior firepower. No self propelled artillery, the armor is too low (at least for mediums) and I find the stream lined production of only 1 type of tank more practical. These divisions get monstrous breakthrough and great armor+hardness, at the cost of org and soft attack.

keep up the good work dustin

Great Video!

Light tanks are more useful in R56; you can upgrade the reliability and speed of motorised. I’ve had 14.5kmh tank divisions and, with improv expert, it is dominant at encircling whole infantry armies.

usually i find upgrading reliability first , makes you lose almost nothing when training/artition especialy if you get it close to 100% or 100%+ , that small armor buff you add wont matter in long run at all

Well I sure needed this

Your videos are great! You've really helped this noob get better at playing my new favorite game. Is it possible you could do a video describing what divisions you put into your armies? Do you use homogeneous armies or do you mix divisions within an army? For instance, will your tank armies be only tank divisions or do you mix some mob/mech Infantry divisions?

The Maus as an SPG.... What a dirty beast!

I love these videos... I improve my gaming skills and can relax a bit .. It's actually quite odd

When it comes to upgrading equipment, I strive to keep reliability at 96+ percent to lower losses from attrition. Same with airplanes. For the most part, normal tanks offer a good balance of soft and hard attack and I tend to just not bother with tank variants. With variants you have to split production, which usually leads to having too much of one type and not enough of another. It is less of a headache to just use all the Chromium to make medium and then modern tanks. You didn't mention Motorized Rocket Artillery. It is rarely used, but you get almost as much soft attack as an SPG for cheaper and you only build it once and upgrade it's soft attack through research. Using MRA in a Tank division will lower Hardness and Armour though. Heck, I even use a template of 7 Motorized +2 MRA to support my tanks and it's bad at attacking, but had enough soft attack and defence to fill any gaps until infantry get there. As for MtG equipment, amphibious tanks are crap and you're probably better off just using normal ones and eating the penalty. Amtracks (amphibious APCs) are actually good and an upgrade to normal Marines for countries who do naval invasions. Having a template of Amtracks, 1 Medium or Modern Tank and maybe 2 Motorized Artillery seems to be a good Special Forces division for amphibious assaults. I tend to use Engineer, Recon, Supply, Hospital in All my armies, including infantry and fill the last support slot with Art ot AT or whatever. I agree about signal company not being worth it; just research radio for +5% and get +2% from doctrine and you're fine. Maintenance companies help more with Mechanized than Tanks, at least when I keep Tank reliability at 96% or up. Getting a trickle of random crap in a war of attrition is kinda funny, but it is somewhat annoying to set up production lines to upgrade all that stuff. I don't use Maint. Comp. much.

You should view the speed of lighttanks as a army experience modifier, normally you need to upgrade engines on your tanks or they become to slow, you can skip thato n light tanks saving reliability and army xp, a medium tank needs to be 3,3,3,3 a light tank can skip engines and go 4,4,4 and in the end still be faster then a medium tank whilst also having increased reliabilty. This isn't important for larger nations but is a game changer for minors due to the cheap production cost, makes them very cost effective for their role, since as a minor you should rarely be the one in MP to counter german heavies, its more your job to support advances, exploit weak points or win in areas where supply is limited.

10 motorised/mechanised with 5 Medium and 2 sp at and 2 sp arty

>Mod Paradox added the new pictures in the WTT update. Almost all of Germany's tanks got new Icons now. Only Modern and the AA of the Maus I think don't have one.

awesome video.

1:19 "You're *gnot* have a great time" Unless you're a gnome, and gnot a gnoblin

I have a question you know I like to make infantry divisions of mechanized infantry with 1 mechanized infantry unit and 2 support companies artillery and rocket artillery with superior fire power doctrine. You can also lower the production cost of mechs. Basically they hold everything and are good at attack too. What’s your experience

K thought I could just fly by the seat of my pants and figure this game out.....France is beating my ass rn....

Thanks man

Me: any good template for hoi4? This dude: alright we need to start from the beginning for this. I mean from the big bang.

This reeeeeeallllyyyy helps

And as I said before, all is left is the navy (I know you already did one, but maybe and updated one after the Man the Guns DLC is released.

Mecagnized units lol great vid btw :)

I need a piece of advice. Im challenging myself to survive ww2 as france and i want to ask if i should go anti tank guns or create light anti tanks against germany tanks. I did the level 7 fort thing on both the benelux and Italian front but the italians attack nonstop eventually breaking through so im going level 10 on the italians.

I got a question, do I add my motorized divisions only to my tank divisions or do I make an entire division made out of motorized?

*Super heavies can be OP as all hell when used correctly* .seriously try some in Multiplayer if you can try rush em as the USSR they are fucking impossible to beat down as 40widths. You'll only have 3-5 by 1942 but they are insane.

I havent even clicked the unpause button and I already gone through 10 guide videos on this game

I was playing multiplayer and I needed super heavy and super heavy tds to d-day. That was an Atlantic wall

if you add that heavy tank for piercing and armor for light tank division.. you will get a huge speed(14 km/h to 6km/h) penalty. so whats the point? why do i use light tank with that speed?

Hey so at 4:49 you're about to add a super heavy tank regiment to the template but it's not their. Then it appears on the template. Do you just click regular heavy tank and it fills out or am I missing something?

What mods are you using while making this video? Thanks for the videos. Helping alot!

So for my second ever Germany play through, I went down the Mobile Warfare doctrine and made what seems to be a relatively standard tank division. 6 medium tanks and 4 mechanized (with support divisions) I steamrolled a 1943 Soviet Union. I don’t know if it was because of normal difficulty or not. Thoughts anyone?

Things I fundamentally disagree with: 1. *Main gun is more important than armour for mediums.* In most competitive mp games, enemy tanks will have enough piercing to the point you’re going to get your mediums pierced no matter the armour upgrade. Therefore, increasing the hard attack by upgrading the gun can give you the edge in combat. 2. *Signal companies are more important than you think.* The combat of hoi4 is quite weird but one of the most important things you should know is that *tanks are better when attacking.* Most countries that make tanks tend to use them offensively. However, your allies can sometimes take up the combat width, disallowing you to defeat the enemy tanks that are in the battle while you simply aren’t. Signal companies ensure that your tank will enter the battle if both your allies and your tank attack at the same time, and even if it doesn’t, the reinforcement rate is so high that you’ll (usually) enter the battle in time to fight the enemy tanks when a division drops out of the combat width. This is why I use signal company for only my best units.

Great video man! sadly there isn't much of multiplayer games in the base game with no dlcs :"

I need some help on making an ideal division, for all purposes, how does this sound? Tanks: (20 width, so they are easier to produce, and can spread strong line breakers along the front) 2 Heavies, 4 mediums, 2 Mechanised Support: Engineer, Cav recon, AA, Logistics Infantry: (40 width, to try something new) 4 Artillery, 14 infantry Support: Cav Recon, Engineer, Support Artillery, Field Hospitals, Support Anti Tank Doctrine: Grand Battleplan Country: German Reich

"Medium tanks meant to go up aggainst medium divisons that have at" Create a random Divsion with one support at and then try to exceed the piercing value with the armor of any medium tank divsion.

hey man what mod are you using for the models

hi there, i have zee question, when i have a battle after its over, i click on the my tank icon... then there is the green bar and red... no matter what my tanks don't "heal" and become full stacks again.. why is that? ... i have all the equipment for the tank and lots of it... however it just my division doesn't regain more troops... however i am producing more troops of other regiments im so confused any help plz.

So in regards to divisions, how to you use the templates for your divisions? Do you produce new divisions, or switch your existing divisions to the new template?

Interestingly I decided to try out super speed tanks as Germany. Then found out that trucks weren't as fast as tanks so I dropped them and went for 20w pure tank divisions. Against the AI it did stupidly well and I think I saw some troops get overran by my tanks speed? (20KM/h. Was 1 off max upgrade). Luckily the AI doesn't build anti tanks :D. I went down the right side of Mobile Warfare and ended up with 20w I think 20 org tanks? Had Light 3's and everything else I needed before going to war with Poland in 1940. Also I declared war on Turkey after using the SU, tossed Logistics companies on my tanks, and upgraded my Field General for -20% supply consumption and went through the entirety of Africa with 2 tank divisions (going separate ways at the canal) and they suffered almost no attrition. I say almost no attrition because I didn't toss Logistics or the Field General upgrade until I "pushed" through Syria.

Whats that mods name for your SP stuff?

Another question: I as a player typically play just to relax and enjoy a good game. I don’t play Mp. And when I play, i have neither the experience or the attention span most games to micro manage the combats. In fact, i enjoy hoi4 because of my ability to set battle lines and let the ai handle the fighting. As such, how does you advice in this video change when not micro managing? On an aside: would you be interested in doing a series of videos for people such as myself who play mostly Sp and prefer to use the battle lines to fight?

He said now this is going to be the most controversial point of the video for about a million things

So Mech Inf+Heavy Tanks (slow) and Motor Inf+ Light/Medium tanks? (faster than slow)

I got the knowledge

Have I missed the template for the division of tanks he used to smash through Poland in the beginning of the video?

i hope they make tanks and plans design like ships in the next dlc

Still no man the guns realese date, your opinion?

What is the template for the divisions in the beginning of the video?

so adding 1 mechanized to the top and then 4 rows of motor gives a bonus too?

The das thing is I’m on 700 hours and never used a single tank but only infantry XD

what mod are you using , and to disable it , in the main menu of the game before you start it you can disable the mod

What mod did you use for the icons in the production tab ?

Can you make a video about factorie converting a Japan i just cant seem to get my industrie that high

i think SPAA Soft attack should be higher as it used to shot down infantry more than shot down strag bomber

play Romania and hold off the Soviets in Bessarabia... maintenance, level 6 forts and AA is your friend

So I tested out this pure light tank division template and I managed to get 20+ km/h division speed on them with Blitzkrieg doctrine and German officers. They’re so fast that they can encircle quite a few enemy divisions in leas than a day when I fought against Russia. Against Russia’s infantry, they seem to do well on battles cuz the combat thing was always green on 1v1 battles. Do you think this template is viable?

‘This is probably the most controversial part of the video’

Damn you didn´t show the SPG-Squad you used in that vid xD

Is reliability really that unimportant? I tend to use my xp to improve my main units to 100+% reliability so that its not breaking down in the field as often. Is it really that big of a waste as was implied in this video? Its implied that you should level 5 the prime stat regardless of its effect on reliability. Is their a point where you have dropped the reliability to much? Does the same apply to aircraft?

I have a question. What is actually the difference between maintenance comps. And logistic comps. ? Don't they both just reduce attrition? Like for example I'm fighting in Africa with like 1 infrastructure. Is it better to have maintenance or logistic?

5:39 Its not a mod its a DLC, i dont have any mods on and i also have the tech logos

Are those SP artillery divisions in the background gameplay?