Most OP Support Company? - HOI4 Support Company Tier List

Most OP Support Company? - HOI4 Support Company Tier List
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FeedbackIRL is where feedback procrastinates with his hobbies and other interests. Warning REALLY BORING or REALLY INTERESTING

[@FeedbackIRL]

A HEADS UP! Recon from testing is no where as effective as first thought. Update video coming soon! SO drop recon down 2 places. And tank recon down 1 place. YOU'll ALSO find out later ;)

[@riko_z9962]

But Dave what about Anti-Air Armoured Recon Companies?

[@Vincrand]

Light armored recon is the 2nd cheapest and gives the highest amount of recon. So maybe they are worth the production cost? Not sure if recon isn't that good, I'll see the update video. From what I see in the military tactics is that the difference in attack bonus is roughly 10%.

[@jeremielarin1979]

One thing that make them good is that they can be paradroped and have the armour so they can’t be penetrated by infantry effectively paradroping armoured division.

[@Mardal]

Like you say in the video, you can make a specific light tank to use in your armored recon. So you can actually make a light tank with almost equal piercing as support, and its actually cheaper, plus it adds other stats like recon, a little bit of armor etc.

[@David_Brinkerhoff93]

When playing Imperial Britain, I build a tank called "E37" for my marine Duv. Essentially a Matilda on steroids. Tons of armor. Very expensive. But I don't need many. Recon only needs like 24 tanks...

[@kalimatronix]

There's a thing with Field Hospitals that none other support company can provide you: The Smug Sense of Moral Superiority!

[@FeedbackIRL]

Hahaha true

[@simonsloth1306]

*morale

[@kalimatronix]

@@simonsloth1306 no-no. "The Smug Sense of Moral Superiority". Once saw that wording in Stellaris from an AI empire I was at war with, and it's best to describe what I feel whenever I go pure autoplan on HOI4 and see 1 to 10 casualties ratio.

[@LiberRaider]

​@simonsloth1306 just stopping by 7 months later to say he spelled it right.

[@eduardomelo151]

@@LiberRaider I believe he was also making a joke

[@user-yd5qh1mj3y]

There is a thing with recon. You always needed to look at your templates SPEED. I saw it so many times when guys put horse recon in tank template and reduce their speed to 6.4 km, when tank can go for example 10

[@captainnutsack8151]

It used to be that support companies had no effect on division template speed...

[@David_Brinkerhoff93]

This used to drive me insane when playing imperial Britain. Couldn't figure out why the stock motorized div. were so slow. (Stock mot. has cavalry recon!)

[@RedShocktrooperRST]

Tank Recon is a really good way to cram a decently powerful tank into a division that doesn't have them otherwise.

[@roybargil]

@@RedShocktrooperRST all flame and recon tanks can be air dropped , you can paradrop a whole armor brigade in a para dev

[@jessegd6306]

I feel like the heavy flame and perhaps even medium flame tanks shouldn't be airdrop-capable at all. Light flame tanks sure, but not the heavies and mediums.

[@nebojsag.5871]

Support AA is a godsend against early light tank spam. It's a lot cheaper than AT, and also puts a decent dent in CAS. Basically, China can stop Japan in its tracks by properly using AA.

[@kk7324]

China can't counter u if u don't use planes at all. I had one game where Germany went super try hard building the Navy to contest my Royal navy but shame on him because i deleted my entire surface fleet and just spammed subs. Can't get outplayed if you don't play at all.

[@fenriders7008]

@@kk7324 except the AA really puts a dent in most tanks before 1940 at a much cheaper price point. If you don’t contest the air nothing stops the enemy lend leasing some CAS and ruining your divs.

[@Moved506]

AA in this game is essentially a silver bullet when it comes to defense. Otherwise I guess a normal AT company is fine, but I usually don't use AT.

[@ranganesquik2920]

@@kk7324 cant get outplayed if you're not playing the same game, that poor germany player got fucked :')

[@bananaman9712]

Why anti air counters light tanks is a mystery I will never understand

[@matthewskeean5617]

I've been trying so hard to prove my beloved field hospitals to be more important than they are but....Nope. I've used them forever and just tried and have been trying an Italy campaign. So far field hospitals saved me about 5,000 troops while taking yugoslavia compared to no field hospital. That is Blisteringly not worth having trucks used for this.

[@tedarcher9120]

What about xp retention though?

[@FeedbackIRL]

TRUE AND BASED

[@TM-py8vq]

I love MASH4077, but in hoi4, they have no klinger

[@nikbond188]

Im in the same boat. I want to like FH for the exp retention to LARP as small, but hard hitting Army, but man, it is not worth investing into

[@ummdustry5718]

I think Field Hospitals are quite useful in the EaW mod, where man/ponypower is much more often your bottle neck compared to vanillia, and where the longer game gives more oppertunitites to use the mega-elite divisions the hospitals net you.

[@dutchrjen]

Field Hospitals should increase Org. Think how much happier a unit would be if it's got good and dedicated doctors in it. High casualties should also make a nation suffer with war support etc much more. Field Hospitals increased the morale of military units and made people at home happier. It's true that as far as the home nation is concerned infantry grunts were often expendable but in reality pushing this too far would screw a nation. At least for the human player Field Hospitals and reducing casualties should be a big deal. I could see Paradox not wanting to nerf the AI but humans should watch casualties. Massive casualties in short periods of time should lead to massive issues for the player.

[@aleksandarmanojlovic4988]

Org regain should be also added

[@floridaman4073]

High casualty counts in real life cause big issues at home with bad media, lowered moral etc.

[@dutchrjen]

@@floridaman4073 Yep even Goebbels had to come clean over the Stalingrad disaster and other high casualty disasters.

[@dannyneufeld3364]

Nah, increasing tho Org wouldn't make sense. It should increase the Org regain, so it is faster organized again.

[@oniichanmk7346]

I don't like the idea of making something a requirement for human players but not AI, makes it just a chore and doesn't actually give the player extra strategies.

[@CaptainFellowship]

Support companies are kinda like spices, they can make or break a dish because not all spices complement all dishes. I think a video on what combos of support companies for different types of divisions would be a great idea

[@aleksandarmanojlovic4988]

Nicely said

[@azh698]

I love integrated support with heavy tanks.

[@joegerhardusa9017]

Absolutely Dave do it

[@carterowen1241]

Definitely need more tier list this was amazing

[@FeedbackIRL]

More to come!

[@deusvult6920]

@@FeedbackIRL yeah I just got the game and the sub so tier lists for single player would be awesome. I have played eu4 and ck3 so I'm not green to pdx games so I don't need a total noob breakdown just kinda how not to totally suck while I learn the actual mechanics my first few games Edit: I like how for field hospital you said what the niche use is.

[@gigaus0]

In regards to field hospitals: They used to have a use for countries like France who had good indy but limited MP, but now they're useless. Besides so many focuses in most countries that give either more recruitment or flat weekly MP, Communist countries can literally just add 500 MP a week by picking an officer corp for 35 xp. And that MP never shrinks, unlike recruitment.

[@RedShocktrooperRST]

I could see it being useful for France in the "literally everything but Communist" paths.

[@RedShocktrooperRST]

To clarify: While Communist France can get the 500 MP-per-week tick from the Communist perk, other paths can't. They have to basically go Blum-Violette and Encourage Immigration to get rid of the employment debuff. While Commie France can also do this, they can stack it with the weekly manpower and their own manpower buffs from Agricultural Collectivization.

[@montyfatcat8871]

They're pretty useful for south american countries still

[@redstar96gr57]

I feel like they either need to buff the support companies that need trucks or make a cavalry variant of them with reduced extra stats,so that minor factions with not much industry can afford them,and major nations that can afford better stuff won't build them because they're not as good as the truck variant

[@ragefacememeaholic5366]

They need to make the support companies actually do something. Recon is completely useless, Field hospitals are way too expensive, reliability can go as low as 40% and still not be an issue, and initiative doesn't actually have an impact in a battle. Not when you can get like 40 Soft attack from both arties, air attack from anti air, tons of piercing from anti air and anti tank, and flame tanks. Engineer companies are the only support company in the support company tab that you actually want to put into your divisions. Yes tanks too, Engineers give breakthrough, and a lot of it for a support company.

[@cc0767]

honestly truck need is negligeable, having even 2 mils on trucks is enough to have thousands on stockpile after a few years

[@VulpeculaJoy]

@@cc0767 You need those thousands for logistics tho, so better put like 5 mils on them at least. If you want motorized divisions around 40 to 41, you need even more.

[@cc0767]

@@VulpeculaJoy No, you dont. Like I said 2 or so is enough for logistics because you just build so damn many. And even 5 is still few compared to other stuff

[@CuteLittleLily]

@@cc0767 true i play with italy and only put 3 truck. Have all my division with high motorization. And i stockpile 5k truck in 1940 where i stop producing it all together and produce mech instead. And in 1942 i still have 4.1k. Its really not a problem.

[@Slothxp1]

Close air support are the real support divisions tho

[@davidbascom5781]

I've always thought that a really interesting mechanic and a way to make field hospitals better would be that as you take casualties you loose a tiny bit of war support. Something like 10% for a million casualties or something. Not huge but enough to matter, and field hospitals could like, reduce the penalty, were either you buff them to save manpower or have a mechanic that when you have field hospitals in your devisions your war support doesn't take as much of a hit

[@davidbascom5781]

This would also make the war just make more sense. Like when AI Germany is in 1944 scrapping the barrel lost millions of men and still on 100% war support. Like half your country has died but everyone back home is still eager for more

[@aleksandarmanojlovic4988]

Only time where war support is reduced for killing your own men is when you force attack, idk if hospitals reduce that but it would make sense

[@mdt105]

On the other hand, that is kind of what they did actually do, no? The Germans fought kicking and screaming to the bitter end, just like the Russians were ready to do, the Chinese were doing and the Japanese were willing to do had some of their leadership not seen sense.

[@michaelhaderach277]

@@davidbascom5781 that's exactly what was in germany in real life. Not a 100 % ofc but the germans were with Hitler till the end.

[@davidbascom5781]

@@mdt105 ok. But it's like that for every single country in the game. Also, why is it that if I kill 8 million Germans they will have more war support than if I sink 1000 convoys

[@IxGxNxI]

If you go Superior Firepower right path Support Rockets are S tier as they give you one bonus artillery battalion without taking any combat width AND for 1/3 price of a normal battalion. You will be researching artillery anyway, so that's just one more tech to get them.

[@FeedbackIRL]

Rockets require way too much reseach to become effective

[@ducesettutamen]

@@FeedbackIRL In the scenario hes describing you only have to research the first rocket tech for them to be useful. You can ignore the rest of the techs. Its a mid game boost to your soft attack for very little investment but can only be done by going SF right. Outside of that specific path they are pretty much useless though.

[@Vincrand]

It's not the power of one battalion, but more like 2/3 of a line battalion at the cost of 1/3 of a line battalion.

[@sld1776]

@@ducesettutamen SF Right is the best doctrine path in the game anyway. If you switch doctrines at all, that's where you'd be going.

[@classicfrog80]

Another thing to go for rocket tech is that you can make effective tanks with rocket weaponry that will not need any tungsten to make, meaning that if you're short on tungsten you'd benefit from at least the first tier of rocket tech anyway.

[@googane7755]

The only controversial part is the anti tank (S tier in MP) and engineer companies. Engineers are INSANE and should definitely not be ranked this low because it is good for both attack (against forts, rivers and amphibious landings) as well defense for the entrenchment and terrain bonuses. What matters in the end for a division is stat multipliers and this has everything.

[@TheMelnTeam]

- Field hospitals would have to get a massive buff to how much they help with XP to be worth considering. Per below, rocket arty is bad in normal games. But these are worse. - Amusingly, maintenance can capture CAS if your divisions shoot down planes. This is a legit support company for industry starved minor nations. High % of your rifles/arty/trucks wind up being foreign. - Terrain modifiers for engineers are eventually great, but it's true that they are a big investment to spam out. You can put a few of these on divisions that attack across water or into forts (along with flamethrower tanks) and take minimal penalties. But putting it on everything? Only when you're very wealthy/finishing up a SP win. - Support rockets are only there if you're literally playing a road to '56, as in the game is going that late. I put them in the same use case bucket as jet airplanes in HOI. - Support AT is anti-space marine. If someone wants to put spread tanks out onto infantry divisions and try to armor cheese you, this makes that armor tactics worthless at a fraction of the cost. - Support AA is excellent. If your average air attack is ~11, you hit the cap of -75% CAS damage. Very useful and carries minors in red air in SP. I was expecting to argue more, but you more or less put things in the same places I would. The only exception is that you're over-valuing recon, but you've already commented about that too lol.

[@rizkiramadhan9266]

There are no space marines. They're just marines, astronauts aren't even a thing yet in the game

[@mercdutch3950]

Maybe if field hospitals gave extra defence stat once org goes below 25% it would be cool to see. Or some breakthrough depending on how much org the division has. Could be explained by saying that people could hold out longer if hospitals were closer to the front and therefore giving faster aid to soldiers. Faster aid could mean that wounded soldiers can return to combat sooner and help hold the line in a non life threatening situation. Or the opposite when on the offensive, to get extra breakthrough.

[@moleman7632]

Or if they increased division recovery rate: since the lightly wounded men get patched up and sent back to the front and thus the division is able to recover its organisation much quicker

[@redrudy07]

Perhaps a bonus to resist attrition for terrain/bad weather/temperatures (lower risk of the general ill/injured event or a faster recovery time if the unit he’s in has hospitals?). Doc is the first to spot and treat everything from frostbite in the tundra to heatstroke in the desert, to malaria in the jungle and swamps, to a twisted ankle in the woods and hills after all.

[@gigaus0]

In regards to engineer: You're right they're overrated, but I will say this, you're coming from a SP perspective where their major benefits never shine. Primarily, they're use is offensive; That attack bonus on forts is additive and kicks in if you're attacking or defending on a fort tile. Then you have the entrenchment, which increases offensive stats alongside defensive. This was an 'anime was mistake' moment, because you get a 2% per point of entrenchment modifier on everything. This means a fully entrenched unit on a fort can end up doing 1k attack damage because reasons; Now imagine all those tryhards in MP. They get probing attack on a general and drop level 1 forts every five feet. Now add in flame tanks and dozer blades and it's just become stupid. All that said, it's a lot of cheesing and mechanics abuse that you'll never use in SP, and honestly shouldn't be a thing in MP either...

[@Xinamon98]

I only play SP and I only use engineers for my tanks and port defense divisions, it saves a lot of equipment :)

[@goldenhate6649]

@@Xinamon98 I didn’t even think about ports, but you are right. You have specific units on ports where they shouldn’t attrition so if you can afford the initial cost for a few units, its extremely efficient on manpower required.

[@28lobster28]

Nearly all of this is incorrect. Engineers are best for the entrenchment and river attack buffs, urban late in the game. You almost never build forts in MP because they're a total waste against a fort buster general who activates siege artillery with CP. If you build forts and the enemy uses SA, the fort is actively penalizing your troops. Against the AI, sure they'll be a potato but in MP you almost never see people build forts.

[@cheezebagz729]

Also saying that a support company is expensive is pretty false, IMO all non-vehicles are cheap, but trucks don’t need much for support companies

[@rizkiramadhan9266]

Imagine playing MP

[@KommandoCraftLP]

I'd say there is a good reason to use engineers on tanks, as I often feel they lack defense for their high supply consumption, so if you end up with a successful landing in the UK or even US, push a little with your tanks and then get bogged down with the absolute deathstack of late game hoi and (usually) less supply than your enemy, you'd either have to pull out your tanks or defend with them, where the flat defense bonus comes very handy. It is also super useful against counter attacks for the same reason.

[@vincentbrancato5146]

This is where your frontline defensive divisions come in. Backing up the advancement of your tanks.

[@DoomDutch]

What I have found for the recon: Motorized is the best for defense, Armoured Car for any offensive template if you can afford it, light tanks for templates that require high armour values and cavalry the poor man's scouts. I always try to go for motorized at the minimum if production allows for it.

[@Tommuli_Haudankaivaja]

About the support flame tanks, you could actually make the light tanks so cheap that it's cheaper to get the engineer's buffs from flame tanks than from the engineers.

[@emin166]

Pls explain the design I'mma use it every game

[@Tommuli_Haudankaivaja]

@@emin166 Cheapest possible engineer company (worst gun tech) is 124.3 IC. A bacis light tank with just flame thrower added on to it costs 2.4 IC each, adding to 15*2.4=36 IC for each support batallion. You could bring this cost down to a low 2.1 IC for each tank with adding wheeled suspenssion (-10% production cost) totalling only 31.5 IC for a batallion.

[@carolineeek6672]

Supply companies have the problem that they use fuel which means that your divisions will be moving at 1km/h without supply. So if you know you are going to fight in an area without supply (examples, Siberia, inland China or Africa) your divisions are actually better without them.

[@PeterGiddens]

I am glad you said what you said about engineers. I have slogged quite a way in the game complaining about how much industry I have to divert to support equipment, especially as a minor like Belgium trying to hold the Ardennes.

[@Bobchinski1]

Good list Dave, I agree overall but disagree with you slightly on Signal Companies. They have a lot of value in smaller width defensive infantry templates because of the coordination bonus. If you have smaller width units, more of them are likely to be in the engagement, so the coordination bonus means that they are focus firing on the top enemy unit in the list making your defensive fire a lot more effective versus the spread fire of not having them.

[@disketa25]

A thing about field hospitals: they are **extremely** useful when it ends in total trench warfare (like 30% SP runs and about 60...80% MP ones against clever, defensive-stratted Soviets). In such kind of combat, when no one is clearly winning for years - any bit of saved manpower is clearly a godsend, given that it's 1944 and losses are counted well into double digits. Ideally, a player with field hospitals moves on to all the next stages of the draft later, winning heavily in the industry, in a less ideal case - at least he will reach scrapping the barrel later than the opponent. So, if it's 1942 for Soviets/1940 for France and there's not even chance of winning this anytime soon - I'd spec into hospitals ASAP, even if i didn't that earlier. P.S. Yes, trench warfare is very, very likely scenario in current meta, where pure defensive build is basically indestructible when executed properly. You can spend eternity fighting opponent with two layers of bunkers, dozens of heavy infantry armies and 'firefighting team' of mobile AT cannons. The only chance to win this is to either deplete each other manpower in endless attacks and counterattacks, or gain sustainable air fighter superiority, which is barely possible given how equal Axis and Allies economies are. In such cases games are usually prolonged until 1944...1946, especially if your opponent can construct new layers of defence faster than you can penetrate them, and vice versa.

[@SidorovichGaming]

I've never picked service by requirement or higher as a major nation. Not a single time.

[@jeremiahkivi4256]

MPs are necessary for every game I've ever played. You can get away with not having it early, but by late mid game or into the late game, it is very much a necessity.

[@FeedbackIRL]

Low pop low core stat nations its essential

[@cc0767]

I found just asking other nations for garrisons is good enough and they only need guns, not good ones so I keep one or two mils on the cheapest guns all game

[@jeremiahkivi4256]

@@cc0767 If you have allies in a faction with you. Not everyone is in the Allies or plays Germany.

[@cc0767]

@@jeremiahkivi4256 just make a faction and get allies. So you dont have to research MPs.

[@jeremiahkivi4256]

@@cc0767 But then I can't conquer them.

[@besacciaesteban]

Thoughts: - I really think that engineer's attacks bonus on later stages can make a really good difference. They should be buffed to decrease enemy entrenchment bonus when you are attacking, as one of the main task of engineers was to deny enemy strong points and remove defensive obstacles. -I feel like support art is kinda niche, most of the time you would want to use full art brigades instead. I use them when playing small industry nations or to buff small garrison division (ports, VP and such). They are really strong with small divisions i like to make when fightin in low infrastructure battlefields (africa, SEA, oceanea, etc...)

[@FeedbackIRL]

Entrechment is the best part. If its an attacking divisions there just isn't any point. Support arty is all about adding more soft attack to infantry which is what they need the most

[@ComanderSev]

@@FeedbackIRL engineers are basically necessary for attacks over rivers

[@Vincrand]

Support arty gives double the soft attack/production than line arty. So it's good in nearly every division that isn't very large.

[@cc0767]

support arty is way more efficient than line arty and its not an either or anyway.

[@jeremielarin1979]

@@FeedbackIRL without increasing combat with

[@elraito]

Personal favourite of mine in NSB has been light tank recon for countries with heavy infantry focus like Japan and Italy. The light tanks add decent amount of breakthrough to your fat infantry/artillery divisions. A stat that is otherwise quite hard to get on inf/art divisions. It may not be much but also single support company wont take much production or fuel. Light tanks are cheap and can be improved with stabilizers you unlock from research tree anyway. Its cheap to produce and takes very little research because gun is from arty line, stabilizers are from research line and rest you can get with first few researches in tank tree.

[@tedarcher9120]

You can also put armor car + light tank + flame tank companies in a single division

[@benfromthesewers1688]

honestly.. If you add entrenchment plate to light tanks . Then they could give even entrechment bonus to infantry

[@elraito]

@@tedarcher9120 I thought you can only have one recon company. Did i miss out on something? Can you have armor car and light tank recon both in same division?

[@Zack_Wester]

@@elraito maybe armored car recon. and flame light tanks whit plows. that said I can see that work as company of heroes had the sherman flame tank had the plow not the regular sherman that had the anti tank flail.

[@Jansay34]

I feel like Turkey is also a good choice for field hospitals since it has more or less the same industry as Romania at the start and can potentially snowball a bit by decisions but lack manpower. Thoughts?

[@danielefabbro822]

I tend to integrate my divisions with: engineers, field hospitals or engineers (depends from type of division), signal corps, logistics. Then infantry, motorized, mechanized and even armored divisions have artillery and anti-tank battalions. Every divisions, if possible, are maxed out, but generally a keep AA just to Air Force, since I always have a lot of wings in the air. Divisions like this seems able to resist a real lot on frontline. I had a bunch of divisions like these on a simple front and they advanced by more than 1500 km in less than a year.

[@captainnutsack8151]

Love logistics, but like you say, it can be difficult early game to equip on many divisions, due to the support equipment and truck requirements

[@StrangeAmerica]

I'm going to dive deep into some of your content!

[@pinegulf]

Hey, I'm trying to get onto Paradox titles. This is helpful. Keep it up. (tho a bit more dumbing down would be nice.)

[@frankunderbush]

Haven't tested this scientifically but the equipment capture *feels* like it gives a lot

[@floriangeye252]

I fully agree with your favorites.. just flame tank wasnt aware of.. will try ;) please keep up your videos, they re greeeaaat

[@FeedbackIRL]

[@haukionkannel]

I agree. Anti air... piercing and shut down enemy planes... yes please! New supply makes logistic the king! Flame tank just is OP.

[@SA_Vengarr]

Defense modifiers currently apply to Breakthrough for some reason, which is why you put Engineers in all divisions. Might be a bug, but right now they're a no-brainer.

[@helgeandersen1785]

I like the MP support, the extra defence and soft attack, hidden gem if your making garrison / port units to defend boarders and ports from AI

[@m.a.118]

What would be cool for field hospitals is they give a buff for stability/war support (ie. home front people are seeing less body bags coming home). Which is basically the whole point of them, since in a video game like HoI the whole "save a life" ethical part of war doesn't really come into play since it's you know a game... So the whole "LOL 38M Soviet casualties" doesn't sink in as much.

[@gaminggiraes8546]

engineers' higher level actually mitigates nearly all negative terrain modifiers, if you add "makeshift" bridges with engineer companies, your trucks can have a +40% stat bonus from attacking on a river. instead of 200 breakthrough, your divisions get 800 breakthrough on rivers.

[@reaperking2121]

I personally see engineers as S tier. Yes they are only really good in infantry divs. However the monstrously increase infantry defensive capability and are a must have on nations that cannot build large armies and don’t have large industry. Also recon tanks can be a complete meme as they can be paradropped. So you can create this godly light tank template and just by making it a recon company it suddenly can be used by paratroopers

[@handlesarecringe957]

I max out the speed and use them to draw enemy troops away from the front and/or just steal all the victory points I can. Stick logistics on them so they last a bit longer before you take a port. IIRC you can do the same with armored cars, and they're even faster. Absolute favorite monarchist Germany strat.

[@nihel3144]

field hospitals need a buff, mb an organisation buff or a terrain defence/attack stat buff for the entire division to simulate some sort of a morale boost, maybe reduce the chances of ur general falling ill by half, n maybe a decent army exp boost to account for the experienced war veterans that were saved

[@matthewpeluso3914]

Okay you have changed my mind on some of my go to templates.

[@cokelackingice]

Field hospitals are nice on large units that use a lot to help keep experience but if you make a good template with enough attack then they’re kind of redundant but if you care about having veteran tank units then use field hospitals instead of engineers or something

[@BigmanDogs]

4km Recon tanks with high armor are really good against ai because they often dont build anti tank/high piercing units. Tank also adds more movement speed in terrain. Flame tanks obviously can do the exact same thing. Light tank recon is mostly amazing for if you declare a very early war.

[@Cloud43001]

I put Maintenence in my support early on, and goddam it was worth it. Not only do you recover equipment from the enemy but you also recover a good part of the equipment lost, i managed to recover like 30% of my entire loss with lv 3 and capture 10% of all the enemy equipment, it essentially made it very hard to ever run dry. Maintenence is pretty good.

[@alatamore]

Excellent…now for follow up, do a video showing which division types to use which on. Just ranking is great but it’s better to know, “put these companies on this type of division because…” I have my theories from this video and my experience but it would be nice to see it laid out that way.

[@tbeller80]

For defensive infantry, putting AA on the line instead of support frees up a support slot and appears to give better stats.

[@drifter5375]

I agree with everything you said except for Engineers and Motorized Recon. With the Motorized Recon, I always find myself having extra motorized in any campaign as a major because I always keep a production line of them for logistical purposes, so they are very cheap to add on to your divisions once you get that production efficeny up. Engineers on the other hand are essential for all my infantry templates as a minor. I couldn't tell you all the times the entrechment has saved my arse from a massive offensive from a major. It's also a good pair with mainteinance companies as the increased defense combined with the equipment capturing lets you steal the soul from enemy divisions. It helps even more with recovering from a defecit since if you are on the defensive, you are probably low on equipment. Another thing about the engineers, the defensive bonus is a lot more than you might initially think. Little changes in your templates can stack up and the added defense could save you from getting rekted without you even realizing. Those key moments where you are hours away from your divisions being encircled or a lone division barely holding the lines until reinforcements arrive can be prevented by engineers buying enough time for the cavalry to come in. For a beginner/intermediate player they are a solid way to increase defense without experimenting with wacky templates that might seem scary.

[@hkntrn1840]

Hello, new to hoi4 noob here. That roleplay field hospital comment hit right home. Thanks for the video :)

[@f3tsch906]

1:01 "it does supply drugs" i think i misheard it, but i like the panzerschokolade explanation for the +5 breakthrough

[@bigbenhgy]

With field hospitals: slower xp losses and effectively doubled manpower. Without field hospitals: a couple extra division with the extra production->quicker win, even less losses. It's sadly just not worth it, unless you have the industry for it and you know, you'll be lacking manpower and the war will go on for a long time.

[@FeedbackIRL]

From real world testing it's poo

[@xnano2503]

one of my favorite defensive divisions for italy is a 12 combat width infantry with support recon, engineers, support arty, sup anti air, sup anti tank. it is a purelly holding division that when paired with trench warfare will more or less always hold the alps vs germany or france. at least ai. have no clue how it would do in multiplayer but for ai it is really good. I could also peirce german tanks.

[@HungarianPatriotGaming]

Granted, most of the time I played with Hungarian Flavor mod, but even with vanilla, when playing with Hungary I always found that while I have a decent enough industry for my size, manpower is still an issue. I imagine that quite a few other European minors are in this situation, for these countries Field Hospitals are essential.

[@MC-CFC]

I always use the same five on my standard infantry divisions - logistics, armoured car recon, field hospitals, artillery and engineering.

[@stephenchurch1784]

The one use of field hospitals I've found is for the first war as non-historic US. If you can shake undisturbed isolation early, you have a massive industrial base for a poland sized manpower pool

[@unowno123]

light tank recon is the stuff I only put on my paratroopers so my paratroopers are even more beefed up but to be frank, I'd stuff the heavy flamers on there if i could (don't have the dlc), and the rocket artillery lmao (but thats too late into the game)

[@8Maduce50]

They could merge feild hospitals and supply companies together to get the trickle back affect and experience loss reduction.

[@FeedbackIRL]

Still poo

[@8Maduce50]

@@FeedbackIRL if you had those affect with the supply company it would still be poo? even with the break through, and supply buffs if you throw the trickle back ability into the supply company it would eliminate one company to research and you maintain fighting experience of the unit making them more combat effective in the long run.

[@archer8849]

another point about engineers and forts. I noticed on wiki terrain page there's a small note right below that says: "25% fort defense bonus with engineers DOES NOT WORK".

[@blecao]

Due to my play (ww1 style of grand batleplan) i love the enginers they add even more trench power to the amount you alrredy have, combine with the +30% trench, yes is not even near meta but i love my entrenched units

[@Sanvone]

Note on Maintenance company - It is funny investment as Poland if you decide to fight USRR then Germany. Before No Step Back I could field around 120 divisions of 20/40 width Cavs and build enough stockpile of soviet guns to cover my shortage. Also at some point I had like 800 light tanks recovered which was more than I produced my own light tanks at that point. Hospitals aren't great but I can't get to 4/5 experience level on my infantry without it.

[@loanstowalruses]

Field hospitals are much nicer in Kaiserreich for your volunteer divisions. Early on unit XP is a very large contributor to unit combat power. Maintenance companies are stronger in Kaiserreich as well, because you can upgrade captured equipment to your own.

[@forrestsory1893]

A field hospital is useful when your a small nation receiving aid from large Allies. All those free trucks comming in and supplies. Phillipines fighting off Japan for example.

[@kindasimpson9704]

I think field hospital is not about saving the whole manpower of a country, but to save manpower of your divisions. Let's say you are on a continuous push to overrun you enemy, you need to get your pushing divisions sharp to have an edge, the sharpness is bascially their experience, strength and recovery speed. Field hospital can give you some edge for the first two, think about this, manpower of a division is very slow to be restored, for instance if you change your template to bigger size it takes quite long to reach full manpower (that's why you only do it when they are not fighting), and combine with engineer trait/maintenance company for more equipment, you get much more durable divisions, which could be decisive to can you overrun your enemy or not.

[@zaph8015]

I like using RART on my divisions for the extra soft attack late game if using SFP doctrine. By that point you probably have a bunch of org bonuses so adding on that extra support company doesn't tank the org too hard, and the +50% bonus to support company soft attack is nuts. Obviously this does take time to work into your divs though, and only if you have the IC spare

[@hedgeearthridge6807]

I want to do a Booshie Infanty challenge run. All infantry, stacked with the best non-offensive Support companies. Logistics, Maintenance, Signal, Engineer, Recon, and so on. Streamline my production to just Guns, LOTS of support eq, LOTS of trucks, and of course planes and trains. No Arty, AA, AT, Tanks, Mech, Cars, etc. Just rifles, trucks, and the finest accommodations available! Motorized is allowed if you want, just no armor and no cannons, ignoring airforce and navy of course.

[@floridaman4073]

I’ve done this with great success however the difference I had was AA support

[@CrimsonReaper189]

I remember back before man the guns when I used to join the mp games as japan I would get anti-air and put 2 units in all my armies and the support because they are dirt cheap and as u said add a gd amount of piercing so vs nations that have very little armour it just punches right through and destroys what air they do have plus at the time (not sure if the same now) for the same combat width at level 2 the anti-air had the same piercing as anti-tank and at level 3 game more then the anti-tank as u could have 2 anti-air for 1 anti-tank but also had the other benifits

[@Myrth1]

MP is, thanks to its stats, a free infantry brigade, except it's not taking a brigade slot. Especially handy if you go Mass Assault, as it further adds up amount of troops you can cram to the frontline

[@filipegolineli9909]

The thing with motorized recon is that adds the most speed bonus from all recon companies, so is amazing for light tank tamplates

[@maksimkuskov1400]

You can create fast light recon tanks and it will be better then trucks

[@dionelshani1083]

@@maksimkuskov1400 thats not how it works. Motorized give better speed stats when you hover over them.

[@MrLucidImages]

Field hospital is essential for small countries that focus on land forces, especially against larger enemies like the uSSR.

[@_crazyscientist97]

Does the reliability of the maintenance companies also add onto the reliability of the tank templates in the division? Because if they do you have up to 20% more reliability to spend on your tank's speed and/or armour

[@Task32]

I do agree that engies are a bit overated in single player but in mp they are quite literally required because those terrain bonuses once you max them out go a long way on your tanks.

[@splinter8899]

MP is best taken advantaged with a full cavalry division (50 something width), and you can use the army spirit that allows zero cavalry cost, to save army xp. I have seen many wrong videos, where they put 1 cavalry with MP for garrison, this results on enormous ammount of supplies needed for MP, If for example you need 10 divisons of 1 horse with MP for garrison, your paying the full price of 10 MP, but if you put instead 0.4 (aprox. Not exact) divisons of 25 horses with MP, you are only paying for 0.4 MP and NOT 10!!!

[@user-lt4of1sy9n]

Amazing. Love your content.

[@ninny65]

I like anti-air support because not only does upgrading it go towards making the support unit better but also the static air defence

[@fortusvictus8297]

One little tip for Maintenance Company. You don't have to put it on your whole army, creating a duplicate of a defensive line unit and adding the maint company creates a farming mechanic. Example: Bejing in China, or the Maginot line as France, if you have a spot that is just a meat grinder make sure your divisions have the maint company. It's ridiculous how much equipment you can farm off static defense.

[@glorvalmacglorvas6082]

Light tank recon can be better than support AT, will add nearly as much hard attack, more soft attack, a decent amount of breakthrough, and can be about the same cost as support AT. Just use a high velocity cannon, 3 person turret, no special slots used, wheeled suspension, gasoline engine, and boom. Super cheap tank you can slap on to infantry to buff their stats a lot more than a support AT would... Additionally, you could add the recon **and** an AT company to get essentially double the effect. As for using them in proper tank divisions, you can easily get *+60-100 breakthrough* on your division by completely decking out the light tank with armoured skirts, radios, maxing out the armour, etc. And, if you say that this would be way too expensive, the recon company gets 50% attack and 80% of the breakthrough of the listed stats whilst using 40% the equipment that you'd use in an actual frontline brigade. Therefore, when shooting for mass breakthrough stats on it, it is still going to be cost effective because the cost per breakthrough is buffed massively. Lastly, if you use Superior Firepower doctrine, you can easily deck out the thing with additional MGs, a secondary cannon, and whatever gun you'd like and add a very good amount of both soft and hard attack to a division, if that is the goal. Basically, I think armoured recon is a MUST HAVE on any division you'd classify as one of your 'good divisions', whatever that division type is.

[@KM_OwO]

In no step back I would argue that maintenance companies are essential for tanks, but the capture rate can be insane as well. I’ve had multiplayer games as the US where for the memes I made a fully equipped tank division using exclusively German equipment and drove it into Berlin.

[@NoName-yo7ux]

Interwar flame tank company is freaking good for all

[@NoName-yo7ux]

Ay! I finally got a heart from Dave

[@fiendish9474]

I will never forget NSB launch flame tank company. That + a bit of CAS managed to breach the maginot line

[@kyallokytty]

the thing with recon is that half the tactics aren't counterable or require you to unlock the counter, and even then not all doctrines unlock all tactics(I.E: breakthrough can only be countered with 2 specific doctrine paths right at the end). so even if you got 100000000000000000000000 recon and your enemy is attacking with breakthrough, all that recon goes to waste because you literally cannot counter it (and you can make your chance to roll your preferred tactic fairly high with the new officer corps by selecting it overall, on your field marshal and on your general. iirc jt gets to 80% chance of picking it) so really recon companies are there for the movement speed and other stats it offers unless you're a nation that has a lot of army xp and very inexperienced leaders... but I cant think of any of the top of my head(maybe the USSR depending on purges)

[@samuel.andermatt]

There definitely are nations that have rather high production in relation to their low manpower (e.g. Sweden I think, or some of the baltic states). Also I love to play tiny nations with barely any manpower and since focuses give a fixed amount of factories, these countries really only need to worry about manpower consumption and much less about production cost.

[@CheefCoach]

Capture is when you surround enemy divisions. The 10 % of mantience company is 10% of base stat, that is usually 80% so it moves to 88%. 8% out of 20 % is 40% of % of reduction for 10 % of company. The problem is that attrition formula have minimum (chek wiki for attrition); so maintenance company works for infantry equipment and mechanized equipment, and maybe poorly designed tanks. But with new recover mechanic that gives square root or realbiity, I might need to reconsider them.

[@bucket1442]

Instead of field hospitals, they should replace it with "Medic station" or something like that. They provide half the buff as field hospitals, but only require support equipment. Would be useful for small nations as they wont need as much resources for them. Perhaps they could make it similiar with recon (Cavarly/motorized/armored car) We could switch between Infantry medics / Motorized medics and so on.

[@WildFunkyFresh]

What would be your top 5 for infantry and top 5 for tanks? Based on the video, I'm guessing the following. Infantry: Engineers, Logistics, AA, Artillery, and maybe signal for reinforce? Tanks: Logistics, Flame, Recon, Maintenance, and Signal?

[@inurokuwarz]

When I was a baby HOI4 player, I did a imperial germany run with 20 width infantry and every support company. I got completely rolled by the soviets. I don't know how to synthizie this information.

[@SirTravis-vn6yp]

Even after seeing your analysis of field hospitals, I would still say that would be good for special forces. That extra skill can go a long way

[@Arbaaltheundefeated]

"You really can't go without support anti-air, you really can't!" *Has never in 500 hours played gone with support anti-air*

[@EdwardMalus]

7:02 well of course, considering as Germany you're going to be capitulating those nations and getting a load of their equipment anyway

[@Xeem_Pad]

It's actually really weird that he put maintenance above engineers. They are equal by cost/usefulness ratio

[@featherlilly07]

I disagreed with the perspective on field hospital, because I believed that in special forces divisions (my favourite) it made logical sense to keep them at veterancy for longer and reinforce better. I understand now, it CAN help, but it is too little to be significant for the resource cost it tacks on. Very excellent considerations by this video and the community comments. I will say you now changed my mind on engineers as essential, I have always used them where the cost was inappropriate. It makes sense why I felt I needed so many more resources to fight equally as an opponent. Super cool insight, cheers everyone.

[@TheyCalledMeT]

15:11 cavalry doesn't use fuel, which can make a huge difference. aswell as i would add that to very cheap troops in general and motorized for anything that uses oil anyways except when you consciously choose a better one like armored car or tank for some nieche buffs. (a bit armor for your infantry COULD make the difference, or the higher recon of armored car could..)

[@tmartin34]

Maintanance companies are very good for counries with less mil. factories (like china , yugoslavia ....) just few sup.eq. for a lot of guns and sometimes even tanks. On level I it is not so efective but later (II+) its very useful.

[@marcelosilveira2276]

9:48 aren't engineers worth it for attacking forest/jungle enviroments too, like warfare at the north of South America? it increases speed there, and those jungles do bog down troops

[@gaminggiraes8546]

you can add both forms of artillery at the same time, for single player games, that's pretty good

[@quintingigax5912]

Usually if I'm doing a light and heavy tank build I put AT in my light tanks after I get tier three because I find later in the game my lights just can't pierce their tanks and having the at makes it so there still very useful for covering my heavies flanks

[@rubbybobinson3543]

Very helpful. I wasn’t far off with the exception of my beloved engineers.

[@VampiroGaming]

Awesome video, thanks! Can I somehow specify which one of my light tank templates is supposed to be used for the armored recon support company? thx

[@redknight6077]

As years go by Rocket Arty eventually overtakes Arty in destructive power. However that is not why I would build it, I would do so if you are playing in a nation with more tungsten than steel.

[@jimthesoundman8641]

5:00 Would field hospitals be good for something like paratroopers or marines, where you won't be in contact with your normal resources temporarily? Seems like reinforce rate would go down to zero for paratroopers who are behind enemy lines, so maybe they'd be useful in that specific situation?

[@evolve117]

Honestly field hospitals are probably a godsent for minor nations. From personal experience from the great war mod I lost a war to Spain as Portugal because I ran out of manpower. Field hospitals may have saved me though I rarely use support companies besides the ones given if your country templates have them. Besides support artillery I always love building support arty for some reason

[@kaamoshaamu]

Beware adding other than cav recon, adds up as fuel usage. I wouldn't recommend other than cavs to infantry divs.

[@FeedbackIRL]

Reconn is poo. Read pinned comment

[@bvenkat9924]

maintenance companies are now nerfed btw. Notice that the equipment capture mechanic will only kick in when you're attacking and not when youre being attacked (so as Russia that pretty much takes away any incentive to add them since youll be defending from Germany most of the time)