How much organization do you need in Tank Division? (2024)

Trying to decide between

* 6 Tanks + 4 Mech = 30.6 Org
vs.
* 7 Tanks + 3 Mech = 26.6 Org

I have no idea what enough Org is.

To me ”tank division” is a very broad term.

High and low can both be good. If all you need is to punch through a line in one or two places, you dont need a lot of org. If you want that division to also push deeper or take part in more extended opertions without rest, you’ll want more.

Organisation is directly indicating your ability to stay in battle, so more is always better, and linearily so. Your first division can suffer 15% more damage.

So now the only question is: will it suffer 15% less hits, or be able to dish out 15% more damage? Doubtful, I would say, but circ*mstantial, depending on enemy hard attack etc.

> 30

Which nation and doctrine your using?

theokrat said:

Organisation is directly indicating your ability to stay in battle, so more is always better, and linearily so. Your first division can suffer 15% more damage.

So now the only question is: will it suffer 15% less hits, or be able to dish out 15% more damage? Doubtful, I would say, but circ*mstantial, depending on enemy hard attack etc.

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A super high org unit can sustain through a figt and maybe outlast the enemy, so if we delimit the question to one combat, higher org is linearily better as you say.

However, a low org tank division generally has enough brakethrough and armor to not take extra damage, and enough attack to deal it. Its explosive; it can run out of steam (org) but will them recover faster than the higher org divisions (so long as it dowsnt take too much str dmg from being pierced or whatever)

The extreme case of low org tanks is the light tank 3 that can be trimmed so fast that evwn motorized would slow it down significantly. They can go really far on even 1 tank of fuwl, but irs hard to get the division size right; too small and it can get recked in a couple of hours, too large and it will cause supply issues even with LOG

I will answer your question in 2 parts.

1. As mentioned it depends on what you want the armour unit to do. If you want a tank division that will be able to make a breakthrough and take several more provinces while being able to repel counter attacks you do not want a low organisation armour unit. If the armour unit has low org it will fallback once a counterattack is made because it will have run out of organisation. This can be alleviated by having motorised units to accompany them, but they are not guaranteed to reinforce in time. So around 35 organisation would be preferable.

If the unit is just meant to punch through one province the organisation does not matter so much. They will simply attack, lose org, recover (as long as the enemy does not attack you), and then attack again. An example would be a unit with lots of heavy tanks and a very high hard attack to bust through forts or enemy armour unit. These can be as low as 20 organisation.

2. The organisation of an armour unit works differently from all other land units because of the following. A unit that is fighting a unit with armour and CANNOT penetrate at least 1 will take double organisation damage. The tank units also take

organisation damage in return. What this means is that if a tank unit with 30 organisation is fighting a defending unit that cannot penetrate them and has a higher organisation of letting us say 50 the organisation difference does not matter that much. In that case, the tank unit would be a quasi 60 organisation unit, and the defending unit would be a quasi 25 organisation. This means two things when taking into account armour organisation.

• It is extremely important to upgrade armour techs and manufacture up to date models to replace old ones. Having armour the enemy cannot penetrate means everything when it comes to their organisation performance in combat.
• Avoid light tanks if the enemy will have armour or anti-tank. Not only will the light tanks die in droves, but they will fight will none of the organisation combat mechanics bonuses that armour gets. Light tanks did have a role to play in the entire war but Hearts of Iron 4 being a grand strategy game cannot accurately reflect that which I do not mind. One thing they could do is make a unit with light tanks have bonuses to recon, but it is no big deal. If your going mobile warfare right tree having light SPA in some infantry units is not a bad idea, and you can convert light tanks into light SPA.

Todie said:

However, a low org tank division generally has enough brakethrough and armor to not take extra damage, and enough attack to deal it. Its explosive; it can run out of steam (org) but will them recover faster than the higher org divisions (so long as it dowsnt take too much str dmg from being pierced or whatever)

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Good point, although I would propose to lump these together, as that will ease analyitical comparison. Brakethrough, armor (and hardness) all result in less damage being taken. Org results in higher ability to sustain damage. If we can find a typical enemy (Soft and Hard Attack, Piercing), it becomes relatively easy to say which is better.

minimouse007 said:

i usually use forced attack with tanks,

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What for?

theokrat said:

Organisation is directly indicating your ability to stay in battle, so more is always better, and linearily so.

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I'll say that, while you're right, if your tank division is staying in battle very long, you're attacking the wrong point in the enemy line.

From my perspective, the tank's main role is to break through and then run wild beyond, facilitating encirclements.

Shadow86 said:

I'll say that, while you're right, if your tank division is staying in battle very long, you're attacking the wrong point in the enemy line.

From my perspective, the tank's main role is to break through and then run wild beyond, facilitating encirclements.

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They still need to be able to stand up to counterattacks though.

Since you're talking about mech and not mot, I'd not just consider ORG but also HP. The high HP and ORG Mechanized gives you allows you to stay longer in battle and take less casualties - which is the main downside of having only high org. What's more is that when you get late infantry weapon tech, mechanized become only stronger and stronger. Especially the hard attack and piercing buffs they get make them competitive with tanks.

I usually opt for a 1:1 ratio between mech and tanks and possibly throw a TD in there.

Compared to medium tanks, decked out Mech has 15 times the HP while Medium tanks have only 5 times more breakthrough and about twice the soft and hard attack. Mech even has higher piercing.

Assuming your tank division is a proper speed-oriented breakout unit built for securing encirclements and not a mixed inf/tank steamroller division, your primary concern for org is whether you're suffering a sizeable speed penalty from it. The speed penalty starts when your divisions hit less than 50% organization, and gets worse the closer to 0 you get. Breakout divisions suffer the vast majority of their org loss from taking enemy land, which gives (I believe) a flat -2 org hit per province to the division that captured the enemy territory. Hence, the optimal org of your tank divisions should be balanced around the following concerns:

• The division's flat max organization: The obvious. Having more gives you a bigger cache before you hit the 50% threshhold.
• Organization regain: Very underrated in these types of discussions. This is the primary determinant for org equilibrium in larger encirclements.
• Your tank division's speed: You obviously want this as high as possible, but the quicker your division is, the quicker it will take land and deplete its org. There's a world of difference between a '39 8 km/hr medium tank division and a 16.8 km/hr engine 5 light tank division. The faster the division, the more consideration you need to give to organization.
• How much organization the division actually loses when it takes land: Doctrines like Deep Battle can reduce it, as can other tactical considerations. For example, if you were to drop paratroopers in every other province along your spearhead route, your tanks will need to seize half as many provinces as they would normally.
• How big of encirclements you're chasing: Bigger encirclements will be more of a test of your equilibrium org. Smaller encirclements can rely on your cache of max org more reliably. This also interacts with the average size of provinces in the area you're working in (bigger average province size = org is less of a factor).
• How many divisions you have in each spearhead: If there are 2 tank divisions in your spearhead, they can take turns seizing territories. This halves the org impact on each division. In other words it doubles your max org cache and org regain stat. The number of divisions in your spearhead also interacts with supply/fuel issues.

Keen readers probably noticed that combat is not listed above as a major factor affecting organization. Combat during encirclements comes in 3 flavors:

• Initial breakout: Combat should not last long here, and it shouldn't cost more than a fraction of your tank divisions' total org. If it does, either you're attacking in the wrong area or your tank template needs tweaking. Alternatively, you can use force attack to completely negate the org loss here.
• Counterattacks: The AI will randomly throw divisions at your spearhead from time to time, but it should always be from the enemy frontline AI trying to rail divisions through your spearhead. This means you'll only have to deal with crappy infantry divisions at 10% org that you should be able to shatter in hours. If you're facing tougher counterattacks, you're either making tactical errors, or aren't playing SP (multiplayer has a different ecosystem).
• Mopping up: Speed is much less of a factor here since the enemy is already encircled. Enemy divisions will also get continuously weaker as their supply runs out, so time is on your side. There's little need to optimize for this situation.

My standard 9med/5mot/4spg divisions have ~25 org, and this is way more than I ever need if I play correctly. It's only when I start toying with pure engine 5 light tank templates that I start running into serious issues, but even they are manageable at <20 org if I don't overreach.

remanemporor said:

My standard 9med/5mot/4spg divisions have ~25 org, and this is way more than I ever need if I play correctly. It's only when I start toying with pure engine 5 light tank templates that I start running into serious issues, but even they are manageable at <20 org if I don't overreach.

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What is SPG? Does that make your width a width number?

jpinard said:

What is SPG? Does that make your width a width number?

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SPG = Self propelled gun (artillery).

I don't know what you mean by asking "does that make your width a width number", but the template I referenced above has a width of 40.

remanemporor said:

Counterattacks: The AI will randomly throw divisions at your spearhead from time to time, but it should always be from the enemy frontline AI trying to rail divisions through your spearhead. This means you'll only have to deal with crappy infantry divisions at 10% org that you should be able to shatter in hours. If you're facing tougher counterattacks, you're either making tactical errors, or aren't playing SP (multiplayer has a different ecosystem).

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The main issue why I think a 50:50 ratio of tanks to mech is preferable is because in multiplayer, your enemy is going to attack your tank divisions once they managed to pull off an encirclement. And a division heavy on tanks sucks at defending. It lacks HP, ORG and DEF. So many players make the mistake of underestimating mechanized units. Because mech gives your tank divisions another advantage: hardness.