Military forces Hearts of Iron IV Guide
Last update: 06 July 2016
In this chapter you will find detailed information about all military forces in the game. The chapter especially focuses on modifiers assigned to specific missions.
Modifiers
First I would like to describe modifiers used by units. On the above picture you can see that after opening land units panel you can check full information related to used modifiers and the total number of units you're using. Of course, specific units, thanks to the support battalions, can have different bonuses to selected statistics.
Name | Base | Commentary |
Land Night Attack | -50% | Land night attack is dangerous for your units. Limited range of sight has great impact on effectiveness of your units and with an unlucky course of events it can quickly lead to destruction of your army. You can reduce the negative effects with doctrines that concentrate on night vision research. |
Divisions speed | 0% | No big surprises here. Armies are moving with regular speed if they don't encounter any obstacles related to shape of the terrain. With some doctrines you can greatly speed up the time needed for army to travel between regions. |
Planning speed | 100% | During the game you can change the speed of realizing plans for all land units. In order to do it you must develop specific doctrines. Planning speed is especially useful when you plan a defense forced by sudden invasion of enemy forces. |
Entrenchment speed | 100% | After securing a position each unit will create trench. This greatly improves army defenses and thanks to speeding up the process army will increase its defenses faster. |
Max Entrenchment | 5 units | Trench level provides you with a modifier to defense parameters. Depending on maximum level with which the units are creating trenches you will obtain bonuses. If you are waging a defensive war then you should think about doctrines which will greatly strengthen this process. |
Experienced soldier losses | 100% | Units that aren't regularly trained after some time lose collected experience. It's similar with adding new soldiers to the army in place of the fallen ones. Using field hospitals for each available division can modify this factor to your advantage. |
Effect of our partisans | 100% | If you're unable to perform any open actions in order to reclaim lost grounds, then you should start some rebel actions. Size of this modifier can be changed with military doctrines. |
Air support | 100% | Air support is helpful in case of every type of military actions. Thanks to this indicator you can determine whether a cooperation of land and air forces will be effective. Size of this indicator is determined by land and air doctrines. |
Reinforce Rate | 2% | Determines the number of daily equipment and military supplements. In this case the indicator is rather low and you can increase it slightly by developing technology that increases communication level. |
Supply Consumption | 100% | Supplies usage impacts how much supplies your army needs and how quickly after the military operation starts it will call for equipment change. The lower the meter, the longer the army will fight by using the same equipment. |
Division Attrition | 100% | Not all wounds received by soldiers during military operations have to be lethal. The base indicator kills each wounded soldier, but if you add one field hospital to the division, you can reduce the number of soldiers dying on the frontlines. |
Out of supply | 100% | With this indicator you can determine how much equipment the whole army must lose in order to show serious lack of equipment and obtain a priority of supplies transport. The indicator can be modified with land doctrines. |
Supply Grace | 72 hours | Useful information during alighting. It determines the time after which the army starts losing effectiveness when it is cut from supply lines. The basic value is three days, but with technologies and supply usage reduction it can be increased. |
Air forces
In air forces panel you will find detailed modifiers which determine various actions related to using air forces.
All modifiers have basic value 100% which can be modified by using available air forces doctrines. You won't be able to specialize your units in each available mission type, so you should think wisely about which one to choose. The most important statistics are related to ground support, domination, capturing and bombing. Other matters have rather situational importance, but if you manage to obtain bonus, you should use it and start some actions related to using the reinforcement.
Navy
In case of navy doctrines you won't find as many modifiers available as in case of other types of military forces. Usage of navy is rather situational and it doesn't have permanent impact on conquered territories or victory points. All navy actions are rather concentrated on securing convoy routes and on occasional battles between fleets if you block enemy port. In case of navy the variety of base level for specific actions is so big that it must be shown in the table.
All actions related to modifiers are also orders which you can give to navy units.
Name | Base | Commentary |
Escort efficiency | 0% | Due to the basic statistics your convoys are hopeless, but you can improve shield effectiveness with various modifiers. With the basic value the ships will allow the convoy to swim, but they won't be able to cover them in case of danger. |
Sortie efficiency | 50% | Missions of planes located on aircraft carriers can focus on capturing enemy strategic planes and neutralizing them. This can greatly help in defending airports and coastal cities from bombardments. |
Naval Targeting | 0% | The base value is so low that your fleet can be very easily attacked by enemy. Lack of detection means that you won't be able to quickly target enemy ships and fight them. You should improve this modifier for your own safety. |
Port Strikes | 100% | Effectiveness of attacking port will increase the damage dealt to land structures and to ships docked in ports. You should increase this factor before damaging ports on islands can cut off the enemy from supplies for long time and weaken his land army. |
Carrier Overcrowding | 100% | Each aircraft carrier has specific capacity of crafts that can be effectively transported by using it. In case of overload the situation is similar as in case of aircraft bases. Accidents while starting are frequent causing you to lose units and the mission effectiveness is much lower. By increasing this parameter you can greatly improve the functionality of sea planes. |
Convoy Raiding Efficiency | 100% | Tracking and destroying convoys is a very effective way of cutting enemy forces from supply convoys. By doing so you can also prevent an invasion on your waters. You should increase this factor and not allow the enemy to take your water borders. |
Naval Invasion Capacity | 0 | The basic parameters don't allow you to transport land units with transport ships. Only after developing some technologies the convoy ships can fit a specific number of soldiers. You should improve this indicator so that it won't block all the available convoys with soldiers. Otherwise you can easily block trading options until you produce new ships. |
Infantry orders
In case of land forces you will find some specialized orders for each unit type. Below you will find description of specific orders assigned to military forces with important advices.
Order | Notes |
Naval Invasion | You will need a few things to successfully complete this order. Most of all, you must have at least one port on your territory. It is better to have a few of them because only one army can prepare for landing in one port simultaneously. You must also set the landing destination of armies. In addition to convoys that will transport armies you must have ships that will be positioned on seas through which the armies will swim. With no cover on the sea the landing won't be completed - this is why you should have at least a few units which will protect your forces. You should assign navy infantry for this task because this is the only unit type that won't lose durability during transportation. |
Paratroop | For a parachute drop you need proper planes which have no offensive power but they can transport special forces. You will also need to have air domination above the drop area - without it the air units won't decide to complete the operation. First you must select airbase in which the special forces will prepare for the operation and then you must select landing zone for parachutes. |
Front Line | In order to regroup units and allow them to trench, you should create a frontline. The longer the line, the greater dispersion of divisions of the selected army. Frontline can be only selected based on existing borders with other country. Large dispersion of forces weakens their effectiveness but has positive impact on supplies distribution. You should create a frontline even if you're not at war so that the units are ready for possible invasion. |
Offensive line | With this order you plan the main assault. You should appoint offensive line based on division dispersion across the line. Finally you set a path for them through which they will move through enemy territory. First you should always check the shape of terrain and if there are some additional factors which could slow down the march of some units and lead to break of the formation. When assigning offensive line, the units will regroup on frontline and the phase of invasion planning will start. The quicker you do it, the better the units will be prepared to realization of the plan. Once you reach full planning level, you should grade the plan and react to information received from scouts. |
Fallback line | During defensive actions you can create a retreat line for your units. If enemy assault is too strong, then your units will regroup in the point you selected and they won't retreat any further. It is very useful if you're regrouping units from different regions simultaneously and you don't want to waste forces before the backup is at specific position. It is worth adding that units with specific retreat line won't lose organization modifiers while retreating. You can set a retreat line at any place of your territory without worrying about the shape of the borders. |
Garrison area | If due to expansive actions you taken over a territory, you have full freedom of organizing further invasion and enemy forces are weakening, you can create a garrison for selected province. The army will disperse through the selected territory. It will control supply routes and neutralize rebels. |
Armored units
By technology research you can find a few different models for each tank. Each model has different statistics. As you develop new advancement levels for a specific model, the statistics become better and better. You should understand how various tank types differ - they have specific statistics which determine their application during military actions.
In this guide I decided to focus on this unit type because it is most characteristic and it has the greatest application of all units available during game. Development model of these units and available modifications are similar in case of air and navy units.
Type | Notes |
Light | Very low armor-related and defensive statistics. Effective against other light armored vehicles and against infantry. Thanks to the light armor the tank can have quite decent speed. |
Medium | A unit that is definitely stronger against armored vehicles. The difference in attack against infantry isn't noticeable, but the vehicle is much slower. |
Heavy | A strongly armored and slow unit. In this case differences between attacking unarmored and armored units are noticeable. |
Super Heavy | The heaviest and slowest land unit in the game. Strong armor and massive damage will break every defense, but you must remember that this unit moves even 5 times slower than heavy tank. |
Modern | A tank which combines the traits of all previous unit types. It's completely versatile and you should equip your army with this unit type. |
Tank Destroyer | As the name suggests, it's a unit focused on destroying other armored vehicles. Almost ineffective against infantry but with high modifiers to armor penetration and tank damage. |
SP Artillery | Small cannon used to shoot at infantry. Cannot endanger armored vehicles, but thanks to high moving speed can effectively break infantry formation. |
SP Anti-Air | Anti-aircraft cannon on a turret. Used mostly for attacking planes and neutralizing enemy domination in the air. Moves very quickly but is an easy target for enemy tanks. |
Units from this group can be additionally personalized by using army experience points. Through modification you can change unit armor level, its power or speed. There are some limitations related to personalization, for example if you add some armor then the unit will become slower. In that case you can improve engine statistics to reduce the losses. You can change 4 different traits of the tank, there are five levels available for each. Of course it isn't cheap, changing each parts of one model can cost more than 300 experience points.