Rants

Brace yourself, Ogi is going to rant about military history.

Granted, I may be slightly inebriated, and I am aware of my bias towards the US, but rant I must.

First of all, rocket rails. They should give bonuses towards naval strike. Why? Because in Reynolds' The Fast Carriers, he references how Navy pilots referred to the 5" HVAR as "Holy Moses", and the 12" HVAR as "Tiny Tim". In fact, one of the reasons to equip carrier planes with rockets was to essentially give them a one-shot broadside as powerful as a destroyer. As an additional note, Thatch commented about how the four .50s of a Wildcat allowed him to work over a Japanese destroyer very well, but even I think having HMGs add naval attack is a bit much.

Second, Training Within Industry. The War Manpower Commission instituted it in June 1940, right after France fell, and the goal was to get America onto a war footing, and be able to train a large amount of people in very complex manufacture very quickly. In the first example they took on, lens grinders took about five years to bring up to snuff as of June 1940. By the end of 1940, they shortened that to six months. By 1945, that was brought down to six weeks. War Manpower Commission should be an additional US focus that should give additional Production Efficiency Cap, Retention, and Growth. Is it broken AF? Yes. Is it historical? Also yes. If you want to learn more about TWI, and don't mind a bit of a tough read, I would recommend Dinero's TWI: The Foundation of Lean.

Third, women calculators. Now, this might fall into the Superior Firepower doctrine the US embraced, but I would argue it's Superior Firepower plus. Basically, in the interwar years, the Army had a bunch of women do a stupid amount of calculations. Those calculations were then translated into tapes. Tapes that artillery battalions could take out and use to measure on maps when they received calls for fire that would factor in stuff. Need to drop arty when the wind is coming from South South West at 5MPH? There's a tape for that. Need to drop arty when the wind is coming from North North East at 15MPH? There's a tape for that. That was a huge reason why the US was able to drop such accurate artillery fire so quickly; US artillery batteries didn't need to calculate from scratch, they just needed to adjust from whatever the tape said. I have no idea how this would be implemented in HoI4.

Fourth, aerial radar. I know for a fact that the P-47 had some sort of radar to warn the pilot when something was on his six. This would probably manifest in some sort of air-defense-for-production-cost deal, but it was a thing in like '44 or '45, so figure fairly late radar. Point is, there should be something that can utilize radar to increase fighter survivability.

Fifth, carrier raiding. Throughout the Pacific War, a feature of US Navy operations was the carrier raid. Starting in early 1942, and running at least until late 1944, US carriers would launch strike packages whose goals were more than just striking ships. Sure, in the 1943 Rabaul raid, they worked over the Japanese cruisers parked in Rabaul's harbor, but carrier raids were far more than that. Again, I would direct you to Reynolds, but carrier raids also struck defensive positions, fighters on airfields, and infrastructure (port and airfield). This is what American carriers were doing throughout the war. Again, is it broken AF? Yes. Is it historical? Also yes. Carriers allow you to project power, full stop. HoI 4 should add a "Carrier Raid" mission where carriers just go out and mess things up.

Sixth, carrier CAS. In short, carriers should be able to contribute their air wings in the Naval Invasion Support mission. As of right now, it's an obnoxious bit of micromanagement to park your carrier force off wherever you're fixing to invade and set the air wings to do their thing. Historically, carriers (especially CVLs) lent themselves to providing close air support for Marines hitting the beaches.

This concludes my ranting, for now.