HOI4 Meta Division Templates and Tank Designs

These are the division templates, tank designs, air designs and ship designs worth copying after Thunder at Our Gates and its Regimental Companies. Each one works in both the open beta and the live version. Build the infantry baseline first, then add tanks, special forces or armor as your industry and caps allow.

Quick answer

Start from a basic infantry template

Plain infantry needs no extra techs and costs almost nothing. Use it as-is for defensive divisions, for quiet fronts, and for important fronts where you win by putting a lot of divisions down.

Deploy battalions in groups of three. Before Thunder at Our Gates this made no difference. Now each group of three unlocks the Regimental Company slot 1:57. The slot does not grow with the battalion count, so a column of five battalions gives you exactly the same company as a column of three. Unlock the slot even if you leave it empty for now.

To turn the template into a real defensive line, run three columns of three and put heavy weapons companies in the regimental row. Three of them lift defense to 379, which is 180 more than the plain template 2:26.

From there, adjust to the front:

• Add support artillery when you need the division to deal more damage.
• Add support anti-air when the enemy holds air superiority over that front.

Make infantry hit hard with large unit tactics

Infantry can attack, but only with the right doctrine. Pure offensive infantry needs Large Unit Tactics 2:56. The result is cheap in production but expensive in manpower, so it suits countries with a large population and weak industry.

Build it in this order:

1. Pick the Large Unit Tactics doctrine required for pure infantry offense
2. Fill the line with infantry and add infantry guns to maximise soft attack
3. Use the flexible regimental slot for more soft attack, or for air attack if you lack air superiority situational
4. Add assault engineers and a medium flame tank for terrain modifiers 3:52
5. Add support artillery to cover infantry's weak soft attack
6. Add a field hospital to cut casualties and save manpower a must on any offensive infantry template
7. Finish with airborne light armor as the recon company more armor than regular armored recon · 4:19

The airborne light armor company is optional. A regular armored recon also works, but the airborne version adds more armor, and armor is the point here. With it, the division reaches a total armor of 10. Without the anti-air, the same template's piercing would be only 7, so armor at this level is enough to stop regular infantry from piercing you.

For the airborne light armor design, maximise soft attack and armor, the two stats that matter 4:48. If you have free slots, put armor skirts in one, since they raise both breakthrough and armor. Use the other for a smoke launcher if you want still more breakthrough.

Add armor, tanks or SPGs to infantry

Armored battalions turn infantry into a strong attacker. Groups of three are ideal here too, but not mandatory. A version with only three tank battalions has lower stats, costs much less, and still gets the armor and the anti-air regimental company 5:17.

Every version takes the same support line:

The light self-propelled anti-air regimental company can be built on the interwar light tank chassis, so it is cheap and available very early 6:13. It only unlocks when the division contains armored or motorized artillery, or motorized anti-tank battalions. That is why it rarely fits pure infantry, and why a few tank battalions make it possible.

The SPG version uses mountaineers because their much better organization lets the division carry more armored battalions. SPGs still have more soft attack than tanks, but the open beta nerfed them hard. They are now mostly worth building only with the self-propelled support subdoctrine, which still raises their soft attack and speed 7:11.

SPGs and tanks use the same design, so the saving is in how many you need, not in unit cost: 280 SPGs where the tank version needs 350 medium tanks 8:06. Take Cold Weather Specialists and the combat width settles at 35.6, which makes this the strongest infantry template available right now.

Design tanks and SPGs for infantry divisions

One hull design serves both the tank and the SPG. It is an infantry design, so speed is irrelevant and reliability matters a great deal 8:35.

• Reaching 95% reliability is overkill, even after the open beta buffed it. You can drop that module, depending on your MIO perks and doctrines.
• Keep the diesel engine. It trades speed you do not need for reliability you do.
• On a tank, take the best radio you can for a large breakthrough gain. On an SPG, breakthrough is massively nerfed, so the radio does much less.

The open beta also freed up a slot. A heavy machine gun now gives minus 4% soft attack, so the second one you would have fitted is no longer worth its production cost 9:04. Choose something else for that slot:

Reliability is the default pick 10:01. Infantry divisions suffer far more attrition than proper motorized ones, so low reliability on an infantry tank shows up as constant equipment losses.

Use mountaineers and special forces mixes

Pure mountaineers are the infantry template done better: stronger stats and much stronger terrain modifiers, pushed further by the assault engineers and flame tank 10:28. Two changes from the infantry layout:

• Swap logistics for a field hospital. Supply use is already low, and the hospital preserves manpower.
• Use recon rangers for still more terrain modifiers.

Normally you skip armor on the medium flame tank, because a flame tank takes minus 70% armor and the investment barely pays. This template has no other armor source, though, so armor it. The division then reaches 8.2 armor, almost all of it from the flame tank company, which is just enough against regular infantry 11:25.

Mountaineers and marines mix

Mixing marines into mountaineers gives the best land modifiers plus amphibious modifiers 11:54. In single player it is overkill; pure mountaineers are usually the better pick. If you build it:

• Drop assault engineers, because the marines bring pioneers.
• Keep recon rangers.
• Add artillery and super heavy artillery for soft attack.

Assault engineers, flame tanks and super heavy artillery are three special projects for the same land facility, so having all three is not realistic. Without assault engineers you need only two, which is very doable by 1940, so this mix can run both the flame tank and super heavy artillery.

Line artillery mountaineers

This variant swaps Cold Weather Specialists for Elevate the Mountaineers, which gives plus 20% soft attack to line artillery 12:51. Mountaineers cancel the terrain penalties that normally hold line artillery back. The template has very good organization and soft attack and falls a little short on breakthrough. In exchange it is much cheaper than tanks or SPGs and you can field it much earlier in a run.

Grow into your final template over a run

Early on, neither your special forces cap nor your industrial capacity will cover the 30 or 36 width templates 13:19. Build up to them:

1. Start with a well-optimised 15 width mountaineers template 13:48
2. If the cap will not cover even that, mix infantry battalions in with the mountaineers
3. Replace the infantry battalions with mountaineers as the cap rises
4. Expand to 30 width
5. Expand to 36 width for the end-game offensive template

Build fast armored divisions

The armored template combines strong stats with speed, and it works well even without the SPG subdoctrine. With this many armored battalions, low breakthrough stops being a problem and maximising soft attack is what counts 14:18.

Compared with armored templates from before Regimental Companies, remove one line of SPGs or tanks and add one line of motorized 14:46. That opens up better regimental company options:

The support designs follow the same rule:

• Flame tank: match the speed of your tanks and stop there. Fuel drums for capacity are optional; nothing else on it is worth investing in 15:45.
• Armored recon: speed must match the division, and the rest of its stats matter little because you take it for the modifiers. If you have one unlocked, add a module that raises hard attack and piercing, which your main tanks lack. That gives you an answer to the occasional enemy armored division 16:15.

Template marines, paratroopers and garrisons

Mountaineers are generally better than marines, so build marines mainly for naval invasions 16:43. A basic marine template or an 18 width one still gets excellent amphibious modifiers. If your country starts with marines, build them on the mountaineer templates above; they work the same way.

Paratroopers have the least room to customise. Make them 18 width with a couple of infantry guns, a field hospital and airborne light armor 17:13. That gives them some armor and decent enough stats to hold ground after they land.

Garrisons are a standard garrison cavalry template. Nothing about them changed.

Choose air and naval designs

Air

With a range-oriented MIO, drop the range module on the fighter and fit another armor plate to improve its air defense 17:42.

On CAS you can swap the dive brakes for a third heavy bomb blocker. You gain ground attack and lose some air defense, which matters less on CAS 18:10. Bomb blocks also handle naval bombing decently.

Navy

Torpedo destroyers are the single-player meta. If you only make one ship design all run, make this one 18:33.

Pair them with light attack heavy cruisers carrying no armor, rather than light cruisers, which would give you a double layer of screens 18:40. Armor is wasted on them: heavy guns would pierce it anyway, and in the second row light piercing barely matters. The cruisers shred the enemy front line and the destroyers shred everything else. Make a heavy cruiser your pride of the fleet to use line of battle.

Submarines only distract enemy navies now. The exception is a dedicated cruiser or fleet submarine with anechoic tiles. Its visibility drops low enough to harass enemy fleets, especially in deep oceans 19:40.

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