Military Tutorial

Millennium Dawn changes how you design, produce, and organize military equipment. This guide explains the major differences from vanilla Hearts of Iron IV.

Table of Contents

• Military Equipment and Production
• Armored Vehicles
  • Vehicle Roles
• Air Force
• Navy
• Missiles and Strategic Weapons
  • Cruise Missiles
  • Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles
  • MRBM and ICBM
  • Missile Silos
• Military Production
• Division Template Designer
  • Combat Width
  • Support Companies
• Special Units
  • Helicopters
  • Special Forces
• Doctrines

Military Equipment and Production

⚠️ Important: Millennium Dawn cannot be directly compared with vanilla HOI4 when it comes to military equipment and production. The equipment design and production structure is significantly different.

Unlike vanilla HOI4, where a relatively small number of equipment types can cover most of your armed forces, Millennium Dawn lets you highly specialize your equipment. As a result, you will generally produce a much larger variety of equipment.

Do not expect to build your military the same way as in vanilla HOI4. Equipment specialization and careful production planning are much more important in Millennium Dawn.

Armored Vehicles

Millennium Dawn uses a generalized armored fighting vehicle hull rather than separate hull families for every vehicle role.

The modules you install determine what the vehicle becomes. Its weapon, armor, and specialized modules define its role and category. Most armaments are also categorized, making it easier to identify which type of vehicle a weapon is designed for.

Vehicle Roles

Using the vehicle designer, you can create:

• APCs: Armored Personnel Carriers
• IFVs: Infantry Fighting Vehicles
• MBTs: Main Battle Tanks
• LTs: Light Tanks
• SPARTs: Self-Propelled Artillery
• MLRS: Multiple Launch Rocket Systems
• SPAAs: Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Vehicles

Air Force

The Air Force functions similarly to vanilla HOI4, but air wing sizes are drastically reduced to better represent modern warfare and the high cost of modern aircraft.

There are three airframes. As with armored vehicles, the modules you install decide the role, and modules in the primary weapons slot largely determine what type of aircraft the airframe becomes.

Navy

The naval system resembles vanilla HOI4 in that you build each vessel around a hull, but Millennium Dawn provides a wider range of modern ship types.

Available ship hulls:

• Patrol Boats
• Corvettes
• Frigates
• Destroyers
• Cruisers
• Battlecruisers
• Battleships
• Aircraft Carriers

There is also a specialized hull that can be configured into an LTD, MHA, or LHA.

As with armored vehicles and aircraft, the modules equipped on the hull determine the ship’s capabilities and role.

Missiles and Strategic Weapons

Millennium Dawn features several types of missiles, each designed for a different purpose and range.

Cruise Missiles

Cruise missiles are primarily used for shorter-range conventional strikes. They can target infrastructure, industrial assets, and naval vessels at sea.

They work best against infrastructure and military installations, such as:

• Airfields
• Supply Depots
• Radar Installations
• Anti-Aircraft Emplacements
• Other strategic infrastructure

Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles

These are built for heavier conventional destruction. They can hit many of the same assets as cruise missiles, but they are at their best against industrial targets:

• Civilian Factories
• Military Factories
• Naval Dockyards

MRBM and ICBM

Medium and intercontinental ballistic missiles are your nuclear delivery systems. Unlike nuclear-armed aircraft, they do not need to be carried by an airplane. Launch them at your target and watch the world burn.

Missile Silos

All missile types can be launched from missile silos, which can be constructed in any state.

The higher the level of the missile silo, the more missiles it can hold, letting you keep a larger stockpile of ready-to-launch missiles.

Military Production

Because you will produce far more types of equipment than in vanilla HOI4, your military production needs considerably more planning and management.

The best approach:

1. Design your division templates first, or at least know the divisions you plan to field.
2. Check what equipment those divisions require.
3. Point your military factories at that equipment.

For example, MD offers several types of infantry battalions:

• Foot Infantry
• Motorized Infantry
• Heavy Motorized Infantry
• Mechanized Infantry, using APCs
• Armored Infantry, using IFVs

Your choice of infantry depends heavily on your industrial capacity, technology, and available equipment. A major nation with the capacity to mass-produce expensive equipment might field mostly IFV-heavy formations. A smaller nation with less technological prowess might invest in motorized forces, with a few divisions reinforced with mechanized infantry.

General rule: design your divisions, check their equipment requirements, then set up your production lines accordingly.

Do not produce equipment just because you can. In MD, inefficient production eats up your industrial capacity while leaving you short of the equipment you actually need.

Division Template Designer

Just as equipment designs can have a huge impact on combat efficiency, designing your division templates is equally critical.

Combat Width

Unlike vanilla HOI4, combat width in MD varies depending on the terrain.

As a rule of thumb:

• 36 and 40 width: works well for lighter formations
• 60 and 72 width: better suited for heavy formations

There are numerous battalion types you can add to a template, so watch combat width, organization, attack, defense, and breakthrough.

You will generally need some form of infantry in your divisions to maintain organization and balance out the organization loss caused by other battalion types.

Support Companies

MD features a large variety of support and regimental support companies. They specialize in different areas: some add soft attack, hard attack, or air attack, while others provide situational bonuses. Engineer Companies, for example, add combat efficiency in certain terrain types.

Do not expect to find a single perfect template. There are many possible combinations, and you will likely spend considerable time experimenting before finding what works best for your nation, technology level, and available equipment.

Special Units

Millennium Dawn features several types of specialized units and equipment not present in vanilla HOI4. Used correctly, they provide significant advantages.

Helicopters

Helicopters use a design principle similar to armored vehicles: the modules you install decide what the helicopter becomes. You can design:

• Attack Helicopters
• Armed Transport Helicopters

Armed transport helicopters are an alternative to the basic transport helicopters unlocked through research, letting you field a more expensive designed variant.

Several weapons and modules are available, so experiment to find combinations that suit your needs. Helicopters add decent firepower to your divisions when you build them into your templates properly.

Special Forces

Special Forces are divided into three branches: Army, Navy, and Air.

Army Special Forces: The basic Special Forces Battalion is relatively weak in conventional combat but well suited to raids. Ranger Battalions are a strong choice when you need specialized infantry for regular combat formations.

Navy Special Forces: These consist primarily of Marines, with several variants:

• Foot Marines
• Motorized Marines
• Mechanized Marines
• Armored Marine Infantry

Air Special Forces: Air Assault Infantry requires Transport Helicopters to operate. These units are extremely fast, but combining them with slower units reduces that advantage. You can also field Airmobile units:

• Mechanized Airmobile Infantry
• Armored Airmobile Infantry

Special Forces can significantly improve your divisions’ stats, especially when paired with the right doctrine. The special forces doctrine branch offers Mixed Command, Marine Focused, Airborne Focused, and Ranger Focused options, so pick the one that matches the branch you actually field.

Doctrines

Doctrines are an interesting part of Millennium Dawn, especially for ground forces, where you have two separate grand doctrine categories:

• Land (operational) Doctrines: how your forces fight
• Equipment Doctrines: what your forces are built around

Operational land doctrines include Combined Arms, Shock And Awe, Defence In Depth, Mission Command, Guerrilla Warfare, and Battlefield Support.

Equipment Doctrines come in several layouts, so each one rewards a different equipment and unit mix:

Always choose the doctrine that best suits your nation and army composition. There is no reason to pay for bonuses on equipment you are not using.

The same principle applies to Naval and Air Doctrines. Each provides different bonuses for specific types of equipment and units, so choose the ones that complement your military composition.