How use paratroopers in HOI4?

Today I will show you how paratroopers work in HOI4 and how effectively use them. This feature is one that I don’t use every time but paratroopers could be useful when needing a frontal invasion into the enemy’s rear.

Prepare for paratroopers

First, if you want to use paratroopers you must research them. This you could do on research (W) in the first section which is called “infantry” where are special forces. Where you could find the main research you could see at this screen:

There are 3 pieces of research on paratroopers. I don’t think that you must research paratroopers II or III but if you have empty research slots this could be a good upgrade for your troops.

Research	Year	What you get?
Paratroopers I	1936	You could train paratroops
Paratroopers II	1939	Soft attack: +5% and organization: +5
Paratroopers III	1943	Organization: +5

Transport planes

You must build some transport planes which will transport your paratroopers. But transport planes aren’t cheap so it’s a good start with them to have some. If you want to use the transport planes in the late game. There isn’t so much need to prepare because your economy will be better.

Tip: If you have DLC No Step Back I recommend you have transport planes even if you don’t plan on using paratroopers. Because these planes you could use as support for your troops.

Fighters

You want to build them from the start. I use basic or heavy fighters because when you will preparing paratroopers invasion you will need air superiority so you need a lot of fighters to help maintain dominance. I prefer heavy fighters because they have a bigger range so you have to build fewer airports.

Division template

When you have all units in preparation you will need to optimize your division. You could make changes like other templates. But if you add some “heavy” units to your template you can’t airborne with them. There is an icon that shows you if your paratroops will work or not.

So you could have a division created just from paratroopers. But what you could change/modify and how you could boost your paratroopers are in the “support” column. For me I adding support companies, military police, and hospitals.

On some sites are tips on how paratroops setup and there are three types of templates:

• 2 paratroops >> fast template for unexpected attacks
• 5 paratroops >> 10 width division for attack in the rear
• 10 paratroops >> 20 width division for frontal attacks

Training paratroopers tips

If you training paratroopers there is one thing which you must watch and calculate with it. There are limits on special forces you could have just 24 special forces divisions or if you have a large army you could have 5% of your non SF divisions so if you have 500 divisions you could have 25 special forces. So if you want more you will need more divisions.

After training, you must create a new “army” with a new general to centralize all of your divisions and you want to train them to elite status. After that, you want to centralize all of your new paratroopers in one airport from which you will deploy them.

General paratroopers traits

There are just one trait Paratroopers which have Extra Paratrooper Supply Grace: +240.0 Hour(s).

Or you could hire a commando general which could have +15% special forces attack or defense.

Prepare invasion

Preparing airdrop is easy. You must centralize your division at the airport which is near the target zones and if the airport is near to frontline so I recommend having other classic divisions around so you don’t get ambushed at the airport.

To be able to lead an attack from a given airport, you need to forward transport aircraft to it. And once you have both paratroopers and planes there, you can start planning the invasion.

There is a button on which you must click…

… after that, you select your airport from which you want to send paratroopers. And after that, you could select your destination…

…you must set the destination correctly because you’re gonna need to do some major intervention. Either you can send paratroopers into the cities one division at a time or take the enemy’s ports.

Alternatively, you can use paratroopers to cut off supplies to enemy units to simplify their elimination.

Air superiority

To paratroop invasion, you need air superiority of at least > 70% and you will need to have superiority in every country or air space where will your paratroopers fly. So you will need to split your fighters into smaller groups and secure all of the air space which your paratroopers will use.

If you won’t have air superiority in a specific country you could get info in which country if you hover on big X. The popup you could see on the image below:

Start invasion

When you have all things prepared and you have enough air superiority you could click on play and wait when your paratroops land at the final destination. But this isn’t all, yes you make good airborne but now you must support your units. So for the rest transport planes, you must set up to “support” and destination in a sector where you have paratroops.

Now you can do damage, but be careful as soon as the enemy notices you so after you quickly go. That’s why I recommend occupying some strategic place like a port and immediately sending more divisions to the area.

FAQ about paratroopers in HOI4

There are some questions about paratroopers in HOI4 that I find in forums. If you have any more questions about paratroopers let me know and I will extend this article!

How do you do the paratrooper invasion in HOI4?

1. Prepare troops (research, enough fighters, transport planes)
2. Prepare troops at the base (all from one, potential protection from normal divisions)
3. The select good target for your troops
4. Get air superiority
5. Attack!

Why can’t I train paratroopers HOI4?

Probably because you don’t have researched it. Or if you have this division there are limits on how many special divisions you could train. Simply, the limit is set to 24 so if you have for example mountain divisions or marines so you have to change them to classic divisions, and then you can train paratroopers.

Is paratroopers part of any DLC HOI4?

No, paratroopers are part of the core game.

How do you send troops across water HOI4?

If you need to send troops across the water you could prepare a paratroopers invasion with which you could conquest naval bases of your enemy and after that, you could send normal divisions on transport ships. Or you could prepare for the naval invasion which about I will write later.