Soviet Rifle Brigades

[AlbertN]

Whether the combat engine overly favors quantity is a different question. If it does, that is a combat engine problem, not a rules/realism problem with adding brigades as SUs.

But if the problem is that the combat engine overly favors quantity over quality, removing some quantity (limiting the addition of brigades as SUs) could be part of a (at least partial) solution.

This is what I try to get at.
It is -one- among the various macro-issues present; which can well led to a situation where 'End of '43, Soviet flag over the Reichstag' happen.

[Wiedrock]

I don't think that the discussion above suggests any problem with how the game is at the moment? At least in terms of adding brigades as SUs

Not in general, one "X"-sized SU is fine but 3x3per Hex which adds about +50% of the Combat Units Manpower for me is overkill. Especially considering the large Ground Element Number added by such formations (Rifle Brigades), like their AT-Rifle Squads which are bloating those numbers and are soaking up large amount of shots.
Just look through some of the AARs and see what Soviets use as SU, small SUs are just waste of slots and therefore end up in TBs or being disbanded or never built altough being free to built.
Like, why would someone build/add 20 AT Guns (50 Ground Elements) in a AT Regiment which may kill 2 Tanks if you could just add 550 Ground Elements by a Rifle Brigade which even if they'd had no Guns at all, would still be better in soaking up shots and causing more tank losses due to retreat when winning.

If we assume that 1 corps = 3 divisions and 1 div = 2 brigades then a maxed out 3 Corps with 3 Bdes would be equivalent to around 12 divisions. If the German hex contains 2 divisions this would be a 6:1 force ratio.

....And that's exactly my point.
1Hex vs 1 Hex you can think about and calculate the numbers to somehow make sense (if you take the 18km) ...well as I pointed out I already struggle there...or they are little higher for balancing reasons which is also fine. But once you step out and add other Hexes/angles of Attack everything falls apart when using 2 or latest when you take 3 Hexes. Sure there's Reserve Activation and SUs but that's fully RNG based, so we can only rly calculate with what's 100%. Most likely attack you can get is a 2sided or 3sided one, so you end up with (using your generous calculation)
2*12=24Division-equivalents versus 3Divisions, so (using your system) a 8:1
12*3=36Division-equivalents versus 3Divisions, so (using your system) a 12:1
So your generous rounded explanation/immersion/math holds up until you reach Attacker hex number 3.
And yes I am ignoring German SUs completely, since the larger ones are small in number compared to hundrets of Soviet Brigade sized SUs they are neglectable/can't be present everywhere.

Whether the combat engine overly favors quantity is a different question. If it does, that is a combat engine problem, not a rules/realism problem with adding brigades as SUs.

And at that point this comment comes into place. Since there's only so many shots/hits possible for a defender. So even if you'd remove all capabilities of shooting for the attacker (like the stacking penaltie times 100), the Attack will still win due to having still more CV left in the end than the Defender (even tho the defender often retreats with still 70% or so ammo and 50% of Ready Ground Elements left).


In other games you may have some kind of "combat widths", so attacking with 20 Divisions means only 5 can fight, once you open another attacking axis, the 5 increases to 10....and so on or similar ways thinkable. That's what's "missing" but it is replaced by:

1. Hex arrangement limits
2. Combat Units per Hex
3. Stacking penalties

And as said before I feel that:

1. It needs to be clear what exactly a Hex represents (other than 10miles). For me it'd be somewhat clear how the Hex numbers add up (but that's just me as it seems).
2. 3 is the cap, but a Brigade increases the Manpower of the Corps (~31,000 manpower) by ~5100 manpower. This times three ~15k gives a ~150% Corps....and this times three ofc. gives a 3x150% Corps = 4.5 Corps equivalents per Hex.
3. As stated before, I assume the brigade sized SUs are negating the effect (altough it's hard to know since due to general RNG and the unknown scaling of stacking penalties).
   But even if they wouldn't negate the effect or actually add their value to the modifier, since it doesn't change the actual CV you probably could still win by just having way more elements left than the enemy, so a 9:1 Odds would just become a 3:1 or so, since Axis usually only hit like 6-10k elements (out of often ~22k-30k+).

IMHO the discussion about hex length and attacking from multiple sides is a bit of a red-herring. The force ratios in Wiedrocks first extract are per km. In reality as in the game where there are salients in the front line an attacker might choose to attack a unit from two sides rather than having each section of the line attack the section directly opposite. In that situation the force ratios would be much larger than the per km figure.

My brain fails me here, I have no idea what you mean.
For sure we can not pinpoint everything to the last inch, but for me a 2 or 3 sided attack should at least make some sense when looking up the numbers, and for me it doesn't even do this using one Hex.
Maybe you mean something like adding a bonus when attacking from multiple directions? Like 1 Division each Hex in a Attack is better than 3 Divisions in one Hex in an Attack?

Wiedrock, a very interesting table (GERvsSOV_ratios.png) about force ratios in the 1943 Kharkov and Kursk battles. What book is it from?

Don't own it myself. It's from "War by Numbers" by Christopher Lawrence.

[Rexzapper]

Don't own it myself. It's from "War by Numbers" by Christopher Lawrence.

Thanks

[Sammy5IsAlive]

@ Wiedrock - sorry I'll try and re-explain my point.

You've used those Bagration numbers as your 'realistic' standard for unit densities and argue that by adding rifle brigades the Soviet player can achieve densities that are much higher than this standard.

My point is that the Bagration unit densities are comparing front line with front line and do not necessarily represent the force ratios actually found in combat.

To give a straightforward example. Say you have a straight front of 20km with 2 units on one side and 5 on the other (units of equal strength). For the example lets say that to win a battle you need a 3:1 advantage. If the attacking side concentrates it's forces equally along the front line it only has a 2.5:1 advantage. But if it leaves one unit to defend 10km of front and then uses the other 4 to attack it will be able to get a 4:1 advantage, without the risk of the defender being able to counter attack against it's weaker front.

So in this example the force ratio across the front line is 2.5 : 1 but the force ratio in the actual combat is 4:1.

I'm not necessarily saying that you are wrong in terms of your end conclusion - more that I think that the reasoning you have used to reach that conclusion is flawed.

[Wiedrock]

@ Wiedrock - sorry I'll try and re-explain my point.

Ahh, got it, thanks for elaborating. Indeed this isn't possible to simulate at small scale "inside one Hex" in the game. This can only be achieved at larger scales.
Like using a Hex to make a 3-Hex attack instead of using it to make a second 2-Hex attack.
Or deciding where to push with (multiple) Assault HQs along the front (even larger scale).

[Wiedrock]

1. Numbers/History
   Can someone share some insights and/or sources related to the evolution of the Soviet Rifle Brigades? And their numbers "in existance" over time. Since in game we can build/have (183/148/118/42/20) of them.
   
   Meanwhile we can build/have 465/469/8/8 Rifle Divisions, so as an example - in 1942 I am wondering if not some of those 148 Rifle Brigades were/became actually parts of Rifle Divisions or Corpses (2/41/193/209) rather than being independedent Units forever?!
   
   From what I've found the idea was to create them since it's faster than creating a whole Division but somehow most of them in the end were either destroyed or used to form Divisions or Corpses already in 1942. But Destroying them by Shattering/Surrendering (while them being SUs) is....impossible, right?! (I am outruling the pocket/isolation system here!)
   Using Niehorsters Kursk OOB for the Soviets I can see many Tank Brigades, some Motroized Infantry Brigades, but rarely Rifle Brigades (I did not count them). Worth mentioning that sometimes they were used as a third unit of a Corps, so only 2 Divisions + 1 Brigade in the Corps.
   
   More infos appreciated!!!

German Intel report in the Nafziger Collection.
https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital ... 5392/rec/1

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US Document, note that the Rifle Brigade is somehow missing in the table of contents.

page III-10

b..png (108.35 KiB) Viewed 718 times

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The great expansion of the brigades, however, came shortly after the war began.
The new, simpler divisions of July 1941 had been mandated in order to speed up the activation of new units. Such was the need for new infantry units to slow down the German blitzkrieg, however, that an even quicker expedient was needed. The result was a new type of formation in the Soviet Army - the
infantry brigade.
This organizational format was purely a stopgap measure designed to field combat-capable infantry units in a shorter period of time than it took to organize and train the more complex infantry divisions.
The personnel for these units were found from a variety of sources. Of 250 rifle brigades formed by the Red Army, thirty-seven were Navy rifle brigades made up of sailors and nineteen were student or cadet (kursantskie) rifle brigades formed by conversion of training units. Establishment of these expedient formations began in September 1941 and, except for a few anomalous units, the process ended in April 1942.
Essentially, an infantry brigade was one-third of an infantry division, consisting of an infantry regiment, an artillery battalion and smaller support units. Most of the early TO&Es for an infantry brigade are not available; they appear, however, simply to have taken a close variant of the standard divisional infantry regiments (TO&Es Nos 04/401, 04/601 and 04/751) as their baseline, modifying them by centralizing the mortars in accordance with the October 1941 amendment to the standard TO&Es and adding some support units.

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However, the urgent needs of the front could not be met by the new rifle divisions alone. To supplement them Stavka also ordered the formation of independent rifle brigades, which could be set up even more quickly. Those raised in 1941 and early 1942 mostly had three rifle battalions and whatever support units could be scraped up; the diagram accompanying this article depicts an average 1941 organization. Later they received a fourth rifle battalion and their table of organization was formalized. Over 400 rifle brigades were raised during the war and those not destroyed in combat—as many were—were mostly upgraded to divisions.

[Wiedrock]

http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/Boevo ... tavSA.html
Thanks to Teo who gave me this link.

[Wiedrock]

I randomly chose 3 Months in 1942 and one month in early 1943, couldn't find the independent number of 143 from looking at those three+one so far.
September 1942 they had about 170 Rifle Brigades (including Rifle/Naval/Militia) of which about 131 were Independent Rifle Brigades (see screen).

Furthermore the Limit of 183 in 1941 is questionable since first of all, you won't be able to build them due to the high cost of 8AP per Brigade, second is that their number (using this page as a Source) was far from being 183 in 1941. Their numbers given peaks during December with a number of 103.

[CaedusZ]

Some suggestions to fix them:
1. Reduce building limits of rifle brigades.
2. Enforce building limits after they get reduced as the time progresses.
3. Limit the amount brigades/support units in general that can be directly assigned to Rifle Corps to 1.
4. Add stacking penalties for assigned suport units.