OIL

[Aurelian]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... 86/RMF.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_inv ... ria_(1945)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2% ... nsequences

Doesn't get the attention it should.

[aspqrz02]

Indeed, thanks for the references, the US one from Global Security is one I had not seen before, though I knew, in general terms, that the Soviet advances in Manchuria at the end of the war were well conducted, speedy, and overwhelmed the Japanese, even granting that the Kwangtung Army of 1945 was a shadow of the pre-war one.

Phil

[barbarrossa]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz





As I said, the problem with your statement was, is, and remains, that it implies that the only accepted understanding of Russian mobile operations in WW2, for the whole of the war, is basically, to paraphrase, brute force and ignorance ... whereas it is clear that, as I said, not all historians agree with such a position.

Which you tenaciously, and with what can only be termed -- intellectual dishonesty ---continue to claim no matter what I say to the contrary, assigning words to me that I haven't used.

Which means, as I said, all I have to do is present one historian who disagrees ... which Glantz and House certainly do, despite your unique spin on their statements.


By all means, since you have an extensive library of books on the topic, feel free to peruse all those you have by Glantz and/or House and find where they specifically contradict what I pointed out ... in a work dated later than WTC, of course ... and then we will both be happy.

You set your own goal posts, then claim I said the Soviets never, ever, never, ever, made anything but a mass frontal attack. Then you erect this ridiculous hoop for me to jump through. Can't be anyone else it has to be the Col! Nothing else will do, it will just be ignored. And... and.... and... and it must be subsequent to WTC! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket yeah!

Only a healthy dose of intellectual dishonesty allows you to do this. You put words in my mouth and construct straw men for me to knock down, and, then, without ever addressing the how's and why's of where this whole thing started, construct what I must do to convince you using your rules and your parameters -- borderline impossible.

But you already know that. That's why you came up with them. Clever.

So your contention, following your logic, is that, When Titans Collided is the penultimate work concerning the Russo-German war 1941-45, trumping all others. If I was as intellectually dishonest as you, and followed the same smarmy tactic, this is what I would say.

But here, we are again. I'll play your silly game.

I suppose this is someone else just flying off at the lip with nothing to back it up, (Walter S. Dunn, Soviet Blitzkrieg -- The Battle for White Russia 1944, 2000) "Most Soviet victories were the result of overwhelming the Germans with superior numbers of men and machines in frontal attacks, which were demanded by the need for quick results..."

More blather: Tony Le Tissier, Zhukov at the Oder, The Decisive Battle for Berlin, 1996) "The Russian style of fighting basically still involved using troops on a massive scale, flooding the battlefield with men in successive waves, advancing shoulder to shoulder, attacking time after time with complete disregard for casualties until the objective was gained. In the latter part of the war they were also able to use tanks in the same manner and to prepare the way with earth shattering bombardments from massed artillery and rocket launchers."

Still, even more irrelevance: Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., The German Defeat in the East 1944-1945, 2001)"Then came the ground assault. The Soviets struck along a three hundred mile front with fourteen armies -- 118 rifle divisions in all. On the front line, they faced only thirty-four understrength German divisions. Although they struck all along the front, they focused on six break-in sectors, where they concentrated seventy-seven divisions. In thses sectors, the Red committed a rifle division along every mile and a half to two miles of front --an average of 1,210 infantrymen per mile.The Germans met them with 131 men per mile. At the front, the Soviets had an infantry superiority of between nine and ten to one in infantry, thirty-five to one in artillery, and fifty-eight to one in fighter aircraft. Their superiority in armor was nearly as great."

Some clown named Max Hastings in Armageddon, The Battle for Germany 1944-45, 2004, "Soviet generals persisted with assaults after losses that would have caused any Anglo-American operation to be broken off."

Until then, as I said, it would have been better if you understood that it is rare, if not unheard of, in historiography to find any issue on which there is no revisionist or dissenting point(s) of view ...

A little patronization for kicks.

Your statement requires you prove every historian agrees with your claim, all I have to do ... and what I have done, despite your constant waffling on about supposed straw men ... is to show that there is at least one historian who does not agree with your claim.

So you say. My statement stands, the Soviets hit and hit hard when breaking the front open, that's all I've ever said.

When I asked you for something contrary, you trotted out Glantz et al (gotta laugh at that, but it makes you sound smart, somehow) with some contextless example of a batallion or two's worth of infantry infiltration of the more than likely thinly-held line and you say this disproves my contention that the Soviets hit with everything.

It's going to take a lot more than that.

So far, G/H in WTC do not, which makes your claim invalid ... the rest is mere puffery ... [8|]

And a little insult at the end. Class.

[darbycmcd]

I still think the arguement is mostly semantic for you guys, but Barbarossa, here is the comment you made that kicked it off,

They overwhelmed with numbers, not pretty or tactically sophisticated. But the brute force usually got the job done. (post 98)

I admit that I had about the same reaction as aspqrz. The problem is it reads as though you are saying they had no sophistication and relied ONLY on brute force (the word brute is important). Now it is absolutely true that Soviet doctrine focused on mass and concentration of force, but that is not a lack of sophistication. If you had said ' they overwhelmed with numbers, not pretty or overly complex tactics. But concentration of force usually got the job done' you would have said materially the same thing, but in a less condescending (to the soviet planners) way.

You also fail to differentiate between tactical and operational doctrine. I would agree that the Soviet tactical doctrine bordered on simplistic (just my opinion), which is far more in keeping with at least the Le Tissier quote. But even your other quotes do not show lack of OPERATIONAL sophistication, merely a different calculus with regard to casualties / terrain gained.

A lot of this arguement between you boils down to this problem of term control. You both have a good idea of what you are talking about, but you are using slightly different words and creating ill-will where none is needed. Be clear about 'operations' vs 'tactics' and 'brute' vs 'concentration of' force. Both you guys are about 100000% better than the more frequent and less informed posters who haunt this game's board, so I don't want either of you to go off in a huff!

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

As I said, the problem with your statement was, is, and remains, that it implies that the only accepted understanding of Russian mobile operations in WW2, for the whole of the war, is basically, to paraphrase, brute force and ignorance ... whereas it is clear that, as I said, not all historians agree with such a position.

Which you tenaciously, and with what can only be termed -- intellectual dishonesty ---continue to claim no matter what I say to the contrary, assigning words to me that I haven't used.

That's the thrust of the cite you provided.

And, despite two more cites that say the more or less the same thing, that still doesn't make it the one and only opinion that is held by historians, or, indeed, by the US Army ... which is all I have been saying all along.

And, personally, I wouldn't have thought that pointing out that historians rarely completely agree to any specific statement about historical events was not condescending, merely a statement of objective reality ... if you see it another way then I can only state that it wasn't intended that way and apologise for any misunderstanding that may have been created by a lack of clarity on my part.

So, as it stands, Glantz and the US Army don't agree with your three cites ... but, as I have been trying to point out, that isn't through a fault on your part in understanding what you have read, merely in overemphasising an aspect of it that, semantically or otherwise, cannot really be justified 100%.

Whereas I have been somewhat more carefully limited by merely noting that, as I said, not every historian agrees with the statement you have made, or, indeed, with the historians you have cited (for the reason noted above) ... which doesn't make what they have written wrong, merely an opinion not universally held (or, to look at it in the reverse, if it makes you feel happier, G/H in WTC and the US Army report are also expressing opinions ... ones not, obviously, universally held ... but I very carefully never said or implied that they were, either [;)]).

Phil

[aspqrz02]

oops, another duplicate post ... deleted again.

[PMCN]

*elbows a post in about oil edge wise*

I just looked in my game. Turn is 55, I started under 1.01 or so and 3 turns back upgraded to 1.05 from 1.02 so that may account for what I see though I didn't think oil got played with much in the updates.

My fuel stockpile is: 3 600K or 3.6M or 3,600,000 fuel (this isn't a typo)
My fuel production is: 44.7K per turn
My oil stockpile is: 120K
My fuel in units is: 110K
My fuel dumps in HQ is 22K

I don't know what my fuel use is but realistically it just can't be anywhere near to what I am producing (44.7K).

But just looking at my stockpile, and even assuming I need 110K fuel per turn (which is nonsense since I don't produce half that much) it would take me the better part of a year to run out of fuel assuming my production dropped by 75%. The 24 turns reported before are clearly insufficent...especially given my oil stockpile which would hold out for 3 turns before I started loosing production. Then since I am still producing oil and hence fuel...I could loose the southern fields and it would be the better part of a year before a fuel crissis developed. And that is assuming I have 110K fuel per week demand and I suspect that is a good factor of 5 too high.

So realistically with the current supply of fuel I have I am good for 1-5 years if a Nazi deathray was to obliterate the oil production in Baku and the regions nearby. Unless I am completely out to lunch which is possible but the situation does look straight forward.

But I don't have many units that use fuel in significant quantities: 20 or so tank corps, a further 10-20 tank Bde, 8 Motorized Bde (this is growing admittedly), 30+ Rgt sized units (mostly motorcyle Rtg). So I would guess my airforce is what drives the demand not my ground troops.

I don't think it is realistic that you can accumulate what amounts to a 3 billion litre surplus of fuel...that is a lot of fuel barrels and tank farms. Production should throttle to demand. There should be some buffer but 3,600,000 fuel is a "tad" excessive. Since the numbers aren't seperated in the report I never noticed how large that pool was...

[wulfgar]

My fuel stockpile is: 3 600K or 3.6M or 3,600,000 fuel (this isn't a typo)
My fuel production is: 44.7K per turn
My oil stockpile is: 120K
My fuel in units is: 110K
My fuel dumps in HQ is 22K

I don't know what my fuel use is but realistically it just can't be anywhere near to what I am producing (44.7K).

Well let's see.

The soviets start out with

64,000 tons of OIL produced in 128 oil centers.

(each oil center producing 500t)

of which 44,700t per turn is consumed in oil production.

leaving 19,300t of oil to be added to the (general) oil stores.

44700 tons of fuel produced in 149 fuel refineries

So each oil refinery point produces 300t of fuel.

According to

21.1.5. OIL AND FUEL PRODUCTION

the soviets are supposed to be producing 500t with each refinery point, but I guess that isn't happening.

So yes we have 44,700 tons of fuel per turn for our soviet units. That not consumed is added to the (general) fuel stores.

Well I look at a game, soviets, turn 23.......fuel stores 1,574,186t

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''', turn 24......fuel stores 1,607,222t

So out of 44,700t of fuel produced, 33,086t isn't consumed and added to the fuel stores.

So a mere 11,664 tons was consumed from T23 to T24.

The Russians start with a tad over 700,000t fuel stores on T1 (depending on how much the Germans capture)

My fuel stockpile is: 3 600K or 3.6M or 3,600,000 fuel (this isn't a typo)

That's at Turn 55, so you've had 54 turn changes since Turn 1.

3,600,000t - start 700,000 = 2,900,000t added since Turn 1.

2,900,000t / 54 = 53703.7t on average added to the fuel stores each turn.

That's 9,000t per turn more than is being produced!!![:D]

I just looked in my game. Turn is 55, I started under 1.01 or so and 3 turns back upgraded to 1.05 from 1.02 so that may account for what I see though I didn't think oil got played with much in the updates.

Hmmm! I think your conjecture has merit and should be sent to the supreme soviet.

[marty_01]

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely

*elbows a post in about oil edge wise*

[:D] ...perhaps it's time there were a few more rational folks elbowing into this thread...

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely
I don't think it is realistic that you can accumulate what amounts to a 3 billion litre surplus of fuel...that is a lot of fuel barrels and tank farms. Production should throttle to demand. There should be some buffer but 3,600,000 fuel is a "tad" excessive. Since the numbers aren't separated in the report I never noticed how large that pool was...

+1...fuel and oil production is another one of those 'kewl' whistle-and-bell details of WiTE. Unfortunately the more you dig into some of these whistles & bells the more you come to realize they have very little practical impact upon the game. Where was the internal play testing on this aspect of the game?

There are lotz and lotz of great details and great design ideas in this game. But the more you play, the more you begin to wonder at the lack of importance associated with things like heavy industry and oil+fuel production. It gives me the feeling that these were after thoughts to the game design. Neither seems particularly well integrated into the game system. It seems evident that internal play testing completely missed or ignored these elements of the game and their relative affect or lack thereof on the game as a whole. In-game Oil and Heavy Industry sort of reminds me of the old chef adage: “never put anything on a plate that can't be eaten.” Why clutter the game with details that have no impact on game play. Both of the elements should – at least in theory – have a fairly profound impact upon the game.

[randallw]

I'm guessing industry and oil do have an impact on the game, for the Axis side. [:'(]

[wulfgar]

ORIGINAL: randallw

I'm guessing industry and oil do have an impact on the game, for the Axis side. [:'(]

No, they tend to have a nice healthy surplus of fuel production as with the soviets.

Checking the 1943 scenario the Germans produce 58,000t of fuel from natural and synthetic production. Of this they consume 15,610t sending the remainder to storage.

As with the Soviets they won't feel the pinch until they are holed up in their last stretch of territory. The soviets still have enough natural production near the Urals to keep them going. And the Germans enough synthetic production near Berlin until that is curtailed by allied bombing in 1944 to 1945. Of course if they've hung on to Romania then they won't have a problem.

I'll make a giant guess that oil strategy is something the makers tried to include fully in the game but the AI couldn't cope with the strategy against human. Hence the basic mechanics are still there but everything runs on the sniff of an oil rag.

So much for the guy in the Science Fiction club last week telling me real AI is on the cards![:D]

[PMCN]

The German oil production never even came close to equalling their demand. Ever.

They should start with a fuel stockpile that drops over time. They needed (desperately) to take the soviet oil production facilities as they got simply insufficient to their needs oil from their national production, what they could buy from the Romanians and what they made in their synthetic plants. That stockpile is basically what they captured from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. After that campaign every other one they fought cost them more fuel than it brought in.

Also the soviets start with absurd amounts. I was playing the Germans and when I captured Riga in week 2 I got something like 10,000 supplies and 10,000 fuel. The soviets had a serious logistics problem that didn't improve all that much over the war. Their frontier troops were starved of fuel and replacements parts at the start of Barbarossa...but 10,000 supplies and fuel in Riga doesn't sound to starved to me.

I'm not sure if any game has an AI..most of them run on scripts. Though at least from what I saw the AO (artificial opponent) here did good in the winter of 41. It certainly kept my advances in the 41 blizzard down to something reasonable even if it lost units no human would have (and this was under the original winter rules which I understand have been greatly nerfed).

[wulfgar]

The German oil production never even came close to equalling their demand. Ever.

Well according to the lead article the military demand was 12 million t in 1941 with 9 million t of production.
1943 was the highest year of production with 10 million t, half of which was synthetic.



According to estimates by the Allies, 75% of resources were used on the eastern front. With 5 million t of gasoline and diesel used on the eastern front for ground forces in 1942. Whether this conjecture includes captured supplies I don't know?

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/Tom%20Re ... 64_toc.htm

But a 1943 Axis game turn has 15,610t for 1943, or an annual usage of 811,720 t. Which could only be a fraction of actual usage.

[aspqrz02]

Yabbut.

That only tells you what the Allies thought they knew back in the day.

It doesn't tell you what Historians have gleaned, primarily from access to German records which, strangely enough, only became available after 8 MAY 45 ... often considerably after.

Paul is correct. The Germans were living hand to mouth pretty much from the get go, synthoil plants or not, Romanian oil or not.

Speer (IIRC), not always the most reliable of witnesses when production figures are concerned (but mostly claiming they were higher than they actually were) admitted that for the last 12-18 months of the war, the German oil "stockpile/reserve" actually consisted of fuel in tankers on the way to the front ... which is not the normal definition of "stockpile" or "reserve" ... he said that if he had not done that dishonesty, then Hitler would have known that there *were* no stockpiles/reserves.

You need to supplement Primary documents from the allies with Primary documents from the Axis, or read some of the excellent studies of the Axis war economy that are becoming available (I highly recommend Tooze's "Wages of Destruction" and, perhaps, supplement it with Overy's "Why the Allies Won").

Phil

[Aurelian]

The book "The Third Reich at War" covers the economy as well.

[PMCN]

I think you can quibble about numbers but the fact was their production did not equal their demand. The problem with the game may be that the production figure is accurate but the demand is not. It may not be including for example economic oil (used in manufacturing or burnt to provide power...though I am not sure that was done) or fuel that went to the uboats or surface ships (including the barges moving stuff up and down the Rhine and Danube rivers).

Heavy Industry should have an oil or fuel consumption which would go a long way to sorting this out. Plus there should be a cost for flight schools (which wasn't small) and flight training in the national reserve. I don't know how fuel consumption in unit movement works but even a stationary unit is burning fuel (especially in motorized units) continously, and more so in the winter where they have to keep the engines running to keep the oil fluid. It should cost more fuel to move in the winter and mud as neither situation is good for fuel economy. But I find the fuel/supply and ammo requirements of units to be confusing as it is not at all clear how they relate to the values in your economic leger.

I honestly don't think this is something that 2by3 could not work into the game without significant rewriting things. The point that the AI might not be able to cope with continually decreasing fuel reserves remains a serious issue. But Germany not being short of oil is a lot like Japan not being short of oil or other natural resources...or the absurd situations that develops in HOIx due to pre-war stockpiling.

[EddyBear81]

If I may do some advertising for my own little post (tm.asp?m=3034940)
=> Actually, this abundance of oil/fuel (as playing the Axis) seemed strange to me (I remember a blow-up Tiger a few miles from home in Seine region that had to be abandoned bc of fuel shortage)

However, historical research indicates the german/romanian fuel industry was enough for war purposes until mid-1944, which is correctly modeled in the game.
=> "My" blown-up Tiger simply didn't get access to fuel storage due to supply limitations, not bc fuel (half of which was synthetic) wasn't produced by Third Reich.

That being said, it would be nice that the Axis players would have to run "on economy" even before that (especially regarding air war). One easy way would be to lower the oil/fuel output to take into account only the portion that was directed to military operations (as was said before)

[wulfgar]

Plus there should be a cost for flight schools (which wasn't small) and flight training in the national reserve.

I notice in this game playing Soviets that there's nothing less than experience 34 in the national reserve pilot pool. It seems pilots are created with their planes with a degree of much greater experience than WIR, where they started at exp 10 or even 5. And you really had to think about pulling them out of the reserve before they were better trained.

[PMCN]

I have to admit that compared to WIR the soviet national reserve in WithE is a much much better deal. Now if I could only convince the pilots to fly ground support missions as opposed to interdicting the movement of troops. Interdictions realy got toned down though...I remember when I was getting hit by the Luftwaffe and watching a unit evaporate under it, my interdictions are much less impactful.

The exp 34 is pretty much what they start with. I leave them in till they get to 50 then pull them out for front line deployment myself. I have noticed that the routines are working better now as the Yak-7B, La-5 and Hurricane II's are getting used in making new formations. MIG3's are phasing out. I still have an inordinate amount of I-15's and I-16 Type 16, and 24s in service though. The real problem is things like the P40B won't stay in service they are automatically shifted to P40Es...so I have 200 or so P40Bs rusting on a flightline somewhere. I have to manual form Li-2 transport groups and the Li-2VP still has not had a single formation show up. The same is true of the P39 and the B25.

[wulfgar]

However, historical research indicates the german/romanian fuel industry was enough for war purposes until mid-1944, which is correctly modeled in the game.
=> "My" blown-up Tiger simply didn't get access to fuel storage due to supply limitations, not bc fuel (half of which was synthetic) wasn't produced by Third Reich.

Enough for the level of warfare they faced earlier on. Not enough for what the allies were starting to throw at them in 1943 and onwards. The Germans built 15,000 ME 109 G's in 1944, if they had the trained pilots to go with them that would have been better.