OOB & TO&E Database

[Dr. Foo]

Yup, a BA and MA in History here too, I work for the State. [>:]

[hueglin]

ORIGINAL: Mr. Smith

This thread is proceeding just as I had hoped.[:)]
I would suggest that as we move forward we create new threads dealing with specific time periods or better yet conflicts. Such as a "World War II TO&E" thread or a "Eastern Front 1941 To&E" thread.

Brad, thanks for the suggested U.S. tank battalion! Interesting idea on the 81mm mortars. . .

Please keep the links coming and if you have printed reference material like Dr. Foo let the community know if you are willing to provide data.

Many interesting issues have already been raised. I would like to hear more on how the non-combant personel of a unit are modeled. I have considered using irregular squads to reflect those soldiers who are armed, but do not function as trained combat team. So, a signal company might have 9 to 12 irregular squads for example. I prefer these over the light squad designation since light squads model an infantry unit with offensive and defensive abilities whereas support troops have purely defensive cabilities and are limited at that.

This raises an obvious question: Should a TOAW unit include only the combat elements or all components? As a game designed to model the "operational" realm of warfare as opposed to merely the "tactical", the "tail" of unit becomes as important as the "teeth". However, the desire to keep the game manageable means that support units are specifically limited to supply and repair functions with some defensive ability. I agree with this approach. Can anyone imagine how tedious the game would be if you had to employ units to establish communication networks for example? Select "Lay Phone lines" under the Unit Orders Menu . . .

Accordingly, I tend to group all those units not organic to the combat formations respective of scale in the HQ unit as irregular squads if not specifically support, MP or engineering. For example, a 1944-45 U.S. Infantry division as a TOAW formation would consist of a HQ unit, 3 Infantry regiments, a Recon troop, an engineering battalion, 3 light artillery battalions and 1 medium artillery battalion (or just a divisional artillery unit). I would use this setup in a scenario where the player is in the role of the Army or Corps commander.

BTW,
After five years of working as a historian, I didn't know it was actually possible to have an income! [:D]

If you are going to model service support troops, I agree with your idea of grouping them with the HQ. That way the player is only inclined to use them in an emergency, because of the risk of losing the HQ. The least favourable option would be to create specific unit counters for them (e.g. a signal company unit), because then players would be likely to use them as just another combat unit. In reality, if the signal company, or the transport, or the maintenance battalion of a div got engaged and destroyed, the operational effect would be more than just losing an infantry battalion.

I am modeling fomrations at the modern brigade level and use the HQ as a non combat type of unit. Generally, I put only combat vehicles, spt wpns and infantry in the bns and coys, and the HQ consists of the command squads, support squads, 2-3 APCs and 500 trucks. The 500 trucks reperesent all of the `B` echelon vehicles from the bde (including those that would be organic to bns. This models some of the traffic congestion of modern warfare as well as the transport asset sharing. A bde would in fact have much more than 500 soft skinned vehicles.

It seems to me that the way to model service support troops is to use the support squads - they have a very limited offensive capability, some defensive capability, and their loss affects the formation.

Dave

[a white rabbit]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious




Tell me about it. I graduated with my BA in War Studies nearly a year ago. Now doing a bloody computer course.

..how time flies, and you were such a cute baby..

..BPA (arboriculture), now market gardening on the equator

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

..how time flies, and you were such a cute baby..

I was sixteen.

[konev]

For order of battle research on the Red Army/Soviet Army, there are good points and bad points.
 
Good points:
There's a fair amount of material that has been published (Glantz/Sharp/Dunn/Zaloga).
 
Bad points:
The Russian Military Archives (Russian State MIlitary Archives (RGVA)(pre 1941), the General Staff Archives and the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO) are still closed to foreigners (any non-Russians), so you have to hire a Russian to transcribe (or photocopy if their lucky) actual military records.
 
For example, I have a contact that can go into the TsAMO and get at least the 10-day losses reports done by all levels of commands, from Divisions on up (he has said the Division-level reports are the least acurate and the Army the most), but paying for the research is WAY out of my ballpark (my budget can afford something inside the batter's box while the cost of getting the material is over the fence).
 
So unless there is some 'sugar-daddy' out there will to finance it, my guess is the Red Army/Soviet side will always be guess-work until the archives open up (although the guess work now is more accurate than before).
 
konev
 

[Maciek]

We used many different sources for our scenarios Fall Weiss 1939 & Polish-Soviet War 1920 (the latter was extremely difficult according to lack of data!) and I think one of good internet sides is:
http://www.rkka.ru/index.htm
...but you need to know Russian...

[konev]

Maciek or anybody,
 
If I were to write up a listing of the units of the Soviet Rifle Divisions from 1941-1945 (we're talking down to the service units also [hey, we have to have speed bumps, too![:D]] and put it in a Word doc, where would the best place be so the TOAW designers can see it? (what I mean is I can provide the unit ID number)(those already published need to be corrected.)
Yes, all of the RDs, Mountain Divisions, Motorized Divisions, Guards Divs, plus the Tank and Mechanized Corps.
 
heck, if I feel REAL ambitious, I can go over the Soviet Army OB for 1988.
 
konev

[panzerpelle]

You can just send it to any TOAW related site and I think it will be accepted. I and many more designers would appricieate it very much...

[konev]

Gents,

I just took a look at the Soviet Army set up for "Barbarossa 41" .

The initial set-up for the Soviets (Army, Air and NKVD) needs a SERIOUS re-working. I mean re-designation of not only unit numbers but also their size designations.

How do I contact th Soviet designer? We're talking an upgrade patch at least.

konev

[konev]

Gents,

To follow-up on my last post, here is what the scenario has for the 8th Army:
HQ, 8th Army
(Border):
10th Rifle Division
125th Rifle Division
16th Artillery Brigade
3rd NKVD Border Guard Regiment
48th Rifle Division
4th NKVD Border Guard Regiment
(Away from Border)
90th Rifle Division
202nd Motorized Infantry Division
23rd Tank Division
28th Tank Division
67th Rifle Division

This is what I have for the 8th Army (I can also breakdown the Divisions also)
HQ, 8th Army
HQ, 10 Rifle Corps (10th Rifle Division, 48th Rifle Division, 90th Rifle Division)
HQ, 11 Rifle Corps (11th Rifle Division, 125th Rifle Division)
44th Fortified Region
48th Fortified Region
9th Anti-Tank Artillery Brigade
47th Corps Artillery Regiment
51st Corps Artillery Regiment
73rd Corps Artillery Regiment
39th Independent AAA Battalion
242nd Independent AAA Battalion
HQ, 12th Mechanized Corps (23rd Tank Division, 28th Tank Division, 202nd Motorized Division, 10th Motorcycle Regiment)
25th Engineer Regiment

Also, I can provide the Sapper and Signals Battalions assigned to the Corps HQ.

konev

[konev]

Gents,

My mistake. I was looking at the "Classic" scenario and not the 3.0 scenarios list.

It looks like the FitE scenario set-up is the best depiction I'm seen, although the Corps HQ are stilling missing and the consolidation of the Separate Regiments into Brigades. Is that because of the "2,000 unit limit"? (BTW, what is that anyhow and will that be changed?). Especially for the border units if they could be broken down, that way you could really tell how bad they wer overrun in the first days (and see why the Rifle Divisions were weakened by the loss of these units).

The NKVD units should stand out. Instead of the dark red, put them in their traditional color of a very dark green (darker than OD green) and the Red Army units should be the dark red (yellow for the unit symbols and strengths).

Don't forget, the Soviets can bomb Berlin with their Long-Range Aviation (which they tried do to.)

I took a look at the eastern edge of the map. You know, if somebody was REALLY ambitious, they could create a map all the way to the Pacific Coast.

Also, is it the option of the player to designate the "Guards" units, or is it automatic? It would seem kind of funny to designate units in quiet sectors "Guards" while those that actually did something were not.

konev

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: konev

Gents,

My mistake. I was looking at the "Classic" scenario and not the 3.0 scenarios list.

It looks like the FitE scenario set-up is the best depiction I'm seen, although the Corps HQ are stilling missing and the consolidation of the Separate Regiments into Brigades. Is that because of the "2,000 unit limit"?

Yes.

(BTW, what is that anyhow and will that be changed?).

Due to memory constraints when TOAW was first released in 1998, Norm limited the larger executable to 2000 units per force (presumably something to do with 2^11 being 2048). This would probably be fairly straightforward to change and a numbe of people have asked for it.

The NKVD units should stand out. Instead of the dark red, put them in their traditional color of a very dark green (darker than OD green) and the Red Army units should be the dark red

I always use the dark red for Soviet units but for some reason the convention for East Front in TOAW seems to be tan or brown.

Don't forget, the Soviets can bomb Berlin with their Long-Range Aviation (which they tried do to.)

Is this really relevant to Barbarossa? I'd say the thing to do would be to remove the units involved from the scenario, rather than try to model any effects of this. They'll be minimal, and 99% of the time the Soviet player will break with history and use them in combat support (of which I doubt they were capable)

Also, is it the option of the player to designate the "Guards" units, or is it automatic? It would seem kind of funny to designate units in quiet sectors "Guards" while those that actually did something were not.

The player has no control over his OOB in the course of the scenario. Some designers have units being withdrawn and reappearing as guards. Personally I'd be inclined to just leave it all as-is for such a long scenario. The player can decide for himself who the heroes are.

[konev]

Golden,
 
I just registered on your TDG Forum also, so I'll be bouncing between here and there. I just posted one.
 
With the current computer capabilities and capacities now, probably best number limit would be 10,000.  This should take care of breaking Soviet Rifle Divisions down to Regiments, the 42-45 Tank and Mechanized Corps into Brigades, the Artillery and Guards Mortar Divisions into Brigades and the Aviation Divisions into Regiments.
 
Is there a color editor I can use for the counters?  I just started reading the player's manual (like the line from "Beetlejuice" ... its like reading stereo instructions.") but I'm getting a handle on it.
 
konev

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: konev

With the current computer capabilities and capacities now, probably best number limit would be 10,000.

While sending the limits into the upper reaches of the stratosphere is a fine thing in theory, it does encourage designers to think they can make ever more monstrously large scenarios. As it stands, the largest scenario available (Fire in the East) is at the very outer reaches of what it is possible to play intelligently. A battalion-scale Barbarossa might sound like a great idea, but it would draw off effort from other, more practical exercises.

Is there a color editor I can use for the counters?  I just started reading the player's manual (like the line from "Beetlejuice" ... its like reading stereo instructions.") but I'm getting a handle on it.

You can create your own graphics and put them in a folder with the same name as the scenario. The program will then use those graphics for that scenario. You'll need to look in the graphics folder to find the original files and their names. There are a number of alternate colour sets already available in various places.

The information on the outside of the icon is in the separate "numbers.bmp" file. This is reasonably easy to edit by hand, but it takes a bit of trial and error to make sure you're editting the right bits. It emerged a while ago that although there are five rows for each background colour on this image, only three of them get used in most cases.