US models: Historic or Hollywood?

[panda124c]

Originally posted by Keke


Here are more accurate numbers from Niklas Zetterling´s book "Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness":

"It seems that the Allied numerical superiority in Normandy has not been clear to all authors. Indeed some have not even observed it at all. Stephen E. Ambrose has even written:
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin relied on overwhelming numbers, and to some extent American-supplied equipment, to fight the Wehrmacht. The British and Americans were going to have to rely on their soldiers outfighting Nazi soldiers, because the numbers of troops on the opposing sides were roughly equal.

This is entirely wrong. When Operation Cobra was launched, the Germans had brought to Normandy about 410,000 men in divisions and non-divisional combat units. If this is multiplied by 1.19 [service and support manpower outside German divisions and non-div units] we arrive at approximately 490,000 soldiers. However, until 23 July, casualties amounted to 116,863, while only 10,078 replacements had arrived. This means that no more than 380,000 soldiers remained in Normandy or supported the fighting in Normandy.

On 25 July there were 812,000 US soldiers and 640,000 British in Normandy. This means that the Allies had a 3.8:1 superiority in manpower. This was better than the superiority enjoyed by the Red Army on the Eastern Front. On 1 June 1944 the Soviets pitted 7.25 million men against 2.62 million Germans."

Just out of curiosity how many of the Allied armies were 'service and support manpower outside of divisional and non-div units'? The number I seem to remember (my memory is not the best) was 3:1 (3 support for each combat soldier) which make the Allied armies 484,000 to the German 380,000 or 1.2 to 1. And this does not include losses or replacements. The US Army is known for it large support troops to combat troops ratio. The Germans are known for their fairly low support troops to combat troops ratio.

[Charles2222]

pbear: I wouldn't be too sure about that. I'm not sure where I heard it, but you know the Germans always had at least what they called 2,000,000 on the Eastern Front, but I recall a general saying that they at no time had more then 250,000 fighting at the front in the latter years. Of course what he meant by that I'm not totally certain. It seemed it was in context of the vast bureaucracy that had built up in the east.

[JVRyk5]

Side note. In infantry formations artillery causes most casaulties in first 30 sec of barrage. After that, most soldiers have deasent cover. (Don't remember what source said that, but it is in my library, I'm sure of it.)


Wrong thread ? I think I go to bed.

[JJKettunen]

Originally posted by pbear


Just out of curiosity how many of the Allied armies were 'service and support manpower outside of divisional and non-div units'? The number I seem to remember (my memory is not the best) was 3:1 (3 support for each combat soldier) which make the Allied armies 484,000 to the German 380,000 or 1.2 to 1. And this does not include losses or replacements. The US Army is known for it large support troops to combat troops ratio. The Germans are known for their fairly low support troops to combat troops ratio.

I´m maybe mathematically retarted, but with that information, taken as granted, wouldn´t it make Allied troops 363,000 to the German 319,000 (no support units included)? Considering the quality of bocage country, it would be disaster to to attack with that ratio, even in a situation were defender has no arty support and poorer equipment.

I´m sure that US Army had the largest support troops in the world, but when considering "service and support manpower OUTSIDE of divisional and non-div units", wasn´t major part of those still on the other side of the English channel on July 25 1944. And does it matter? After all, one well-supplied soldier is worth of bunch poorly supplied ones, if they are otherwise on the same skill level.

Or something...

[AmmoSgt]

GUTB I have to question your casulity figures . In WW2 the US suffered about 300,000 killed on all fronts, while the Germans suffered about 4,500,000 combatants killed. In the ETO The US suffered about 180,000 killed in combat with about 60,000 of those being from aircrews. The US had a much higher wounded to killed ratio due to the US having penicilin , hence a higher proportion of US wounded survived. The numbers I have, indicate , despite the fact that US Forces were on the offensive , the US had about 120,000 dead and 500,000 wounded in the ETO from ground combat, while inflicting over 500,000 dead and about the same number wounded . US Arty was the primary casuality producer . The US had more Arty Bn's in the ETO than Tank Bn's . US Arty was much better supplied despite having to supply transatlantic. As stated above most casulities from arty occur very early in a barrage , The US was the master at co-ordinated fires . TOT was developed in the 1930's . In addition to TOT , VT fuzing ( also called proximity fuzing )increased the lethality of US Arty by a factor of about 4 . The Only other country to have VT Fuzing was Britian. Physics do not lie. Pen and armor are based on physics. IF the US player uses more than 1 in 4 76mm armed Shermans in the game buy , that is historically questionable, much like Tigers being in every battle in the game ( heck just having any Tanks in EVERY battle is not Historically proper, most battles were Infantry and Arty affairs), However the US had as many AT Bn's armed with M10's M18's and M-36's as it did Tank Bn's in the ETO. So a 50/50 mix of TD's and Tanks is appropiate, Primarly M-10's.
The Bazooka did have HE capability and even more devestating it had a White Phosphorus for both smoke and anti- personnel use which is not even modeled in SPWAW. The doctrine of using Bazookas against dug-in Infantry was prefected in the PTO well before Normandy. The Bazooka was one of the few weapons so respected by the Germans they actually copied it. The TO&E issue on Bazookas is actually under represented in the Game insofar as Mech Infantry had 68 Bazookas in a Bn and most non tank combat vehicles had one issued as part of the Vehicle equipment.
German casulities where so high , even on defense , primarily due to the massive intial bombardments by US Arty and Air. I defy anybody to find a Russian Bombardment that matched the tonnage of HE that was delivered on the Panzer Lehr Div in France . US Heavy and Medium Bombers in addition to US Arty literally destroyed over 50% of the Division at the outset of the battle. In fact, if you factor in Naval Bombardment, prepatory US fires preceeding Amphibious Assults , tonnage wise, were compareable to Soviet massed Arty fires .
The closest to equal casualities the the Germans achieved against the US ( unless you count Normandy and ignore German casulities caused by Air and Naval fires ) was at the Battle of the Bulge. US 80,000 including wounded , Germans about 110,000. Most US casulities occured in the initial week while the Germans had intially a 6 to 1 advantage down to about 2 to 1 by the end of the first week.
The Tooth to Tail ratio for the US was about 1 to 7 total ( counting the whole "back to stateside" logistical train, about 1 to 4 in the ETO proper.
Most of this info is easily available doing a simple websearch.

[tohoku]

Originally posted by AmmoSgt
US Arty was the primary casuality producer . The US had more Arty Bn's in the ETO than Tank Bn's . US Arty was much better supplied despite having to supply transatlantic. As stated above most casulities from arty occur very early in a barrage , The US was the master at co-ordinated fires .

Artillery was the primary casualty producer for all the major armies excepting the Japanese.

I defy anybody to find a Russian Bombardment that matched the tonnage of HE that was delivered on the Panzer Lehr Div in France . US Heavy and Medium Bombers in addition to US Arty literally destroyed over 50% of the Division at the outset of the battle.

Panzer Lehr was destroyed by the British wasn't it? By the time it was transferred to the US sector, it had lost almost 75% of its strength. Hastings has a very good account of this sort of info - many of the Panzer Divisions had already been heavily gouged by the British before they were moved to face the US forces.

I'm not entirely sure that US forces *ever* faced a full-strength Panzer division. Anyone? The Ardennes would be the best bet, but I think even there most German units were well under establishment weren't they?

Anyway, what was the establishment of a US infantry division and how does that relate to the numbers, given that several units suffered over 100% casualty rates (IIRC, US 90th suffered over 150%!) over the first four to six weeks of Normandy? Wouldn't that make those units an improbably large percentage of the outright totals you quoted?



tohoku
YMMV

[wargamer]

In the game light arty and mortars are almost completley useles. In all the games I ahve played I have only scored a few kills with medium mortars. This is not very accurate, the medium mortar was a very effective veapon. In fact the german 81mm mortars were one of the most effective killer of WW2. And a bombardment isn't really effective for more than 15 seconds, the same goes for armbushes.

[JJKettunen]

Originally posted by wargamer
In the game light arty and mortars are almost completley useles. In all the games I ahve played I have only scored a few kills with medium mortars. This is not very accurate, the medium mortar was a very effective veapon. In fact the german 81mm mortars were one of the most effective killer of WW2. And a bombardment isn't really effective for more than 15 seconds, the same goes for armbushes.

That´s right. While playing SPWAW one could think that light and medium mortars are only waste of valuable resources (points that is in game terms). In reality mortars were very effective when used properly, especially in forests.

[Paul Vebber]

Ah, the Q-1R "WHy don't operational level metrics apply to tactical battles" questions.

Its inappropriate to use theater level operational metrics to apply to tactical level situations. One of the first lessons of Ops Reasearch 101...

The Germans are overrated, the US are overrated, The Finns are overrated, The Japanese are overrated. I haven't heard the SOviets or British being being rated lately...

Penetration physics are based on statisitcs. IF your pen vlaue in teh game is higher than the enemy effective armor, you don't automatically kill it. Same with the case of your pen not being equal to the enemy effective armor.

SP:WaW isn't perfect, but it is one of the best representations of the relative vulnerabilities out there. Shermans for example (in 7.1) run the gamut from the early "ronson's" to the Easy 8s that with a 76mm gun are not a big notch below the vaunted Panther.

THen there is the information problem. THe game is really "what if the Borg fought each other with WW2 equipment" THat warps casualties significantly out of proportion. IT allows the player to exploit opportunies real commanders would drool over.

Artillery was the biggest casue of casualties, but that was becasue the sort of battle the game protrays was actually rare, compared to the harrassment bombardments that went on day after day. Like WWI, the massive bombardments of thousands of tubes managed to render whole battalions combat ineffective, but killed realtively few people. Examples of all countries units being subjective to 100's of pounds of ordnance per sq yard, survivng to mount staunch defenses if the bombardment wasn't immediately followed up with the assualt. MOrtars casued the most devestating casualties when fired with "direct observation" against troops advancing in the open. The vulnerability of a trooper advancing upright is 11 times greater than one lying prone and most evaluations or artillery credit it as ineefective at producing casualties if the targets are able to find any cover below ground level.

Artillery was (and still is) used to suppress, shock and awe the enemy - not to kill them. If it was then , like aerial bombardment, there would be no need for ground forces - somebody ends up defending after bombardments! The sort of "if I use enough artillery I can make it across no-man's land and take the trenches" was disproved in WW1. Thats not to say the arty model in SP:WaW is perfect - far form it! We are making significant changes in CL.

[Capt. Pixel]

I know many of you remember these days -

Rolling dice (under the table sometimes - across the room occasionally:rolleyes: )

Cross referencing soda-stained result tables.

Moving stacks of cardboard chits and counters across a wrinkled paper map (and keeping a CLOSE eye on that darned cat)

"Well, I've only got 4 counters for this type of unit. So that's all you get"

"Get the LOSometer, I don't think you can see me"

"I've got 4-5 hours free next Saturday, How about you?"
"Can't, gotta go to the wifes Office party - how's about Sunday"
etc. etc. etc.

Although I occasionally miss the across the board face-to-face interaction, I don't miss anything else about those 'good ole days'

As far as I'm concerned - THESE are the good ole days!

Sometimes I think some here would take an exquisite model of the USS Constitution (a famous sailing warship) and pick it apart for being 'unrealistic' because the belaying pins were made from the wrong type of wood for the period!

It's not perfect? That depends on what you're looking for. I was looking for an entertaining pastime that I could engage in whenever, and with whatever free time I had available. Low cost was not particularly an issue, but who would complain about that? (around here there's a few, it seems)

It may not be perfect for all but it suits me just fine. When I consider the thousands and thousands of hours and hundreds of people who've contributed to this final incarnation of SPW@W, it just boggles my mind.

I just want to say Thank You, once again.

Oh, by the way. I was not directing any of my above comments to anyone in this thread or anyone in particular. Thank you. Peace.