Sovet Truck Park

[lycortas]

I don't know if this was accounted for but the Soviets used their large tractor production for artillery movers and short (near the front) supply movers.

Flaviusx, is this accounted for in these figures?

Mike

[Flaviusx]

It's accounted for it to the extent that Soviet vehicle production isn't amazing.

My sense is the problem here is one of repair and attrition and replacements not keeping up with trucks lost due to attrition and breakdowns. So the pool of available trucks isn't growing much or at all past 1942. Even the big ramp up in lend lease deliveries from 43 on isn't enough to overcome the breakdowns.

[Klydon]

ORIGINAL: pompack

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm seeing Soviet truck pools of far less than 200k (closer to 150k) by 1943, and that's versus the AI with comparatively minor losses. I think this is rather low.

You can temporarily inflate the figure in 1941 by static games, but this doesn't persist and attrition eats away at it.

And the "static games" really don't effect the total number of trucks by about 1jan42 because the the trucks you get by grounding mech, mot, and arm units you get anyway when the tank divisions change to tank brigades and the mot/mech units change to infantry. By grounding them you just get the trucks a little sooner.

Very true, but what the Russian can control to some extent is how many of the tank and motorized divisions are in harms way to get surrounded and cut to pieces. I am not saying it is easy, but trying to save those divisions for the Russians will help. (In theory anyway).

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

It's accounted for it to the extent that Soviet vehicle production isn't amazing.

My sense is the problem here is one of repair and attrition and replacements not keeping up with trucks lost due to attrition and breakdowns. So the pool of available trucks isn't growing much or at all past 1942. Even the big ramp up in lend lease deliveries from 43 on isn't enough to overcome the breakdowns.

I think that's actually the issue.

I'm in spring of '43 now in one of my AI games as the soviet.

I have about 70k trucks in the pool.
That number has been essentially static for the last 6 months, despite getting about 3000 new trucks a week from lend-lease.

Attitional burn rate seems too high.

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

It's accounted for it to the extent that Soviet vehicle production isn't amazing.

My sense is the problem here is one of repair and attrition and replacements not keeping up with trucks lost due to attrition and breakdowns. So the pool of available trucks isn't growing much or at all past 1942. Even the big ramp up in lend lease deliveries from 43 on isn't enough to overcome the breakdowns.

I think that's actually the issue.

I'm in spring of '43 now in one of my AI games as the soviet.

I have about 70k trucks in the pool.
That number has been essentially static for the last 6 months, despite getting about 3000 new trucks a week from lend-lease.

Attitional burn rate seems too high.

Trucks don't just go to the pool. Look at the Production Report which shows both vehicles in pool (identical with upper right corner display) and vehicles in units. By observation, when your pool drops below 50% of need, vehicles are no longer added to units in order to maintain a minimum supply capability if possible. When that happens and then your truck production begins to catch up on losses, the pool will remain at 50% for some time (try the rest of the war [:D]) while depleted units get some truck reinforcements.

[Q-Ball]

IIRC, the Axis had alot more trouble keeping their trucks serviceable than the Allies did, for a number of reasons.

Many Axis trucks like the Opel Blitz that Klydon mentioned were not good off-road vehicles. The Germans also had trucks from many countries and manufacturers, making parts and repair difficult. These included French, Belgian, Dutch, Polish, Czeck, Italian, etc. etc. Lots of different models! Not to mention a longer logistical distance, and reliance on trucks vs. Railways.

Soviets, on the other hand, had trucks that were better-suited to the terrain, and/or US Lend Lease. US Trucks were more mechanically reliable than any others, and also were produced in large numbers, making parts more standard and easier to manage.

Not sure this is modelled, but I bet the Axis suffered far worse Truck attrition than the Soviets did. That could explain why the Axis has plenty of trucks while the Soviets struggle in that category.

[Flaviusx]

70% of German trucks were broken down by December 41. But I do not know how their truck readiness rates fared after that.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee
I have the following for production of trucks and buses in the SU.

1940 - 139879
1941 - 118704
1942 - 32409
1943 - 46720
1944 - 55167
1945 - 69662

Table C.1., Accounting for War, Mark Harrison. Sourced from the Soviet figures.

I guess the definition of 'military trucks and lorries' is going to explain the difference in numbers (as opposed to the Soviets building a lot of buses ) though the Soviet figures are closer as a definition match to the USSBS figures for Grossreich German truck production of 409458 from January 1940 through end of February 1945. (I can't get the figure of 345914 to work for the USSBS' figures - it seems to be c.30k too high even when assuming 'military trucks' means trucks allocated to military over civilian uses).

Sorry I should have been more careful when looking at the chart. The chart only lists 1942 - 1945 production for the SU, here are the numbers:

1942: 30,400
1943: 45,600
1944: 52,600
1945: 68,500

The German production listed is for 1939-1945 so there is a difference in the number of years covered. I had only glanced at the totals column and should have looked closer sorry about that. Here's the numbers for Germany:

1939: 32,558
1940: 53,348
1941: 51,085
1942: 58,049
1943: 74,181
1944: 67,375
1945: 9,318

So if we only total up the years covered for the SU (42-45), the axis only built 208,923 Trucks/Lorries in the same time frame as the SU's 197,100. So baring some proof of huge numbers of captured trucks used from France and other western conquests, it now appears to me that the SU had a similar truck pool to the axis, though probably a bit smaller overall.

Jim

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey
Based on that I'd naively expect the soviet truck park to outnumber the axis truck park,

No numbers are given for Italy by month in my source, but total war production is 83,000. I assume that's only for production prior to Italy’s surrender, but I'm not 100% sure due to the fact there are no monthly figures given.

No numbers at all are given for the other axis minors but it's probably safe to assume they produced about 50k total if you combine all of their production together. If you then factor in all the captured motor pools of France and the low countries, I think it's safe to assume Germany and Russia were probably about even, though Germany’s pool was probably larger for most of the war since lend lease only went into high gear in the last few years of the war.

So I now agree with the premise that the late war truck pools are too small for the SU.

Jim

[Rafo35]

This was with a roughly historical size mobile force. (36-40 tank/mech corps is about the historical maximum, with a 2:1 ratio between tank and mech corps.)

 
If I remember correctly, the historical mechanized soviet forces peaked at 26 tank/mech corps. So that's 33% less.
 
It could be that part of the "pb" is because the players will have the natural tendancy to build significantly more tank/mechanized corps, because of the huge tank production and the fact that a tank brigade are useless (pb here is stacking : 1 tank brigade take 1/3 of a stack, same as a reinforced mechanized corps).
 
Note that the German army lost a huge part of its mobility advantage in 41. It showed in 42 : they withdrew of a lot of vehicules in AGN and AGC to reequipped AGS ... and then most unit weren't at full vehicule TOE and the logitics broke more than once for 6th army and even more for PzA 1. But after that it was partly offset by the fact that the supply lines were getting shorter and shorter ... On the other hand, by then, it meant increasingly huges losses in heavy material in the infantry divisions.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
So if we only total up the years covered for the SU (42-45), the axis only built 208,923 Trucks/Lorries in the same time frame as the SU's 197,100. So baring some proof of huge numbers of captured trucks used from France and other western conquests, it now appears to me that the SU had a similar truck pool to the axis, though probably a bit smaller overall.

Jim

You can throw in c.90k French production from 41 through 44 which went into the German pool which isn't included in the Grossreich figures. Course that in no way counterbalances lend lease but then lend lease doesn't really start to have a major impact in terms of numbers til 43. You've also got to take down German figures (assuming fixed allocation/production) to their historical levels as it wasn't until 43 that the c.60:40 split between Wehrmacht:Civilian allocation really changed and you've also got exports going out from Germany too (eg 9600 in 41 alone).

Red Army pool of trucks was c.270k on the eve of Barbarossa (can source if required but fairly established figure). And for the Heer's pool, you've got:



(USSBS - nb unsure as to whether this includes LW pool. If not, add roughly 1/6 to figure for eve of Barbarossa).

[morvael]

Soviet players, once ready, probably want to launch offensives all along the entire front and never stop until Berlin, which is why they will complain for the lack of trucks to support their behemoth army. Maybe this (waiting for truck pools to build up by being passive for months between offensives, launching offensives not on all fronts at once, stopping once certain amount of ground was captured to let the rail heads catch up) is the reason why IRL the Red Army advanced in "jumps" and not like an unstoppable avalanche, even though it outnumbered Heer by so much. Maybe Wehrmacht was not the main reason it took the Soviets 3 years to finish the Reich once the tide turned, maybe it was the truck shortage problem. That would suggest that even if the numbers are off the historical values, they model what they should - Soviet truck shortage. Adding or removing a few k of them should not change the general situation.

[Flaviusx]

Rafo, incorrect. The Sovs generally ran with around two dozen tank corps, and a dozen mech corps from 43 on, give or take.

Just load up the 43 or 44 scenarios and see for yourself.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Soviet players, once ready, probably want to launch offensives all along the entire front and never stop until Berlin, which is why they will complain for the lack of trucks to support their behemoth army. Maybe this (waiting for truck pools to build up by being passive for months between offensives, launching offensives not on all fronts at once, stopping once certain amount of ground was captured to let the rail heads catch up) is the reason why IRL the Red Army advanced in "jumps" and not like an unstoppable avalanche, even though it outnumbered Heer by so much. Maybe Wehrmacht was not the main reason it took the Soviets 3 years to finish the Reich once the tide turned, maybe it was the truck shortage problem. That would suggest that even if the numbers are off the historical values, they model what they should - Soviet truck shortage. Adding or removing a few k of them should not change the general situation.

Nah, that's not it. Truck pools don't seem to hardly bulge even when the front is static. (Say, during mud turns.)

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

ORIGINAL: morvael

Soviet players, once ready, probably want to launch offensives all along the entire front and never stop until Berlin, which is why they will complain for the lack of trucks to support their behemoth army. Maybe this (waiting for truck pools to build up by being passive for months between offensives, launching offensives not on all fronts at once, stopping once certain amount of ground was captured to let the rail heads catch up) is the reason why IRL the Red Army advanced in "jumps" and not like an unstoppable avalanche, even though it outnumbered Heer by so much. Maybe Wehrmacht was not the main reason it took the Soviets 3 years to finish the Reich once the tide turned, maybe it was the truck shortage problem. That would suggest that even if the numbers are off the historical values, they model what they should - Soviet truck shortage. Adding or removing a few k of them should not change the general situation.

Nah, that's not it. Truck pools don't seem to hardly bulge even when the front is static. (Say, during mud turns.)

This matches my experience as well. My truck pool has been stuck at 70k for months and my field units are being starved of trucks and supplies. When I get home I'll count mechanized and tank corps, but I don't think I went entirely insane; I'm probably in the historical ball park.

Even if I spend the turn sitting still I'm still in a net loss of trucks/turn.

One thing I did notice reading the logistics report:

There are a number of logisitics comments about TRUCKS destroyed, trucks lost, trucks captured, trucks repaired.

There is also a logistic line about lend lease adding 3000 VEHICLES to the soviet pool.

Does this mean I'm actually getting 3k trucks/turn as the Soviets, or am I getting 3000 abstract vehicle points which may or may not get turned into trucks (like armament points).

I should point out that I'm sitting on a very large VEHICLE surplus, but I have a TRUCK shortage.

Perhaps this is an OOB bug? Lend lease is adding the wrong thing?

[Joel Billings]

Vehicles and Trucks are interchangeable names in game terms in WitE. Yes, you are getting 3k vehicles/trucks per turn in lend lease. The idea of vehicles/trucks is that they are roughly 1 ton equivalents. So in theory two 2 1/2 ton trucks would equate to 5 "generic" vehicles in WitE. It is possible that we'll increase Soviet vehicle lend lease in the later war years to account for the greater proportion of 2 1/2 ton trucks that came in Lend Lease. It's under discussion at the moment.

The one thing I don't understand is how you say you have a VEHICLE surplus but also have a TRUCK shortage. Since Vehicles and Trucks are different names for the same thing in WitE, how can you have both a surplus and a shortage. Can you explain with screen shots?

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Vehicles and Trucks are interchangeable names in game terms in WitE. Yes, you are getting 3k vehicles/trucks per turn in lend lease. The idea of vehicles/trucks is that they are roughly 1 ton equivalents. So in theory two 2 1/2 ton trucks would equate to 5 "generic" vehicles in WitE. It is possible that we'll increase Soviet vehicle lend lease in the later war years to account for the greater proportion of 2 1/2 ton trucks that came in Lend Lease. It's under discussion at the moment.

The one thing I don't understand is how you say you have a VEHICLE surplus but also have a TRUCK shortage. Since Vehicles and Trucks are different names for the same thing in WitE, how can you have both a surplus and a shortage. Can you explain with screen shots?

I'll get some screenshots when I get home, but that'll be tonight (like 10 hours).

This might be a terminology disconnect on my parts though.

If I look top right of hte main screen I have, say 70k (214k) truck (yellow or red showing I'm low).

If I bring up my production report (the round gear) and scroll down to the generic section I have, among other things, manpower, armaments, and vehicles as generic pools.

I am production, I think, 130 vehicle points/turn.
I have a "pool" of vehicles that I though was around 700,000

Possible I'm misreading though and a pool of 700,000 actually equates to 70k truck equivalents at 10:1 or some such?

If so then the lend-lease aid of 3,000 points/turn is actually about 300 trucks/turn or about 15,000 trucks year isn't it?

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Vehicles and Trucks are interchangeable names in game terms in WitE. Yes, you are getting 3k vehicles/trucks per turn in lend lease. The idea of vehicles/trucks is that they are roughly 1 ton equivalents. So in theory two 2 1/2 ton trucks would equate to 5 "generic" vehicles in WitE. It is possible that we'll increase Soviet vehicle lend lease in the later war years to account for the greater proportion of 2 1/2 ton trucks that came in Lend Lease. It's under discussion at the moment.

The one thing I don't understand is how you say you have a VEHICLE surplus but also have a TRUCK shortage. Since Vehicles and Trucks are different names for the same thing in WitE, how can you have both a surplus and a shortage. Can you explain with screen shots?

I'll get some screenshots when I get home, but that'll be tonight (like 10 hours).

This might be a terminology disconnect on my parts though.

If I look top right of hte main screen I have, say 70k (214k) truck (yellow or red showing I'm low).

If I bring up my production report (the round gear) and scroll down to the generic section I have, among other things, manpower, armaments, and vehicles as generic pools.

I am production, I think, 130 vehicle points/turn.
I have a "pool" of vehicles that I though was around 700,000

Possible I'm misreading though and a pool of 700,000 actually equates to 70k truck equivalents at 10:1 or some such?

If so then the lend-lease aid of 3,000 points/turn is actually about 300 trucks/turn or about 15,000 trucks year isn't it?

I think you're confused...[:D]

Seriously though, it sounds like you're misremembering something, or misinterpreting what you've read. Maybe you're referring to the repair pool? To the pool of vehicles in units? Screenshots, obviously, will help to identify what you're looking at, when you get the chance.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: JAMiAM

ORIGINAL: pat.casey

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Vehicles and Trucks are interchangeable names in game terms in WitE. Yes, you are getting 3k vehicles/trucks per turn in lend lease. The idea of vehicles/trucks is that they are roughly 1 ton equivalents. So in theory two 2 1/2 ton trucks would equate to 5 "generic" vehicles in WitE. It is possible that we'll increase Soviet vehicle lend lease in the later war years to account for the greater proportion of 2 1/2 ton trucks that came in Lend Lease. It's under discussion at the moment.

The one thing I don't understand is how you say you have a VEHICLE surplus but also have a TRUCK shortage. Since Vehicles and Trucks are different names for the same thing in WitE, how can you have both a surplus and a shortage. Can you explain with screen shots?

I'll get some screenshots when I get home, but that'll be tonight (like 10 hours).

This might be a terminology disconnect on my parts though.

If I look top right of hte main screen I have, say 70k (214k) truck (yellow or red showing I'm low).

If I bring up my production report (the round gear) and scroll down to the generic section I have, among other things, manpower, armaments, and vehicles as generic pools.

I am production, I think, 130 vehicle points/turn.
I have a "pool" of vehicles that I though was around 700,000

Possible I'm misreading though and a pool of 700,000 actually equates to 70k truck equivalents at 10:1 or some such?

If so then the lend-lease aid of 3,000 points/turn is actually about 300 trucks/turn or about 15,000 trucks year isn't it?

I think you're confused...[:D]

Seriously though, it sounds like you're misremembering something, or misinterpreting what you've read. Maybe you're referring to the repair pool? To the pool of vehicles in units? Screenshots, obviously, will help to identify what you're looking at, when you get the chance.

I don't know about confused, but I definately remembered it wrong.

75k (216k) trucks
74809 vehicles in the pool