Early Barbarossa

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Toxic? I'm pointing out that a modern army has all kinds of other vehicles besides troop carriers and that's 'toxic'?

Right. 750,000 pieces of artillery. Nothing absurd about that. And we'll need 750,000 trucks to tow them. Here's the reality: The TO&E for an "Old Style" Infantry Division had 1133 horse-drawn vehicles in it. Assuming every one of those towed something - not one single one was in the supply chain - that's about 125,000 total in the infantry divisions.

Assuming the infantry itself still walks, of course.

Aside from that, you are going to need to motorize the supply train as well. So it's a moot point where the vehicles were -- they're all going to need to be replaced with trucks. It won't do the division any good to advance swiftly if the supplies et al can't keep up with it. Plus you will now need trucks for every bozo who was able to walk alongside the wagons. He can't trot to keep up.

Then we've got those elements that aren't in the division -- the division doesn't requisition its supply back at the railhead and move it all the way up to the front. It'd be nice if the corps artillery can come along too. Perhaps it'd be good if Corps HQ could keep up as well. Field hospitals? Etc.

So we're back to a million-plus vehicles and the necessary fuel. Not unless you want this army to lurch forward a hundred miles and then just halt until the horses have caught up again.

Which is why it didn't happen.

But even that's not reality, since I can only come up with about 160 pieces of equipment that would have to be towed in an infantry division, looking at its TO&E. That works out to less than 20,000 trucks for that.

Furthermore, that infantry division already had 942 trucks assigned to it. The motorized division had 2637 trucks. (That, of course, included a number of battalions the infantry division didn't have, but we'll still use it for comparison). That means it would have taken about 190,000 trucks to convert those infantry divisions into full-blown PG divisions.

I think the number isn't completely absurd. In fact it looks kind of conservative to me.

Maybe we should ask what you've been smoking then.

As is quite apparent, what I've been 'smoking' is counting the actual number of horse-drawn vehicles in the Wehrmacht, noting that it won't do motorized combat units any good to advance out of reach of horse-drawn support elements, and wondering just where the fuel would come for all this.

Of course, it is 'absurd' in the sense that amassing and fueling that many trucks wpuld have been completely out of the question for the 1941 Wehrmacht.

Provided you pull all of your figures out of your ass.

Kind of unfair. You're the guy who has never explained how horse-drawn supply would keep up with these motorized units, and you're the guy who has never even found a drop of the additional fuel you're going to need.

Personally, I prefer the figures professionally researched by widely-published wargame experts, but that's just me.

Oh God help us. The blithe speculations of S&T Magazine are now the facts. Actual numbers of vehicles, the consideration that the fuel wasn't there -- that all goes out the window. S&T Magazine said it could be done.

That helps to explain why they didn't do it.

Right. They played their hand to perfection. Not one decision they made deserves any second-guessing. I do wonder why they didn't go to a full war economy until after the war was lost - but I'm sure they had very good reasons for it.

They were there. They were a professional military organization that was the most progressive of its time. They were fully aware of the advantages of motorization and did all they could to implement it.

They came up with one-fifth of the capacity you just arbitrarily assign them -- apparently on the basis of a comment in a wargaming magazine.

What they actually did -- or what Curtis claims they could have done? It's a toughie.

And as usual, when you find yourself losing one of these arguments, you start flinging around the verbal abuse. Since I've pulled the numbers out of my ass, why don't you stick them up yours? It'll give you a feel for them.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

But how much of the map do you cover with those 'badlands'?

I suspect not enough -- and of course it's not a sharp line. There are the Priepet marshes, and then there are 20 km wide swatches of boggy forest, and then there are places where yeah, you can get a few trucks through. Of course, they'll average 1 km an hour, and they'll churn the cart track into an impassible mess for anyone trying to follow them, but they'll get through.

Well, I would suggest that it is the right amount, since the historical version of the scenario works like a charm (see my AAR on it).

That argument. I suppose if I make the Preipet marshes desert, and the campaign goes off okay, then they must have been desert?

Getting historical results is reassuring. It's not proof of anything, and there are numerous examples of wargames that deliver historical results but obviously distort things beyond all reason.

See S&T's 'War in the East.' Sure, the Germans get to about where they historically did. Of course, that's because the Red Army consists almost solely of a hundred or so 1-4 infantry divisions and the ZOC costs are set so that they can withdraw in front of the Germans without ever entering combat at a rate that will just keep the Germans out of Moscow, Leningrad, etc.

No huge 1941 Red Army, no encirclements, no desperate counterattacks. But hey -- the Germans wind up just short of Moscow. Fine simulation, I suppose.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

But how much of the map do you cover with those 'badlands'?

I suspect not enough -- and of course it's not a sharp line. There are the Priepet marshes, and then there are 20 km wide swatches of boggy forest, and then there are places where yeah, you can get a few trucks through. Of course, they'll average 1 km an hour, and they'll churn the cart track into an impassible mess for anyone trying to follow them, but they'll get through.

Well, I would suggest that it is the right amount, since the historical version of the scenario works like a charm (see my AAR on it).

But, again, this is a moot point, since in the real world there wouldn't be any issue at all. The infantry would just get out of their trucks and attack on foot. It's only an issue in TOAW.

It'll also be an issue in real life when their (truck-drawn) support weapons can't get up to them, and their (truck carried) supplies can't reach them. Sure, this works for one or two kilometers off the Minsk-Riga highway. It does nothing to get you ten km down that forest track after a rainstorm.

Sometimes, I think when you look at the world, you see an SPI map.

Then I would suggest that you haven't seen any of my maps. Take a look at the maps for CFNA, France 1944, Okinawa 1945, Germany 1945, Kaiserschlacht 1918, and, yes, Soviet Union 1941. All created from scratch and researched like no wargame map ever had been before.

I stand corrected, but I dunno about the accuracy. As you may recall, I asked if I could use your CFNA map, but I found it to be quite inaccurate. I wasn't going to bring it up, but since you have started asserting they are the best wargame maps ever made...

More to the point, my point is that the real world isn't divided into discrete hex types. Land isn't either 'hills' or not 'hills,' and there are hills and hills, and how they will affect combat varies in all kinds of ways.

Land isn't either 'badlands' or 'not badlands' either. Sometimes it is quite impassable, sometimes offered continued good going even for large numbers of vehicles, and sometimes is somewhere in between.

Even if your maps were in fact as good as TOAW would let you make them, they still couldn't be perfectly accurate -- and you have no way of corectly representing the varying ability of motorized units to function in a variety of more or less 'truck unfriendly' terrain.

That's just a limitation of the system. But you shouldn't think that you can stick in a hundred badlands hexes and say, 'there -- that's perfectly simulated.'

No it isn't. And it never will be. And it certainly won't tell you whether or not a completely motorized army could have conquered Russia.

Somewhere, some now-motorized infantry regiment that had to leave its trucks behind to close the ring around a pocket is now going to be trying to hold off twenty thousand Russians without any way of bringing up its heavy mortars or its infantry guns and without any way of bringing up enough MG ammunition fast enough -- and it won't do it any good at all that Curtis decided the hex was merely 'swamp' rather than 'badlands.'

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

Right. 750,000 pieces of artillery. Nothing absurd about that. And we'll need 750,000 trucks to tow them. Here's the reality: The TO&E for an "Old Style" Infantry Division had 1133 horse-drawn vehicles in it. Assuming every one of those towed something - not one single one was in the supply chain - that's about 125,000 total in the infantry divisions.

Assuming the infantry itself still walks, of course.

That assumes nothing of the sort. It simply illustrates how ridiculus any claim that there were 750,000 pieces of towed equipment in the divisions. In fact we can be sure that the 125,000 figure is grossly too large. The vast majority of those vehicles were in the supply columns. As I said lower down, a more probable figure was about 20,000 towed pieces. And, as I also said, converting them to full blown PG divisions just requires about 190,000 trucks total. So the figures from SPI look spot-on - in total contrast to your nonsense.

Aside from that, you are going to need to motorize the supply train as well. So it's a moot point where the vehicles were -- they're all going to need to be replaced with trucks. It won't do the division any good to advance swiftly if the supplies et al can't keep up with it.

Not true. The existing supply net is retained. It will work just as well as it did historically - delivering just the same weight of supply just as far and fast as it did historically. Note that I'm lowering the FSL to account for any slight increase in weight needs. They won't be very large, since, as I've pointed out before, the increased fuel needs will be about 20%, and not all of that will be obtained. Furthermore, the need for fodder for the horse transport will be deducted from those weight figures. And fuel is only a small fraction of supply tonnage.

Note that we can be sure that the supply net is already heavily motorized. The total trucks in the divisions' TO&Es historically were about 180,000. Most of that was in the supply columns already. And there were a total of 322,000 trucks going into Barbarossa. That means that there were at least 120,000 non-divisional trucks also in the supply columns over and above the divisional trucks in them.

And there's an even better way to see how motorized the columns were: Just compare to WWI scenarios. See my Kaiserschlacht 1918 scenario - the supply radius is 10km. In contrast, the supply radius for Soviet Union 1941 is 250km. That's the difference between a motorized supply net and a horsed one.

Plus you will now need trucks for every bozo who was able to walk alongside the wagons. He can't trot to keep up.

Of course. That's what the figures account for. And note that the total for those divisions are about 1.9M men. Deduct the 300,000 or so of them that are already riding the supply trucks and you get about 1.6M men to lift. Again, the SPI figures are looking spot-on more and more.

Then we've got those elements that aren't in the division -- the division doesn't requisition its supply back at the railhead and move it all the way up to the front. It'd be nice if the corps artillery can come along too. Perhaps it'd be good if Corps HQ could keep up as well. Field hospitals? Etc.

Actually, that's not necessary. However, I assume the HQs are motorized since that doesn't take much.

So we're back to a million-plus vehicles and the necessary fuel. Not unless you want this army to lurch forward a hundred miles and then just halt until the horses have caught up again.

Which is why it didn't happen.

It's clear you're going to repeat this absolutely absurd nonsense indefinitely - probably because you're too invested in it.

As is quite apparent, what I've been 'smoking' is counting the actual number of horse-drawn vehicles in the Wehrmacht, noting that it won't do motorized combat units any good to advance out of reach of horse-drawn support elements, and wondering just where the fuel would come for all this.

No. I've been using referenced numbers provided by professionals.

Kind of unfair. You're the guy who has never explained how horse-drawn supply would keep up with these motorized units, and you're the guy who has never even found a drop of the additional fuel you're going to need.

The supply net was mostly truck-drawn, and I've said many times that some of the fuel will come from the occuppied countries and from the German economy. Any shortfall will be accounted for via the reduction in the FSL.

Oh God help us. The blithe speculations of S&T Magazine are now the facts. Actual numbers of vehicles, the consideration that the fuel wasn't there -- that all goes out the window. S&T Magazine said it could be done.

Figures provided by professionals over some bozo on the web spouting nonsense any day. This wasn't S&T, by the way. A published book.

They were there. They were a professional military organization that was the most progressive of its time. They were fully aware of the advantages of motorization and did all they could to implement it.

Actually, they weren't aware of just what was going to transpire in Barbarossa. They expected it to be decided on the frontier. Under that assumption, they had enough motorization.

And that same "professional military organization" failed to implement a total war economy until after the war was lost.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

That argument. I suppose if I make the Preipet marshes desert, and the campaign goes off okay, then they must have been desert?

Getting historical results is reassuring. It's not proof of anything, and there are numerous examples of wargames that deliver historical results but obviously distort things beyond all reason.

See S&T's 'War in the East.' Sure, the Germans get to about where they historically did. Of course, that's because the Red Army consists almost solely of a hundred or so 1-4 infantry divisions and the ZOC costs are set so that they can withdraw in front of the Germans without ever entering combat at a rate that will just keep the Germans out of Moscow, Leningrad, etc.

No huge 1941 Red Army, no encirclements, no desperate counterattacks. But hey -- the Germans wind up just short of Moscow. Fine simulation, I suppose.

It works in multiple metrics, not just the ending boundaries. I'm certain I'm starting from a very good base.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

It'll also be an issue in real life when their (truck-drawn) support weapons can't get up to them, and their (truck carried) supplies can't reach them. Sure, this works for one or two kilometers off the Minsk-Riga highway. It does nothing to get you ten km down that forest track after a rainstorm.

I repeat, they are badlands. They can't be entered by motorized units at all, ever.

I stand corrected, but I dunno about the accuracy. As you may recall, I asked if I could use your CFNA map, but I found it to be quite inaccurate. I wasn't going to bring it up, but since you have started asserting they are the best wargame maps ever made...

For those specific topics they are - to this point. And I'm more than happy to let them speak for themselves.

More to the point, my point is that the real world isn't divided into discrete hex types. Land isn't either 'hills' or not 'hills,' and there are hills and hills, and how they will affect combat varies in all kinds of ways.

Land isn't either 'badlands' or 'not badlands' either. Sometimes it is quite impassable, sometimes offered continued good going even for large numbers of vehicles, and sometimes is somewhere in between.

Even if your maps were in fact as good as TOAW would let you make them, they still couldn't be perfectly accurate -- and you have no way of corectly representing the varying ability of motorized units to function in a variety of more or less 'truck unfriendly' terrain.

That's just a limitation of the system. But you shouldn't think that you can stick in a hundred badlands hexes and say, 'there -- that's perfectly simulated.'

No it isn't. And it never will be. And it certainly won't tell you whether or not a completely motorized army could have conquered Russia.

Somewhere, some now-motorized infantry regiment that had to leave its trucks behind to close the ring around a pocket is now going to be trying to hold off twenty thousand Russians without any way of bringing up its heavy mortars or its infantry guns and without any way of bringing up enough MG ammunition fast enough -- and it won't do it any good at all that Curtis decided the hex was merely 'swamp' rather than 'badlands.'

Again, I used badlands instead of marsh. Badlands are impassable to motorized units. They are impassable to supply as well. So the task for the Axis player will be AT LEAST as hard as it would be for a real Axis commander.

[ColinWright]

I feel comfortable resting my case.