Sapper/Engineer regiments

[Dreamslayer]

I guess with changes in latest beta Sapper regiments need to be finnaly reworked.

Currently they got even MG squads in their TOE. Imho, its in searching for somehow to reduce Soviet abilities for fortificating. There are can be 2 reasons for it : game balance(because with full strength as in early versions and with ability to create up to 25 sapper regiments per turn it is too OP) and somehow to limit number of sapper/combat engineers squads in early part of this war (because of heavy losses of specialists and special equipments).

But you guys going to other way. I'll try to explain. It is about 41-42 for this moment.
First of all, for some reasons there was not many Sapper/Engineer regiments during war. In some sources said about 14 regiments which was formed from January to June 1941 for the Western theater of operations and 4 for the mountain.
10 of these regiments on June 1941 was in the Western border Military Districts(Leningrad,Baltic,Western,Kiev,Odessa). Most of them was on construction of fortifications.
After heavy losses especially on the directions of main strikes they was mostly 'unready'. Most of them was reformed to engineer batallions or disbanded during summer 1941.

For specific I was partly translated data-list of directive Ministry of Defence (dated 1960 with some corrections,latest corrections in 1998).
This list contains sapper/engineer regiments (which can be combat engineer support units in game, because there was many others regiments like road,pontoon etc.) with dates when they was in the active army(not sure how to better translate this term).

5th separate reserve engineer rgt (Northern and Leningrad fronts) 24.06.41-19.08.42
7th separate reserve engineer rgt (SW front) 14.08.41-30.10.41
9th separate engineer rgt (SW front) 22.06.41-1.08.41
10th separate engineer rgt (Western front) 22.06.41-1.08.41
12th separate engineer rgt (23 Army) 22.06.41-8.07.41
22th separate engineer rgt (Western front) 24.06.41-12.07.41
23th separate engineer rgt (Western front) 22.06.41-1.08.41
25th separate engineer rgt (NW front) 22.06.41-27.07.41
29th separate engineer rgt (23 Army) 22.06.41-8.08.41
33th engineer rgt 22.06.41-23.07.41
37th separate engineer rgt (12 Army) 22.06.41-26.08.41
38th engineer rgt 25.07.41-24.10.42
13th separate reserve engineer rgt 23.11.41-30.12.41 and 15.05.42-30.03.43

There are another 6 regiments which was in active army during 1943-1944 some months each. But this story about 1941-1942 and I want to show how is unhistorically this spam-forming sapper regiments in the game atm.

Of course you can ask “how I must fight without them then?”. Ok for combat engineer role there is still possible to forming sapper batallions as it was irl. And for assist for digging there must be engineer-sapper brigades(up to 17-19 construction batallions each) from October 1941, they was parts of Sapper Armies (one this Army = 4-6 brigades).
I guess it is enough for pre-Stalingrad period.

My view how to solve this “sapper issue”:

Remove sapper regiment from support units creating list.

TOE of sapper/engineer regiments can be reworked for more labor squads, no need MG there pls. Total 1000-1092 men. Some of this regiments which was formed after beginning of the war can be added as reinforcements, one in July,one in August, one in November 1941 and those 6 during 1943-1944. Same can be done with their historical disbands.

Next, about changing TOE for sappers in the divisions. There was only one change in TOE for them during 1941 – in December composition of the sapper batallion of division was reduced from 3 to 2 sapper companies.

For the simulations of lack engineer equipments/specialists during first period of war there can be introduced some production limits for sapper squads per turn in 1941-1942.

And finaly give for combat engineers(pioneeers/sappers etc.) mine or mine-warfare(no ideas how is more correct in English)equpment. Give them mines as weapon. No need to huge effect of it but let it be. Mines was one of the major parts of their job.


Link for that data-list #16 about engineer/sapper regiments(without latest corrections, anyway there is only 1 correction for 1941 about dates of 13th rgt) – text version in Russian - http://www.teatrskazka.com/Raznoe/Perec ... 16_02.html

Link for all parts of this data-list(there are thousands units from Front Hqs to armored trains) – scanned version in djvu-format, of course in Russian too - http://soldat.ru/doc/perechen/


Sorry idk how is spoiler-option works here.

[chaos45]

The issue with your suggestion is sapper regiments are also one of the main ways in game the Soviet player can fortify.

With all the changes to the game the Sapper regiment isnt really an issue IMO. Basically until 1943 they are mainly good for adding some manpower to soviet defenses and helping to dig in more quickly.

Very rarely will see big chunk of German fortifications being removed by the low skill Soviet Sapper regiments. So it would seem in effect they are basically functioning as slightly better digging infantry squads. Which is fairly realistic mainly because they still get higher entrenching ability while next to enemy units.

I could be wrong I dont know all the calculations going on under the hood but from how the game plays they seem to work fine when their isnt a bug making them not work at all as per the previous game patch.

Look at them more as construction engineers with some combat ability more than real combat engineers....as until their experience level gets high or they become guards they effectiveness is very low...and later in the war 1943+ with high national experience they start to become more what you would think of as combat/assault engineers which seems to be somewhat realistic after the experience from Stalingrad and some other major city fights.

[Dreamslayer]

The issue is that patch team starts to fantasize about numbers of sapper squads in some units.They trying to reduce number of sappers in divisions, in separate batallions of corps, in sapper regiments. But they dont want to fix it as I said - just stop create sapper regiments in mass because there was no so many specialists and special equipment in 1941-1942 for fill so many sapper regiments units. Vice versa - these regiments mostly was disbanded during summer 1941 and their remaining squads gone for forming batallions. Regiments was too expensive formations for that period of time.
Digging in 1941-42 can be stay at normal level by return normal number of sapper squads into division level and to separate sapper batallions of corps/armies.

[Dreamslayer]

1st and 2nd Sapper regiments in the Hanko naval base in the game.
In some sources can be foound info only about one sapper batallion of 8 Infantry brigade there plus 3 construction batallions and 2 construction companies.