TOEs question

[Light4bettor]

ORIGINAL: loki100
1 - A lot of work has gone into the OOBs, the game may actually be worth buying as a near definitive pulling together of the current research into the historical OOBs on the key dates. Which is a long way of saying, there are some things in the game that exist simply because they were there historically

Absolutely. Just to expand on that, I was reading Nigel Askey's work on Barbarossa, which besides OOBs also covers detailed TOE's for the eve of Barbarossa. My question is his research indicates that the total army inventory for Sd Kfz 251 armored personnel carriers was 760 vehicles (circa june 22). As some of you know, as of June 22, Pz divisons contained 2 motorized infantry regiments. Each regiment would contain 2 battalions. One of the battalions was regular Trucks and the other would be SPW (halftracks/Sd Kfz 251s).

Therefore its obvious not all Panzer divisons get armored infantry battalions. Each armored infantry Bn (battalion) would need 71 Sd Kfz 251s. The 1st Panzer division was the only division that had 2 armored infantry Bns. (therefore it would have apprx 142 Sd Kfz 251s out of the total of 760).

In WitE1 when I look at 1st Pz in the Grand Campaign, I don't see any indications of this advantage.
Not to mention that Askey says that most of other Pz divsions (besides 10 Pz) had only 1 company of armored infantry (which I do see reflected in the game); and even then there were a number of Pz divisons that did not have any armored infantry whatsoever-- 14, 16, 19 Pz because no more halftracks were available. I'm sure this a design choice, just wondering if it is fixed or the rationale behind not updating it?

I am aware that during the war German industry would never be able to supply enough SPWs, esp the 1st year, but the 1st Pz should probably start off with more armored infantry than it does.

[loki100]

can't answer directly but pretty much every 1941 Pzr division seems to be unique in its actual make up. I'm not really into the details so I miss the stuff you refer to but you really notice the difference when one using Czech or French tanks crashes into a Soviet tank division with a decent compliment of T34s/KV1s.

You may well still win (command and control etc) but the losses can be painful

I can't show the screen now, but its really interesting just to see the range of named TOE for the 1941 Pzr divisions and some are clearly far stronger.

[RedLancer]

Roger beat me to it but the screenshot should show that we are on the mark. [;)]

[RedLancer]

and to complete the picture...

[Light4bettor]

Thanks a ton. Very sexy [:)]

[Great_Ajax]

Askey's work was done on all of the initial TO&Es.

[Light4bettor]

Correct, sorry if it was not clear that was what I was referring to.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: Light4bettor

ORIGINAL: loki100
1 - A lot of work has gone into the OOBs, the game may actually be worth buying as a near definitive pulling together of the current research into the historical OOBs on the key dates. Which is a long way of saying, there are some things in the game that exist simply because they were there historically

Absolutely. Just to expand on that, I was reading Nigel Askey's work on Barbarossa, which besides OOBs also covers detailed TOE's for the eve of Barbarossa. My question is his research indicates that the total army inventory for Sd Kfz 251 armored personnel carriers was 760 vehicles (circa june 22). As some of you know, as of June 22, Pz divisons contained 2 motorized infantry regiments. Each regiment would contain 2 battalions. One of the battalions was regular Trucks and the other would be SPW (halftracks/Sd Kfz 251s).

Therefore its obvious not all Panzer divisons get armored infantry battalions. Each armored infantry Bn (battalion) would need 71 Sd Kfz 251s. The 1st Panzer division was the only division that had 2 armored infantry Bns. (therefore it would have apprx 142 Sd Kfz 251s out of the total of 760).

In WitE1 when I look at 1st Pz in the Grand Campaign, I don't see any indications of this advantage.
Not to mention that Askey says that most of other Pz divsions (besides 10 Pz) had only 1 company of armored infantry (which I do see reflected in the game); and even then there were a number of Pz divisons that did not have any armored infantry whatsoever-- 14, 16, 19 Pz because no more halftracks were available. I'm sure this a design choice, just wondering if it is fixed or the rationale behind not updating it?

I am aware that during the war German industry would never be able to supply enough SPWs, esp the 1st year, but the 1st Pz should probably start off with more armored infantry than it does.

1Panzer Div
authorised 251 1941 90, on hand 61. 250 authorised 107, on hand 48. total 109; 2,6,8 and (10 Panzer Div with 16)15 251 each on hand in April, in May 4 and 7 Panzer issues 16 251, 2,3,4,10Panzer pioneer Coy issued 6 251 each.
Note first 305 production run of 251 had 4 mm on un hardened armour.

French Campaign for context, 250 on hand 26, 251 on hand 137. lost in France 2 and 26. issued during campaign, 1 and 17.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: Light4bettor

ORIGINAL: loki100
1 - A lot of work has gone into the OOBs, the game may actually be worth buying as a near definitive pulling together of the current research into the historical OOBs on the key dates. Which is a long way of saying, there are some things in the game that exist simply because they were there historically

Absolutely. Just to expand on that, I was reading Nigel Askey's work on Barbarossa, which besides OOBs also covers detailed TOE's for the eve of Barbarossa. My question is his research indicates that the total army inventory for Sd Kfz 251 armored personnel carriers was 760 vehicles (circa june 22). As some of you know, as of June 22, Pz divisons contained 2 motorized infantry regiments. Each regiment would contain 2 battalions. One of the battalions was regular Trucks and the other would be SPW (halftracks/Sd Kfz 251s).

Therefore its obvious not all Panzer divisons get armored infantry battalions. Each armored infantry Bn (battalion) would need 71 Sd Kfz 251s. The 1st Panzer division was the only division that had 2 armored infantry Bns. (therefore it would have apprx 142 Sd Kfz 251s out of the total of 760

Here is 251 production numbers by month, 251 armoured begins production in June, before then the A model was 4 mm un hardened armour, total built 305.
1939
11
32
25
42
35
44
43
232 for year.

1940
13
39
19
26
34
25
55
20
27
14
30
347 for year.

1941
13
8
13
12
20
69 by June.

Total built 648

1 Panzer was issued them for France to evaluate the concept, only after then is it rolled out to other formations.GD Reg had 28 more than many a Panzer Div, all 11 Stugg Bttns had 3, Rommel DAK was also better equipped with 72 in 2 Panzer Divs, Eastern Front Div had 15 in the Inf And 6 in the poiner

[Great_Ajax]

FYI, the OB system does not track individual 250s or 251s. Armored Panzergrenadiers and Pioneers that were equipped with halftracks get an armored rating with their squad stats. The only exceptions are the halftrack equipped with special weaponry like anti-tank guns, cannons, flamethrower, etc.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

FYI, the OB system does not track individual 250s or 251s. Armored Panzergrenadiers and Pioneers that were equipped with halftracks get an armored rating with their squad stats. The only exceptions are the halftrack equipped with special weaponry like anti-tank guns, cannons, flamethrower, etc.

FYI, the game does track individuals elements, the 251 is an element in Pzr Grn and poineers squads equipped with 251, it gives armour value 1 in wite1 to the element including the 251 as equipment, it increases movement, and is an extra cost for replacement. The variants all have armour value 14 in game and they and the 251 all had the same armour protection, another oddity that increases casualties when Toe puts more such elements in game.

In 41 there were 3 squads of poineers with them, but this is not included in the 41 Set up, they are added in later years. No one took the time to add them in as elements in 41 in wite1. In game there are 9 squads of 251 Pzr Grn in every Pzr Div in 41 this yields 153 squads over all, when there were c580 squads on hand, or c760 squads authorised with 251, in wite2 I see the poineers with 251 are now represented and Divs 251 equipped squads are more acuratly represented overall and as Loki tells us generic Div has been replaced with unique.

1 Pzr was an exception, having far more than anyone else, the reason all Divs have 9 is again no one took the time to input better numbers and yield Divs with either on hand or authorised numbers, unlike later scn which do have Divs with such variations. wite2 looks to make the changes to have Divs with better numbers of 251 equipped.

Image in post 3 shows a change in Wite2 to show 1 Panzer how has as many 251 squads in half trucks as those in trucks, ie 54 squads in trucks and 54 in 251, there were 3 Bttns in the Brigade, 2 of which had 251 and 1 with trucks.

[Light4bettor]

lots of interesting data Hammy: here is the book and table I am referencing for this discussion- "Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organizational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation- Vol IIA. by Nigel Askey"

And here is his TOE and actuals for 1st Pz division right before the invasion (which we already noted is unique in someways- lol just like just about every Heer divison.

In his table, notice that while 1st Pz div is authorized 150 Sdfkz 251 Half tracks, it actually has, as far as the Askey has ascertained at least as the month of June (and before the actual invasion of course) 182 half tracks. Presumably this to make up for its TOE shortage of Sdfkz 250 halftracks.

Also this table shows that each regiment does have 54 rifle squad (1 battalion with 27 squads in trucks and 1 battalion with 27 in halftracks). In my reading I'm still tryng to figure out if you are saying that 1 Pz div. went to war with only 3 battalions of infantry or (2 battalions in halftracks and 1 battalion in trucks)?

[RedLancer]

I think a bit of clarification may be required as the brand new systems we have introduced for WitE2 change things quite a lot and it can be confusing.

As Great_Ajax (our lead scenario designer) says 251s are not a specific ground element in the squad structure. You can see this in this screenshot of the Squad structure. This is different to WitE1.

We can do this differently in WitE2 as production now includes chassis and airframes as an initial step. To create a PzG squad you still have to use a 251 Chassis. You can see the import data in the bottom left quadrant of the screenshot. Whilst the number of possible imports are greater than the historic figures quoted by Hanny the ultimate restriction is the total number of chassis produced (not shown). I'm afraid there is not a simple way to see how many squads there are at the start of GC41 but we have done our very best to follow history within the game's coding restraints.

By setting the restrictions at chassis and airframe level we can have more tolerance in variant production when the game diverges from history as players' progress is different. The game will broadly follow historic production limits although that can still vary due to strategic bombing damaging factories.

[Light4bettor]

Hanny here is the passage from the Askey's book that I was referencing:

[Wuffer]

You can see this in this screenshot of the Squad structure.

Thanks for further clarification, Red Lancer.

Probably I didn't understand this abstraction yet, but for the lawman it looks like a Pz.Grd.-squad having three MG34s?

Just curious how the system works, a bonus for vehicle mounted?
Yeah, it's tricky to simulate, when armoured infantry is riding through arty fire while protected, but then fighting by foot...

On a side note, just for enjoying further hair splittings, are you sure an armoured battalion still has his ATR's and small 50 mm mortars? )) The (in)famous KStN 1114(gp) would suggest not, instead swapping them for the three 37 mm ATG of the platoon's HQ and the two organic 80s of each company. ^^

Source for example Niehorster: http://niehorster.org/011_germany/books ... -07-07.pdf, page 45

Thanks once again for your patience!

[Great_Ajax]

So, totally not sure about ATRs and 50mm mortars. The org structures show they were authorized but different units did what they wanted when they got to the field. Many units ditched their ATRs all together, some kept them and some kept maybe one ATR with the company baggage trains. Same way with the Russians. The Soviets had official Cavalry TO&Es for a smaller division in 1942 but there were cavalry divisions that participated in Uranus that were using the original summer 41 fielding numbers. Typically, our OBs represent the official authorizations and not the field modifications.

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

You can see this in this screenshot of the Squad structure.

Thanks for further clarification, Red Lancer.

Probably I didn't understand this abstraction yet, but for the lawman it looks like a Pz.Grd.-squad having three MG34s?

Just curious how the system works, a bonus for vehicle mounted?
Yeah, it's tricky to simulate, when armoured infantry is riding through arty fire while protected, but then fighting by foot...

On a side note, just for enjoying further hair splittings, are you sure an armoured battalion still has his ATR's and small 50 mm mortars? )) The (in)famous KStN 1114(gp) would suggest not, instead swapping them for the three 37 mm ATG of the platoon's HQ and the two organic 80s of each company. ^^

Source for example Niehorster: http://niehorster.org/011_germany/books ... -07-07.pdf, page 45

Thanks once again for your patience!

[Light4bettor]

I'm really not trying to nitpick but wanted to point out that, for example, if 14th, 16th, and 19th Pz have no halftracks on June 21, then they probably shouldn't have any mechanized infantry (panzer grendiers) on hand-- until the factories send some to them. Sure their TOE could say they are authorized them, but until the half-tracks are with them it probably shouldn't be reflected in what they actually have. Having a battalion of infantry in halftracks should be a significant tactical advantage in combat and planning.
The same way that 1 Pz divisions luxury of 2 battlalions of halftracked panzer grenadiers should be a CV plus (tactically speaking).

I haven't seen Wite2 (except here) at all so maybe it has been changed from Wite1.

Now maybe the game system cant do this, which I understand.

[Great_Ajax]

The 14th, 16th and 19th Pz Divisions don't have any halftracks per their OB at the start of Barbarossa.

[loki100]

Not sure if this answers your question but there are 5 notional Pzr Division TOEs for June 1941. In addition, there are then secondary variations as to how well equipped they are (14, 16 & 8 being particularly under strength).

But yes in the end the element model does impose some constraints, the building block is not the single person, its a collection of persons into a squad with each then then allocated manpower and gizmos as Red Lancer set out above.

[Great_Ajax]

There are 5 different Panzer Division OBs being used at the start of Barbarossa:

41 Standard Panzer Division (0030) w/1 Arm PzG Company and 1 Arm Pio Company - 3rd Pz, 4th Pz, 9th Pz, 11th Pz, 12th Pz, 17th Pz, 18th Pz

41 Czech Panzer Division (0031) - 6th Pz, 7th Pz, 8th Pz, 12th Pz, 20th Pz

41 1 x PzG Bn Panzer Division (0032) - 10th Pz

41 2 x PzG Bn Panzer Division (0033) - 1st Pz

41 No PzG Bn Panzer Division (1938) - 14th Pz, 16th Pz, 19th Pz