Axis allies useless?

[Zebtucker12]

They are not useless!
When im playing the soviets i love seing axis minors because i know now i can farm some guards!

[Stamb]

I understand all the jokes but believe me. It is not a joke to have such "allies" in a GC. Same rules applies to Italians, Hungarians. It is super strange that so many patches after a release and we are still having this problem and developers are not going to change anything. One more reason to a list why not to play as an Axis.

[Stamb]

You can feed them with precious supply for multiple turns, attack with them only when you are sure that you will win, to bring their morale up. And in a first serious attack they will route so hard, that you will need a super depot to refit them.

[Stamb]

Remember there was 1 cavalry division that retread, it means 0 CPP?

Here it is:

[Sammy5IsAlive]

That is exactly the same as the last one?

Your Romanians attacked with 2668 elements. After 5 of these were destroyed, c. 0.7% ended the battle disrupted. The Soviet division started with 263 elements and had 222 destroyed. So the 15 elements that were disrupted represented 37% of what remained

[Cavalry Corp]

The issue I have is the Rumanian divisions get trashed just by attrition even in June 41.

One idea maybe to say is as they gain exp their morale goes up so say over 55 exp they get +5 morale, then you have an incentive to nurture them?

[DarkHorse2]

Third Axis, Fourth Ally
Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941 thru 1945
By Mark Axworthy, Cornel I. Scafeș, Cristian Crăciunoiu · 1995

-----

Probably a little more fair toward the Romanians than other works.

John
Mar 31, 2021

Complete coverage of Romania's involvement in WWII from the politics and diplomacy leading to its involvement, to the development of its major weapons systems, to the operations of all three of its armed forces (army, air force, and navy).

The title of the book is indicative of one of the authors theses: that their greater involvement on the Eastern Front, and control of the Ploiesti oil fields, make them the third most important Axis power behind Germany and Japan. That they then changed sides and fought on the side of the Allies, he argues, makes them the fourth most important Ally behind the USSR, the US, and the UK (a less convincing argument than the first one).

His other thesis is that German criticism of Romania for the debacle at Stalingrad is misplaced. With evidence given that Romanian troops were poorly equipped and supported compared to their German allies, and that German troops would not have achieved any greater success given equal circumstances.

He doesn't spend time in the body of the book arguing either thesis, instead simply presenting the known facts of what happened. A good book filling a gap in the history of WWII.

Book is fairly expensive if you purchase it outright. However, if you look, you should be able to find a free PDF download. [;)]

[Nikel]

This table regarding Germany's allies may be useful, from Lev Lopukhovsky and Boris Kavalerchik book, The Price of Victory: The Red Army's Casualties in the Great Patriotic War.

The ratio killed:POW may give us some idea of who were better fighting or more brave at least. The problem is with the Romanian and Slovakian armies with so many missing, where they killed or POW?



Ignoring the MIA, clearly Finns were the best and Hungarian the worst.

Hungary 1:3,46

Italy 1:1,36

Romania 1:2,30

Slovakia 1:0,24

Finland 1:0,06


Considering MIA as killed, I suppose this is more correct. The Romanians improve a lot, also Slovakian but were already very good. Finns and Slovakians preferred to die before surrendering.

Hungary 1:3,46

Italy 1:1,36

Romania 1:0,88

Slovakia 1:0,08

Finland 1:0,06


Perhaps there is a bias because there are no MIA listed for Hungary and Italy.

[Stamb]

nvm
.

[Nikel]

No, it is a ratio comparing their own killed:POW.

The hypothesis is, the less inclined to surrender and more to die fighting, were better and should have a better morale.


Edit: Sorry, you deleted the post.

[Stamb]

yeah, I noticed that it is ratio of killed:pow, thus edited a post

[AlbertN]

I am extremely skeptical that this type of ratio is any indicator of the 'National Average of Troop Quality and Training' value for this game should be.

There are far too many factors to compute about 'dieing fighting' and 'surrendering to the enemy'.

At that stage it's like saying that Japanese soldiers should have NM of 100 across the board as well due to their fanaticism? We'd all know that it is a wrong number though.

[Nikel]

Morale is not the only factor in the game, I guess.

It is just a way to compare one ally with another, are they considered the same in the game?

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: Nikel

The ratio killed:POW may give us some idea of who were better fighting or more brave at least. The problem is with the Romanian and Slovakian armies with so many missing, where they killed or POW?

...

Ignoring the MIA, clearly Finns were the best and Hungarian the worst.

...

Considering MIA as killed, I suppose this is more correct. The Romanians improve a lot, also Slovakian but were already very good. Finns and Slovakians preferred to die before surrendering.

...

In general, the Finns troops were widely regarded as the best of the Axis Allied. But they were also careful to not over-extend themselves and fight close to home, or in territory they had experience and a vested interest in.

In contrast, Romania only had a real interest in Bessarabia and Transylvania. Outside of that, the troops could generally care less. So, as they drove further and further into the Soviet Union (due to ongoing pressure from Hitler via Antonescu), their supply situation grew even worse than their German counterparts as the Germans demanded the lion share of the logistical bandwidth.

The fact they did not outright revolt is amazing.

---

Now Italy, they had no business at all in the Soviet Union when North Africa had not been secured.

There were factors outside of the loss tables that played significant role.

Also, in regard to the MIA stats, unfortunately record-keeping was sporadic at best throughout WWII. However, MIA and POW numbers are generally representative of combat retreat results.

[Zebtucker12]

The alpini would have been of better use in the cacasus than in the desert sadly they where sent to the open stepp....

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: Zebtucker12

The alpini would have been of better use in the cacasus than in the desert sadly they where sent to the open stepp....

I always felt they were fairly respectable of the Italian troops. Those, the Folgore, and a couple of the Armor / Motorized, IMO, were decent. ( https://comandosupremo.com/folgore-at-el-alamein/ )

The alpini could have been sent to the Balkans to free up other German formations there I suppose?

But Italy had no stake in the Soviet Union, other than trying to curry favor with Hitler - which troops at the unit level are not motivated by. (was not like Italy was gaining direct control of any of the spoils obtained)

[Zebtucker12]

According to facist ideology they where destroying the Bolsheviks enemy.
Among the common soldier especially the southern ones it was often viewed as a litteral crusade against an atheistic antichrist.

[Nikel]

The same with the Spanish Division Azul (250th blue in the game), many or all were "falangistas", highly motivated and went to Russia to fight Communism.


They were also very good in the ratio killed:POW, 1:0,08, similar to slovakians and next to the finns.

According to Stanley Payne and the Fundación División Azul: Killed 4954. POW 372.

[DarkHorse2]

The Blue Division was so good it was considered Wehrmacht for all practical purposes.

[DarkHorse2]

ORIGINAL: Zebtucker12

According to facist ideology they where destroying the Bolsheviks enemy.
Among the common soldier especially the southern ones it was often viewed as a litteral crusade against an atheistic antichrist.

Nah, you have been drinking too much of the kool-aid. The average Italian soldier could care less about the ideology of the month. Nor were they motivated by any crusade against Bolsheviks.

Look at their historical major opponents - France, Britain, Greece (none were Bolshevik).

Eager to share in a Nazi victory and gain support for his own cause, Mussolini aligned Italy with Germany. Mussolini believed that by defeating the western democratic powers, Great Britain and France, he would be free to consolidate the empire he coveted.

Much more interested in establishing a modern Roman empire than anything else.