German manpower Dec 1941

[Light4bettor]

I don't think this looks right. There's no way the Germans can have 850k manpower reserves in Dec 1941 right.
This is not my screenshot- but I couldn't explain it.

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[Joel Billings]

It is possible, although that looks on the high side. The German supply situation makes it difficult for replacements to get to the Eastern Front. In the meantime, the German forces take damage and over time a lot of the damaged elements return to the pool and the manpower goes to the pool. Basically the movement of wounded/sick soldiers. The first winter usually ends up with a lot of extra damage, and thus a lot of soldiers going to the pool. The German manpower in the east can drop. Eventually when the supply situation turns around in the Spring, the manpower starts to flow and the German forces can be brought back up in strength. The exact numbers are different depending on how you run your supply system and your supply priorities, as well as your losses, but the basic trend is normal.

[Light4bettor]

Thanks Joel.

[Light4bettor]

It is possible, although that looks on the high side. The German supply situation makes it difficult for replacements to get to the Eastern Front. In the meantime, the German forces take damage and over time a lot of the damaged elements return to the pool and the manpower goes to the pool. Basically the movement of wounded/sick soldiers. The first winter usually ends up with a lot of extra damage, and thus a lot of soldiers going to the pool. The German manpower in the east can drop. Eventually when the supply situation turns around in the Spring, the manpower starts to flow and the German forces can be brought back up in strength. The exact numbers are different depending on how you run your supply system and your supply priorities, as well as your losses, but the basic trend is normal.

I figured it out. I asked the guy and he said he set all his ground TOEs at 50 percent for the first 6 months of the campaign. Something I never imagined doing.

[jasonbroomer]

I think that you are looking at the entire Axis manpower too, not just the Germans. Roms and Italians can easily amass a couple of hundred thousand in the manpower pool if they are kept out of the front line.

[Light4bettor]

I think that you are looking at the entire Axis manpower too, not just the Germans. Roms and Italians can easily amass a couple of hundred thousand in the manpower pool if they are kept out of the front line.

If you look at the screenshot- the german flag indicates its only german reserves pool being counted on the screen, it would show 2 flags if all axis was being counted as a whole.

[Light4bettor]

If the guy did set all his german ground TOEs to 50 in June, then I can see that accumulating to 850k by December is possible with some excess above 50 percent being sent home every week. Going home in the middle of Barbarossa- what a dream scenario. Oh well, they don't need me, time to meet some frauleins.

[Jango32]

Excess TOE elements don't leave that early, it takes a long while. Switching the TOE to 50% is mainly to prevent replacements from going into the units because for some reason there is no such option for land units, whereas you can explicitly prevent replacements for air units.

[Light4bettor]

Excess TOE elements don't leave that early, it takes a long while. Switching the TOE to 50% is mainly to prevent replacements from going into the units because for some reason there is no such option for land units, whereas you can explicitly prevent replacements for air units.

It may take a long while- but I usually find myself with 130-150K manpower pool (german) in Dec 41- whereas this guy has 864k in the first week of Dec 41. The regular replacement pipeline cannot (as far as I know) account/provide for that -700k excess- so I make the assumption that it came from 5 months of having a TOE set at 50 percent and a the excess gradually finding its way back to the pool.

I guess another option is that I am not optimally managing supply priorities- but the guy who has 864k in his replacement pool is a first time player- running through his first GC as Axis. At turn 26 he has 590k total casualties- which I would guess falls in a normal range (I'm currently at 700k at turn 42).

[malyhin1517]

When I first played this game and did not understand the essence of supply priority, I put all my headquarters on 1 level of supply priority, and then at the end of winter I could not understand why all my divisions became so weak, and there were a huge number of soldiers and weapons in the pool . Since then, I always keep my headquarters on the map at level 4 of supply priority. Apparently your opponent made the same mistake.

[Light4bettor]

He's not my opponent- just talking to him on Discord. I'll ask him how he managed his supply priorities, I do not know for a fact nor do I suspect that he kept his supply priorities at 1 for the first 5 months of the game. He only said TOEs were set at 50 from June.

[Stamb]

is it showing German manpower or Axis manpower pool?

[Light4bettor]

when it just shows the german flag- that means its showing exclusively all german pools

[Jango32]

This is from an old singleplayer game with 338 919 Axis losses by turn 25.

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TOE.png (2.97 MiB) Viewed 950 times

As you can see most of the German army is in tip top shape TOE-wise.

[Light4bettor]

You could interpret that chart as support to the supposition that setting the TOEs to 50 percent (in June) is what in fact was the main cause of him having 864k in his manpower pool on turn 26 (even if you take into account his 590k losses by turn 26).

[Jango32]

But you can see that I only have 12 divisions below 80% TOE fulfillment. I've got only 120k less in the manpower pool. So it's entirely possible to stock up on it.

Having said that I've looked at the production pool screen and adding up every Axis member's manpower pool does not equal what I have in the manpower pool in the statistics screen. Are you certain he in fact has that much manpower in the pool? How much of it is in transit?

[Joel Billings]

There are two ways to see the German pool balloon. If you put Max TOE to 50, then no replacements for any elements with over 50%. The second is setting supply priorities to 1, which means no replacements will come in for a ground element that has 50% or more of TOE. Not taking replacements means that your units will sink in strength as they take damage from movement, combat, or general attrition and some of those elements and men go back to the pool.

Your support squads will slowly drop as your need drops, as some is sent back even if not damaged. The way to get support to quickly drop is to send a unit to the reserve. IIRC, when in the reserve, the Support TOE will immediately adjust down to the Max TOE level (can't remember if this is only if the unit is on refit, or for all units in the reserve).

BTW, the manpower graph is all Axis manpower, that includes Axis Generic (HIwi) manpower. That will usually grow to around 200k in 1941. Staring in January, that manpower very quickly gets absorbed by the weak units (unless they have low max TOE and/or low supply priority). So in January you should see the total Axis pool start to drop, and this accelerates as supplies improve in Spring.

[OberstVonWitz]

Excess TOE elements don't leave that early, it takes a long while. Switching the TOE to 50% is mainly to prevent replacements from going into the units because for some reason there is no such option for land units, whereas you can explicitly prevent replacements for air units.

What are you talking about. Wrong !

[Jango32]

What are you talking about. Wrong !

What is?