RE: 1943 German manpower
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 2:59 pm
Yep have read personal accounts of the battle from the commanders on the ground- they differ completely from your telling of the situation. They didnt call the exit from the pocket hellsgate because it was a pleasant experience......also the casualty figures tell the true story of how bloody a fight it was.
You do realize thats like 3,000 men per day of action just at this pocket? Thats pretty much a full regiment+ of combat troops lost every single day......that is telling in and of itself of how brutal this combat situation was.
Also to get a rough idea of casualties just look at total losses for the war- a quick rough estimate for German losses from 1941 until the end the lost an average of around 3,000 KIA/MIA per day...wouded and sick probably 3x that from most what Ive seen.
So every single day of WW2 on average your looking at the German Army lost 10,000-15,000 men----per day- now im sure mud/weather weeks were lower operations/lower losses but as an overall average.
So in a given week the total average for the war would around 70,000 men KIA/WIA/MIA/POW....yes some weeks more some less but as a rough overall average- and probably on the low side for overall average....short of major encirclements you will never see this, in this game. (another roughly 10 million total POWs from the last year of the war I didnt include)
The Soviets average...much higher, just some quick math probably 10,000 KIA/MIA/POW per day with apparently alot lower percentage of wounded from what I see guess so many more captured is another reason. So about 10k wounded per day.
So average weekly losses rock in around 140K+ give or take a couple thousand. Alot are permanent losses due to alot of POWs, about half.
An if you really want to start counting 1945+ losses and German POWs the German POW count skyrockets in 1945 and the losses per day about triple or more due to massive surrendering to the western allies. Also you have some massive surrenders in North Africa and after Normandy.....
So its very easy to see with just some basic research the game is all wrong on casualties. As most of the time there werent massive encirclements going on and entire armies being wiped out. Pure daily combat along a thousand miles of frontline adds up to a ton of dead/wounded/missing/POW every single day....and that number then skyrockets when major operations actually kick off.
In modern war we get upset over a squad being wiped out- in WW2 nobody really cared when a squad/company/even battalion was wiped out- that was standard combat losses. The Germans knew going into barbarossa they were going to lose at least Half a million men- they knew this.....and those estimates were provided the war was done by Fall.
Now the issue in the game is trying to make this happen without either army collapsing due to losses being to high suddenly from combat. I think in the game if the German player suddenly starts burning close to 50k men a week for operations they will soon have to curtail operations due to attrition especially by the summer of 1942. Now given mud turns both sides would lose alot less....and this goes a long way towards explaining why in the real was there were period of just static operations neither side had the men to conduct major costly assaults because manpower is finite.
Even in mid to late 1943 when the soviets go over to the attack they attack for awhile...then they have to halt and rebuild...then attack for awhile...casualties are one of the big reasons.....their units would be effectively destroyed after several weeks of combat....same with the German units in the Ukraine during this time....most of the German divisions were down to less than 10K total manpower and probably closer to 5-8K in total manpower often with only 1-2K of that being actual combat infantrymen/pioneers.
You do realize thats like 3,000 men per day of action just at this pocket? Thats pretty much a full regiment+ of combat troops lost every single day......that is telling in and of itself of how brutal this combat situation was.
Also to get a rough idea of casualties just look at total losses for the war- a quick rough estimate for German losses from 1941 until the end the lost an average of around 3,000 KIA/MIA per day...wouded and sick probably 3x that from most what Ive seen.
So every single day of WW2 on average your looking at the German Army lost 10,000-15,000 men----per day- now im sure mud/weather weeks were lower operations/lower losses but as an overall average.
So in a given week the total average for the war would around 70,000 men KIA/WIA/MIA/POW....yes some weeks more some less but as a rough overall average- and probably on the low side for overall average....short of major encirclements you will never see this, in this game. (another roughly 10 million total POWs from the last year of the war I didnt include)
The Soviets average...much higher, just some quick math probably 10,000 KIA/MIA/POW per day with apparently alot lower percentage of wounded from what I see guess so many more captured is another reason. So about 10k wounded per day.
So average weekly losses rock in around 140K+ give or take a couple thousand. Alot are permanent losses due to alot of POWs, about half.
An if you really want to start counting 1945+ losses and German POWs the German POW count skyrockets in 1945 and the losses per day about triple or more due to massive surrendering to the western allies. Also you have some massive surrenders in North Africa and after Normandy.....
So its very easy to see with just some basic research the game is all wrong on casualties. As most of the time there werent massive encirclements going on and entire armies being wiped out. Pure daily combat along a thousand miles of frontline adds up to a ton of dead/wounded/missing/POW every single day....and that number then skyrockets when major operations actually kick off.
In modern war we get upset over a squad being wiped out- in WW2 nobody really cared when a squad/company/even battalion was wiped out- that was standard combat losses. The Germans knew going into barbarossa they were going to lose at least Half a million men- they knew this.....and those estimates were provided the war was done by Fall.
Now the issue in the game is trying to make this happen without either army collapsing due to losses being to high suddenly from combat. I think in the game if the German player suddenly starts burning close to 50k men a week for operations they will soon have to curtail operations due to attrition especially by the summer of 1942. Now given mud turns both sides would lose alot less....and this goes a long way towards explaining why in the real was there were period of just static operations neither side had the men to conduct major costly assaults because manpower is finite.
Even in mid to late 1943 when the soviets go over to the attack they attack for awhile...then they have to halt and rebuild...then attack for awhile...casualties are one of the big reasons.....their units would be effectively destroyed after several weeks of combat....same with the German units in the Ukraine during this time....most of the German divisions were down to less than 10K total manpower and probably closer to 5-8K in total manpower often with only 1-2K of that being actual combat infantrymen/pioneers.
