Europa 1947 v5.8 for TOAW IV

[Emp_Palpatine]

You should also separate bombers from fighters in air units. That would be awesome.

[VHauser]

ORIGINAL: Emp_Palpatine

You should also separate bombers from fighters in air units. That would be awesome.

I agree. In addition, I will make air units as homogenous as possible.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: VHauser

ORIGINAL: Emp_Palpatine
You should also separate bombers from fighters in air units. That would be awesome.

I agree. In addition, I will make air units as homogenous as possible.

How about each unit fly only one model of airplane? Or is that what you meant by homogenous?

[VHauser]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: VHauser

ORIGINAL: Emp_Palpatine
You should also separate bombers from fighters in air units. That would be awesome.

I agree. In addition, I will make air units as homogenous as possible.

How about each unit fly only one model of airplane? Or is that what you meant by homogenous?

Yes. Now that TOAW4 allows up to 10,000 units, many OOB options are now possible.

[Silvanski]

ORIGINAL: VHauser
Yes. Now that TOAW4 allows up to 10,000 units, many OOB options are now possible.

I like your scientific approach

[VHauser]

After messing around with my spreadsheet, the Germans, British, and USA average around 90 (plus or minus) infantry squads per regiment. Everybody else averages around 80 (plus or minus) rifle squads per regiment.

This results, as one example, in a German infantry division of around 270 infantry squads and a Soviet rifle division of around 240 rifle squads. Those numbers will be augmented by recon, engineer, etc., assets. The German division will have more divisional assets. Further, the German division will have higher proficiencies. So, even though both divisions are close in terms of raw infantry/rifle squads (and those Soviet squads will have access to AK-47s), the German division will be significantly larger and stronger overall.

I'll work hard to keep divisions small and lean instead of big and fat.

Addendum 1. All units in this revision will be generic by necessity (that is, a hypothetical scenario is by definition hypothetical). That said, I will be using historical information as templates for the generic units in this revision. As one example: Generic German infantry divisions will draw upon Type 1944, Volksgrenadier, and even Type 1939 divisions to produce a generic division that can project into the hypothetical future covered by E47.

[VHauser]

Here is my first pass at a German infantry division:

[Silvanski]

Jagdpanther 46, I like that already [;)]

[VHauser]

ORIGINAL: Silvanski

Jagdpanther 46, I like that already [;)]

There seems to be a problem with the Graphics Override folder because I keep getting a wrong .eqp file error.

Anyway, what I usually do is create some baseline divisions to act as references to help me from straying. I also keep several notebooks to help me keep track of things as time goes on. I figure this project will take around a year and without those notebooks I could easily forget stuff.

I'm fairly satisfied with that first draft, but I think that those 75mm infantry howitzers are obsolete by 1947 and shouldn't be standard equipment for first-rate German infantry. I've already replaced the 150mm infantry howitzers with SturmPanthers (similar to Brumbars but using the Panther chassis instead of the PzIV chassis) and I'll probably replace those 75mm infantry howitzers with a self-propelled weapon (which I haven't created yet) to be consistent with those SturmPanthers. All of the major nations were incorporating some measure of armor support into their infantry divisions during 1945 historically, so doing this for German infantry is justifiable for E47.

[VHauser]

Here is my first pass at a US infantry division:




Edit: That image is at 60% proficiency. At 70% (US Army average) the division is a 9-8 and not an 8-7.

[VHauser]

Here is my first pass at a Soviet rifle division (65% proficiency):




I've started work on a British infantry division (which is easily the hardest one to do).

[VHauser]

Update:

As I started research into the British infantry division, I quickly discovered that there are problems with my first pass of the divisions I'd already done. I guess I should have started with the British first. Oh well.

Anyway, from what I can see right now, the British infantry division is very different (mainly significantly larger) than those other first pass divisions. That means that I'll have to increase the size of those other divisions if what my current research on the British is correct. I'll know more in a day or two.

[VHauser]

By 1945 all nations faced serious manpower problems. Those problems were compounded by industrial production needs on the home front. So, as one example, even though the USA had more theoretical manpower available than the Germans (since the USA had a larger population than the Germans) they needed an enormous amount of skilled labor to drive their war production (the USA was producing about as much war material as the rest of the world combined). So, practically speaking, the USA could only field around 100 divisions and still leave enough manpower at home to keep the factories running at full capacity. The British could only field around 50 infantry divisions. The Germans needed far more divisions to secure and maintain their far-flung empire. The Soviets needed an enormous amount of divisions to offset the quality superiority of the Germans (also, Soviet commanders were not as skilled at commanding larger formations compared to the German commanders which meant smaller Soviet formations).

Thus, the British and American divisions will be the largest (since they have fewer divisions to maintain) while the German and Soviet divisions will be smaller (since they have to spread their manpower over a large number of divisions). However, even if I play fast and loose with the numbers, it looks like the British will still have the largest divisions which means that I'll have to scale all the other divisions based on the British. And that means that until I come up with a British template, then those other divisions I started to work on are incorrect and will all need to be re-scaled based off the British template. Stay tuned...

Addendum: Another factor that will influence the size of infantry divisions is their role. British and American infantry divisions are expected to attack. All other nations use infantry mainly as defenders. So, British and American infantry divisions will be larger and more powerful to fulfill their role. Other nations use other kinds of divisions as attackers (panzer, shock, etc.) and those kinds of divisions will be larger/more powerful as a result.

[VHauser]

Update #2.

I've been doing a lot of research the past 3 days. Turns out that my initial assumptions regarding E47 were incorrect. Here are the results of my research to date.

1. US Army and British infantry divisions are around 18,000 men. The large size is mainly due to increased mechanization and addition of tank units and expanded divisional assets. Base proficiency is 70%.

2. German infantry divisions are around 16,000 men for standard infantry and 13,000 men for Type 44 infantry (which were actually introduced during 1942 but not formally standardized until 1944). Volksgrenadier and Volkssturm divisions were never needed by the Germans in E47 and the Luftwaffe Feld divisions were all absorbed by 1945. Base proficiency is 80% for standard infantry and 75% for Type 1944 infantry.

3. All other nations have infantry divisions around 10,000-12,000 men. Most all of those divisions (except Soviet and Italian) use older/obsolete equipment. Exception: Divisions equipped by the USA/British are organized as USA/British divisions. Base proficiency for most all these divisions is 65% (except divisions equipped/organized by the USA/British is 70%).

[VHauser]

Organizational Trends.

1. All nations were improving the level of mechanization of their forces, some faster (USA/British) than others (Axis Allies).

2. The "Panzergrenadier" Model. All nations were trending their divisions towards an infantry-to-tank ratio of around 3 to 1, some faster (USA/British) than others (Axis Allies).

3. The USA and British divisions were becoming mirror images of each other.

I'm almost ready to start working on the second pass of infantry divisions.

[VHauser]

Here is pass #2 for the German infantry division:

[VHauser]

Update.

1. Recently I've been working on the map. As of now, I'm satisfied that the map is ready for playtest.

2. I've revised the unit colors in order to improve “force support”.

3. I've re-examined high-altitude AAA. Turns out that by the time of E47, bombers were flying well over 30,000 feet. Only a few AAA guns were capable of effectively reaching such altitudes (the German 128mm, the USA 120mm, and the British 5.25”). And even those guns were useless as bombers approached operating altitudes of 40,000 feet by 1948 in E47 terms. So, I'm debating leaving those guns in service for 1947 as high-altitude AAA, and then converting them to AT and artillery after 1947.

4. Related to #3 above, it turns out that the higher bombers flew the more difficult they were to intercept. This is because the large wing areas of the bombers allowed them to remain in stable flight whereas fighters found it increasingly difficult to maneuver (or even fire their weapons) without stalling out. So even if a fighter could theoretically reach over 40,000 feet, that's about all they could do since they couldn't maneuver or fight when they got there. I'm still figuring out what this means and how to represent this in E47.

5. Some house rules: 1) No Allied airdrops more than 10 hexes from a friendly-owned hex; 2) Jewish units may not leave Palestine, but they may limited attack across the border; 3) Arab units may not enter Palestine, and they may not participate in combat with Jewish units.

[VHauser]

Unit Reorganizations. I've put unit TO&Es on hold until I figure out how I want to handle unit reorganizations over the course of the game. As one example, sometime during 1948/49 (in E47 terms) the Soviets undergo a complete reorganization of their military. As another example, every year large-scale equipment upgrades due to technological advances will transform many units. I am working hard to figure out ways to handle these issues. One way I'm thinking about dealing with this is to perform organizational withdrawals/returns during December each year as winter sets in since operations will be minimized during that time anyway. Another way I'm thinking about handling this (in combination with the December withdrawals/returns) is to minimize equipment upgrades within each unit in favor of annual/biannual withdrawals/returns. This is possible since TOAW4 now allows up to 10,000 events.

Air units. It's starting to look like 160 aircraft per unit is the optimal unit size for the 25km game scale of E47. Also, strategic air assets are generally outside the scope of TOAW4 since they are conducting strategic operations that cannot be represented in TOAW4. However, strategic air units were occasionally used tactically. So, rather than simply removing all strategic air units from E47, I'll leave a few to account for tactical use of strategic assets.

Naval units. The naval divider of 100 is way too high. I'm going to drop it down to 20 (or lower) for playtest. Also, I'll be adding a variety of naval units to account for technological upgrades over the course of E47.

[VHauser]

Airpower.

I've identified 106 air units in the Luftwaffe OOB. That's 17,000 aircraft at 160 aircraft per unit (160 is roughly the size of a reinforced geschwader). 17,000 aircraft is double the maximum size of the Luftwaffe in 1944. Even if I believe that the Luftwaffe had the manpower and the ability to train and operate 17,000 aircraft, a sizeable fraction of that 17,000 would have operated on strategic defense against the Allied strategic bombers (which I've pretty much removed from the Allied OOB). The USAF 8th, 15th, 20th, and 21st Air Forces plus Bomber Command represents a very large fraction (quite possibly the majority) of the total Allied airpower commitment (Soviet strategic assets are small).

Anyway, I can easily remove the Axis night fighters because they would have certainly operated on strategic defense. Next, only the best high-altitude fighters would be chosen for strategic defense (since nothing would have been higher priority). But the question is how many? Right now I don't know, but I'm working on that.

[VHauser]

I've been sick recently (heart problem). But I am back and will have another E47 update within the next 7 days.