Captured cities should be immediate supply depots

[Great_Ajax]

Fact. The Wehrmacht did take advantage of local food supply but it was never enough to be self sufficient in Russia. The complicated part is that the Wehrmacht did not have control over the food supply and thus the bureaucracy and politics made the reality very complicated. First of all, there were quotas of food that were required to be shipped back to Germany. Second of all, the Wehrmacht didn't even have control over the railways so distribution was always a problem as well. Even with the great bounty of food that was available in 1941, the logistical constraints of delivery of this food to the front was not consistent and there were documented times of some hardship. If you wanted to recreate these supplies in the game, how would you measure how much food in tons is available for the Wehrmacht? That sounds incredibly difficult. It sounds like a problem not really worth the resources to solve. Just my opinion.

Trey

[MakeeLearn]

Stalin ordered "scorched earth" policy on July 3 '41.
Later in the war, the Germans carried out a vigorous "scorched earth".

Moral of the story... Bring your own Ballistol and Vodka.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: Great_Ajax

Fact. The Wehrmacht did take advantage of local food supply but it was never enough to be self sufficient in Russia. The complicated part is that the Wehrmacht did not have control over the food supply and thus the bureaucracy and politics made the reality very complicated. First of all, there were quotas of food that were required to be shipped back to Germany. Second of all, the Wehrmacht didn't even have control over the railways so distribution was always a problem as well. Even with the great bounty of food that was available in 1941, the logistical constraints of delivery of this food to the front was not consistent and there were documented times of some hardship. If you wanted to recreate these supplies in the game, how would you measure how much food in tons is available for the Wehrmacht? That sounds incredibly difficult. It sounds like a problem not really worth the resources to solve. Just my opinion.

Trey

I see no reason to change anything in rule 23, which gives you something from occupation, and have yet to see what you get.
However.
Food tons available would be a function of the population, assuming standard ration weight is 3 lbs a man and 10 lbs a horse, a German 90k Corps with 14k horses requires, 1435 tons of food a week, so a city it moves through and takes from the city stocks as much as it can consume would save the logistical burden of a day as it’s now marching beyond the cities warehouses, and could be 60 miles from it by end of week, city would hold 31500 tons, so maybe a weeks worth of food in stocks, and reduce it by 200 odd tons to plundering in a day, the Corps can’t realistically take more than it could carry, so it’s forward lift capacity comes into play, it may be it has unused forward lift, it may be it does not, it may be it can only carry a days worth of with it.

The problem now is that the RR logistics now has to supply both the German Corps, and the city civilians, so instead of a weekly freight burden of 1435 for the Corp, it now has a large civilian population to feed, so its RR requirment more than doubles, so someone ends up going without, which in part is why the SU civilian loss of life was so high, Ukraine pop fell by maybe half under Nazi occupation, as Germany did not want them all to live in the first place, and could not supply its own needs in the second.

Systematic confiscation was done through the reichskomissariates, Ukraine going live in Sept 41, before then the Army was told to take what it wanted when it wanted it, Himmlers orders, Qm planning was to find 30% of its food in the East so as to free up freight for POL munitions, but I doubt it ever reached that level, so we have no real data to work from before the records stat, Koch gives the yearly tonnagetill 43, and types, and pushing a million tons of grain a year to the Armies in the East, as well as far more back to Germany, Molivisky gives the SU wartime tonnage of the same( tons of grain, potatoes, veg, meat etc) 2.5 m tons of captured grain for instance.

The real extra problem is tracking pop changes in urban hexes, and track aches food stocks consumption etc, they can only support themselves by rail imports as beyond a certain road travail time the cost to the farmer makes the trip uneconomic, so you need a mechanism of food imports to urban hex’s both by rail and road and pop changes from looting, lack of food imports etc, I see no good reason to tinker with how it works, and if you do it’s a can of worms to get it right for rather little gain.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Hanny
I see you ASSUME a German soldier needs 3 lb. per day, maybe its 2lb? Makes quite a difference to you corps requirements for a week doesn't it. Also 10lb per horse? I don't think so, A horse eats grass have a look at photos of Russia, does seem to me that there is a lot of grass? and if its a grain field, why that is fodder then isn't it. Not to mention what fodder is already stored all about the place for the Russian horses. So I think that 10 lbs. per horse is a lot closer to 0 lb per horse which would give you not 1345 tons per week but 630lbs per week. And of course if the Germans are eating Russian food even less.

Also I would most appreciate an answer to these questions

Does a divisions supply requirement decrease as the division takes casualties dropping the number of troops to be supplied?

Are the supply requirements less for a division when it is running forward unopposed as compare to when it is fighting forward.

So really is a divisions supply requirement fixed or variable.

Actually rather than being a instantaneous supply depot (or a supply liability as Hanny is suggesting) a captured Kiev should be a supply source, producing continuous supplies (food fodder) for the duration.

Yes and you are correct Hanny, they will use their trucks to deliver the Kiev supplies to where they are needed and of course while there is any shortage of German supply the Russians will get nothing, So your calculation of the extra rail capacity required to feed the Russians is a bit moot. Especially as the people in Kiev don't even need to be fed, they will eat the same food they ate before the Germans arrived, the food grown in the fields around Kiev. Its not rocket science.

So please can WITE2 not use these sort of nieve, bloated supply requirements for the German army? It wrecks the game.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

Hi Hanny
I see you ASSUME a German soldier needs 3 lb. per day, maybe its 2lb? Makes quite a difference to you corps requirements for a week doesn't it. Also 10lb per horse? I don't think so, A horse eats grass have a look at photos of Russia, does seem to me that there is a lot of grass? and if its a grain field, why that is fodder then isn't it. Not to mention what fodder is already stored all about the place for the Russian horses. So I think that 10 lbs. per horse is a lot closer to 0 lb per horse which would give you not 1345 tons per week but 630lbs per week. And of course if the Germans are eating Russian food even less.

Also I would most appreciate an answer to these questions

Does a divisions supply requirement decrease as the division takes casualties dropping the number of troops to be supplied?

Are the supply requirements less for a division when it is running forward unopposed as compare to when it is fighting forward.

So really is a divisions supply requirement fixed or variable.

Actually rather than being a instantaneous supply depot (or a supply liability as Hanny is suggesting) a captured Kiev should be a supply source, producing continuous supplies (food fodder) for the duration.

Yes and you are correct Hanny, they will use their trucks to deliver the Kiev supplies to where they are needed and of course while there is any shortage of German supply the Russians will get nothing, So your calculation of the extra rail capacity required to feed the Russians is a bit moot. Especially as the people in Kiev don't even need to be fed, they will eat the same food they ate before the Germans arrived, the food grown in the fields around Kiev. Its not rocket science.

So please can WITE2 not use these sort of nieve, bloated supply requirements for the German army? It wrecks the game.

German Army Ww2 used the garrison ration method, the form of ration was dependent on units function,
1 combatration, units committed to combat or recovering from combat, daily weight of ration per ma, 3.74 lbs.
2 Occupation and LoC ration, weight 3.64 lbs.
3Garrison troops inside The Reich, weight 3.57 lbs.
4 non combat roles, weight 3.26 lbs.

So my use of round numbers was sound, your claim is not. Nore is your ignorance if horse grain and fodder rations by the same QM manuals or the starvation ratio allowance for civilians.


can you please stop posting nonsense?, you know less this year than years ago when you made the same baseless claims.

[Zovs]

😃😂😁

ORIGINAL: Farfarer61

Now I know where the band "REO Speedwagon" got its name. Seriously I never knew.

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

Hi Hanny
Also 10lb per horse? I don't think so, A horse eats grass have a look at photos of Russia, does seem to me that there is a lot of grass?

Oh deer. Yes, horses can eat grass ... but horses doing heavy work need hay (which is not grass) and grain to be able to do heavy work ...

... like, oh, pulling supply waggons. Or artillery.

Please do some basic research before jamming your foot down your mouth.

Phil McGregor

[Denniss]

In short: they need power food to recharge their batteries. Grass would simply keep them alive.

[RangerJoe]

Not to mention the fact that when they are working, they are not eating!

As far as hay, that is usually dried grass, clover, alfalfa and such. As far as eating the growing grain like grass, you think that you will harvest much grain after that?[8|]

[HMSWarspite]

There is also a major fallacy in the assumption that any food that can be gleaned from a captured city is available for combat units. Not shown in the game are the hordes of admin troops and civilians that follow behind. How do they move? What do they eat?

I always love the number of strong views that people have before they have even played the game...

[chuckfourth]

Sorry my friends the very best food a horse can eat is grass they are stronger on grass than on Fodder, look it up.
Russians have hordes of admin troops and civilians as well.

The point you fellows seem to be missing is that the Germans get no supply bonus for capturing a compliant, cooperative, largely undamaged functioning city that generates it own supplies. That is patently ridiculous.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

Sorry my friends the very best food a horse can eat is grass they are stronger on grass than on Fodder, look it up.
....

I live on the Orkneys, some of my family come from the Western Isles, both locations have a fair bit of grass and no large horses. That's because grass in poor climatic regions can't feed a modern working horse, for those we need to import (or create) specialist fodder

[chuckfourth]

Sure Sure Loki there is good grass and bad grass. The Orkneys grass is probably growing on Rock and maybe only grows a month in summer and is dormant the rest of the time Its probably lucky to stay in the ground with the wind and the rain. The Ukraine is a different story however. But what concerns me in this forum is that almost everyone is happy to point out where my argument is possibly iffy you included. and thats OK. so grass in Lenningrad isn't as good as it would be near Kiev, sure. But when it is manifestly clear that I am right ie it is ridiculous that the Germans don't get captured supply from a city like Kiev there is a deathly silence. It looks very much to me like the only people who are posting in this forum are pro Russian and anything posted that might disadvantage their team has to be ridiculed out of existence. I guess this is not a surprise because it is the same people that made posting in WITE 1 such a joy for me. Loki do you really think the Germans got no supply out of Kiev, really?

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

Sure Sure Loki there is good grass and bad grass. The Orkneys grass is probably growing on Rock and maybe only grows a month in summer and is dormant the rest of the time Its probably lucky to stay in the ground with the wind and the rain. The Ukraine is a different story however. But what concerns me in this forum is that almost everyone is happy to point out where my argument is possibly iffy you included. and thats OK. so grass in Lenningrad isn't as good as it would be near Kiev, sure. But when it is manifestly clear that I am right ie it is ridiculous that the Germans don't get captured supply from a city like Kiev there is a deathly silence. It looks very much to me like the only people who are posting in this forum are pro Russian and anything posted that might disadvantage their team has to be ridiculed out of existence. I guess this is not a surprise because it is the same people that made posting in WITE 1 such a joy for me. Loki do you really think the Germans got no supply out of Kiev, really?

actually its not that different, there is a reason why in both regions its easier to grow Rye than Wheat (with implications for the wider food chain).

You're quite entitled to your view that Kiev and Minsk were fully stocked with happy bakers handing out fresh loaves to passing German tank drivers (sort of set up like a Stalinist version of a drive-through Macdonalds?). Till you come up with evidence, I'll hold to the view I set out earlier in this thread. Didn't happen due to the perfectly predictable chaos that follows on from the arrival of a hostile army.

I cannae speak for anyone else, but I do think its a huge leap of interpretation that everyone who disagrees with your claim is in some way pro-Russian.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Loki
Well here are some quotes for you from German Report series Effects of climate on Combat in European Russia
"In the Autumn of 1941 German troops were without bread for days and had to live of the land"
Oh and what's this? from chapter 18 Rations
"Forage is Plentiful in summer ; Sufficient pasture land is available in almost all parts of the country"

Do you adopt the sarcastic tone Loki to hide your ignorance? to be honest the standard of debate in this Forum is pathetic.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth
Do you adopt the sarcastic tone Loki to hide your ignorance? to be honest the standard of debate in this Forum is pathetic.

Please keep things civil. It is possible to debate and disagree without resorting to insults.

[tolsdorff]

ORIGINAL: aspqrz02


...

Oh deer. Yes, horses can eat grass ... but horses doing heavy work need hay (which is not grass) and grain to be able to do heavy work ...

... like, oh, pulling supply waggons. Or artillery.

Please do some basic research before jamming your foot down your mouth.

Phil McGregor

I think you are mistaken here.

Hay is primarily grass, and often it is 100 % grass. Just dried.

Either the meadow is used to directly feed a horse, or this exact same field, with exactly the same plants on it, is allowed to grow long, it gets cut down, dried, and packaged.
There are stages in between as well. In dutch these in-between stages, are called Kuilgras, Voordroog and Koeienkuil. I do not know the english terms for them. Silage grass maybe.

Different grasses have different energies, but hay from a certain type of grass certainly does not have a lot more energy than the grass it used to be.

There is a lot more to feeding horses than just that, having owned 3 horses myself, but I will leave that to all the experts here.

[Hanny]

ORIGINAL: tolsdorff

ORIGINAL: aspqrz02


...

Oh deer. Yes, horses can eat grass ... but horses doing heavy work need hay (which is not grass) and grain to be able to do heavy work ...

... like, oh, pulling supply waggons. Or artillery.

Please do some basic research before jamming your foot down your mouth.

Phil McGregor

I think you are mistaken here.

Hay is primarily grass, and often it is 100 % grass. Just dried.

Either the meadow is used to directly feed a horse, or this exact same field, with exactly the same plants on it, is allowed to grow long, it gets cut down, dried, and packaged.
There are stages in between as well. In dutch these in-between stages, are called Kuilgras, Voordroog and Koeienkuil. I do not know the english terms for them. Silage grass maybe.

Different grasses have different energies, but hay from a certain type of grass certainly does not have a lot more energy than the grass it used to be.

There is a lot more to feeding horses than just that, having owned 3 horses myself, but I will leave that to all the experts here.

Nope Phil was spot on.

Grass as fodder yields enough energy to sustain life, with little to no work involved, as calorie intake over 6 to 8 hours grazing equals required proteins etc, note the horse is doing nothing, so is unavailable for mil service, in fact they now need guarding as they are occupying each day a vast era, the good news is each day your moving to fresh grass, the bad news if you don’t, you have to move horses further and further to get grass to eat as they consume it quicker than grass grows. Shetland Ponies are small, as they evolved in the Orkneys on grass of poor to average worth, so they never reached their genetic potential.In the 1700s animal weight at slaughter at UK Smithfield’s rose dramatically as part of the agricultural revolution, as farmers now understanding how to feed an animal to reach its genetic potential, and grain became cheap enough to use as animal feed so you could work them harder longer.

Heavy work requires grain supplement as grass alone intake is insufficient to meet calorie output from hard work, a horse need 1% body weight roughly of grass to graze, but 2% of fodder and grain to perform heavy work, an acre of grass is as general rule enough for a horse a day to graze, 575kso 575000 acres a day to provide 16 lbs of for a 800 lbs horse, grass acres required is 6250 square miles of grass a week, and 1600 tons of grain supplement to cover the heavy work for a week, if you want to cut out the grazing time, you have to provide it as dry or fresh fodder, now you need twice the freight to get it, of course every opportunity was taken to minimise the freight cost by living if the land, but the grain ration cannot be done away.
Example from a google book page 225
J Norris, Logistics 1939 -1945 gives us a SU 24k 3 Rifle Div Corps, formation requiring 1000 t of grain and fodder, along with 1600 tons munition, 550 t fuel, so just under a third of freight was grain and fodder, when in contact wi the enemy.

German Rail QM loading manual, Rations supply trains.

Oats train, 90000 rations, 450 metric tons.

Full rations with fodder, full rations, 180000 human and 40000 animal, amounting to 454 metric tons.They ma be loaded in three parts, each containing 3 days supply for 20000 man and 4000 animals.

[chuckfourth]

So where have we got to with this farcical grass debate.
German Report series title, Effects of climate on Combat in European Russia written by German officers that were actually there in Russia, says this

"Forage is Plentiful in summer ; Sufficient pasture land is available in almost all parts of the country"

So note FORAGE is PLENTIFUL. not talking about grass, FORAGE is PLENTIFUL. So there is NO need to train and truck Hannies estimated requirement of 450 tons of Fodder. So the 1435 tons per corps per week drops to 945 ton because you can feed the horses with what's there in Russia and if they have to eat grass instead they wont drop dead on the spot will they, And oh Yes if they do drop dead, Russia's full of Russian Horses that can step into their shoes straight away. Buy Hey those dumbkopf Germans they just kept shipping that completely unnecessary extra 450 tons of Oats per corps week after week, And completely ignored the Russian Fodder, the Russian Grass, and the Russian Horses. No wonder they lost the war.

People like Hanny and Deniss have got used to a sweet set of rules that do the Russians fighting for them and will come up with the most specious of arguments to block any sensible changes. Witness fodder isn't dried grass oh no its a super food. Bloated German supply requirements and ignoring living of the land is the worst but Attrition and Partisan effects are also based on seriously flawed assumption's. I've come to expect these guys and there buddies Bias attitude. And the endless calling of black white.

But what about you Loki? your a moderator who seems to have an opinion on grass, are you now convinced that factoring in Fodder to the German supply requirements is ahistorical? You asked for evidence and I furnished it for you. You ridiculed me on this topic, Now are you big enough to admit I am right?

If I can give you a friendly tip Hanny.
You have all of the Knowledge but none of the understanding.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

..

So note FORAGE is PLENTIFUL. not talking about grass, ...

People like Hanny and Deniss have got used to a sweet set of rules that do the Russians fighting for them and will come up with the most specious of arguments to block any sensible changes. Witness fodder isn't dried grass oh no its a super food. Bloated German supply requirements and ignoring living of the land is the worst but Attrition and Partisan effects are also based on seriously flawed assumption's. I've come to expect these guys and there buddies Bias attitude. And the endless calling of black white.

But what about you Loki? your a moderator who seems to have an opinion on grass, are you now convinced that factoring in Fodder to the German supply requirements is ahistorical? You asked for evidence and I furnished it for you. You ridiculed me on this topic, Now are you big enough to admit I am right?

If I can give you a friendly tip Hanny.
You have all of the Knowledge but none of the understanding.

first, and most simply, there is no call for being abusive to anyone.

You have your personal take on the situation, its not exactly widely shared but you have the right to articulate it and others have the equal right to disagree with you.

since we are on the difference between grass and forage, lets stick to that.

Are we agreed that not all horses are the same?
Are we agreed that what a horse needs to stay alive is not the same as it needs for hard physical work?
Are we agreed that different amounts of fuel allow different types of horses to do different things?
Are we agreed that letting a horse self-feed is efficient only if you don't want that horse to do much else?

So in areas with grass and poor soils or climate, yes pretty much any horse can feed - but if that is all its getting then a large horse will lack the energy to do much else, or have to spend so much time on feeding that it has no time to work. Oddly human beings have a similar set up.

So pasture land is forage in the survival sense, its not what you rely on for a heavy european style horse that may be pulling artillery pieces over considerable distances.