Matrix Games Forums

I don’t want to become minutiae man, but here it goes...

I was reading a book that listed a TOE for a Soviet ATG Brigade in June 1941. I compared that to the data in WitE and saw that the numbers for the 85mm and 76mm guns were the reverse of each other. So I sought a 3rd verification and found what I think is the correct data, which contradicts both.

But the reasons that I think that this other source is correct are: it’s much more detailed, it makes sense based on military organization in general, and if WitE and this other book used it as a source, I can see how it could be misread to give higher numbers.

WitE lists this for ID#177 41 AT Artillery Brigade (forgive table formatting)

ID#.............ground unit name.............# guns/ squads
817.............76mm Anti-tank Gun F-22.....72
806.............85mm Anti-aircraft Gun.........48
787.............37mm Anti-Aircraft Gun.........16
792.............12.7mm Anti-aircraft MG........12
800.............Sapper.................................0

3rd party Source
Battalions.........................Per Brigade...........name....................Per Battery....#batteries.........Total # guns/squads
Anti-Tank Battalion...............6.....................76mm M36 (F-22)............4..........3.......................72
Heavy Anti-Tank Battalion......2.....................85mm KS12....................4..........3.......................24
Anti-Air Battalion...................1.....................37mm M39.....................4..........2.........................8
-- AA Company.....................1.....................12.7mm AAHMG...............3..........2.........................6
Engineer Mine Battalion.......(3 companies).....(Sapper 39 BAT)...............3..........4.......................36

WitE shows no Engineers (which is fine if that is game designers choice), but shows double the number of guns aside from the 76mm. This would be an easy mistake to make even if using the reference above if you don’t catch the punctuation in the key explanation from the OOB:

- "The (anti-tank) Brigades each have 2 Regiments, each with 3 AT Battalions; PLUS 2 Heavy AT Battalions, 1 AA Battalion and 1 Engineer Mine Battalion at Brigade level."

All of that to say, I think the Brigade in question has too many guns in WitE

Please state the two source you were using. Probably an error in an older book was transferred to a newer book whereas new research may have fixed it in the book you descrive as 3rd Party.

First let me just say that I'm not trying to find potential errors. I just got curious and went down the rabbit hole, so I thought I'd share what I found to further the cause.

The book "Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front" by Robert Forczyk lists 48 76mm guns and 72 85mm guns. He doesn't list a source for this piece of data and it doesn't seem right.

The source that seems most credible (IMO) is from Micromark Army Lists (Mark Bevis) which I obtained via Wargame Vault. It is "List R128" Russian Anti-Tank Brigade May-Aug 1941. I'm not sure the original source of this information. It has a lot of detail including notes about actual strengths when the war begun.

Charles Sharp's references show that the Soviet Anti-tank Brigades official Shtat on April 1941 consisted of:

48 x 76mm Cannons
48 x 85mm Cannons
24 x 107mm Cannons
16 x 37mm Anti-Aircraft Guns
72 x 12.7 AAMGs
2 x Companies of Sappers
1 x Company of Mine-Engineers

He also mentions that the AT Brigades were the most mixed of all of the OBs with almost any and all gun combinations existing across the brigades. Once I get Nigel Asky's next work on the Soviet OOBs, I will get a much more detailed answer.

Trey

ORIGINAL: uw06670

First let me just say that I'm not trying to find potential errors. I just got curious and went down the rabbit hole, so I thought I'd share what I found to further the cause.

The book "Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front" by Robert Forczyk lists 48 76mm guns and 72 85mm guns. He doesn't list a source for this piece of data and it doesn't seem right.

The source that seems most credible (IMO) is from Micromark Army Lists (Mark Bevis) which I obtained via Wargame Vault. It is "List R128" Russian Anti-Tank Brigade May-Aug 1941. I'm not sure the original source of this information. It has a lot of detail including notes about actual strengths when the war begun.

The 107mm guns were rare and out of production by July/August 1941 so it sounds reasonable to use available 76mm guns. Doesn't explain the huge diferences in AAMGs. A small number of AAMGs may have been associated to the LAA/AA Batteries, I see claims of 3x AAMG associated to a Battery of 4x 37mm.

Here is a screen (if it uploads) of the OOB I'm going off of. Its for games, so could be vaporware. But reading through it, it 'feels' authentic.

I think that once I see how all of the AT Brigades were actually outfitted, that I will need to create 2-3 different OBs to account for the different variations from the standard authorization.

Trey

Maybe what is needed is a root OB and then some possible variations derived from it (so you don't have to customize each). So OB = 100% TOE and then you have a percentage. Then some number of battalions perhaps some 'random' value that could be either this or that. I'm thinking about how you would go about making a system that worked for any parent OB if you just plugged in certain values, versus just fixing this one. Let me know if i'm not making sense.

Either way should be OK pending they merge in a more standardized 42 variant.