Soviet Labor Squads

[56ajax]

Soviet Labor Squads repair railways.

They come equipped not with a shovel, pick, wheel barrow but a rifle!!!! (In case the rails try to run off I reckon)

In the Pool I have 100k+ Manpower, 5000+ Air Support, 800+ support and 3 Labor squads.

I assume the system has some limit on building them.

If one thing the Soviets could do is 'mobilise the massess' to perform manual labour.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax

Soviet Labor Squads repair railways.

They come equipped not with a shovel, pick, wheel barrow but a rifle!!!! (In case the rails try to run off I reckon)

In the Pool I have 100k+ Manpower, 5000+ Air Support, 800+ support and 3 Labor squads.

I assume the system has some limit on building them.

If one thing the Soviets could do is 'mobilise the massess' to perform manual labour.

I think only construction units repair rail - although Labour Squads are part of their ToE. If contruction units need replacements, they will be taken from the pool to join a construction unit and then repair rail (maybe). If not, they will remain in the pool and never repair rail. The AI tries to predict how many replacement Labour Squads construction (and other units which have them in their ToE) will need and add them to the pool in time. I think if it thinks you will not need the ones you already have in the pool it may decompose them instead. So the limit on creating (or decomposing) Labour Squads is the replacement needs of the units who have them in their ToE.

Interestingly though manpower which is not in the pool, but is in the cities, can also be mobilised but only to create fortifications - see 15.3.2.3 in the manual. I guess this is the imagery you have of the citizens of Moscow digging those tank ditches around the city etc - if so that is how that is done in the game without Labour Squads.

[56ajax]

Yes, thats the image I have.

Why Labor squads have rifles is beyond me, especially when you run out of armament points...

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax
Why Labor squads have rifles is beyond me, especially when you run out of armament points...

Well in the worst cases a German Labour Squad would look something like this



The game does not linger on the most terrible aspects of the war - but we do have to accept that often the rifles were pointed at the labourers. Even when they were not that overt, the Moscow citizens brought out to dig the anti tank trenches still had to be policed like any large crowd for instance, and deserters discouraged. HiWis had a continuum of "willingness." And all in uniform carried arms in a foreign occupied country as even if not on front-lines they could be involved in rear actions (partisans, ambushes, sabotage, raids, unexpected breakthroughs by the enemy, capturing crashed enemy pilots etc). In short it is needed for rear security. All German infantry divisions at the time for example had a bakery company - and I have seen pictures of them baking with rifles at their side. I am sure the rifles did not make the bagels more tasty.

On the arms points - rifles are really very cheap, the difference it would make to arms points would be negligible (I think). Having more or less arms points really means you have more or less artillery - taking the guns from the Labour Squads would probably not make you one extra artillery SU?

[56ajax]

Curiously Labor Squads on both sides come with rifles which implies they have military capability in the game, other wise they would be modelled as support (like German Bakery Companies).

A sSupport has a build value of 2 but a Labor Squad has a build value of 6 which means a rifle costs 0.5 in build value. (Deep thinking here).

Now I have manpower but no armaments so it is either lack of armaments or system quota when it comes to building Labor Squads,

Now from memory the Axis have 180 construction units but the Soviets have only 12. And the Soviets can't seem to build too many more.

This is a big handicap in the Blizzard, especially if the Axis player has taken out strategic points in the Soviet Rail network in the summer offensive.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: 56ajax
Curiously Labor Squads on both sides come with rifles which implies they have military capability in the game, other wise they would be modelled as support (like German Bakery Companies).

A sSupport has a build value of 2 but a Labor Squad has a build value of 6 which means a rifle costs 0.5 in build value. (Deep thinking here).

...

construction units but the Soviets have only 12. And the Soviets can't seem to build too many more.

[:D]

Although rifles might be the only listed equipment, I am pretty certain the build value represents the cost of all their equipment (picks, shovels, spanners for labour; cheaper pen and paper for support) - the rifles are not just more expensive for the labourers.

There is the option to give artillerymen, support, labourers, and even bakers etc the CV of 1 in the game options to represent the fact that they do carry small arms. However without the training/organisation to act as infantry I think it is right to say their CV is closer to zero.

Would I be right in thinking the constrained number of contruction units for the Soviet side represents the reality of what they could do? The civilian labour assistance part of the game for instance does not need construction units and that also seems to reflect what happened historically?

[Crackaces]

There is the option to give artillerymen, support, labourers, and even bakers etc the CV of 1 in the game options to represent the fact that they do carry small arms. However without the training/organisation to act as infantry I think it is right to say their CV is closer to zero.

I think the problem is that CV of 1 is actually 100 (/100) and the minuscule amount of "staying" power of the labors is not the same as say a group of Italians organized into a brigade...

[thedoctorking]

I thought the 1 CV option represented how they were represented on the map - because they make contributions to the combat effectiveness of the units they support - rather than changing how they actually affect the combat system???

My understanding was that those options are just about what you see when you look at a unit on the main map screen.

[thedoctorking]

To Telemecus' point - well taken. There was an enormous amount of terrible stuff happening in this part of the world at this time. The game makes oblique references: Soviet population points "missing", for example. Also, the locations of at least some the extermination camps - Chelmno and Maidanek at least - appear on the map. And the 8th SS Cavalry regiment as well as those police battalions made (in)famous by the Christopher Browning book Ordinary Menare in-game units (I always take pleasure as the Soviets when I can beat up on those guys). The HiWis are another troubling aspect of the period explicitly represented in the game.

I wonder if, when they model usage of rail lines in WitE2, there will be extraordinary usage of those lines leading to the death camps during the 1942-43 high period?

This is a courageous decision by the designers. Most games on this period scrupulously avoid any mention of atrocities by either side. Gary and his team are to be complimented for their willingness to address (even peripherally) troubling historical realities in what is basically a work of entertainment.

[Saulust]

I thought if you build it they will come, since as the Soviets I have created 30+ Construction Battalions and I'm pretty sure it just sucks man power numbers out of the Soviet pool to fill them up, all the while there are like only about ever 3 actual Labour Squads in my pool statement at the start of every turn while I create them over multiple turns.... and they repair the RR etc when auto-deployed from STAVKA without problems!

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: Saulust

I thought if you build it they will come, since as the Soviets I have created 30+ Construction Battalions and I'm pretty sure it just sucks man power numbers out of the Soviet pool to fill them up, all the while there are like only about ever 3 actual Labour Squads in my pool statement at the start of every turn while I create them over multiple turns.... and they repair the RR etc when auto-deployed from STAVKA without problems!

I think everyone agrees with that point. The problem for 56Ajax is that it is not only manpower - but rifles and other equipment too. He would like to have construction that does not also suck up arms points.

[Saulust]

ORIGINAL: Telemecus
The problem for 56Ajax is that it is not only manpower - but rifles and other equipment too. He would like to have construction that does not also suck up arms points.

Oh, OK he want Labour units without costing rifles too, but yeah I'm pretty sure they were armed with rifles for self protection and as already pointed out to point at volunteer civies... [:o]