Calculating Troop Strength?

[treespider]

How does one determine what the troop strength will be for a given T,O&E?

Squads=12men
Guns= ? Men
Support = ? men
Engineers = ? men

[akdreemer]

ORIGINAL: treespider

How does one determine what the troop strength will be for a given T,O&E?

Squads=12men
Guns= ? Men
Support = ? men
Engineers = ? men

Add some hog warts, tadpole tails, bats blood, heat and stir to a boil... [:D]

Frankly I would like to know also. Obviously there must be some factor for different types of weapons, etc...

[Mike Solli]

I don't typically get down into the weeds concerning troop strength. I look at the number of infantry and number of support, as well as the type and number of weapons systems to determine what units I use for a mission.

You can look at the unit type list to see what each type of squad is composed of. I recall squads being 9-13 or so men depending on the type. It varies tremendously.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I don't typically get down into the weeds concerning troop strength. I look at the number of infantry and number of support, as well as the type and number of weapons systems to determine what units I use for a mission.

You can look at the unit type list to see what each type of squad is composed of. I recall squads being 9-13 or so men depending on the type. It varies tremendously.

I'm not interested for play purposes but design purposes. You'll read accounts about how an infantry brigade or division consisted of 6500 men. Not all of the 6500 are actual combat troops. Lets say 1200 are actual combat infantry, so when designing a T,O&E you would place 100 in the Infantry squad slot to equate the 1200 combat infantry when at full strength. However you now still have to account for the 5300 other men that compose the support engineers and crew served weapons that make up the rest of the hypothetcial unit. My question is how many men do the engineers and support and what have you represent? In other words how many of these "units" to install into the T,O & E to flesh out the unit to full strength?

I was hoping to avoid having to waste an evening experimenting, if someone had the figures available.

[Central Blue]

there is an example at rule 8.1.2 that you can use to derive the value of a support squad. I'm guessing it's a reasonable assumption to divide the number of the support troops by the number of support squads to arrive at the answer to that question.

Which leads to the second question of who is support and who isn't, and how do you treat the actual artillery crew as opposed to their organic support troops, and what do you do about the fact that MMG's and light mortars aren't considered important enough to model.

You can assign a weapons value (or something like that) to the various squad types to account for your estimate of their relative value based on numbers of men and numbers of weapons. So if you're working from TO&E information you have, just use the squad numbers from that and adjust their value as needed.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I don't typically get down into the weeds concerning troop strength. I look at the number of infantry and number of support, as well as the type and number of weapons systems to determine what units I use for a mission.

You can look at the unit type list to see what each type of squad is composed of. I recall squads being 9-13 or so men depending on the type. It varies tremendously.

I'm not interested for play purposes but design purposes. You'll read accounts about how an infantry brigade or division consisted of 6500 men. Not all of the 6500 are actual combat troops. Lets say 1200 are actual combat infantry, so when designing a T,O&E you would place 100 in the Infantry squad slot to equate the 1200 combat infantry when at full strength. However you now still have to account for the 5300 other men that compose the support engineers and crew served weapons that make up the rest of the hypothetcial unit. My question is how many men do the engineers and support and what have you represent? In other words how many of these "units" to install into the T,O & E to flesh out the unit to full strength?

I was hoping to avoid having to waste an evening experimenting, if someone had the figures available.

I've answered my own question...at least for support "squad" and an 81mm mortar ...the troop strength equals the load cost of the device.

[Aawulf]

I've answered my own question...at least for support "squad" and an 81mm mortar ...the troop strength equals the load cost of the device.

Each load point in a Device type 23 or 24 is a man and while the game's intel and recon system is based on Assault Value, the reality is that the combat equation accounts for each member of a squad rather than each squad. I actually think this is a flaw in the game's design. They doubled "Load"'s responsibilities. Load is used for logistics and for combat.

I use the Load to model the difference in support and supply requirements for different formations.

A Load 1 Inf Squad = 1 man
Support Req'd = 1
Basic Supply Req'd = 1
Assault Value (displayed) = 1
Combat value = 1 x whatever
Transport Load = 1

A Load 100 Inf "Squad" = 100 men
Support Req'd = 1
Basic Supply Req'd = 1
Assault Value (displayed) = 1
Combat value = 100 x whatever
Transport Load = 100

Another consideration is how much Manpower it takes to create each squad.

With the other Devices such as vehicles, arty etc., the load appears to be more about logistics than men. For example, I don't know of a tank in the world that requires a 25 man crew.

As far as the mix of support vs combat infantry, you can mod an American type of military with between 25-30% combat infantry or less sophisticated and logistics' driven force with reverse ratio.

Japs Allies
Squads Men % Squads Men %
Men in Squads 4,839,830 4,716,188
Squads 323,143 100.00% 368,144 100.00%
Engineers 13,413 268,260 5.54% 46,077 107,645 2.28%
Support 133,302 2,666,040 55.09% 150,518 3,010,360 63.8%
Aviation 19,090 190,900 3.94% 29,092 290,920 6.17%
Cmbt Engr 6,332 113,976 2.35% 3,557 38,852 0.82%
Pieces 50,861 254,305 5.25% 42,284 211,420 4.48%
Air Crews 9,143 17,782 0.37% 17,045 40,232 0.85%
Pilots 9,143 0.19% 17,045 0.36%
Ship Crews Haven't finished yet 0.00% 0 0 0.00%
HQ Staffs 17,880 89,400 1.85% 24,150 120,750 2.56%
Cmbt Inf 73,122 1,230,024 25.41% 55,421 878,964 18.64%

Regards,

Michael Fleshman