MechFO
Posts: 669
Joined: 6/1/2007 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SMK-at-work MechFO by July 1942 the full strength of a RD was only 10,300 men & in December 42 it was reduced to 9435 and July 43 to 9380. It was increased in Dec 44 to 11706 and June 45 to 11780. However they couldn't even keep up to this strength in many cases, and there was a range of official TOE's for divisions at lesser strength - 8,000 and 7,000, losing men from platoons, squads, MG companies lost a platoon, mortars lost 1 crew per mortar, etc to get these. (From Zaloga, Red Army Handbook) IIRC the starting situation was that the average front-line strength at Barbarossa was only 60 or 70% for divisions within 60km of the border, and possibly even less (? from memory) for those in the 2nd echelon up to 100 (?) km. "Stumbling Colossus" has some figures for this that I'm reciting from memory....gotta run....ciao Edit: Found some figures in Charles Sharpe's volume on Soviet Rifle Divisions raised after 1942 - there were apparently org's down to 1500 men divisions and he gives figures for a 3600 man division - 6 Rifle Battalions, each of 2 companies each of 3 platoons each of 24 men (3 x 7 man squads), plus a HMG company & a mortar company per Regiment and a Divisional SMG company of 44 men. Divisional artillery was rarely reduced - crews & ammo trains would be reduced but the number of guns retained. In the beginning, every platoon was missing at least 1-2 Squads, even in the frontline units, so 60-70% sounds reasonable. As I understand it, the reduced TOE's you mention were for fielded units which were progressively reorganized as they suffered losses, since in the Soviet system losses normally weren't replaced. Instead new "full" strength Divisions were organised and then allowed to be ground down. So, while the reduced tables show what a Division had after different periods of combat, it wasn't representative of what a Division started out with. Stronger "normal" Divisions with low (very low?) replacement priority probably comes closest in game terms. Anyway I see the rationale now for the current system. Any interest in revised LW, Rumanian, Italian TOE's?
< Message edited by MechFO -- 2/3/2009 10:34:48 PM >
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