Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: itsjustme

quote:

ORIGINAL: paullus99

Absolutely - German industry was doing the best (well, sort of) it could, with what it had at the time. It was inefficient to close down the PzIII production lines, so they started making Marders, Stugs & other upgraded SPGs instead. They didn't have the capacity to just build wholesale new production lines, willy-nilly.

c'mon Paulus. That's not accurate. The German economy wasn't put on a war footing until late 42/early 43. Had they been put on a war footing, production would have been through the roof. Look at the numbers in 43 and early 44 even while the Allies are bombing the heart out of the Reich, production was climbing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hexagon

Ok, i know, but no free production == historical  is all i say because the game dont have political intromisions in military area and this is more historical for me (not invade England, dont select Moscow as main objetive...).

For Barbarrossa and the Panther in Moscow i only say that could be fixed tech (for example the 75mmL70 because if i dont have bad memory was a plan to use a longer 50mm in Panther before the new 75mm was ready), time to adapt factories to new type when start production or time to have ready the prototypes... and of course, production points, you dont need the same effort to produce a PzIV (Ford of german tanks) than Panther/Tiger (Rolls Royce).

Of course games are only historical the 1st turn. Is only a game a it have the options that it have.

PD: change a little the german tank production can give a choice to germans to survive a Stalingrad because they can have reserves, with... 400 or 500 PzIV in reserve...

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke



It wasn't lack of tanks that prevented the Germans breaking through to Stalingrad and stabilising the southern front, but lack of Panzer Divisions. Producing extra MK IVs doesn't give you extra Panzer Divisionen.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iñaki Harrizabalagatar

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke



It wasn't lack of tanks that prevented the Germans breaking through to Stalingrad and stabilising the southern front, but lack of Panzer Divisions. Producing extra MK IVs doesn't give you extra Panzer Divisionen.

I can´t agree with that, tanks were the main asset lacking in the German armoured force at the time, when Pz division were deployed with a complement of less than 30 tanks. IMO focusing on producing PzIV, leaving the PzIII chasis for auxiliar vehicules, would have been the logical option from a logistics/production perspective.

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke



The German issue was attempting to shuffle a small number of mobile units back and forth between crises. They simply never had enough of them. Lack of tanks was a symptom of a bigger problem, but producing heavier vehicles would surely not have increased the overall German tank park so how would such a production option have aided them?

Regards,
IronDuke

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iñaki Harrizabalagatar

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke



The German issue was attempting to shuffle a small number of mobile units back and forth between crises. They simply never had enough of them. Lack of tanks was a symptom of a bigger problem, but producing heavier vehicles would surely not have increased the overall German tank park so how would such a production option have aided them?

Regards,
IronDuke

I am not sure I understand you. My point is that Pz Div were regularly understrength because German tank production was too diversified, too many models produced, too low productivity as a result, and inmense logistic problems for the units. IMO a more rational approach to the tank production, focused on the PzIV, would have had inmense beneficies, keeping Pz units close to full strength. Keep in mind that it is not the same focusing on some Pz units assembled for a particular operation that taking a look to the big picture, where you could see understrength Pz Div everywhere.

quote:

ORIGINAL: paullus99

IronDuke - I will say that your extremely rational arguments about logistical limitations have won me over. Unless you revamped everything (and just about everyone will admit, when it came to raising troops, the Germans were very good at it), there is a practical limit to what could and could not be done by Germany to either expand production & create whole new formations out of thin air.

Just because you can build additional tanks or SPGs, that doesn't automatically conjure up the support structure, infantry, vehicles, and fuel to fully flesh out the units. Since the developers have already told us that they will allow players to decide to refit their units (either keep existing units up to strength or allow new, understength units to be built - like Hitler's obsession with seeing lots of divisions on his maps), I believe that should give quite a bit of flexibility to maintain cohesion and upgrade units as we deem practical.

quote:

Look at some of the daily totals for the Divisions. They fluctuate wildly, not because replacements are coming in, but because vehicles are being repaired all the time. What the Germans really needed was a steady supply of spare parts.

quote:

ORIGINAL: IronDuke




But a Panzer Division was more than just a regiment of tanks. The number of runners declined in some sort of proportion to everything else. Understrength Panzer Units were short more than just 30-40 Tanks. Where does the rest of the combat power come from? Besides, More replacements meant more replacement crews, extra fuel the logistics system never had to find in reality because the replacements weren't there, more Pzgr because tanks without infantry were a sitting duck in some circumstances etc. I don't see an extra 500 Panzer IVs as a panacea to German problems.

You don't see Panzer divisions with just 30 tanks but full Regimental complements of infantry, engineers and artillery etc. Also, extra vehicles would have required even more spart parts that the Germans simply never had. Pumping in more and more tanks would simply have created Armoured Regiments with green crews.

Raionalising production would have helped, and indeed that is what Guderian and Speer achieved when the going got really tough, but in the years if victory, I don't see it made that much difference. The German problem extended beyond mere production numbers. Their tanks were often over engineered and they never had the spare parts to keep the tank park they did have in the field, never mind another 500 or a 1000.

Look at some of the daily totals for the Divisions. They fluctuate wildly, not because replacements are coming in, but because vehicles are being repaired all the time. What the Germans really needed was a steady supply of spare parts.

Besides, the Divisions they did have frequently stopped during Barbarossa, Blue and the 43-44 period because they did not have the logistical support required to continue operations. Extra vehicles would merely have exacerbated that.

Regards,
IronDuke

quote:

In France 1940 Pz Divs had 4 Pz Regiments and up to 230 tanks, for Operation Blau some Pz Div still deployed 3 regiments and up to 160 tanks, in 1943 Pz Divs had just 2 regiments and under 100 tanks.

quote:

ORIGINAL: itsjustme
The German economy wasn't put on a war footing until late 42/early 43.

quote:

However I do think that a game of this scope and detail should really include Karelia and the Kola Peninsular. I know the designers have said that it would major addition to the map, but all the arguments about historical accuracy go out of the window if a major portion of the front is missing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Helpless

quote:

However I do think that a game of this scope and detail should really include Karelia and the Kola Peninsular. I know the designers have said that it would major addition to the map, but all the arguments about historical accuracy go out of the window if a major portion of the front is missing.

I'm away from my sources, but iirc the size of Karelian Front was ~200K men. Which would be ~5% of active part of RKKA. German presence was even smaller. Besides historically it was very silent comparing to all other places. So I'd not qualify it as major.

Yes, I would like to see Karelia and Kola in WITE, but to add these 5 percent would require HUGE additional work which right now would hurt much the rest 95%.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PyleDriver

Were really tring to keep this a simulation, not a manipulation. We have what your asking for, an I would love to see this issue die. It really is old now, And ain''t going to happen, so please, lets save everyones time...

quote:

ORIGINAL: joliverlay

The number of tanks per panzer division discreased dramatically during the war because there were NOT enought tanks to keep the TOE up. The claims that there were plenty of tanks but not enough spare parts are just wrong. There may have been a shortage of spare parts as well but there were NOT enought tanks.

The conversion of motorized divisions to panzer was one problem, losses was another, but lack of production was the big one.

The tank shortage was so severe that tank batallions were removed from the panzer divisons wholesale and later some of the remaining ones were replaced with assult guns because they were cheaper to produce. Not as effective for offensive operations, but better than nothing. It is pretty clear that the Germans would have benefited from streamlined production and keeping the TOE at a reasonable level. They might have done as well or better to have produced just the Mark IV in very large numbers.