Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
Hey Phil, I have renamed the Soviet formations and want to make this availablle to you so as to avoid extra work. If you like I can email you the files so you can continue with the OOB work.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
Also, I have a few further ideas about the german Panzer formations:

It seems the standard practise, in theroy, was to have 2 x leichte (light) Company, and 1 x mittlere (medium) company in each Pz Bn so we could use this as a starting point and add seperate Bn for those PzD that had more than 1.

This would give the PzDv some needed flexability with their panzer regiments as now all tanks are in one counter usually with the armoured infantry too. This is tactially inferior to the Soviets and ahistorical.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg

DCCB proposed MODEL for building blocks for Panzer Divisions. These take into account the Stab or HQ tanks that were not dummy. Bear with me as we are limited to groups of 5 tanks so there may be a bit of fudge...

German Panzer Bn. 'a'
3 x PzIIF (15 tanks)
7 xPzIIIJ (35 tanks)
3 x PzIVG (15 tanks) should be 12 PzIVg and 1 PZIVf @ HQ

German Panzer Bn. 'b'
3 x PzIIF (15 tanks)
7 xPzIIIJ (35 tanks)
2 x PzIVF (10 tanks) Should be 10x PzIVf1 and 1 xPZIVf @ HQ

German Panzer Bn. 'c'
3 x PzIIF (15 tanks)
7 xPzIIIH (35 tanks) generally 1/3 of the Panzer III were the short (kurtz) 5cm Kw.K.38
2 x PzIVF (10 tanks)

The K.St.N for the mittlere panzer kompanie shows that it should be 3 x platoons, 1 x light platoon and hq for a total of 14 x PzIV and 5 PzII BUT this was forbidden by a further order and was limited to 2 x platoons and the light so should we keep the mittlere @ 15 or 10 pzIVs? Having the one Pz BN 'a' with 15 allows for the absorbtion of these extra vehicles.

Your thoughts?

Troy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg

Lots of good stuff.

In reality, there was only 1 bn Shutzen in 251 per regiment plus perhaps 1 komp in the second regiment but sometimes as little as 1 komp! I have all the figures for each Pz div.

As you say, the PzGds in 251s would normally be included with the tanks in any attack so it seems logical to include them with the tanks BUT when we have more than one tank counter it may be difficult to determine which one (as in a 3 Bn Pz regiment).

Pehaps, we could field the following for a PZ Div MODEL:

1 counter each:

I Pz Bn
II Pz Bn
III Pz Bn
I Grenadier Regt (include all you have listed)
II Grenadier Regt (include all you have listed)
ART Regiment (include all you have listed)

Many PzDv would only have 1-2 tanks Bn so it wont be a counter fest.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg

missed the flurry of posts...As to the discrep..

I just dont want to creat formations that dont fit history. We have to be carefull that the Panzer Div dont become uberstrong in the game.

PANZER IV: As I said earlier, there was an order to ONLY have 2 zugs of 4 vehicles in the mittlere kp. (instead of 3 zugs of 4 plus the 2 HQ tanks for a total of 15) So thats 8 tks plus 2 in the CHQ (plus maybe 1 in the Staffel) which equals 10-11 per Bn.

IMO, this was to later allow the absorbtion of the 12 Panzer IVGs (filling in the las zug) sent to all panzer divisions in Case Blue.

No panzer Division had more than 32 PzIVs (24th panzer) of all types in July 1942 and most had less than 20.

PANZER II: In June-July, no Pz div had more than 32 (again the 24th - lucky them!) with most having between 10-20. The pionere zug was removed (3tanks) and I lack of vehicles led to the abandonment of the Leichte panzer zup in the Kompanie.

I know the extra Tank Bns would be an issue but not all div will get more than 1.

It does hamstring the German player when the Sov is fielding 50 tank brigades and the german has to work with 150 tank regiments. This is totally a-historical as the Germans enjoyed a much more flexible employment of their Panzer forces.

quote:

ORIGINAL: aspqrz


As I said, the problem of whether to mod the actual TO&E organisation/strength or the actual organisation/strength on the ground is probably insoluble ... I think the best is to have the MODEL based on the TO&E, regardless of what may have been the situation with the actual units in the field, and hand mod each Panzer/Panzergrenadier/Motorised Division/Regiment or whatever individually.

I tend to agree, to a degree, with modding the separate battalions ... but that creates its own problems. Unless you are suicidal, the tanks will operate with the infantry ... and, for those Divisions that have 3 Battalion Panzer Regiments (by official TO&E that is all of the Panzer Divisions in the game, except the 19th, which has only one), that presents an operational dilemma of sorts.

(Do you have hard data that the Pz Divisions other than the 19th Panzer actually only had one or two Battalion Panzer Regiments (I know you have different sources to what I am using)? Or is it that you are simply saying that they had the tank strength on hand of only 1 or 2 Battalions?)

3 Panzer Battalions and 2 PzGr Regiments in one attack (if not necessarily one stack)? Or split it 2/1 and 1/1? Or, if you are crazy wasting tanks, 3 Pz, 1 PzGr, 1 PzGr?

Operationally, I think you might find that having the Panzer Battalions + Halftrack Battalion (reinforced with the 1 Company from the 2nd PzGr Regiment and, possibly, the Engineers from the Engineer Battalion in an Assault role?) plus some of the SP guns (AA, IG, AT) from the PzGr Regiments moving, if not attacking, together ... using them to penetrate the gap the 2 x PzGr Regiments and the Artillery punch through the line would make more sense.\

(Mechanised Battalion/Kampfgruppe: 1000 Infantry, 120 Halftracks, 5 Marder II, 5 x SdKfz-138 Bison, 5 x SP 20mm AA, for example, reducing the PzGr Regiments appropriately)

YMMV, of course.

As for not having 3 Battalions in a 3 Battalion Regiment simply because the number of tanks historically available is low ... well, it never seemed to worry the Germans! They'd simply form a Kampfgruppe until things looked either a) better or b) so desperate that even splitting small numbers of tanks was the least bad option

Phil

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg

Hey Phil,

So far, the Panzer units I have involved in Case Blue or the later defensive battles are:

3rd PD w/3bn
4th PD w/1bn
6th PD w/2bn
7th PD w/2
9th PD w/3bn
11th PD w/3bn
13th PD w/3bn
14th PD w/3bn
16th PD w/3bn
17th PD w/1bn
19th PD w/1bn
22th PD w/2bn
23rd PD w/3bn
24th PD w/3bn
27th a shell with only about 2000 men in total!

Plus the mot and SS formations. I am not sure the LSSAH should be in the mix after August as it was withdrawn to France.

I will model these as regiments with the attached Pzgrenadiers and 251s if you think this is best.

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ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
One thing, the random factor reduces always so we always need to round up to the next 5 when setting in the model. The random factor is too much of a reduction. Looking at a work around...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
I ran into a graphic issue when I began to model the individual Bn in the Panzer Dv so we may have
to go to a regimental-sized Panzer unit. The spent shrowd causes issues with the Bn symbol on the top

As to the amount of panzer Bn in the regiments, I have the following very good sources:

Panzertruppen vol 1+2 : Jentz (highly recommended!)
Panzer Divisions: Osprey Battle Orders 32, 35, 38 : Battistelli. (also good books)
Armagedon in Stalingrad Trilogy: Glantz (an MASSIVE read!)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg

I can send u a scan of the osprey stuff if u like.

Played around a lot today with reinforcements and Random factor issues and I am running into a few roadblocks. It seems that when the game wacks down the units in the beginning, it stays somewhat permanent.

Im beginning to think Pzgrenadiers in the Infantry regiments instead of the armor as this may create a nightmare when waiting to reinforce units as well as the reasons you mentioned.

Troy

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ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
Are not the recon units represented already by the 'recon value' of a hex?

quote:

ORIGINAL: aspqrz

So, let me get this straight ...

You're saying that, for example, if I create a completely new sftype at the end of the sftype list and point its reinforcement type to the appropriate type, it won't work?

For example, say I have created (as I have) an sftype in slot 126, 105mm LeFH 18(m), which is the actual 105mm Howitzer used by most Divisional Artillery Regiments in real life (or closer than the one in slot 4, actually the 105mm K18 sFH and have set the Reinforcement Type to Medium Artillery[/i, it won't work? That, somehow, artillery reinforcements won't flow to it correctly?

That seems ... counterintuitive ... and makes the Reinforcement Type button selection ... pointless

Phil

No, those should be ok. As I stated, the order of units in the SFT types is critical to their use by cards and the engine in reinforcments and such. So dont move them from the original place unless editing the reinforcement scheduale and cards and probably some other stuff too!

Troy

(in reply to aspqrz02)

quote:

ORIGINAL: High Krausen

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ritterkrieg
Are not the recon units represented already by the 'recon value' of a hex?

I don't know, I just like the idea of having an additional unit to use in a retreat blocking role. They would be fragile so, you would want to keep their retreat % low.

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ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

An armoured car only needs to be able to scuttle a couple of clicks in order to survive as a recon unit, so not giving the 222 etc. the retreat option would seem a bit odd to me.