Steve Wilcox
Posts: 103
Joined: 8/17/2001
From: Victoria, BC, Canada
Status: offline
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Hi VikingNo2, here it goes. It's a bit of a mish-mash because the info is in either or both text and tables, so it has to be dug for a bit and is not always equally well described:
Dec 35: Squad leader, observer/scout, 2-man LMG team, a 2-man grenadier team (rifle grenade launcher), and six riflemen.
Sep 39: LMG and 11 rifles (that's all it says).
Jun 40: Two of the rifles were supposed to be replaced by semi-automatic rifles, but this TO& E never saw combat, and it's unclear what the SMG issue was.
Apr 41: Squad leader (w/semi-auto), 2-man LMG team (semi-auto for the assistant), 2 submachine gunners, and six riflemen. The riflemen were supposed to have semi-autos, but it seems that only the SL, assistant machine gunner and two of the riflemen had 'em.
Jul 42 (late): The squad gets cut down to 9 men and appears to lose a SMG, but is otherwise the same. The early July TO&E table lists 9 SMG per company, while the late July one says 12, so I'm a little confused because the text doesn't say anything regarding the squad other than losing the two men.
Dec 42: Half the squads in the platoon get a second LMG, but no additional manpower.
Aug 43 variant: The squad goes back up to 11 men (with only 3 squads per platoon instead of 4, though), but only specifies that each squad had a single LMG without saying what the other weaponry was.
Now in Up Front the squad weapon breakdown goes like this:
Apr 41: 12 men, 1 semi-auto or SMG, 1 LMG, and 10 rifles.
Jul 41: as above for the LMG squads, and minus the LMG and plus a rifle for those without.
Jul 42: 9 men, 1 SMG, 1 LMG, and 7 rifles.
Dec 42: as above for the single LMG squads, and plus a LMG and minus a rifle for the squads with 2 LMG.
Dec 44: 7 men, 1 SMG, 1 LMG, and 5 rifles.
Although I have no idea what sources the Up Front designers used, they say that regarding the SVT-40 semi-automatic rifle, "...only a select few NCOs received them. By 1943, all officers had received machine pistols and the SVT1940 fell almost completely from use."
And regarding the squads w/2 LMGs they say: "...it is extremely doubtful that many rifle squads had more than one LMG at a time." Contrast this with the Red Army Handbook 1939-1945 saying re: the December 1942 TO&Es: "Two of the squads were issued a second RPD light machine gun, although with no increase in strength, and these tended to be used as a base of firepower against which the other two light squads could manoeuvre." Sounds like they were used, but who knows? (shrug)
Although I would tend to take the Red Army Handbook 1939-1945 as a source over just about anything else as: "...there has been a glaring lack of information on the organization and equipment of the red Army. Furthermore, much of the published materialis based on inaccurate German wartime accounts. This handbook attempts to redress this problem and has been base heavily on new Russian material made available since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991." (from its introduction)
Hi Goblin, I usually just leave the squads with one LMG per, so I don't have to worry about the ones that had two or none, but in the past I've experimented with using a weapon slot to create a "LMG x2" weapon for whatever the case may be (ie PzGr squads or the Russian 2 LMG squads) by getting rid of a weapon that is unused by the nationality, giving it about 150% of the HE Kill of the single weapon (based on the BAR x2 HE Kill of 8 versus the single BAR HE Kill of 5, which seemed like the closest thing to compare it to).
I found that using both the second and third squad weapon slots for an LMG uses up too many of the limited weapon spaces.
Nowadays I mostly just modify the formations (and the units a bit), because I usually have to get rid of something to add something or don't know how much the unit cost should change or I worry about screwing up the AI picks or the way the game works. 
< Message edited by Steve Wilcox -- 3/1/2004 7:04:19 AM >
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