RE: TO&E and OOB information (Full Version)

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LiquidSky -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/17/2012 6:06:23 AM)



The OOB was researched by somebody else for Kharkov'42, using these sources:

BOOKS:
Bishop, Chris, The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II; London, 1998.
Chamberlain, Peter, and Doyle, Hilary; Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two; Arms &
Armour, London, 1978
Carell, Paul, Hitler Moves East 1941-1943, Bantam Books, 1966
Erickson, John, The Road to Stalingrad: Stalin's War with Germany, Yale University Press, New
Haven & London 1975/1999
Fleischer, Wolfgang, Russian Tanks and Armored Vehicles 1917-1945, Schiffer Publishing Ltd, 1999
Glantz, David M.; Kharkov 1942, Anatomy of a Military Disaster Through Soviet Eyes; Ian Allan
Publishing, England, 1998.
Glantz, David M.; self publish - Red Army Combat Operations – Volume II The Winter Campaign
5 December 1941, 27 April 1942.
Hamilton, Scott S. and Smith, Gregory M., HPS Simulations: Encyclopedia of Land Combat, HPS
Simulations, 1997
Jentz, Thomas; Panzer Ttruppen 1; Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA, 1996.
Morozov, Colonel Vasili, "The Kharkov Offensives" in History of the Second World War magazine
Marshall Cavendish USA Ltd 1973.
Neihorster, Leo W.G.; German World War II Organizational Series, Vol 4/I; Neihorster, Canada, 1994.
Poirier, Robert G. and Conner, Albert Z.; The Red Army Order of Battle in the Great Patriotic War;
Presidio, Novato CA, 1985.
Patrick, Stephen B., Kharkov: The Soviet Offensive, Strategy & Tactics Magazine, No 68, 1978.
Salisbury, Harrison E., The Unknown War, Bantam Books, New York, 1978.
Sharp, Charles C.; Soviet Order of Battle World War II, Vol I to XI; Nafziger, West Chester OH, 1995-6.
Tessin, Georg; Verbande und Truppen der Deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS im Zweiten
Weltkrieg 1939-1945; Osnabruck; Biblio Verlag
U.S. War Department; Handbook on German Military Forces; Louisiana State University Press, Baton
Rouge, 1995.
Zaloga, Steven J. and Ness, Leland S., Red Army Handbook 1939-1945, Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1998

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (Microfilm/Microfiche/Paper Documents):
Capture German Records [Record Group 242]:
Series Rolls Organization Description
T-78 404 OKH German OOB charts
T-313 45 1.Pz.AOK German OOB charts
T-313 268 1.Pz.AOK German OOB charts
T-312 693 17.AOK German OOB charts
T-312 1677 6.AOK Operational data/maps
T-314 487 XI.AK German OOB data
T-314 1036 XXXXIV.AK German OOB charts

Order of Battle of the Soviet Army
Military-Academic Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army – January-December 1942.



Redmarkus5 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/17/2012 10:39:46 AM)

Glantz isn't God. I have just finished reading his 'After Stalingrad' and I have to say that while he does include massive amounts of source data from the Soviet archives, there is relatively little in the book by Glantz himself and not much opinion or commentary at all. Where he does express himself, he often repeats himself a few pages later, which is extremely annoying. One ends up with no real sense of what really occurred on the ground. Even the scanned maps are almost illegible and I found the experience of reading this tome very frustrating. I won't be investing in anything else by this author.

Let's no forget that archive data was often edited or deleted and that using a range of sources to get a full sense of events is never a bad idea, particularly when it comes to assessing relative quality and performance for computer gaming purposes, rather than raw statistics on units types and quantity. The goal, I believe, should be to create a game that will generally play out as a fair facsimile of history, with any major deviations remaining plausible and acceptable to both players, based on play style, decisions taken, etc.



amatteucci -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/17/2012 10:50:31 AM)

Glantz in his 1998 book "Kharkov 1942" doesn't give detailed strength returns for armoured while in his later work, "To the gates of Stalingrad", he uses figures from this
http://tourist.kharkov.ua/1942/index.htm
book.
It's worth noting that the totals for tank units given in Glantz's "Kharkov 1942" are compatible with the detalied breakdown per type contained in his later work.

For what concernes artyllery numbers, the aforementioned "Kharkov 1942" book, gives the following totals:

Army 152mm/122mm/76mm/120mm/81mm

21st 18/23/80/20/190
28th 41/61/191/76/524
38th 38/52/165/40/190
6th & Army Group Bobkin 127/117/241/485/596/666



LiquidSky -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/17/2012 8:18:49 PM)



There will probabably always be new and better sources that come out as long as there are people interested in the subject. I posted this snippet of the OOB (and didnt bother subdividing the units, as they are given down to the company level, to save typing) to contrast with what is in the game. For example, I notice that the 21st army has an 8th NKVD division. The 8th NKVD was moved off to Siberia and turned into some other division. However, if I total up all the division in Southwestern front in the game, and compare it to this OOB, I come up with three divisions short. As well, the Case Blue regiments are mostly stronger..so it probably all evens out in the end and gives the right operational feel.

This source list was used not only for strengths but for placements, arrival times/attack times etc. It could be that the glantz book listed was not used at all for strength, but that the National Archives held the information they needed.

Actually, I am thinking that for a game like Case Blue, it is better to give the Russians full strength units to start, and use the AT START events to randomly rip them down to about half (or whatever) size so the total numbers are comparable. It would save a lot of time and effort, and probably give the right operational feel to the game. The Minor Axis can be done as single divisional counters...big, unwieldly, operationally clumsy. Maybe even the non-guard russian rifle divisions as single counters. Let only the cavalry corps, tank/mech corps, and anything guard have regimental breakdowns on the map.




aspqrz02 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/18/2012 1:32:08 AM)

I am not sure that it is a good thing to have the Axis Minors forced to be a single counter ... or even limited to two counters ...

My thinking is this ... the Russian Stalingrad offensive destroyed the Axis Minor units it hit. Devastated them. Reverse Decimated (i.e 1 in 10 survived) ... why? Well, because they were so spread out along what passed for the front line (which was the German problem as well).

It wasn't that they weren't *there*, mind ... but they they were too thinly spread out.

If you have single counter divisions, it means you cannot replicate this ... the frontline distances (the historical ones) are simply too long for even abutting but non-overlapping ZOCs to represent how thinly these units were spread if you limit them to one, or even two, counters per division.

Having three or four counter divisions with savage manpower shortfalls is more likely to replicate the historical experience, IMO.

As for Russian Rifle Divisions, I am less sure ... they were really half the size of a German or Axis minor Division when at full strength, and probably, on that basis, should not be more than a two counters, regardless of their actual strength.

YMMV

Phil



LiquidSky -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/19/2012 12:20:58 AM)


North-West of Stalingrad:

Divizia 13 Inf (3300 men) had a frontage of 12 km
Divizia 15 inf (3900 men) had a frontage of 5km
Divizia 1 Cav (2100 men) had a frontage of 8 km

Divizia 6th Inf (3900 men) had a frontage of 27km
Divizia 5th Inf (3900 men) had a frontage of 17km

Divizia 14th Inf (3300 men) had a frontage of 17km
Divizia 9th Inf (3900 men) had a frontage of 12km


Case Blue seems to use a hex width of 12 km.
Which gives about 8 km to 24 km frontage if you follow the hexside of his (squished) hex.

And if you are correct that the rumanian divisions above are 'spread out thinly', then this is an extreme case, and even here, it is roughly one division per hex.
Besides, in wargames, extra frontage that sticks out into adjacent hexes is covered by Zone of Control rules. It is why the Russians would pay more to move past the divisions in the adjacent 'empty' hex.



Redmarkus5 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/19/2012 8:55:24 AM)

What you are really saying is that the whole game should be modeled at divisional level and above, rather than at Regimental level as it is currently...



LiquidSky -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/19/2012 7:00:43 PM)



I was giving that some thought, but it probably is okay for the Germans to be split for operational reasons. (Concentric bonus for example), and they can make a 'kampfgruppe' by just stacking a couple beat up regiments together. The minor axis divisions are about the same size as an axis regiment, so in many ways it makes sense for them to be one counter. Same with Russian Rifle divisions. Maybe the scale of the map could be changed....Like 5 km hexes. Or go to 1km hexes and break down into companies :)




Redmarkus5 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/19/2012 7:21:31 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



I was giving that some thought, but it probably is okay for the Germans to be split for operational reasons. (Concentric bonus for example), and they can make a 'kampfgruppe' by just stacking a couple beat up regiments together. The minor axis divisions are about the same size as an axis regiment, so in many ways it makes sense for them to be one counter. Same with Russian Rifle divisions. Maybe the scale of the map could be changed....Like 5 km hexes. Or go to 1km hexes and break down into companies :)




25m hexes and units at squad level! I'm modding it as we speak!



Redmarkus5 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/19/2012 7:24:55 PM)

Seriously though, changing the Soviets to Div-sized units should be pretty straightforward. Edit the pre-defs to create a Div-sized set, then edit the existing MODEL units to use a single pre-def each and apply to all on-map units using the 'set all' command. If that doesn't remove the regiments and replace them with a single division, then they will need to be edited manually on the map, which is much more tedious...



aspqrz02 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/20/2012 2:37:24 AM)

Well, what I have seen of the way the Rumanian and Hungarian divisions were deployed doesn't gel with your desire for a single unit ... the fact that they are understrength, often vastly so, didn't change the way the Germans expected them to be used until well after the disaster at Stalingrad.

Of course, a common sense player would stack all three (or four) units together, since they *will* be vastly understrength ... but if they wish to spread them out, they can ... just as the Germans did.

What DCCB really needs is a means to combine shattered/understrength divisions directly as was historically done, and as you can do in ATG.

Yes, I know you can disband a unit and then, theoretically, set another unit to priority replacements and, equally theoretically, build it up from the elements from the disbanded unit ... over several turns, probably several weeks, and through OKH ... which is not what happened historically.

The Germans ... and even the Romanians (for sure ... probably the Hungarians and Italians) ... simply said, "Oh, these two (or three, or whatever) Divisions are too small, and we can't build them up to TO&E strength in a reasonable timeframe, so, hey, let's just combine them!" ... the Germans called them "Kampfgruppe" (which applied to any ad hoc gathering of unit elements) and the Romanians simply treated one (or more than one) divisional remnant as a Regiment of the "new" parent unit.

All that could be done administratively overnight ... and take a turn or two to finalise on the ground, tops.

It would also be historical to allow elements within an existing Division that are badly understrength to be combined, too, and combined directly ... as this happened under the same "Kampfgruppe" ideal that the Divisional combinations did.

Can you do any of this in DCCB?

Not even close.

It is a serious need for historical flexibility! And allows for Divisional reorganisation of understrength Divisions if you want to.

Phil



Redmarkus5 -> RE: TO&E and OOB information (8/20/2012 9:04:02 AM)

If you put two Regts from different divisions in the same hex, you effectively have a KG. Let's not over-complicate a game the elegance of which is its relative simplicity. Woe betide those who try to turn DC into WitE2 ;)



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