michaelbaldur
Posts: 4774
Joined: 4/6/2007 From: denmark Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wosung quote:
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets quote:
ORIGINAL: Orm quote:
ORIGINAL: capitan This looks very nice. But it also made me think about the size of the Belgian army and I couldn't get the math to add. So what I have to say is in no way critisism on the writeup but more a question about math. With these exellent writeups it becomes easy to compare the units of WIF with the historical OOB (Order Of Battle) and numbers of soldiers in the units. In WIF Belgium has 3 corps and 1 reserve corps. The writeup says the "1st corps" has 2 divisions and some 14000 men. Since I haven't seen the writeup for the other corps I asume for this argument that they have 3 divisions each and 22000 soldiers. That gives the entire Belgian WIF army 11 divisions with 80000 men including the reserve. Oxfords Companion to WWII says the Belgian field army had 22 divisions with some 600000 men in may 1940 (fully mobilized). I verified those numbers with another source. That makes a discrepancy between WIF and history that becomes very obvious with a small army like Belgium and such nice unit writeups. Should this be mentioned somewhere? Perhaps a small writeup on each minor country? Maybe an information screen could be added to most minor countries in the declaration of war step that included the historical date the minor entered the war and the status at that point of its armed forces. -Orm Does Oxford Companion give any details about the 22 divisions and 600,000 men, or just the total counts? Belgian Army had a peace time strength of 100.000 men. The mentioned corps strength of some 14.000 men must be peace time strength. All those Belgian div. strengths mentioned in the unit write-ups must be peace time strengthes: A fully mobilized Belgian div. alone fielded 3 regiments with 3.000 men each. Plus divisional arty, supply, etc. personnel, this easily could have amounted to some 15.000 men per div. According to another source a Belgian div had some 10.000 men. As mentioned above a Belgian corps fielded 2 divs. Thus a corps must have numbered 20.000 to 30.000 men, plus/including corps troops. 600.000 men divided to 22 divs would have amounted to some 27.000 men per div. This is obviously to much per div. As for the discrepancy between 27.000 and 10.000 to 15.000 men per div.: The calculation about 600.000 men divided to 22 divs. doesen't take into account: 1. the corps troops (at least several thousand men) and Army supply troops 2. that the 600.000 mobilization strength might include all armed forces, including air force (some 234 planes, 180 operational) and the very small navy. Belgian mobilization had begun on 25 Aug. 1939, so in May 1940 they must have been fully mobilized. Regards Sources: Andrew Mollow, The armed forces of WW2, p. 48-51. The Oxford companion to WW2, p.121. John Ellis, WW2, A statistical survey, p. 201. what about the army in congo .... are they part of the 600.000 ...
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the wif rulebook is my bible I work hard, not smart. beta tester and Mwif expert if you have questions or issues with the game, just contact me on Michaelbaldur1@gmail.com
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