RockinHarry
Posts: 2963
Joined: 1/18/2001
From: Germany
Status: offline
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Yep, as said depends upon situations. Tarawa and soviet infantry mass attacks are part of those examples where unhealthy troop densities are employed. Both examples have their reasons, one would probably be lack of space combined with the problematical first phase of a landing where the infantry just left their LCI´s and are about to order their combat formations at the beach. They surely did disperse more, once assembled to coherent formations and with proper space/cover available. Russian infantry "human wave" attacks is just part of their "employing masses" doctrine, as well as lack of more appropiate small unit tactics.
With regard to SPWAW, it´s up to the player to avoid unhealthy "overstacking" that only causes more losses to more troops if coming under lethal fire. No special rules needed IMHO. Just a matter of good or bad tactics. Overstacking has the additional effect that any unit moving into a hex already containing another unit pays additional movement points. Beside the penalties, there´s no stacking limit, that´s true.
Interpreting the wartime pics to a SPWAW 50m hex situation can be done in more than just one way. Can the number of units you see be really deployed "within" one hex, or would they share between two adjacent hexes? ...or 3?
1 infantry platoon depoyed within a hex in an attack situation? For russians yes, for others no, or depending upon very special situations.
Example for germans from HDV 130/2a (the basic field regulation dealing with squad and platoon training/combat, issue from 1941)
Distance between single infantry men under conditions where the enemy and combat can be expected within short time: ~4-5m. Both applies to squad column (Schutzenreihe) and squad line (Schutzenkette) alike. If not given specific orders, the infantry men were trained to maintain these distances normally. Other individual distances would be ordered under special circumstances as would be dense terrain (forest ect.) or weather and general visibility (fog, night ect.)
A whole platoon would deploy similarly. The squad as given above, then if marching in a platoon column, about 4-5m between squads. If deploying into a platoon line and without regard of having the squads 2 up or 3, distance bewteen squads up front would be about 50m and distance to the reserve squad to the rear about 100m.
Now again this depends upon terrain (coverless or dense) and visibility, as well as enemy interdiction to adapt spaces between individual men and squads.
Another example from german tank tactics sources dealing with individual tank, troop and platoon tactics:
Distance between individual tanks on the march in a typical march column: Rule of thumb: Speed = distance. So a tank with a moving speed of 20 kmh would maintain a distance of about 20m to the other tanks in front.
A tank march column on the halt would maintain about 15-20m between individual tanks under non enemy air activity situations. If enemy air attack is likely then distance beteen individual tanks would increase to 50m -100m ideally. Distances between units (Plt., Cpy ect.) also vary and are generally way larger than those between individual tanks, about 50 to 100m normally.
If it comes to any of the combat formations (wedge, line ect.) distances between individual tanks would normally be 25 to 50m, again depending upon terrain, enemy air activity ect.
A platoon of tanks (x5) in column takes about 250m of space.
A platoon of tanks " in line takes about 200-250m of space.
Distances between individual platoons take about 50 to 100m or more.
This is just to tell of the basic rules (german army) to start from. Finally the commander of a particular force is to decide to adapt and deviate from these rules.
Just out of interest, how do you measure features on photos distributed "in depth", viewed at an angle and taking focal distances of used cameras into account?
With regard to stacking infantry to gain advantages on the attack, where´s the benefit? You can´t shoot with more than one unit (squad or tank) at the same time, but the enemy opportunity fire might hit/hurt not just the attacking infantry in the hex, it also hits the other units in the stack. I see some possibilities when the stacked units have high moral and experience though. Cover would be another topic. Urban combat surely offers those possibilities to stack a whole platoon of infantry in a single hex and gain attack benefits.
After all, SPWAW is a squad and individual tank unit game. Combat mechanics as well as ground scale (the 50m hexes) work and are measured accordingly. That can´t be changed by any "house rules" applied, without also "tweaking" the preferences settings.
When speaking of historical german attack frontages used for larger units (Btl., Rgt. or Div.) it is often assumed that all units are up front, which isn´t the case normally. A "full strength" unit would seldomly have more than 2/3 of it´s strength up front and has the remaining 1/3 in reserve. OTOH given frontages do not normally assume to fill the whole space with units/men. There´s many reasons for this (lack of units/understrength, terrain, requirement to leave gaps so that HMG can shoot between units..something that is not modelled in SPWAW, ect.)
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