Steve, some time when you're less busy, maybe you could do a Bibliography of your TO&E sources.

[Sequoia]

Maybe you'll always be too busy to do so.

[JoMac]

Yeah, I Thrice that...

[Ivanov]

Yeah, I've always thought, that the German and Soviet squads are too lavishly equipped with the automatic weapons. Two MG 42's, MP 40 and StG 44 per squad seems way over the top. Compare it to US squads in Bulge game and Waffen SS looks like space stromtroopers, against the medieval peasant rebles with pitchforks and sticks. Same in case of the Soviets, they have too many submachine guns per squad. Maybe some elite recon troops, the Spetsnaz precursors were so equipped, but definitely not the regular units, not even Guards. I think that the German and Soviet squads in CM had been boosted for the game balance reasons.

[John Kettler]

Ref Germans, what I've read is that their late war TO&E was far better suited to defense than attack. Definitely true for VGD. Remember, their squads are smaller, hence, more brittle than the larger American squads when they start taking casualties. German squads often didn't have full TO&E, either, so a 2 X MG42 squad might have only one. The big American squads are more resilient (presuming same stats) than the Germans. While the BAR team (often, teams--2 x BAR) formed the base/s of fire, the Americans put out enormous amounts of rifle fire that the Kar 98 couldn't match.

Brother George knows way more about this than I do, and my CM experience is both inadequate and super rusty (CM brain still offline), but I have learned some things the hard way in BA and CoC.  Would observe, though, that the CMBB Strategy Guide had a simply enormous number of different German infantry formation types, so would expect a lot more variation than what seems like a canned German squad organization. As for the Russians, their later war Rifle Battalion TO&E had 2 x Rifle Company and 1 x SMG Company. The latter was used to deliver killing blows to a disrupted foe via shock action. Thus, running into a formation whose weaponry was almost exclusively SMGs could and did happen. Where else are the SMG troops? On the tanks! Scale was, I believe, an SMG Platoon per Tank Company. If I did the math right, it works out to a half squad per tank.

Regards,

John Kettler

[A Canadian Cat]

10 hours ago, Ivanov said:

Yeah, I've always thought, that the German and Soviet squads are too lavishly equipped with the automatic weapons. Two MG 42's, MP 40 and StG 44 per squad seems way over the top. 

Well you can tweak the equipment levels for your forces. Excellently equiped units look like that. Lower the equipment rating and the German troops will get less and less good weapons. 

BTW those equipment levels come not just the TOE but also the equipment inventory reports.

[Bulletpoint]

12 hours ago, Ivanov said:

Compare it to US squads in Bulge game and Waffen SS looks like space stromtroopers, against the medieval peasant rebles with pitchforks and sticks.

Just like the Star Wars stormtroopers, the Germans can't hit the broad side of a barn with their STG44s. The Garands make much less noise and seem less impressive visually, but they are very effective.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[DMS]

16 hours ago, Ivanov said:

Same in case of the Soviets, they have too many submachine guns per squad

Yes, because they had SMG platoon in each company! So other 2 rifle squads had less SMGs, only 1 for commanders.

6 hours ago, John Kettler said:

As for the Russians, their later war Rifle Battalion TO&E had 2 x Rifle Company and 1 x SMG Company.

Are you sure? I saw such TO&E variant, but just a variant among others. Rifle regiment had 1 SMG company since 1941 (only SMGs and some rifles, no MGs). Since 1943 there were smg platoons in companies (with MGs and snipers). HQ in some regiment could assemble platoons in a company, but... Some officers complained that SMG platoons are useless before getting close, I don't believe someone would assemble SMG battalion in a rifle unit. Because other battalions would be out of SMGs.

[Ivanov]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

Just like the Star Wars stormtroopers, the Germans can't hit the broad side of a barn with their STG44s. The Garands make much less noise and seem less impressive visually, but they are very effective.

But two MG 42's per squad, with their rate of fire, surely are able to hit something. From my experience squad vs squad, the Germans are able very quickly to achieve a fire superiority and suppress the US squad.

[MikeyD]

Bibliographies are things to construct up-front as you're compiling your data. Looking backward and trying to construct a forensic bibliography would be a Herculean task, especially in the age of the internet.

I remember reading an article online that said Ukraine had taken delivery of a donation of bulletproof SUVs from Germany (paid for by the US, I think) for border patrol duty. One of the earliest foreign equipment donations to Ukraine after the invasion. Except nobody believed me, claimed Ukraine never got such vehicles. And my attempts to relocate that article were all failures. I know I saw the darned article, I even did a search of the SUV type mentioned after reading it. But my documentation is gone-gone-gone.

[Chops]

20 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Bibliographies are things to construct up-front as you're compiling your data. Looking backward and trying to construct a forensic bibliography would be a Herculean task, especially in the age of the internet.

I remember reading an article online that said Ukraine had taken delivery of a donation of bulletproof SUVs from Germany (paid for by the US, I think) for border patrol duty. One of the earliest foreign equipment donations to Ukraine after the invasion. Except nobody believed me, claimed Ukraine never got such vehicles. And my attempts to relocate that article were all failures. I know I saw the darned article, I even did a search of the SUV type mentioned after reading it. But my documentation is gone-gone-gone.

Here you go Mikey -

" Notwithstanding their political and practical importance, lethal weapons are only one among many necessary forms of U.S. assistance to Ukraine. For one thing, in the military/security area, non-lethal U.S. military assistance helped to advance Ukraine’s war-fighting efforts. It has included equipment, such as counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars, secure communications, tactical UAVs, medical equipment, logistical infrastructure and IT systems, night vision devices, thermal goggles and up-armored civilian SUVs."

https://www.usukraine.org/analysis-u-s-assistance-ukraine/

Obviously, these should be added to CM:BS in the future.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Chops

[Sequoia]

Mike, you do raise a good point.  My interest, by the way, was inspired by your Turkish mods for CMSF 2. I have some miniature wargame books from the early '80s that provide a TO&E for every Army in  the World at the time. I thought I could find something similar for modern day but my Goggle Fu only found material for the U.S. , U.K. , Russia, and Iraq 2003.

Fortunately Combatintman found a unique solution to answering the number of tanks in a Turkish tank company. I was hoping Steve might clue me in on sources for other modern Armies so I could do some more research on my own.

[MikeyD]

Military Technology magazine used to publish a yearly 'word defense almanac'. I haven't laid my hands on a copy since 2003 but apparently its still going strong. The PDF for the 2018 edition only gives the glossary but you get the idea.

https://www.monch.com/mpg/images/military-technology/lastpublished/2018/mt-wda-2018-contents.pdf

[JoMac]

3 hours ago, Ivanov said:

But two MG 42's per squad, with their rate of fire, surely are able to hit something. From my experience squad vs squad, the Germans are able very quickly to achieve a fire superiority and suppress the US squad.

If I remember from looking at my WWII Miniature Rules TO&E for Mid-Late War (Ian Shaw, Wargames Research Group), think the German Field Infantry Divisions had 1x LMG per squad, and Motorized Panzer Grenadier Divisions had 2x LMG's per squad.

 

Edited October 7, 2018 by JoMc67

[Sequoia]

Mike, I'm not familiar with the periodical you mention, but I'm guessing it's more akin to the Institute of Strategic Studies annual World's Military Balance book which provides military strength of all nations but at a higher scale ( numbers of divisions and brigades, ships, and aircraft squadrons plus total number of AFVs of each type as well as aircraft types but not details of TO&E. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[John Kettler]

May've gotten the organizational level wrong, but this should provide some insights for a bunch of units.

Soviet Wargaming
http://canuckcommander.pbworks.com/w/page/14311324/WW2 Soviet Wargaming

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

In researching Russian Rifle Company (and below) TO&E, I came across this, which covers the subject from Barbarossa to the end. It is rich in info, is apparently  a data file for a WW II game system I never heard of, and there is nothing for sale there, so I hope the Mods are okay with that. See what you think.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

[Combatintman]

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 12:47 AM, Sequoia said:

Fortunately Combatintman found a unique solution to answering the number of tanks in a Turkish tank company. I was hoping Steve might clue me in on sources for other modern Armies so I could do some more research on my own.

Nothing unique about it - that's how it is done in real life. The technical term in imagery analyst circles is 'bay and shedding'.

[John Kettler]

Combatintman,

Back during the Cold War, I got to see some fine examples of that myself on engine maintenance day, but the wag in me can't help but observe the uninformed, confronted with "bay and shedding," might think it was either a canine issue or something to do with a marine environment.
 

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by John Kettler