JasonC
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Posts posted by JasonC
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They used 20mm FLAK for the same sort of role. As others have noted, they also used 15mm MGs on aircraft - along with 30mm cannon and 20mm cannon. From their point of view, the 50 cal (and the Russian 14.5mm AA MG) was an intermediate weapon, between everyone's standard ~30 cal MGs and their 20mm AA. They made tens of thousands of 20mm AA - singles, quads, towed, flak-tanks, on half-tracks, on trucks.
As for use of captured 50s, they may have in a pinch, locally, but I am not aware of any systematic use of them - unlike, say, the 120mm mortar. One fellow mentioned sound, but the likely main reason is ammo. 50 cals use ammo in great quantities, and the rounds are heavy compared to the standard ~30 cal MGs. Unless they were going to start making the stuff, they'd soon run through anything they captured. It was much easier to use 20mm FLAK that they already made shells for.
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First I will address the "it's all opinion" story. Price in general are opinions, and their origin subjective. But contrary to popular cliff-note philosophizing, a subjective origin of anything does not prevent knowledge about it, within limits. Practical life has invented ways of handling these things, and economics knows rather a lot about why they work. The rule used for price setting in practical life is called "making a market" in the presence of competition. If you examine why that tends to work, one finds the system has many useful characteristics for "price discovery", no matter how much all of it is about opinions.
Making a market means being willing to buy or to sell at (or very near) a stated price. Notice, someone saying "3" mortars should cost 1 point, because I am going to be British next time and will be buying lots", or "3" mortars should cost 100 points, because I'm the Germans this time", is not "making a market". All "special pleading" is evaporated by the obligation to take either side of the trade, and to let the other fellow decide which gives him more. "You cut, I choose", is a practical rule of justice about matters of opinion, and it works. When the advantages of item A relative to B, at given costs, in different terrain or a different force mix, lead people to sometimes buy As and sometimes Bs, then the "cut" between those two can be seen to be decent.
The second way practical life deals with "it's all opinion" is to make the continued making of a market, or setting of the price, dependent upon survival in the face of competition. Meaning, someone setting a price has to live with the side of the trade others choose to give him. If those others consistently win as a result of those trades with him, his price is not sustainable. Some trader sets the exchange rate of dollars vs. yen, making the dollar more valuable than others' mere opinions think it is. He winds up with a boatload of dollars, and others soon have all of his yen. It was just a difference of opinions, true. But it has a practical result.
Now, there is obviously no such linkage in a fixed price system for a game, like CM. But there is an analogy to it. If players that are allowed to cherry pick routinely get a better won-loss record against players that don't, and do so by chosing particular items (a side, an infantry type, this tank, those guns) then that is, on its face, evidence that the prices are skew. And it doesn't matter that these are "mere opinions". Thus, anyone maintaining that the prices are sound should have no objection to an opponent cherry-picking. The practical analogy would be the fellow that sets the prices giving his opponent choice of side, both allowed to pick their forces from the price-setters price list.
Incidentally, I already use my own prices for several items when balancing scenarios I design, and I suspect others do so as well. E.g. I often want to give a force a bunch of trucks, but I never make their side "pay" the full CM price for them in balance terms - I value them at next to nil for combat power balancing. I do something similar, but with reduced costs, for wire, bunkers, FTs, halftracks, moderately improved Shermans, etc. Most of these are cost reductions, rather than increases. As I have said previously, my problem with most price tweak issues is what they discourage or penalize, rather than what they encourage.
But outside of scenario design, perhaps tournaments or particular gentleman's-agreement games, that is ondoubtedly too cumbersome. So we rely on the third practical way of handling matters of "mere opinion" in practical life. This applies in markets in which buyers are "price-takers", as it is called. Meaning, no one makes a market, but buyers choose what to buy and refrain from items they think overpriced. Then feedback occurs about the soundness of the prices, to the price-setter, in the form of the volume of things chosen.
In the case of our little game, that feedback is something you hear about here - although you will also see a little of it in games that allow force picking. What items are common in such cases? Automatic weapon infantry, cheap light guns, infantry AT teams, AFVs with thick front armor and/or powerful AT armament, flame vehicles. What are avoided? Large point expenditures under "vehicles" for items without gun armament, especially unarmed trucks+jeeps and 1 MG "vanilla" halftracks, plain vanilla rifle armed infantry when other options exist, bunkers, infantry FTs, foot 50 cal teams, most on-map light mortars (but not 3"), AFVs with poor AT ability, mortar halftracks.
Which brings me to the last way that practical life deals with matters of "mere opinion" in pricing. It searches. It adapts. It does not pretend that one code promulgated initially will reflect values accurately, but neither does it pretend that values are not accurate or innaccurate merely because they are based on opinions. It does not expect a cessation of all trading as a result of a cessation of all disagreement about prices and therefore differences of opinion about values. But it does move prices in ways that reduce the amount of such disagreements. It corrects itself, and corrects its corrections. Practically life does not regard this exercise as "meaningless" or "futile" because it is "endless" or cannot become perfect, or because it is "harder than it sounds". It tweaks until there are people who prefer side A of a trade to B, and others who prefer side B to A, and large numbers of both.
Naturally, I do not expect BTS to be regularly releasing price-change patches. That would be silly, and would detract from time spent on CM2. But I do expect that price tweaks will be included when, from time to time, patches are released for other reasons, or in new versions of the game. If they aren't, then we will continue to use workarounds like computer picked forces, or using purely historical force mixes, or rules of 75/76, and switches of side (e.g. who gets the Germans, who have more bargains these days for various reasons).
And I for one will continue to use my own prices in scenario design, and will continue to suggest such modifications to this board, both for use by BTS and by willing players, by gentleman's agreement. And of course will consider any suggested price changes from others as well, on the same basis. Anyone willing to offer choice of side in return for his price revisions will get a respectful hearing from me, on the basis of the justice of "you cut, I choose". (The practical issues are easy - padded point totals and staying within them).
Now to the particular arguments put forth, and some concrete price suggestions.
"probably aren't playing densely wooded and hill maps" - actually, I usually do. I am simply more interested in the tactical problems created by ridges. Also, I like infantry fighting rather than AFV dominated fighting, and heavy woods is one way to get that. I do often use moderate rather than densely wooded (I use both), while I avoid the sparser vegetation settings (except in towns).
"this might make some weapons too expensive or two cheap in regards to a historical TO&E"
That is rariety. On that basis, Tiger Is are way too cheap. Shermans are way too expensive, especially moderately improved types.
Second, no one has suggested 90 point 3" mortars. 45 is more like it. At that price they would still provide vastly more blast potential per point than any other on-map mortar. But less than 2x, which is what I suggested before. The idea is not every price in line, which is not feasible. The idea is for the prices to mostly be in within 25-33% of "in line", for most items and reasonable force mixes, and to avoid situations greater than 2x for particular items.
"we have made price tweaks in the past. We will continue to refine things as we go along. But I honestly think there is a perception in this thread here that it is far easier to do this than it really is."
Indeed you have. And you will again, I suspect. As for the ease of doing it, I am not suggesting it is simplicity itself. But follow-on effects can be kept small simply by making moderate adjustments. E.g. the 3" mortar difference in total HE potential is ~2.5 times for the price. Allow that such ability is only part of what makes a mortar useful - since e.g. 2 put out not only 2x the rounds, but from 2 locations and faster, etc. So take a square root of the firepower potential, and get a price of 45-46. That nudges the price up 25%, and brings the potential blast per point down to 33.5, vs. 19 for the 81s, under 2x. If you like, only move it to 40 and it will be 2x the potential HE, but not more. You don't need to shoot for perfection; it is enough that the result be closer. Even an "overshooting" adjustment, if still closer, would be an improvement if the "overshoot" is less than the original imbalance. There is no way 40 is an "overshoot" or would create a large imbalance or "ripple".
Or, taking a page from Wreck's suggestion, perhaps Solomonic little of both - 18 pt 60mm, 22 point 81mm, 40 pt 3". The total blast potential per point would then by 16, 22.4, and 37.7. The lighter mortars would cost about what MGs do.
Incidentally, his point was about on-map mortars besides the 3", not about the FOs. The FOs give around 40 total blast potential per point spent, the same ballpark as the 3" mortar. The 60mm and 81mm mortars give 1/3rd and 2/5ths as much total blast per point spent as the FOs. The reason is their low ammo load.
You see, the reason people do not buy too many on-map mortars (prefering the FOs) is because their large weakness is total ammo load. It is not like the place the 3" shines in comparison, is an unimportant secondary characteristic of mortars.
Most players do use -off-map- mortars (FOs) to great effect. Most use on-map mortars beside the 3" little, just getting some useful point-suppression (guns or MGs especially) out of the 2x81mm, 3x60mm, or 3x50mm mortars indigenous to most infantry companies. When people want more mortar firepower, they generally take an FO. The Brits take 3" on-maps. The way other on-map mortars are dealt with is to let them expend their ammo, without wasting firepower on them in reply. They will take themselves out of the battle in a few minutes, by running out.
Or consider FTs. Right now, they are far less valuable than anti-tank teams. We can easily understand why. They have a shorter range, same number of men, are slower, equally limited ammo. A bazooka or schreck will more reliably take out a bunker, one of the primary historical uses of FTs, because they can do it from longer range and are more likely to live at such longer ranges. They also kill armor. The FTs burn houses or woods to deny cover. But FTs cost 61% more than Schrecks and 2.5x what zooks cost. They should probably cost more like what schrecks do, 23 points. If that seems too big a change, just move only halfway, to 30. They would probably still be overpriced at 30 each, but less so than today, and that is enough.
Or take the 1 MG halftracks. From the difference between the 2 US types, it is clear the 2nd MG is only 4 points. In fact, the extra firepower improves the usefulness considerably more than 9%. People buy 42 pt M3s, if they do, only for historical realism, never because the extra MG is worth less than 4 pts. But the German 251 costs 10 points more than the 1 MG version that Allied players avoid. Why? A longer nose handles MG fire better from the front, that is about it. The 46-pt M3A1 is the type people will actually buy today. Taking it as a base, consider the value of the firepower for a 'track as a 3rd root thing, the 1 MG M3 would cost ~36-7 points. That might still be too expensive, but an 8 point difference in price would more nearly refect the value of another MG. Then the SPW-251 would be between them, because twice the firepower is worth more than a 15mm nose (easily penetrated by 50 cals BTW), but the nose is worth something. Around 40-2 points then.
Or take the 20mm FLAK. 21 points, only 3/4 as much as an HMG team. It has more effective firepower, anti-armor ability, high ammo. It is less mobile, 2 fewer men, and a bit easier to spot once it fires. It is probably worth at least as much as the HMG despite those things. Many can attest to the gamey potential of full light FLAK battalions in their way (would it were only one). But one needn't make the 20mm FLAK cost 30-35 points, which I for one would think reasonable. One can just bump the price to 25 points, nearer to the HMG. So the price is still not perfect - it is closer to right, and that is the idea.
I have suggested changes in the infantry pricing in the past, for formulas. I did not suggest extreme measures. I recommended the price of SMGs rather than rifles (all types) be 1/4 to 1/3rd more points per weapon - roughly +2 points per pure SMG squad, +1 points to squads with numerous SMGs but not pure SMG. I also recommended a slight price increase to reflect the usefulness of improved fausts, compared to rifle grenades. Not a large one - +1 for faust-60 eligible infantry, +2 for faust-100 eligible infantry. If you can't adjusted it by date for some reason, then use the +1 throughout. That is 3-6 points per platoon, fractions of the cost of 1 bazooka team. Platoons get 4-5 capable weapons from resilent shooters. Would these changes mean that the Germans get less AT ability for the cost, or that SMG-heavy infantry types get less effective firepower potential for the cost? Hardly. But they would move the prices slightly in the proper direction, and thus reduce the existing "bargain" or cherry-picking space.
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"keep in mind that the equations that calculated the prices for these mortars are the same ones"
Why is that less than full reassuring? LOL.
Pretending all the prices in CM are right is just plain silly. A large reason why people insist on non-picking is because everyone knows there are items far from their real values. Personally, I find price discrepancies irritating primarily for what they discourage, more so than what they encourage. Can any price system by perfect? No. But when an item is obviously priced out of line, that is on its face a reason to tweak it, rather than a reason to throw up the hands.
Others have presented you numerous cases of price discrepancies on the past. I have too. And some of them are obviously a case of the items in your formula valuing some characteristics above their combat worth.
"How can anyone say that?" huff huff. Simple. If people both prefer one side of a trade to another almost uniformly, it is a skewed trade. Grade schoolers understand it - "you cut I choose", right? Well, if the left half is always getting chosen, the cutting isn't down the middle.
I take two cases to show what I mean. A flamethrower team costs 1 pt more than a 3" mortar team. Now, in general your formulas overrate the importance of number of men, compared to quality of weapons, in my humble opinion (more on that later). But if there is one case where few men makes firepower less valuable, it is a slow infantry direct fire weapon with a range of 45 yards.
Anyone care for a meeting engagement between 3 vanilla platoons, each supported by 4 support weapons - you get flamethrowers, I get 3" mortars?
It is not that number of men is unimportant, it is that the importance of number of men varies inversely with range, indirect vs. direct fire, etc. Incidentally, how does a flamethrower merit 37 points, with 2 men, slow, next to no ammo or range?
Ok, here is another test to see if all prices are koposectic. Would you rather have 3 supporting 3" mortars with 198 HE shells each 26 blast? Or 2 SPW-251/1 vanilla halftracks each with an MG?
Or leave 3" mortars. Would you rather have 2 SPW-251/1s carrying 4 flamethrowers (LOL), or 2 Jadgpanzers? Or, would you rather have 3 vanilla US rifle platoons or 4 VG SMG platoons? Yeah, there are 8 more men in the rifle platoons, and it is 12 points less. But you'll probably want a few bazookas, not having fausts.
Automatic weapons are underpriced. A rifle and an SMG cost the same. (Some prefer 2 LMG squad types with some SMGs included, to pure SMG. Nobody prefers the plain vanilla rifle squads as the Germans, because they have better choices). Squad-carrying ability is overpriced in vehicles, compared to fighting ability. Thick front armor plates are underpriced in armor buying. Tanks with marginal survivability improvements, 1 extra MG, etc, pay as much for such minor extras are for guns that kill anything or armor that stops most rounds from the front. Ammo is often underweighted in pricing (e.g. a German HMG team costs 2 points more than a US 50 cal. It gets vastly more ammo and far greater firepower). Brits pay no more for 17-lb guns on tanks, that can kill almost anything, than the US pays for 76mm and wet stowage, which can't kill many things, etc. Highly effective light guns with large ammo loads are systematically underpriced - e.g. 20mm AA, 75mm Inf, etc.
All experienced players are aware of some of these cases. Most avoid exploiting them by either letting the computer pick the forces, or by picking strictly historical force mixes. This still detracts some from experimenting with force mixes to get a sense why they did things certain ways (first case, because you can't pick, second, because you can't experiment too much and still be fair).
Do I expect BTS to develop a perfect price system? No of course not. Whatever relationships are created between prices and combat ability, people will find some way to wiggle with want is given. But not having that unrealistic expectation, is different from the "do no wrong" PAK-front. When players point out real differences between price and combat value, it would behoove you to stop reciting your formulas for 10 minutes and pay attention. As sometimes you do, else this board would not be here. Well, the 3" mortar is such a case - and the flamethrower, and the other examples above are other such cases.
Here is a test to determine whether or not something is within the realm of just tweaks, or is out of whack enough to create exploitable problems. Consider the most important 1 or 2 combat variables attached to an item. If two similar items differ in the amount of those things bought per point of price, by a factor of two, then there is danger of gamey outcomes. And deserve a harder look, with game design in mind rather than a formula.
When it is a matter of 1.25 or 1.33 times some relevant variable, no sweat. When it is 2-2.5 times, that is a different story.
When players readily prefer one to another as a bargain, and such 2x effects are clearly present and potentially exploitable, then tweaking the prices is sensible. Without any pretence of perfection. It ought to be possible to get the "lumpy" and "noisy" match between price and combat power, to within broad ranges, and certainly under 2x.
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"From what I've heard the first German 12cm mortars were notoriously accurate"
The CEP is 65 meters - larger than for smaller mortars BTW. Half within that, half without. It is artillery. In CM, on map mortars hit like directly-laid, flat trajectory field guns. They should use the indirect fire routine like for off-map artillery, but they don't. So you see every mortar round land on an except line for the mortar, range error only. That did not happen.
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Originally posted by Big Time
That's fine, but.
Is there anyone who would buy a 81mm mortar at the some price as the US or Germans ones, as the Brits, with the 3" available with its 2.5 times the ammo?
(chirp... chirp...)
No.
As the previous poster noted, on map mortars usually fire off their ammo and without taking losses. Sometimes they get clobbered on the move, morale goes, the mortar is KOed or abandoned - hardly matters how many men are left when that does happen.
If the ammo difference were small - 25% more or something - then it might be counterbalanced by the men and mobility. But it isn't. 2 3" mortars will put out about the same firepower in the course of a game as -seven- 81mm mortars. For 40% of the cost.
The 3" mortar should cost more like 48-54 points with its existing ammo load. It would still be a bargain in price of firepower terms, compared to all other one-map mortats. I'd still buy it, I can tell you.
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There were ~600 of each type. The 75mm version was used by the FJ, as the previous fellow stated, as early as Crete in 1941. The 105mm version was used both by the FJ and by gebirbsjaegers (GB) - the mountain infantry. The 75mm type was rare by late war, with relatively little ammo made for it, and the mountain infantry used 75mm infantry guns instead. When it was available, its role was to replace 75mm infantry guns as regimental support weapons.
The 105mm was used in place of regimental infantry guns (150mm SiG) and in place of 105mm regular artillery. Both FJ and GB had less artillery support than regular infantry, in practice - regardless of what TOE said. The GB units had to be able to transport their guns on pack mules, too. There was a 105mm mountain gun meant for that role, but not enough of them were made to fill out TOEs. There was more ammo made for the 105s, especially in the midwar. Still less than for standard 105mm artillery, or 105mm mountain guns, though.
Both types enabled these limited transport unit types (FJ, GB) to keep some form of heavy fire support. The principle was not more widely used, despite the benefits of lower weight, because the ammunition used so much more propellant to make than standard artillery. That meant each shell of this type was made at the expense of several shells of the standard types. Which was a more important consideration in the overall war economy, than low weight to get the guns to difficult places.
Note that post-war RRs, and even the types developed by the US during the war toward its end, were much more minituarized than these early German models. The 75mm German version weighed 220 lbs, the 105mm version almost half a ton. Whereas the late war US versions were light enough to be fired from the shoulder like bazookas (the 57mm version in particular), these earlier German ones were strictly light artillery pieces.
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"There is also the Copperhead laser guided 155mm round. Good for tanks and bunkers, but they are rather expensive."
True.
Unit cost of the 120mm "smart" HEAT mortar rounds is on the order of $40,000. In tests they get about 50% hits against tank targets, and a hit is at least a mobility kill. A bargain of a trade any way you cut it, it seems to me. Also, it uses any standard 120mm mortar, with little addition crew training required. Just the round and a sight-like attachment to the mortar itself.
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"Weight of the shell of USA 81mm: 3.12kg"
There was more than one kind of 81mm shell. That may have been the most common, but there were also "heavy HE" that were around 12 lbs rather than 7 lbs, because longer. Shorter range, more blast. The two types straddle the weight of the Brit 3".
I am sure there were materials differences like type of iron or steel used, and also different weights of bursting charges, and types of bursting charges (TNT vs. amatol, etc).
The largest mystery remains why 81mm mortar rounds with bursting charges on the order of 1 lb, have much lower blast than 75mm rounds with bursting charges of about the same weight.
And another one is why the Brit 3" on map mortar pays for its higher blast rating (proportionally - 26/19 = 1.37, cost is 36 vs. 26 = 1.38) - but does not seem to pay for twice the HE rounds per mortar, or more. It thus winds up giving twice or more the total HE, for the same cost as other nation's 81mm on map mortars. Since costs are supposed to reflect only combat effectiveness, it would seem the designers believe twice the ammo load isn't an edge, which is naive to say the least.
[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]
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"It would be interesting to see the armor penetration differences for these guns"
Well, you get the same energy for both rounds. They are so close, each 6 million joules (that is the unit BTW), that I suspect it isn't a coincidence. They may have engineered the Panther gun to get as much energy as the Tiger I's gun.
CM gives the Panther's gun about 11% more penetration. In the case of highly sloped armor (60 degrees), only ~5% more, and narrowing slight at longer range, but in all other cases very close to 11%.
Both are also rated, to within 1mm, to penetrate 45mm of 60 degree sloped armor at 2000 meters. The T-34 had 45mm of 60 degree sloped armor. The effective penetration range was probably a bit higher for armor quality effects and such, but that is an obvious design characteristic to shoot for, or a reason to want 6 million joules as the muzzle energy - to penetrate the T-34 at range.
Why the somewhat higher penetration for the Panther gun, against less sloped armor and especially at closer ranges? Well, the energies are equal. The cross-sectional area of the 75mm round is smaller. If you look at the joules per square centimeter of impact area, then you get 33586 for the Panther gun, and 24709 for the Tiger gun.
How important is total energy, compared to energy per unit area? I am sure that varies with the thickness of the plate hit and all sorts of other things. A high enough energy for a certain plate, won't care about the per-area effect, because the total energy will just smash a large area of the plate. A thicker plate might be bored through more easily in a smaller area.
Total energies equal, energy per unit area 38% higher for the Panther, overall they get 11% higher. You can deduce they have the "per unit area" only about 1/3rd of it, the total energy the other 2/3rds - as multiplying factors that is (1.38 ^ 1/3 = 1.11). But the actual numbers are probably fitted to known empirical results, rather then derived from pure theory.
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"in the case of AP rounds, accuracy is everything."
Mortars are notoriously innaccurate. Which doesn't matter too much for the HE mission, since you want some spread of the "beaten zone". But to give you an example, the Germans developed an 81mm HEAT round to try to attack the top armor of tanks. It was quickly realized mortars are far, far too innaccurate for this to be a useful idea.
With the 81mm, they expected around half of the shells to land within around 30 meters of the aim point, and half to land outside. In practice, the rule was to watch the fall of shot, and if you got 1 round within 50 meters of the target, or one over and another under, to fire for effect on that setting immediately.
So basically they assumed a ~50 meter accuracy was about as good as they would get in practice, and then let the random fall of the rounds plaster the area. Since the shells would fall in a random scatter-graph around the aim point anyway.
This is very different from high velocity, flat-trajectory guns, where the "scatter" was around a meter or so even a 1 km ranges, and almost all the "miss" was because of aim not being exactly right (including range estimates).
In contrast to such weapons, mortars are low velocity, are not rifled (a few exceptions - e.g. U.S. 4.2" was), have a long hang time, spin and wobble in flight, and have greater "windage" between round size and bore size. Slight changes in round size would probably make a difference yes, but much smaller than the existing causes of scatter, so it would just be lost in the existing "noise".
Incidentally, CM seems to use the same system for both types of guns in the case of on-map mortars, and probably makes them too accurate as a result. Though I think a patch toned this down somewhat. In particular, the size to side-to-side error for on-map mortars is essentially nil in CM, when in practice is was more like ~1/2 the size of the range error. Which is more like the CM indirect fire system, than the on-map one.
Incidentally, just as a piece of military trivia, there have been tech developments of some mortars in very recent times that could overcome the ordinary innaccuracy of mortars. Terminally IR guided 120mm HEAT rounds have been developed, both in the US, and by Bofors. Which potentially make heavy mortars a serious threat to tanks, in a way they never have been in the past, simply because they couldn't hit them.
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"I really doubt you'll find any definite answers, as they existed in both forms."
Quite possible. But either way I still see his objection to "conscripts" as valid. When formed out of a larger unit, they didn't pick out the shmoes, but men more likely to perform well in an attack. So I agree, it shouldn't be conscript. Even green is stretching it, if you ask me. I'd think they'd be regular and up, and commonly veteran. But at any rate, the "no conscript" floor already exists for other infantry types, and I'd think it would be at least as applicable to these guys, either way.
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"the original Brandt is 81.4mm"
LOL - yes, you are right of course. Serves me right for using an approximation and still putting in another significant digit.
I got 81.3 by the following approximation - 3.2 inches, and 12.7mm is a .50 cal which is half an inch, so 6.4 x 12.7 = 81.28 ~ 81.3. And it is, too. It is just that the Brandt wasn't 3.2 inches (3.2047 - LOL).
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"there were many more Panthers produced than Tigers."
Correct. More than 3 times though - more like 4.5 times, comparing the Tiger I to the Panther. If you meant to include the Tiger IIs as well, then you are about right - ~3.25 times.
Here are some production run figures for various heavily armored German AFVs -
Sturmtiger - 18
Jadgtiger - 77
Elephant - 90
King Tiger - 500
Tiger I - 1350
Panther - ~6000
Jadgpanther - 400
That is the heavy end of the German AFV mix. The overall mix was normally distributed, with as many lighter types (based on Pz II and Pz38(t) chassis) as heavy. The center of the distribution was between the Pz IV and Pz III chassis. In the late war that meant StuG&H, Pz IVs, Jadgpanzers. The center of the distribution moved toward heavier during the course of the war, but never beyond the Pz IV level.
Only the Pz I production lines were actually abandoned (they made a few SiG and also demo vehicles before that); all the others continued to make something, usually TD or SPA. Pz IIs turned into Marder IIs then Wespes, also a few SP SiG assault guns, and some Lynx again at the end of the war. Pz38(t) turned into Marder III then Hetzers, also some Flakpanzers. Pz IIIs turned into StuG and StuH. Pz IV continued in production the whole war, but the chassis also made Jadgpanzers, some StuG IV, Brummbar, Nashhorns, Hummels, and some Flakpanzers.
They kept making everything, rather than switching between types. All the older and lighter types were upgunned as TDs or SPA rather than tanks, and some of those TDs got better front armor plates (Hetzer and Jadgpanzer). The basic story is that heavier types were started up in addition to, not in place of, the older production lines. Giving the distribution of production the characteristic "bell" shape. The older types got the most useful common gun type they could carry, as TDs.
It wasn't a plan meant to minimize expense, or to maximize the fighting power received for the cost. Each type tried to do those things. But the overall plan was just to make everything that could be made, to squeeze as much quantity out of existing production lines as possible.
There was also reluctance to abandon any running production type, because each was the source of spare parts for all the early AFVs on the same chassis. Withdrawing a type would mean that type in the field would rapidly decline through breakdowns, only staved off be cannibalization of parts from other running vehicles.
It was all a very decentralized process, in which new ideas were authorized to draw on the rest of the economy for their needed inputs, but older types basically never lost their own "call" on resources.
Would Germany have been better off with 750 fewer Tiger Is and 1600 extra Panthers? Certainly, and in RMs that would have been an even swap. But it wasn't really a matter of RMs, and that "exchange rate" between them would not have occurred in practice.
[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]
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"that's not bad"
Many economies expanded during WW II. Capital (the stock) was reduced directly, but income (the flow) was higher. Less of it went to civilians, of course. Even Germany and Japan, which suffered heavy bombing and occupation, recovered rapidly.
The point is simply that Russia went farther down than most, by a large amount. (Only Japan is in the same league, and only at the end with her shipping sunk and her cities burned out). In overall output, the 1944 level was still 12% below the 1940 one. German output was vastly higher in 1944 than in 1940, despite bombing, and the same is true of most other belligerents. Most countries fought the war out of an expanding economic pie, the Russians out of a shrunken one, that was my point.
"I've sen lists a steel rolling mill"
Oh sure. Ford made them a tire plant with an enourmous capacity, but it didn't operate until after the war. There were lots of industrial transfers, many of them not very timely, some more useful. But feedstock materials to feed through the Russian factories, or finished products to replace their work, were the main items. Almost everything else was just too slow to matter very much.
"Maybe the savings would have been not to start work on the Yak 9"
The thing you save is *labor*, and engineers. That is the constraint, far more than materials. What makes the output of an industrial economy fungible, is you can send twice as many workers to the #38 factory making one thing and expand it, instead of sending the same number to the #38 factory and the #39 factory making something else.
"LL may have had a "real" value of 14-20% of Russian economy"
No, not of its economy. There are different categories involved here, layered and of different sizes. There is the whole economy. There is a smaller subset of that, all government expenditure - the budget. There is a smaller subset of -that- - expenditure on military armaments. The LL figure is 7% of the middle of those three. It is less than 7% of the economy. It is 14% of the armaments expenditure.
Of course, not all of LL is armaments. Some is other stuff the government needs - like rations for the soldiers, which is in the "budget" part but not in the "armaments" part. Some of it might be just support for the general economy (e.g. an industrial plant that doesn't start up until post-war).
But I made the estimate that LL was freeing up things that needed to be done and could not possibly be economized further, and that therefore if the LL had not been present, the government could not have afforded so much armaments production.
It is a point about "disposable" income rather than "income". Say you are living on a budget that allows you $2000 for vacations. You get a $1000 raise (after taxes, yada yada). The raise may be a small % of your income, but it can still allow a 50% increase in your vacation budget, if you want.
That sort of consideration led to my estimate of a 14-20% increase in available Russian *armaments*. Not their whole economy. Why does this difference matter? To get a sense of the scale of things.
The whole economy is much larger than just armaments. The whole economy shrunk by 34%. Out of the 66 cents on the dollar left in their budget, the Russians, on their own, -doubled- armaments spending by 1942. That is +100%. In an economy shrinking faster than the Great Depression here.
LL adds another 15-20% on top of that doubling. Then the Russians added another +15% in 1943 as their whole economy recovered 12%; the portion going to armaments increased very slight in 1943, but it was pretty much already on the ceiling. The armaments budget rose another 10% in 1944, as the whole economy recovered 19%, from liberated areas kicking back in.
So the portion going to armaments, while still high, fell slightly in 1944 for the first time since the invasion. That allowed a bit more of output to go to things like food for the civilians, maybe workers first pair of shoes in 3 years, little things like that.
"1/7th to 1/5th isn't important?"
When did I say it wasn't important? I said on its own, one such factor might have stabilized the front in 1943 or 1944, with a remaining edge to the Russians but not a large one. That is a large change from the Germans getting the ever-living crud kicked out of them, which is what actually happened. But it is not a Russian defeat.
And I showed that another factor of at least that size, 1/5-1/4, was caused by Germany delaying war mobilization of the economy. I even suggested that if both of those were operating, the Russians might actually have lost.
But you can see above why I estimate its importance about that much. The difference between having LL and not, is like the expansion of Russian output in 1943, compared to the 1942 rate.
But it is nothing like the scale of changes brought about by war economy mobilization - which doubled Russian armaments production in one year, even in a collapsing economy, and eventually led to a 2.5-fold increase. The Germans got a 3.2-fold increase between 1942 and 1944 from the same process.
Changing just the *timing* of a 2.5-3.2 times process, is going to have as big or bigger effects, than a 1.15 to 1.2 times factor. That does not mean that LL was not important. It means the -timing- of war-economy mobilization is -also- important, even more important. As for mobilizing at all compared to not, that dwarfs either of them, but everyone eventually did so.
"I don't understand your point about the invasion being a disaster"
It was a response to one of your points. You said a 7% economic decline in a state would be a national disaster. The point is that much larger effects were at work. They handled a "hit" 5 times as big as loss of LL would have been, and still doubled output in the first year of mobilization. That does not mean LL was "unimportant". It does mean it was nothing like the largest factor operating.
[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]
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A little more detail on the variety of 81mm mortars and equivalents in German service, from the "Panzerfaust" site -
They had their own, main version, and a shorter one used in the paratroops. Then they used -
274® - the Russian 82mm
278/1 (f) - the French Brandt-Stokes 81mm
31 (p) - a Polish 81mm, training only
36 (t) - Czech "8cm" version
33 (o) - Austrian "8cm" version.
The had around 1/4 million captured rounds for the Czech ones. No figures for the others.
Ammo weights for these types vary slightly - 3.25kg (French), 3.3kg (Czech), 3.4kg (Russian), 3.5 kg (Austrian and German models). They didn't list a weight of shell for the Polish one.
There was probably many differences, but all of them tiny, between the types. The overall effectiveness of any of them would be much the same.
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"I think the 77mm gun"
Yes, that is another good example. Several guns were designated "77mm" in this country or that, when in fact no weapon of that caliber was used, by anyone. It was a quarter-master's designation. But one does not find such a practice, unless their is something to confuse the renamed shell size with, a different type of the same caliber.
It is possible the 82mm was really the same size, since the original Brandt was 3.2 inches = 81.3mm. Maybe some rounded that down, and the Russians rounded it up. I've heard the story that they deliberately made them 1mm larger for the sake of the captured ammo difference, many times from many sources, but it is vaguely possible it could be a common but apocryphal story.
[ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]
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"A rocket has the propellant internal to the projectile, whether it continues to burn outside the tube or not"
Right. And I agree, mortars are not really rockets; I should not have said so, and I accept the correction.
The propelling charge is in the mortar round. It detonates when the firing pin at the base of the tube sets off its primer. It burns rapidly, and the explosive expansion of the gases from that detonation accelerate the rest of the round up the tube.
Improving the way that powder burns, slowing it to achieve a more even acceleration, and thus to allow a larger overall powder charge to be used without overstressing the tube, was a means of improving mortar range. There are some similarities, since the burning powder is being accelerated up the tube, but basically the principle is better thought of as the same as in ordinary artillery shells. All the powder burns in a confined space, the effective "chamber" size, just as in ordinary artillery.
Here is a little discussion of extending the range of the U.S. 4.2 inch mortar during the war -
"After troops tried out mortars in Europe, they began calling for a longer range. Back in the U.S., the CWS (Chemical service) had already anticipated the demand and had succeeded in adding another thousand yards to the flight of mortar shells. It had achieved the increase by changing the form of the propellant so that it burned slowly, gave off gas more evenly, and thereby became more efficient. Lt. Arthur Denues had experimented with the propellant, trying different shapes, arrangements and types, and had finally found out that with disks of powder of a certain thickness, the range depended upon the number of disks.
The minimum charge, which lobbed the shell only 340 yards, could be lengthened to 4400 yards simply by adding more disks. The maximum gas pressure did not become excessive and there was no disturbance in the ballistics of liquid-filled shells. The disks were cut square, with a hole in the center to allow the disk to slip on the cartridge container. Sufficient disks, sewn together in bundles of different thickness, were placed on each shell before shipment to give a range of 4397 yards. Before the shell was fired, the mortar squad could remove one or more disks to shorten the range."
That is basically like "cutting" the powder charge of a semi-seperate ammunition howitzer, like the U.S. 105mm.
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"there was something used in WW II that was given a different mm size solely for logistical reasons."
That is possible, but the ordinary case is when two weapons have the same caliber but different ammo. The only such case I am aware of is the 106mm recoilless rifle, the post-war weapon in U.S. service and I think other NATO countries as well. It was actually a 105mm piece. But they just called it a 106mm piece, so that QM types would not send howitzer shells where rocket rounds were wanted, and vice versa.
If the Russians used "82" for the same reason, then the question would be, to distinguish it from what? I don't think they used another weapon of 81mm caliber. They did use 82mm multiple rocket launchers as well as mortars, but both had the same caliber designation - 82.
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"where would the germans have captured the 81mm ammo?"
France. Plenty of minor places. And as others have mentioned, they used captured Russian mortars as well as captured Russian mortar shells.
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"I just believe that an AI simulating the chain of command realistically would give a better AI opponent"
Fair enough. To me it is an empirical question, whether it would or wouldn't. Off the top of my head, I can see it going either way. Maybe better coordination, or maybe more rigid, seperated, less flexible actions. The way to find out would be to build it and see.
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LOL.
Sounds like the German armor is getting smacked around pretty hard.
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"As for the 7% figure that's been reached - you argue that it's just dollars and therefore a $ provided by the west for, say, explosives, freed up a $ for the USSR to spend on, say, tanks. Is this true?"
Sorta, but not quite. The LL aid was 7% of the total of the Russian government budgets for the war period. I allowed a higher impact - I estimated 14-20% - on armaments or relevant war potential, and I gave 2 reasons why.
First, some of the expenses were fixed, immoveable, not truly related to the war directly. Armaments expenditure was half the bugdet. All of LL wasn't armaments - raw materials and industrial products were a fair portion - but that might double the impact, I allowed.
And I also allowed about, "maybe ~half again", effect, for the higher value the goods might have had to the Russians, than their own output might have had. That is a general "trade-related gains", sort of point. It is a general rule that swapping what somebody really wants will help him a big more than just giving him an indefinite "anything".
The reason it isn't a huge number, though, is if he doesn't get it he can decide among of lot of different things to give up, and try to choose the least important one. So, maybe he picks 10% fewer Yak-9 fighters, because he thinks those are less essential than tanks, or whatever.
As for waterproof cable, I think that is being overblown a tad. If you look at the figure the guy gave, it was 2 million feet - not miles, the usual measure for commo wire, but feet. In miles that is less than 400. For high priority things - HQ to HQ e.g.? - maybe it helped them. It couldn't have been anything like enough to string from FOs to batterys in lots of places.
"it seems to me that 7% is quite a huge amount - it would be a national disaster if production of any state fell by 7%"
Um, the invasion of the USSR by the Germans was a national disaster on a scale we can scarcely dream about. Overall economic output fell 34% between 1940 and 1942. Armaments production doubled, anyway. How? They shifted priorities; output of consumer goods ceased; they ran off capital - not replacing worn or used up things, eating the livestock, etc; civilians went barefoot; the old and infirm starved to death. In the areas still under Russian control - in the occupied areas it was even worse. They got another 27% increase in armaments production out of the economy by 1944, by which time they had recovered from 2/3rds of the initial fall in output. 20 million people died. Russian output in some sectors did not reach pre-war levels until the 1950s.
It wasn't a recession. It was victory or death.
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"the most important thing was Lend-Lease food"
Food was useful, especially because much of what was sent was in imperishable form, and thus useful as army rations. But the total amount was ~5 million tons, and the population of Russia was ~150 million people, while the war lasted 4 years. Do the math - that is 16 2/3rds pounds of food per person per *year*. 5 oz a week. While a useful suppliment, especially given the quite real scarities the Russians faced, it is not like lend-lease feed the Russian population.
Otherwise put, it might feed 5-10% of the population, and thereby lift much of the direct burden of feeding the army off the economy's back. But it did not feed the whole population.
Not that anything else did, either - near famine conditions were indeed widespread. The point is, yes the food situation was critical, but no, lend-lease food was not abundant enough to come near making up for the huge falls in Soviet farm output occasioned by the war.
Incidentally, while the Germany thought they would get great quantities of food from the Ukraine, in practice the methods used to enforce collections reduced output enourmously, feed the occupying army, and yielded little in the way of net exports to Germany. Germany got more food imports from Russia in 1940 under the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact than it got under occupation in 1941 or 1943; in 1942 the amount sent to Germany was 42% above 1940 trade levels. The average for 1941-1943 was 7% lower than the voluntary imports of 1940.
Denmark supplied more food to Germany regularly, than the Ukraine did under occupation. So did France, where the method used was payment in inflating currency instead of direct requisitions. Italy was also close, at least at the exchange rates given them. Germany's own harvest was 7 times as large as the total extracted in the Ukraine in each of the full harvest under occupation, including that used by the occupying German troops, rather than exported to Germany.
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"So in this area Lend Lease was a help but they could have managed with out it."
Useful info, and pretty darn convincing on the trains. I notice of 25k "stock", +2k each homebuilt and imported, the imports wind up ~7% of the total. About the same as the portion of the whole Russian government budgets added by lend-lease. I agree, that is not anything like a decisive amount.
I did not know they had so many locomotives operating, and without serious loss in 1941. I was under the impression the rolling-stock losses were serious, but on your figures for the amount they had, it could not have been.
Rebuilding track, you don't really address though. The totals relaid are, in your figures, 10s of thousands of km. And in addition, gauge changes were needed over track that changed hands. Overall, though, I accept your general conclusion, "useful, but could have done without it."
I also agree with the "shortened" point, about the overall effect.
Did Germans use captured .50's?
in Combat Mission Archive #3 (2001)
Posted
It seems to me in the discussion of ammo etc and the use of captured equipment, that an essential little niggling historical point is being overlooked.
The Germans captured more Russian war material in 1941 than any army in history. The haul of side arms was in the millions, the haul of field artillery in the tens of thousands, the haul of artillery ammo in the millions again. They also occupied a region (the Donbas) that produced 40% of the Russian pre-war ammo supply.
That is a little different from picking up a 50 cal after a fire-fight along with 3 boxes of ammo for it. They didn't exactly do the same thing in Connecticut, either.