Shaka of Carthage

Edwin P Production schedule (ie so many months before units were ready) would be somewhat easy to add to current SC. Having a Corp/Army of different tech levels would be much harder, if not impossible to add to current SC. Remember, I was talking about combat divisions, which would be the components of a Corp/Army. SC doesn't feature that, and trying to add something like that is a different concept than the generic Corp/Army units that SC uses. I believe it would be much easier (if it was possible) to add different units to current SC. Right now, my big thing is to make a difference in the action points between horse drawn and motorized Corps/Armies.

As far as the Production/Training time, I've given some thought to that. This is what I would propose for a future SC. Every three (3) months, the player can access his production schedule. This is when you would select new units to be built, allocate the various civilian manpower into the various services, etc. Production time would be historical, so new combat divisions would not be ready for a year. Would also prevent you from "tweaking" it each and every turn. Each turn, as the new divisions became active, you could either build a new Corp or Army, or allocate that division to an existing Corp or Army. Or just let the division sit there in the Reserve Army. This way, as you gain new tech, the newly raised divisions would benefit, but the older units would not. Would also allow the Corps and Armies to be unique, since the combat power could vary based on the various divisions assigned to the formation. Bit more too it, not as complicated as it reads, and really only requires existing combat numbers to become tens instead of ones (ie 40 instead of 4). But I've already went on long enough as it is.

Edwin P 1940 US Navy had 160,300 people. Started a shipbuilding program. 1941 288,160 people. 1942 656,030 people. 1943 1,718,550 people and first of the new ships ready, and they keep coming. 1944 2,977,260 people. Last of the new ships are completed this year. Battleships ... no one completed any that were not already laid down. Cruisers ... at least 18 months to complete. Carriers ... at least 24 months to complete. Subs ....... at least 10 months, but I think the Germans once they got the process down, started cranking them out alot faster. US had the resources, materials and the manpower to build the new ships, create the infrastructure to support the expanded Navy, as well as the other services, and crank out supplies for everyone else. But all this Naval stuff went to the PTO. Not to mention the Liberty Ships. In the ETO, UK had the shipbuilding industry, but sufferred cause of the lack of raw materials. Germany, which didn't have the shipbuilding resources, decided to concentrate on the Army. It could have used the captured French shipbuilding resources, but sea power wasn't that important to Germany. Thats why I said for SC, that if UK/Germany had a partially completed ship, they should be given it as a understrength unit, then they can decide if they want to complete it. But as far as building new ones, I don't think it should be allowed. But if we were to allow new ships to be built in SC, then it would have to be something that the MPPs were spent on, and then after the above length of time, the ship would be avaiable. Yes. With an expansion on the production resource concept. You actually have Shipbuilding production, Heavy Production and Light Production. Heavy production is what built the Artillery and Tanks. Light production built the Aircraft. Thats the problem with a single economic unit (MPP), all those various differences get rolled into one lump number.

As I mentioned in the National Characteristics and Manpower topic, current SC cannot handle manpower limitations on units. I'll overview some of the issues, provide the info that I have, then if anyone is interested, they can pursue it further. Summary Manpower cost for initial build German Army.......206,400 German Corp.......103,200 German Pz Group...114,000 Manpower cost for rebuild German Army.......137,600 German Corp........68,800 German Pz Group....57,000 Manpower replacment cost German Army.........9,000 German Corp.........4,500 German Pz Group.....2,000 Drawn from the Military Manpower Pool Trained manpower every 6 months German Army........15,000 German Corp.........7,500 German Pz Group.....4,000 Civilians being transformed into the Military Manpower Pool The numbers are different for each nation, reflecting national differences in how they are organized and handled there replacment pool. Air and Naval initial manpower cost Air unit .........150,000 (1,000 aircraft) Battleship ........20,000 (1 BB) Carrier ...........20,000 (1 CV) Cruiser ............4,000 (2 CA) Submarine ..........2,000 (10 boats) The Air and Naval replacment issue is a concept one. Please refer to the notes below on Specialists. I'll leave it to someone else to work these details out. Detail The Manpower costs for rebuild accounts for the combat divisions and the non-divisional combat units assigned to the Corp and Army formations. While those non-div units are really a 5 to 20% increase in the above number (depending on the nation), since SC does not model attrition, I left it out as compensation. Then you have to account for all the service and overhead units that support the combat units. Medical, station compliments, maintenance, replacement depots, training schools, etc. And there is a big difference in the number required to support a non-motorized army versus a motorized army. I have come up with these ratios. Motorized 1 : 1 ratio Nonmotorized 1 : .5 ratio The modern day ratios are much higher. Replacements Replacements for Army/Corp units are Infantry, with a very small percentage of Armor crews that you are replacing. Replacements for Armor units are Infantry, with a larger percentage of Armor crews included. Combat divisions and higher level formations have four (4) basic categories of personnel. </font> Infantry</font>Armor</font>Artillery (includes AT, AA)</font>Combat Support</font> German Corps and Armies had very little Armor, other than the Assault Gun units. German Panzers had more Armor, but still a significant number of Infantry. Guess where the casualties are? Yep, the Infantry. After a certain level of losses, you now have Combat Support people acting as Infantry, as well as the Armor crews who have no functioning vehicles. Once those are gone, you now have nothing left to stop the Artillery from being overrun, which in effect causes the unit to cease to exist. Replacements have to be trained, one of the primary functions of the service and overhead manpower. Combat support units increase the efficiency of the unit(s) they support, one of the ways being to allow losses in men and equipment to be replaced faster. In other words, based on the level of combat support you have (the Russians having much less than everyone else), a certain percentage of the losses you suffer after some time should become available again. This would represent lightly wounded men and repaired equipment coming back to duty. This needs to be represented, even if its just abstracted into different replacement costs for each nation. Specialists There is one other limitation that I would like to touch upon. Within a combat division you have three (3) distinct groups. </font>Cadre</font>Specialists</font>Everyone else</font> Cadre are your officers and NCO's. The quality of these people determine the quality of the division. This was the strength of the German divisions and a serious weakness in the US ones. Specialists are the people who have jobs that require training and experience. Artillery, Engineers, Communications, Logistics, Medical, Maintenance, etc. Especially important when you have a motorized army. Once you run out of these people, you options are limited. This is one of the limiting factors why certain nations, even though they have hundreds of thousands of troops, can only field a small number of Corps. This is a major limit on Air Forces and Navies, as they need alot more of these people than Armies. Everyone else is the combat troops (that are not cadre) and those who have jobs that can be learned in a few months. So, even with manpower in place, there has to be a different limit on the number of Air and Naval units, since there is not an endless supply of Specialists. Air and Naval replacements depend on what you consider the results of the Air and Naval combat to be. In other words, are you replacing damaged equipment or people. Because of the length of time involved to build naval ships, unless there is a production time for new ships, we should not be allowed to build new ones. Ships already partially built should be included, but you pay the full manpower cost. Air units are different, since once you get the initial infrastructure built, technically any losses are just the pilots. However, it takes anywhere from 12 to 24 months to train a pilot. So you either have to allow your infrastructure to train a certain number of pilots automatically or come up with some other method. All in all, an extremly complex subject with alot of variables. Is it any wonder that Clash of Steel, High Command, etc simply went with a force pool mix or max number of unts? [ March 25, 2003, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

With the possible exception to the manual being France. If I remember correctly, it was changed so that France fell once Paris was captured. Changed because it became a game tactic to send the French units to England, where the Germans could not get at them and hence, France would not fall.

xwormwood You asked about the Japanese. Japanese culture is quite different from American or European culture. WWII culture emphasized and rewarded conformity, obedience, "spirit" and was full of ritual. "Spirit" is like a combination of religious faith and the way Europeans feel about their favorite soccer team. And the ritual helped maintain the belief in the Emperor, who is considered a combo Pope and God. So when the Japanese soldier got into combat, it was like they were having a religous experience. And they were not afraid to die. Resigned to the possiblity of getting killed is a trait that all successful combat veterans share. Makes for excellent soldiers. Japanese military doctrine did not recognize surrender as an option. They had various terms to differentiate how you died in battle, since the method determined the degree of military honor you earned. So you ended up with a soldier who would take you to the bitter end, preferring death to surrender. Why most of the western media referred to them as fanatics. And it is also the reason they mistreated most of the POW's they had, since surrendering or being captured would be the equivalent to us of being a child molester.

JerseyJohn Along the same lines of why the Japanese-Americans were interned and the German/Italian Americans were not, it would have been political suicide for America to drop a nuke on Germany or Italy. And no way would they have even considered dropping one on any of the occupied nations.

Dutch Gambit: Allied invasion of Low Countries Italian Gambit: Allied invasion of Italy. Used together, generally referred to as the Double Gambit. The best way to deal with this, is to operate enough units over to the Low Countries, so you as the Axis can invade LC on turn two. If, however, you get caught unprepared, Germany can usually afford to send one or two units to Italy to help out. The use of the German air is what is critical, and where most people will give different advice. Personally, I believe the correct approach is to finish off France as soon as possible, while those extra German units in Italy should prevent Italy from falling. But the sinking of the UK ships and a potential Sealion is another possibility. And while it is attractive to sink the UK ships, the longer it takes you to eliminate France, the less time you will have to prepare for the real battle, the one against the Russians.

If you are going to allow Nuclear weapons, then you are going to have to allow chemical weapons. Neither side used chemical weapons in combat because of the negative political effect and the fear of retaliation. WWI and the effect that chemical weapons had was not forgotten and left a bad taste in the various militaries. However, that did not mean they weren't prepared. Both sides had stocks of chemical weapons, with the Germans having nerve gas as well. Neither side wanted to be unprepared to retaliate if they were attacked with chemical weapons. If someone dropped a nuke on one side, then you can bet they would have responded with the chemical weapons they had. And then there is the other side of this. The "European" nations were the one's who decided not to use it against themselves. The Germans had a fit when the US introduced willie peter (white phosphorus), since the burning effect caused nasty wounds. Almost resulted in the Germans retaliating with chemical weapons. No one did anything when Italy used chemical weapons against the Ethiopians in '35. Nor did anyone complain about the Japanese using chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese. And isn't it interesting that the US, as was pointed out, gave immunity in return for research material from the Japanese researchers. While the ones captured by the Soviets were tried as war criminals and got sentenced to 25 years hard labor? US considered using poison gas on Japanese held islands, especially if it had no civilians. But it was decided that the savings in US lives was not worth the bad press. And we all know where the nuke got dropped.

There is a delay before Italy enters the war. If the Allied player is gonna take out the Italian Fleet, during this delay, he'll move naval units to the Med. If he is really serious about it (or planned ahead), as soon as Italy enters the war, there will be British and French naval units, botteling up the Italian naval units that are in the south. After those units are destroyed, the Allied player can then concentrate on taking out the other Ialian naval units. The Allied player can also do an Italian Gambit... which would involve Allied ground units invading Italy as part of taking out the Italian fleet. Naval losses in SC are not easy to replace, as there are almost always more important items to spend those MPPs on. And as I am sure you realize, a Human player won't let you take those nations on the Western Front as easy as the AI will.

That covers all of the nations. I have the mod done, anyone interested in playing it? I have some additional stuff, manpower related for future SC, that I will post on an additional topic.

USSR How to turn the Reds into Russians The real Second with the Most? Summary Combat divisions .................... military manpower Nation .......'39 ......'40.....'41......'42.....'43........K = 1,000 USSR ....... 194......200....220.....250.....350...... 20,000K? Russian numbers are tough. Especially military manpower. I have numbers ranging from 12.5 to 40 million. I went with some sources that claimed the numbers were four times that of the French and roughly equal total population after the first year of the war. Units Here is what I am trying to accomplish. </font> Initial 120 western divisions.</font>Quickly mobilize another 60 divisions.</font>For a year, you can rebuild any of the 180 divisions you lose as a Russian "Army" (ie SC Corp).</font>Moscow threatened, Siberians can reinforce.</font>Year has passed, new style divisions give Russians another 160 divisions, as well as the newly raised 3 Shock Armies and 3 Guard Armor Corps.</font> These are the steps to accompish that. </font>Given intial MPPs of 5250.</font>Can build fifteen (15) additional Corps.</font>For every Army/Corp you lose, you can replace it with a Corp, for a maximum of 32 Corps.</font>Must retain a MPP balance of 3600 for a year.</font>After that year, you can build additional 20 Corps, 3 Armies and 3 Tanks. Total maximum units at this point is now 52 Corps, 3 Armies and 3 Tanks.</font> Three (3) Air units. Tech: Air 1, Indus Tech 5, Flak 2, A/T 0, Tanks 2, all else standard. Detail Russians are difficult for current SC. There was no such thing as a standard formation or to&e. Intial Army equals eight divisions, Corp equals four divisions, Armor equals four divisions. Initial starting units for the Russians vary, depending on when they enter the war. I am using the 11 armies, 6 Corps and 2 Armor numbers. That gives 120 divisions. Pre-war, the Russians had standard to&e's that the units were organized by. By '41, the leadership of these units had been purged, equipment shortages had started and the units were not fully mobilized. Two months after the Germans invaded, most of these units no longer existed. Different matter in the East though. The Siberian divisions kept the pre '41 to&e's and did not suffer the leadership purges the western units did (mainly because they performed well in combat against the Japanese, versus the western units poor performance against the Finns). Once Germany invaded, the Siberian units had time to fully mobilize and had more artillery in there divisions than western divisions. And they had combat expereince against the Japanese. After the western divisions were destroyed the first time, the Russians rebuilt them. Didn't have enough heavy weapons to equip everyone, so they reduced the numbers the divisions got and concentrated some of the A/T and AA weapons into higher formations. Those divisions started getting destroyed. One Year Later Corp equals eight divisions. Started to rebuild them again, but this time with an official to&e recognizing the division was no larger than 9,000 men. About half that of an equiv western division. Even so, alot of these units were understrength. And even though they were creative about combat power (ie mortars instead of field artillery), they did not have the combat power of a western higher level formation (hence, only can build Corps). Shock and Guard units were formed, but were limited in number. It would be nice, in a future SC, to form them by combining two experienced Corps into a Army. The other thing that is difficult to reflect properly, is the command and control issue. The leadership purges forced the Russians to adopt command and control policies that other nations did not use. It also resulted in a superior form of operational warfare that everyone more or less copied thru the 1990's. Best I can do in SC, is to restrict the Russian units to Corps. It would be nice to reflect the command and control problems by random readiness losses and inability of units to move. The Russian C&C issue really deserves another topic all by itself. [ March 23, 2003, 04:02 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Edwin P Thanks. I am just trying to get the nations to reflect what they had historically.

Brad T I don't agree with your suggestion that they get a Corp, Army and an additional Corp. That would be around sixteen (16) divisions. They didn't have that many combat divisions. Here is my understanding regarding the Canadian military. Canadian divisions followed the British model, with slight differences that tended to make them stronger. Even so, the Infantry divisions are around 18,000 men and the Armored divisions around 15,000. Combat divisions by '42 were five, '43 eight, '44 thru end of war six. D-Day the Canadians had 2 Infantry Divisions, 1 Armor Division and 1 Armor Brigade. Which were all of the Canadian divisions deployed overseas at that time. 1st Canadian Infantry Div went to England in '39. Canadian Armored Div went to England in late '41, stayed there until '43 when it joined the 1st Canadian Inf Div in Italy. Those two units formed the 1st Canadian Corp. Also was a 4th Canadian Armored Div, Independent Armored Brigade and numerous smaller units. 5th Canadian Armored Div remained in Canada. Btw, this brings up an interesting point. Both the British and the Canadians formed Armored Divisions because they required less manpower than an Infantry Division (and the US helped with the logisitcal requirements). But they didn't use them like the Germans did. Rather, they used them more like an Infantry division that was armored. While there were a large number of units in Canada, they weren't really combat divisions. But it doesn't matter, since there is no possiblity of the Axis amphib invading Canada. Do agree that the Canadian Navy was large, but if I remember correctly, they were mainly employed in a convoy escort role. I don't remember there being any large capital ships like Cruisers or Battleships. And the carriers, were merchant escort carriers, not captial carriers like the British or US had.

United States How to turn the Greens into Americans Second with the Most Summary Combat divisions by year ............... military manpower Nation .. '39 ..'40...'41...'42...'43...'44..... K = 1,000 US ..........8 ...24 ...39 ...76 ...95...95 .....12,300K USMC.......0 .....0 ....2 ....3 ....5 .....6 You really didn't think I would lump the Corp together with the Army units did you? Units Four US Army Groups......0 exp, 10 str. First, Third, Fifth and Seventh. US Army Group has: ... Army ... Tank Group ... Tank Group ... Corp 8th Air Force 15th Air Force Techs: Air 1, Strat Bombers 3, Indus Tech 3, Flak 3, A/T 3, Tanks 1, all else standard. Build Schedule Upon US entry into ETO, the First Army Group can be used immediatly. After six (6) months, the Third and Fifth Armies are available. After twelve (12) months, the Seventh Army is available. 1650 MPPs given to initial MPPs to allow units to be built that are not there. Detail Army equals six (6) divisions, Corp equals three (3) divisions and Armor equals two (2) armor divisions and one (1) infantry division. Until 1936 the US infantry units still operated under a WWI to&e. Took until '41 before they started to use a triangular division (9 bn's per division). There was a political division between the Active Army and the National Guard. While there was a selective service draft in '40, there was no large scale conscription like the European nations had. In other words, it wasn't until Dec '41 that the US started to seriously build its Army. This meant, that like the USSR, the US combat units had to gain its experience the hard way, in actual combat. US Army ended up with an 89 division army. Of those, 21 were committed to the PTO. However, there were a large number of non-divisional combat formations, so large in fact, that there were enough to double the number of divisions that existed. US units are motorized. Especially the artillery, which is either towed or self-propelled. Because of the lack of a horse transport unit, I gave the US Armies the Armor units to reflect the faster mobility they had. US units, because of the preponderance of artillery, would benefit from something in SC that increased the soft combat factors of the Army/Corp units. [ March 23, 2003, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

JerseyJohn Everything I have outlined is for use in current SC. I have already created the mod and playtested an earlier version of it. It really requires TCP/PBEM play, as you need two humans. But in a pinch, you can play against the AI if you are the Germans. Edwin P Exactly. You could be swimming in production (MPPs) but if your manpower pool is gone, you are in deep kaka. Once I finish the US/USSR posts, I'll probably make a new topic with a suggestion on using the manpower numbers for future SC.

Italy How to turn the Browns into Italians For the next three nations (Italy, US and USSR), things get interesting, since cannot modify the initial units. Summary Combat divisions by year ......... military manpower Nation .....'39 .........'40 .......'41 ....... K = 1,000 Italy ....... 66 ......... 73 ....... 64 ........ 3,750K Units 1st Army ................. near Alps 4th Army (SC Corp) ....... near Alps Celere Corp .............. Rome Ariete Armor ............. new unit XII Corp ................. Sicily 5th Army ................. North Africa 10th Army ................ North Africa GHQ Albania (SC Corp) .... Albania AF1 (SC Air unit) ........ new unit AF2 (SC Air unit) ........ new unit, but cadre. All units are 0 exp bars and 10 strength, except for AF2 which as a cadre is 1 strength. Intial MPPs are increased by 950, enough to "build" the units that are missing. Tech: Air 0, Indus Tech 0, Flak 2, A/T 0, Tanks 0, all else standard. As part of the Axis, no amphib operations, unless Sealion. Detail Army equals twelve (12) divisions, Corp equals six (6) divisions. Italian divisions only had six battalions per division, underequipped with WWI artillery pieces and generally short of equipment. Celere divisions are units that had a mix of cavalry, bicycles and tankettes. Other than the Ariete Armor and Celere Corp, the rest of the units are horse drawn transport, so the comments under the Germans regarding horse transport apply to these units as well. If I had the ability to manipulate the units, I would place them differently and make a few other slight modifications. But this works close enough. Don't forget that to land units in North Africa, you need access to a port. Not sure how to handle Malta/Gibralter, since even if they were empty, technically the Axis can't land there, under the "Axis no amphib operations except Sealion" rule.

JerseyJohn Ideally, each unit you raised would reduce the manpower pool. Replacments for those units would also reduce that manpower pool, but obviously to a lesser degree. As an example, suppose an Army consumed 350,000 men. Each strength point replacement consumed 2,000 men. Diasters like the ones you mentioned would be devastating, since having to replace a couple of armies would cost 300,000 to 400,000 men. Compared to replacing 20 strength points only costing 40,000 men. Avoiding those diasters would allow you to feed replacements in for a longer period, since your manpower pool is not drained. But eventually once you hit rock bottom, you either disband units to put that manpower back into the manpower pool, or you don't replace your losses. That would be the ideal for a future SC and lets you do the "what ifs". Back to SC though. I can't do any of that within current SC. So even though you lose a couple of Armies, you can immediatly replace them. But here is where the experience comes in. You can't easily replace that. Losing two 3 bar Armies and replacing them with two zero bar Armies is a major blow. You'll see what I mean when I post the info on turning the Reds into Russians.

German Military & Manpower use ... after 1941 June 1941. Of the 195 German combat divisions, 134 of them (and almost all of its Pz units) are committed against Russia. Facing 180 Russian divisions, with another 40 or so out in Siberia. Within the first two months, over 100 of those Russian divisions are destroyed. But unlike the French, Russia did not fall. They kept coming. Its now 1942. Germany has problems now with the Eastern Front. In this and the coming years, Germany had to be creative about how it used its manpower. 1942... training divisions now started performing occupation duties 1942 ... Western Front forms Static Divisions, in an attempt to have units that would not be pulled into the Eastern Front 1942 ... Waffen SS secured monopoly on recruiting German residents in other nations 1943 ... Excess Luftwaffe manpower formed into Field divisions 1943-44 ... New to&e for infantry divisions. Less manpower, same firepower This alone btw, would increase the infantry divisions by 50%. late '44 ... New type of division created ... Volksgrenadier ... Peoples Infantry This represents the reason various sources give different counts for the number of German divisions. It depends on what units you decide to include. And to further complicate it, they were drawn from different manpower pools. Manpower On the surface, it seems easy. Get a nations population. About a little over 15% is the maximum number you can use as military manpower. Of this, about 80% can be used. You need manpower for Industry, Agriculture, Merchant Fleet as well as your military. German use of Manpower Above is ok unless you are in dire straights like the Germans were. Then you get creative. Industry not a problem, since using slave labor. Need more food? Get it from the occupied nations. Training divisions when you start using them as low grade field divisions becomes a problem, since you now have stopped the flow of trained replacements going to your front line units. Static divisions were formed from that 20% of manpower you don't normally use. Older men, young children, disabled men and "whitebreads". Germans also enlisted POWs. Waffen SS started getting the foreign Germans. Also recruited the "lesser" races to meet manpower shortages. So did the regular Army. Luftwaffe Field Divisions were Air Force REMFs. Had no clue about how to fight as infantry, since the Luftwaffe "experts" were all in the Para units. While some of the above can be handled in current SC, in total, you now end up with too many special rules that you have to remember. Examples: The '44 Inf Div. Easy enough to handle in SC. No Corp or Army can be increased beyond strength 7. Every two existing units can "spawn" a third unit. The Luft Field Div's. For each Air unit you disband, you get to add one Corp. Waffen SS. Limit on strength 7 unit does not apply to them. Problem is, way too much to remember for current SC. So I've decided to use the Shot Himmler/Goring Rule. German Army, even with the addition of the foreign Germans (but no lesser races), realized that it could not continually expand its formations and still provide the proper support. So they capped the formations at the '41 limit and concentrated on providing increased combat power thru tech advances. [ March 22, 2003, 02:32 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

Germany How to turn the Greys into Germans First with the Best Summary Combat divisions by year ......... military manpower Nation ........ '39 ........ '40 .......... '41 ...... K = 1,000 Germany ..... 78 ......... 189 ......... 195 ..... 10,200K Units On the Polish border or in Prussia 3rd Army 4th Army 8th Army 10th Army 14th Army VII Corp XXXXIX Gebjr Corp.... 3 bars, 6 str XIX Pz XVI Pz XIV Pz XV Pz ...... 2 bars, 8 str Luftfl I Luftfl II All of these units have 2 exp bars, 10 str, unless noted otherwise. Along Western Front or German Interior IX Corp....... 10 str XII Corp...... 10 str VI Corp XXVII Corp V Corp XXX Corp Leeb HQ....... 0 exp These units are newly raised or being raised from the '39 "core" army. 1 Exp bar, 6 strength points unless noted otherwise. Cadre units 11 armies...... 2 exp ..... 1 str 1 corp ........ 4 exp ..... 1 str (Fallschirmjagers) 2 Luftfl (Air). 2 exp ..... 1 str 4 Panzers ..... 2 exp ..... 1 str Cadre are new units raised after 1939. Added a few naval units, one more sub in the Atlantic and a couple of partially completed naval units. No carriers though, but those units are there as Battleships. Techs: Air 2, Indus Tech 2, Flak 2, A/T 3, Tanks 1, Subs 2, all else standard. No amphib operations, unless attempting Sealion. Hence, Axis transports have to unload in a port. Detail Army equals 8 divisions, Corp equals 4 divisions. Panzer equals 4 divisions that are either Pz or PzG. Starting with the ten (10) combat divisions of the '33 army, these formed the core of thirty (30) divisions. Newly formed Pz and PzG divisions added an additional 10 in '36. Annex of Austria and parts of Czech added 11 new divisions by '38. These 51 divisions are the cream of the German Army and conducted the Polish invasion. Unlike our historical Germans though, they will not be stood down or broken apart to form new units. Hence, all of the additional units raised by '41 are good, but not as good as the "core" '39 Army. Because of the oil and for doctrine reasons, all of the motorized units (Pz or PzG) were concentrated into our Pz units. That means the bulk of the German Army (our Armies and Corps) are horse drawn. Since we don't have a slower Army or Corp unit to represent those, I have chosen to reflect this by concentrating them into Armies, and minimizing the Corps. Even so, these units should have action points of 2 for the Armies and 3 for the Corps. Have to make do with the current movement of 3 for the moment. I'll make a seperate post regarding the manpower misuse and the post '42 "growth" in the German Army. Sweden is Axis now. I would have preferred to represent this by giving the Norwegian port of Novrok (?) to Axis, but I can't do that. Will probably have to give Portugal and Ireland to the Allies to counter the economic effects. It is now important to retain a strategic reserve. Otherwise, you waste the Germans major advantage... its experienced troops. Same with fighting Russia, if you take too long, the Russians will overwhelm you with men, since you won't be able to kill them fast enough. Because of the unit limits, Spain and Vichy are now important as strategic neutrals. [ March 23, 2003, 04:00 AM: Message edited by: Shaka of Carthage ]

adolfi Thanks. I appreciate the compliment.

JerseyJohn Thanks. Feel free to ask any question you want. As I am sure you are aware, when you work on something for a long time, what you end up writing about and what others read are not necesarily the same thing.

Liam The Ghurkas during WWII would be part of the Indian Army. Storm Troopers, I assume you are referring to the Waffen SS. Feel free to rename any unit as a SS unit if you want. But during the '39 to '41 timeframe I am using, there were no Corp or Army sized SS formations. The big expansion of the Waffen SS occurred after '42, but I'll address that later, as it starts to deal with the way the Germans handled their manpower. UK Commandos, US Rangers, etc... would not be used in a Corp size formation. The specialized training you are referring to was for raids and quick strikes. Not some sort of "super" Infantry unit.

disorder Thanks for the information. That is the kind of stuff I was hoping for when I made the suggestion about creating a PDF file.

disorder Thanks for the information. That is the kind of stuff I was hoping for when I made the suggestion about creating a PDF file.