jacobs_ladder2

I am wondering - what were the 'pretty' operations the western Allies conducted in 1943? The Kasserine Pass? The not very neat landing at Salerno? The successive bashing their heads against mountain lines in Italy? The failure to stop Axis forces from escaping across the straits of Messina? Monty's and Georgie's p*ssing match in Sicily? So many to choose from... (and yes, I know there were great successes too, and they were still learning - but so was the Red Army, and it did have its 'pretty' successes too). </font>

Right. That makes perfect sense. Leaves only one question which I think I can answer myself. How often did the respective forces have armoured cars available to them. Judging by the changes made to the July 1941 TO&E I would say that reality was a far cry from the ambitious documents of April. In fact, only a few months after the recon battalion was to have an armoured component the July TO&E left only a bare bones rifle company equipped with a mix of SMGs and rifles. It seems likely that these armoured cars and tankettes suffered one of three fates. One, they never made it into infantry formations at all. Two, they were stripped to provide recon for the new mechanized formations just before the German invasion (the most likely possibility IMO) or three (also quite possible) they were concentrated in the border divisions and were efficiently destroyed within 2 weeks. Possibilities 1 and 2 are interchangeable because in either case these armoured cars were a memory by August. BTW, when I say armoured cars I am apparently referring to BA-10s and 20s (or sometimes the BA-6). The BA-6 had 8-9mm of armour and was armed with 2 7.62mm MGs and a 45mm gun capable of firing AP or HE shells. The BA-10 was an updated version of the BA-6 and was armed with a 45mm gun and a single 7.62mm MG. Armour was thickened by 1mm to a total of 10mm. The BA-20 had lighter armour (6mm) and was armed with a single 7.62mm MG. German armoured cars of the time are comparable in armour thickness but cannot compare with the 45mm gun of the Russian vehicles. This weapon was simply much more effective when firing AP or HE rounds. All other things being equal the Russian armoured cars were more than competitive. Unfortunately, all other things were not equal (no radios/poor leadership/bad logistics) and accordingly these vehicles suffered badly in the 1941 campaign. Prewar BA-10s, for example, were not replaced after almost all of them were lost in June-July. Cheers Paul

Well, sort of, except those "spurts of significant motion" were months-long campaigns invoving vast amounts of men and material. Something the Western Allies wouldn't really be able to do until March-May '45. Artillery and mortars caused by far the largest proportion of cas in all armies, AFAIK. On the order of 60-80%. There are others (calling Kip! Calling Kip! Kip, please come to reception!) far more capable of speaking to the Russian tactics in the later war years, but your description above is somewhat simplistic. Also, the 'X hundred guns per kilometre' kind of stats - when applied to the army of any nation - are fairly meaningless. Easy to visualise, but meaningless. Command and control, and resupply, are the real arbeiters of artillery 'power', though they're much hander to visualise. Regards Jon </font>

I see your point. Looks like I did miss something. lol The reason I thought this is more due to what I have read of the German idea of recon. That being, as it has been explained to me, to have an advanced force capable of sustained fighting if the need arises. A recon force that is highly mobile, that can take ground and even hold it and can have a reasonable chance of defeating lightly armoured vehicles (such as the Russian armoured cars which were literally cars with some armour welded to them). I mean, if these armoured cars or tankettes found themselves operating independantly, that is without infantry support, would they not be quickly outclassed by German recon or, even worse, come into contact with a more substantial force and simply be forced to run? I'm not disagreeing with you, but I can't figure out what part of a German division a few armoured cars or tankettes could reasonably expect to block. Once again, I am no expert. Please feel free to simply ignore me or discount me as a hopeless student. Cheers Paul

Interesting. Meaning that the effect of the massed artillery was to force the Germans to adopt a strategy that could not possibly win a war? Or rather, they couldn't stand against it, but could only delay the inevitable? Yikes.

Excellent. A big help. So, would the armoured cars or tankettes operate independantly of the motorized rifle division or only as support? After reading a few of the posts above I can see armoured car platoons being detached to scout in different directions, but being virtually unable to do anything about any enemy they find except drive back and report (or send for help if they are lucky enough to have a radio). The tankettes might be a little better able to engage enemy units but without infantry I can't see them lasting long. Not sure. Am I missing something? Cheers Paul

Hey, I appreciate all the help Jason and Jon. This stuff is making a huge difference and allowing me to move quickly past a major stumbling block. Thanks. Also, I don't want to get involved in any arguments (mainly because I honestly don't understand what this particular one is about) but didn't the Russians basically defeat the Germans in a giant war of artillery attrition? I mean sure, Barbarossa started out as a highly mobile affair but really, once the RKKA started producing lots of T-34s and German tank losses piled up didn't things basically grind to a halt except for a few spurts of significant motion? Jason's statements about the long term detrimental effects of sustained artillery pressure ring fairly true to me when I think about the fate of the German army. I might be mistaken about this, but didn't the Russians essentially win by neutralizing the German armoured threat and then slowly grinding away with concentrated artillery (in the order of hundreds of guns per kilometre of front)? Cheers Paul

So, you know the shell will land somewhere within a very thin rectangle/oval 28m long? The 250m minimum peacetime safety distance, I assume, is just standard practice, but why multiply the PEr by 4? The rated lethal distance? Would this mean that anything within 40m, if unprotected, will be a casualty? Not really a numerical answer, but a general idea of the impact of these weapons on the battlefield. I can't see a 50mm mortar, for example, doing much except providing surpressive fire. But honestly, I just have no frame of reference. What I really need is some way of gauging the kind of punch these weapons packed. Time and effort much appreciated. Cheers Paul

I do indeed and thank you for the time. So, for example, a Russian rifle division is racing to take up a defensive position because it is believed (by a muckety-muck ) that the Germans are going to be there soon. The rifle division commander is not an idiot and knows that chaos is all around him. He has been ordered to charge headlong into a battlefield that is changing hourly. The defensive position he is rushing to establish may already fall behind enemy lines and in fact a panzer division could be waiting for him around the next corner. How does he deploy his recon so that has some warning? Do you see what I mean? He still needs to move his troops but also must contend with the highly mobile German forces that he knows are out there somewhere. He has no air recon at his disposal, his recon lacks radios except at battalion level, but his recon does have some trucks and a few armoured cars or tankettes. What is his poor recon battalion doesn't have any trucks or AFVs and are mounted or, even worse, on foot? Sounds ridiculous, but according to Glantz, that was the situation. Cheers Paul

Thanks Jon. Very interesting. Fireplanning is something I had always wondered about. So, for example, how far away would you want to be from a 105mm barrage? How much would this vary depending on whatever factors might come into play? Well, AFAIK the US Army still has 60mm mortars down to quite a low level (coy?), and 40mm greanade launchers are all the rage at this years fashion shows, so I don't really know that the idea of light mortars is all that discredited.</font>

More posts like this one please. I hit this thread with a search and it is answering a lot of questions for me. But one thing I remain unclear on is the role of "light" vs. "medium" mortars. The 50mm mortar for example seems to have been discredited during WWII. Is this true? If so, why? How valuable was it to have the support of a 50mm mortar? How much more valuable was a medium weapon such as 81 or 82mm mortar? What did these weapons really accomplish? Cheers Paul

I know I will regret asking this but here goes... PEr? PEd? Huh?

Don't see why not, if that is the degree of detail we will se in CMx2. That I can't say, but it would interesting to know how much detail we will see. Would be kinda cool for the game to keep track of magazines and belts and things. MGs would need to be reloaded and such. Cooler still would be to have MGs overheating, but now I'm drifting into fantasy land. Lol. Cheers Paul

OK, so a few questions then. If the proposed TO&E from 1941 were somewhat close to reality the Russian recon battalion would have been fairly mobile. If this were the case (under the assumption that radio equipment was scarce): 1. How would the armoured cars and tankettes have cooperated with the mobile infantry? 2. How much ground could one of these battalions cover? 3. Were these battalions expected to put up a fight or simply shoot & scoot? 4. How far out ahead of the battalion would they operate? And the same questions all over again except now assuming that the battalion was lacking radios, armoured cars and trucks (i.e. was essentially an infantry recon team moving around on foot). Cheers Paul

What aspect of the above example did you want to see modeled? The difficulty with the jamming magazines or the difference between Allied and German soldiers and the ammo they carried? Setting up routines for virtual soldiers and their carrying capacities would be fairly easy if that is your question. Individuals might disagree with the carrying capacity of the average soldier, but I think a general consensus could easily be reached. In reality I am sure soldiers find any number of ways to strap extra ammo to their persons. Modeling all of this ingenuity in a game would have to be done in a very generalized way, but it could be done. Some flexibily here would be appreciated. I would love to no end the ability to model, say, the specialized landing teams used on D-Day. I would be asking for a bit much here, but it would be cool to have my guys equipped with wire cutters and bangalores. Cheers Paul [ March 23, 2005, 03:15 PM: Message edited by: jacobs_ladder2 ]

I might be a little late with this but the Niehorster website here is an awesome resource. As someone has already stated, this guy gets his data directly from Tessin (amongst others). Honestly, for English translations, you won't do much better. His site and books make extensive use of the German symbology discussed in this thread. Every TO&E has an accompanying legend to help you decipher the chart. For example, these symbols are more than enough to allow you to understand the organization of 1000s of formations. If you are seriously interested in the topic I would suggest investing the time into learning the original German style of TO&E. Cheers Paul

Interesting comments. Russian commanders complained bitterly throughout 1941 and 42 of the lack of recon. Not the lack of recon personnel, but the lack of useful intelligence and, above all, some foreknowledge of the position of enemy troops. Essentially, in 41, Russian counterattacks stumbled blindly into prepared defenses and were decimated. The Germans always knew when and where and the Russians did not. Dedicated air recon played a huge role in this, but reliable and highly mobile ground recon was an equal or more important factor. The Russians recognized this. They made provisions for better signals equipment in their TO&E. They just didn't have the radios to fill them out or the personnel capable of operating them under combat conditions. So, traditional recon, as it had been, was suddenly an anachronism on the battlefield? Or were there other factors? Cheers Paul

Man, you want hardcore? War in the Pacific from Matrix Games. It's about as hardcore as I can imagine. Unbelievable game, but almost too deep. I am still waiting to get a free year or two to give it the attention it deserves. HPS Simulations has a more accessible line called Panzer Campaigns which you prolly know of already. Great fun for those of you who enjoy coordinating the activities of thousands of units. Bulge 44 and Normandy 44 are two of the best games ever made (in the genre). For modern warfare have a look at Shrapnel Games. They have some great stuff. And then there is Combined Arms (also from Matrix Games) which promises to be amazing. It's due for a June or July release now. Cheers Paul

Yikes, 3 posts in a row. Actually, it's funny you should say this because waiting for the Germans was almost the only tactic that seemed to work for most of 1941. The same lack of signals equipment meant that artillery barrages were essentially limited to preplanned fire. Imagine trying to counterattack against the Wehrmacht with no responsive artillery support. Cheers Paul

According to Zaloga, there were mounted and foot recon platoons integrated into the 1941 infantry regiments but neither had a radio to their name. At the regimental level, the recon battalion had an unclear number of radios in its armoured car company and 3 radio trucks that may or may not have arrived by the start of Barbarossa. Take into account the shortage of groundwire, understrength signal units, poor training and even poorer leadership and you begin to see why the RKKA disintegrated so quickly. Cheers Paul p.s. Even the armoured formations would lack radios except in command tanks. Result? 6 to 1 Russian to German tank losses in 1941 (most of which were lost during the first two weeks of the border battles). Ouch. [ March 22, 2005, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: jacobs_ladder2 ]

My mistake, if this thread is poorly placed I apologize. As I understand it, the "light tanks" would be older models (such as the T-26) or tankettes if any were found at all. Tankettes (such as the T-38) were used in infrequent exceptions if they were available in the armoured car company. At least, that is my understanding of what I am seeing in Zaloga and Glantz's work. The tank battalion that appears in the 1939 TO&E ceased to exist, except in a few divisions, during the formation of the mechanized corps in 1940-41. These battalions would be equipped with T-26s or comparable light tanks. Cheers Paul

Hey guys, Just hoping to get a fresh take on something plaguing my work. According to the April 5 1941 TO&E, a recon battalion should have been part of every Russian rifle division. On paper this consisted of a motorized rifle company, an armoured car company and a light tank company. It seems generally accepted that the light tank company was fantasy. However, no one seems to agree on the role of the armoured car company, whether or not it actually existed and just how often the motorized rifle company had trucks to ride in. Since it also seems generally accepted that recon elements in 1941 did not have radios, I wonder what these battalions were doing. If they lacked trucks, were they at least mounted? Without radios or reliable transportation, how could they even pretend to participate in mobile warfare? What was expected of these units and how much of that could they realistically deliver? Any ideas? Cheers Paul

Oh, and have you seen this book by the U.S War Department? look here Not sure how valuable it would be as a resource given the date it was published, but I'll be damned if it doesn't sound like a fascinating thing to have. Cheers Paul

Hmmm...what would be a better resource? I have seen work by various people (Craig Crofoot, Sharp, etc.) and am usually disappointed. Have you managed to find anything convincing? Cheers Paul

Thank you JonS and Micheal for the suggestions. I have read War without Garlands and enjoyed it immensely. The Stone & Stone website is excellent as well. One of the sources I have come across a few times is the Nafziger Collection. Has anyone purchased any of Mr. Nafziger's titles? Are they a good, reliable resource? He seems to have quite the assortment of oobs (at least from what I can see of his website). Cheers Paul