More accurate Red Army Infantry Organization for Scenario Designers

[Panserjeger]

Hi!

As well as being a Combat Mission player I have been researching Red Army TO&Es for a while, and hope to contribute to the accuracy of all the fantastic Scenario Designers out there.

There were of course official TO&Es for the Red Army (Shtats), but the heavy losses incurred in 1943 and 1944 meant that the available manpower could no longer keep the numerous units up to authorised strength. The solution was to introduce so called "Reduced Strength" TO&Es (see "Companion to the Red Army by Steven J. Zaloga and Leland S. Ness), but as these were issued by the individual Fronts and in several versions based on the available manpower of the different Rifle Divisions it is very hard to find out which TO&E applied to to each individual Division.

Fortunately there is a large number of Strength Reports published on https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ that make it possible to get quite accurate strength figures for the Red Army units. I have collected all the Strength Reports for the units involved in operation Bagration that I could find and entered them into an Excel-spreadsheet which is attached, it is also available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LuZ9DWR3nxAW7Pom48W2ol5d-V54e1rS/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105691778921284358800&rtpof=true&sd=true. My focus has been Infantry units, so I have not included artillery units although they are usually listed. The Regiment included Batteries of 45mm Guns, 76mm Infantry guns and 120mm Mortars.

Several Divisions have Strength Reports down to Company level, so it is possible to get a good picture of the actual organisation of the Rifle Companies. If there is interest I can also post some of the Reduced Strength TO&Es that were in effect for Bagration. 

I have used the Russian unit abbreviations to make it easier to search on Pamyat Naroda:

A - Armija - Army

SK - Strelkovyj Korpus - Rifle Corps

SD - Strelkovyj Divizii - Rifle Division

SBr - Strelkovyj Brigada - Rifle Brigade

SP - Strelkovyj Polk - Rifle Regiment

SR - Strelkovyj Rota - Rifle Company

Gv - Gvardejskaja - Guards

Pulrot - Pul´emetnaja Rota - Machinegun Company

Minrot - Minometnaja Rota - Mortar Company

Rota avt - Rota avtomatchikov - SMG Company

Rota PTR - Anti-Tank Rifle (PTR) Company

4 UD A - 4 Udarnaja Armija - 4th Shock Army

1 A VP - 1 Armija Vojska Pol'skogo - 1st Army of the Polish People

PD - Pehotnaja Divizii - Infantry Division (used for the Polish Divisions)

PP- Pehotnaja Polk - Infantry Regiment  

KK - Kavalerijskij Korpus - Cavalry Corps

KD - Kavalerijskij Divizii - Cavalry Division

KP - Kavalerijskij Polk - Cavalry Regiment

I really hope this will be useful for some and will be glad to help find documents that could help Scenarios be as good as possible. TIP: The maps in the Red Army archives are fantastic, often down to 1:25000 scale.

Regards,

Pål

Red Army Strength Reports.xlsx

Edited December 11, 2021 by Panserjeger

[JM Stuff]

20 minutes ago, Panserjeger said:

Hi!

As well as being a Combat Mission player I have been researching Red Army TO&Es for a while, and hope to contribute to the accuracy of all the fantastic Scenario Designers out there.

There were of course official TO&Es for the Red Army (Shtats), but the heavy losses incurred in 1943 and 1944 meant that the available manpower could no longer keep the numerous units up to authorised strength. The solution was to introduce so called "Reduced Strength" TO&Es (see "Companion to the Red Army by Steven J. Zaloga and Leland S. Ness), but as these were issued by the individual Fronts and in several versions based on the available manpower of the different Rifle Divisions it is very hard to find out which TO&E applied to to each individual Division.

Fortunately there is a large number of Strength Reports published on https://pamyat-naroda.ru/ that make it possible to get quite accurate strength figures for the Red Army units. I have collected all the Strength Reports for the units involved in operation Bagration that I could find and entered them into an Excel-spreadsheet which is attached, it is also available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LuZ9DWR3nxAW7Pom48W2ol5d-V54e1rS/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105691778921284358800&rtpof=true&sd=true. My focus has been Infantry units, so I have not included artillery units although they are usually listed. The Regiment included Batteries of 45mm Guns, 76mm Infantry guns and 120mm Mortars.

Several Divisions have Strength Reports down to Company level, so it is possible to get a good picture of the actual organisation of the Rifle Companies. If there is interest I can also post some of the Reduced Strength TO&Es that were in effect for Bagration. 

I have used the Russian unit abbreviations to make it easier to search on Pamyat Naroda:

A - Armija - Army

SK - Strelkovyj Korpus - Rifle Corps

SD - Strelkovyj Divizii - Rifle Division

SBr - Strelkovyj Brigada - Rifle Brigade

SP - Strelkovyj Polk - Rifle Regiment

SR - Strelkovyj Rota - Rifle Company

Gv - Gvardejskaja - Guards

Pulrot - Pul´emetnaja Rota - Machinegun Company

Minrot - Minometnaja Rota - Mortar Company

Rota avt - Rota avtomatchikov - SMG Company

Rota PTR - Anti-Tank Rifle (PTR) Company

4 UD A - 4 Udarnaja Armija - 4th Shock Army

1 A VP - 1 Armija Vojska Pol'skogo - 1st Army of the Polish People

PD - Pehotnaja Divizii - Infantry Division (used for the Polish Divisions)

PP- Pehotnaja Polk - Infantry Regiment  

KK - Kavalerijskij Korpus - Cavalry Corps

KD - Kavalerijskij Divizii - Cavalry Division

KP - Kavalerijskij Polk - Cavalry Regiment

I really hope this will be useful for some and will be glad to help find documents that could help Scenarios be as good as possible. TIP: The maps in the Red Army archives are fantastic, often down to 1:25000 scale.

Regards,

Pål

Red Army Strength Reports.xlsx 96.46 kB · 1 download

 

Nice research @Panserjeger  thanks to your file !

 

JM

[JoMac]

The latest Patch and or 'Fire & Rubble' should reflect this...It use to be that Red Thunder had Squads with 9+ men mixed with Rifles, a lot of Semi-Auto, & SMGs, then it was reduced to somewhere around 6-7 men with a few Rifles, 1x Semi-Auto, 1-2x SMGs (anyways, something along those lines).

Joe

Edited December 11, 2021 by JoMac

[Panserjeger]

17 minutes ago, JoMac said:

The latest Patch and or 'Fire & Rubble' should reflect this...It use to be that Red Thunder had Squads with 9+ men mixed with Rifles, and a lot of Semi-Auto, & SMGs, then it was reduced to somewhere around 6-7 men with a few Rifles, 1x Semi-Auto, 2x SMGs (anyways, something along those lines).

Joe

Yes, I´ve seen that the TO&Es available in Fire & Rubble have more accurate organizations. The "Reduced Organization" TO&Es that I referred to indicate that a Rifle Company had one platoon equipped almost entirely with SMGs and two platoons with 5 Rifles and 2 SMGs per Squad, see the attached picture for the organization used by 31st Army (and probably all Divisions in 3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts that had around 6000 men). Here is a link to the original: https://pamyat-naroda.ru/documents/view/?id=130451329

Pål

Edited December 11, 2021 by Panserjeger

[Panserjeger]

Cyrillic handwriting can be intimidating, so I have written translations on the attached image. Note that this Reduced TO&E was found in the archives of the 31st Army. It is signed by the Western Front, which was converted into the 3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts just before Bagration, so it might be assumed that this was the organisation that applied for Divisions of these Fronts. From the Strength Reports it looks like the Divisions kept the 80 man Companies but added a third battalion in the Regiments if their strength increased above 5680 men.

Pål

Edited December 12, 2021 by Panserjeger

[DougPhresh]

I would love to see Fire and Rubble continue to get some attention (not nearly as much as Fortress Italy, but I digress). 

Fingers crossed that we see the campaigns in the south - Romania, Budapest, Vienna, and also get to see Hungarians, Romanians (on both sides) and Czechs and Poles fighting with the Red Army. A Red Army update would pair nicely with that, IMO.

[akd]

2 hours ago, Panserjeger said:

The "Reduced Organization" TO&Es that I referred to indicate that a Rifle Company had one platoon equipped almost entirely with SMGs and two platoons with 5 Rifles and 2 SMGs per Squad,

This is in with the Fire & Rubble update under the Rifle Battle 44 org, although I'm not sure if the rifle squads got the 2x SMGs (I know they are in the Shtat).  For reductions above the squad level that aren't already reflected in the TO&E, the general approach was to not be too aggressive toward the lower end of reductions because you can easily delete sub-units from the TO&E, but you can't really add them back in (save for team purchases) once they are gone.

Great research in the spreadsheet!

Edited December 12, 2021 by akd

[sawomi]

6 hours ago, Panserjeger said:

Cyrillic handwriting can be intimidating...

It's written by hand, but not real hanwriting. Whoever created this chart took great care to ensure good readability and carefully wrote down each letter separately. Only bottom right corner is handwriting in pencil. And the big red note smeared over it.

Edited December 12, 2021 by sawomi

[Panserjeger]

6 hours ago, akd said:

This is in with the Fire & Rubble update under the Rifle Battle 44 org, although I'm not sure if the rifle squads got the 2x SMGs (I know they are in the Shtat).  For reductions above the squad level that aren't already reflected in the TO&E, the general approach was to not be too aggressive toward the lower end of reductions because you can easily delete sub-units from the TO&E, but you can't really add them back in (save for team purchases) once they are gone.

Great research in the spreadsheet!

Thanks akd,

I agree that the Fire & Rubble update makes it possible to recreate the realistic TO&Es, the spreadsheet is mostly meant for Scenario Designers so they can get as close as possible to the actual strength in the scenario they are designing.

If the Division Strength for the unit in the scenario is listed but not the company strengths they can find a Division with about the same strength and assume the companies would be roughly the same. So if I were creating the starting scenario in Hammers Flank I would give the 1st Bn/167th Regiment of the 1st Guards about the same organisation as the assault battalions for 83rd Guards Division (making the assumption that all Divisions in 11 Guards Army were brought up to around 7400 men before the offensive). 3 x 9 men squads per platoon + Plt Ldr and 2 snipers (and one of the platoons with all SMGs except for snipers and LMG gunners), 2 x 5 men HMG Squads and 2 snipers in the Company. That would give 97 men per Company with 9 LMGs, 2 HMGs and 30+ SMGs. In addition there were 5 paramedics per Company that are not represented in CM. 

Pål

[Panserjeger]

1 hour ago, sawomi said:

It's written by hand, but not real hanwriting. Whoever created this chart took great care to ensure good readability and carefully wrote down each letter separately. Only bottom right corner is handwriting in pencil. And the big red note smeared over it.

@Sawomi,

It is a very beautifully done chart and very easy to read once you learn the letters  What I meant about the difficulty in reading Cyrillic handwriting for Latin users is that the letters change so much from typed Cyrillic. For instance "t" is "т" in typed Cyrillic but more like "m" in handwriting. 

So for the word "Avtomat" (Submachingun) in the picture it is difficult to see the difference between the t´s and m´s. Much easier in typed "Автомат", at least for me as a norwegian  

Pål

Edited December 12, 2021 by Panserjeger

[Panserjeger]

7 hours ago, DougPhresh said:

Fingers crossed that we see the campaigns in the south - Romania, Budapest, Vienna, and also get to see Hungarians, Romanians (on both sides) and Czechs and Poles fighting with the Red Army. A Red Army update would pair nicely with that, IMO.

Totally agree with you there @DougPhresh, I would in addition love to see the Finns represented. And there are quite a few interesting units like the Naval Infantry Brigades (the 12th Naval Infantry Brigade was almost entirely equipped with SVT-40s), Assault Engineer-Sappers and Aerosani (google it ). 

Pål

[Sgt.Squarehead]

2 hours ago, Panserjeger said:

Totally agree with you there @DougPhresh, I would in addition love to see the Finns represented.

This makes a very decent substitute in the interim:

 

[Panserjeger]

Fantastic, thanks a lot @Sgt.Squarehead! I have found a lot of Karelian Front strength reports, the units were much stronger than the ones on the main fronts. I will put the numbers into a Spreadsheet and post it

Pål   

[DougPhresh]

7 hours ago, Panserjeger said:

Totally agree with you there @DougPhresh, I would in addition love to see the Finns represented. And there are quite a few interesting units like the Naval Infantry Brigades (the 12th Naval Infantry Brigade was almost entirely equipped with SVT-40s), Assault Engineer-Sappers and Aerosani (google it ). 

Pål

I really enjoyed having the VDV and MP in Barbarossa to Berlin. I know that the nature of CM1 titles led to it being easier to create a wide range of forces, equipment, TOE and OOB, but we've seen the rosters in CM2 titles fill out dramatically. They fought all the way to the end of the war, and in the northern and southern fronts as @Panserjeger alluded to, there are many interesting scenarios or even campaigns possible for the Naval Infantry in 1944 and 45 as they played quite a large role there. The VDV continued to conduct small drops to support partisans, which are now in Red Thunder, giving the opportunity to see the nature of Airborne Warfare on the Russian Front. It was a different sort than the massive Allied operations over Normandy, Holland and the Rhine, but no less dramatic. 

The minor Axis powers would fit in nicely, and as I have lobbied incessantly for Italian Partisans, RSI and Co-Belligerents for Fortress Italy, I think the addition of the Minor Axis and smaller Soviet formations and allies would be well worth purchasing. I think the "main" stories of these theatres of these base games being completed with the existing modules shouldn't signal the end of the title, but an opportunity for these smaller stories to now be told. 

I hope that makes sense. Everybody's waiting for a new engine, but I think modules that build on what's already there presents a good way to add detail to what we have, find new angles, tell new stories in the meantime. 

e: Any rumours about the Xmas bones this year? 

Edited December 12, 2021 by DougPhresh

[Sgt.Squarehead]

6 hours ago, DougPhresh said:

The VDV continued to conduct small drops to support partisans, which are now in Red Thunder, giving the opportunity to see the nature of Airborne Warfare on the Russian Front.

I'm using this in my Soviet Partisan stuff. 

[Double Deuce]

I stumbled onto that Pamyat Naroda site while researching stuff for use with ASL and it has been extremely useful. Maybe if I get back in CMRT (CMCW has been taking up all my spare time) I can put it to use.

[BornGinger]

On 12/11/2021 at 10:48 PM, Panserjeger said:

SD - Strelkovyj Divizii - Rifle Division

SBr - Strelkovyj Brigada - Rifle Brigade

SR - Strelkovyj Rota - Rifle Company

Just a little correction on the language. As Brigada and Rota are feminine words and end with an "a" the adjective should also end with an "a". So Strelkovyj Brigada should be Strelkovaya Brigada. And the same with Rota. Division is also a feminine word and should be diviziya and have the same adjective as above.

The information above is probably not so important when searching but could be good to know if someone has an interest in the Russian language.

Edited December 13, 2021 by BornGinger

[Panserjeger]

I have updated the spreadsheet on Google Drive with separate sheets for the Viborg (Karelian Isthmus) and Svir (Karelian) Operations in June 1944, it is also attached here.

Thanks for the language tips @BornGinger, I hope to improve my understanding of Russian but for now I have a very limited vocabulary when reading  

Let me know if there are any other Operations or Battles that are of interest to someone and I will try to dig up some information on them.

regards,

Pål 

Red Army Strength Reports.xlsx