How often were AFVs involved in CMBB scale combat?

[Tarquelne]

The great majority of CM games I play have multiple AFVs, but I doubt that's historically accurate.

How about filling me in on the East Front facts: How often would multiple AFVs been present in an action involving 1 or 2 companies of infantry early on... how about late in the war? How often would a couple of platoons have a couple of tanks helping out? How about a battalion of infantry? Which types of infantry? Etc, etc, etc, etc...

[ November 20, 2002, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

[Nidan1]

Originally posted by Tarqulene:

The great majority of CM games I play have multiple AFVs, but I'm doubt that's historically accurate.

How about filling me in on the East Front facts: How often would multiple AFVs been present in an action involving 1 or 2 companies of infantry early on... how about late in the war? How often would a couple of platoons have a couple of tanks helping out? How about a battalion of infantry? Which types of infantry? Etc, etc, etc, etc...

Tarqulene, first of all your request is a little confusing because you are mixing AFVs and tanks in the same statement. First of all the term AFV, or armored fighting vehicle, is a more current description of vehicles used in the late 20th century, and not necessarily related to WWII. Half Track type vehicles were widely used by the Americans and the Germans (on both fronts for the Germans). American halftracks were used by the Western Allies, and the Russians as well. They were used basically for transport and protection from small arms and sharpnel, and were not intended to be armored support, per se, for infantry, as they are used today.

In many narrations from both sides during the war, tanks were used to support company level actions, and larger units had organic armor support in all forces later in the war.

Most of the forces in WWII, especially late in the war, deployed mechanized combined arms forces.

[ November 20, 2002, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: Nidan1 ]

[Guest Mike]

Also consider teh size of the infantry and armour units in say a division (Russian Corps).

IIRC a Russian Tank Corps normally had 3 brigades of armour and 1 of infantry. That's 1 brigade of nominally 60 tanks per battalion, or about 20 tanks per infantry company!

A mechanised Corps had 1 tank brigade (60 tanks) and 3 mechanised brigades. The Mechanised brigades EACH had a 40 tank armoured regiment and 3 bns of infantry.

The Mrech Corps were powerhouse formations of the Sov army and there weren't many of them!

In addition you have numerous independant tank and SP gun regiments and battalions that might e involved supporting "vanilla" rifle divisions. Say a Rifle division gets support from 2 regiments of 20 guns each - that's 40 guns for 3 brigades, averaging 13 guns per brigade, 4 per battalion, 1 per company.

But if your Rifle division is attacking with 2 brigades up and one back, and each brigade is using 2 battalions up and 1 back, and each battalion is using 2 companies up and one back then you have 40 guns supporting 8 companies, or up to 5 SP guns per company in the front line.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with the force levels we use.

That said I don't mind using all-infantry in defence, although and AFV or 2certainly adds some much needed mobile firepower!

[Ivan_996]

Operational movement is not...and cannot...be modeled in BB.

That said, Russian Infantry was far more mobile than the German Army on and after 1943. In 1944, especially, the German Army was so indifferentially equiped that I believe Hitler's "no retreat" orders really didn't make much of a difference in most of the battles...the German Divisions under attack were so immobile compared to their Russian counterparts that German Infantry couldn't escape anyway. The 6th Army's utter defeat in 1944 comes to mind.

If you want to model the most important tactical battles with AFV (apologies to purists) on the East Front after 1942, just have Russians with all sorts of AFV attacking German infantry armed with mostly hollow charges and a handful of AT guns. Not really a "fair" battle but historically accurate.

[Sarge Saunders]

Originally posted by Ivan_996:

If you want to model the most important tactical battles with AFV (apologies to purists) on the East Front after 1942, just have Russians with all sorts of AFV attacking German infantry armed with mostly hollow charges and a handful of AT guns. Not really a "fair" battle but historically accurate.

What you say is true based on my reading. The Russians would advance at specific points on the "Front" with massed mechanized corps. So on a CM level expect 2 or 3 to 1 Russian odds in infantry and maybe 6 to 1 in armor!

That being said, I think the even combined arms matches get the levels about right.

My 2 cents....

-Sarge

[Tarquelne]

Tarqulene, first of all your request is a little confusing because you are mixing AFVs and tanks in the same statement.

Sorry. Please read "halftracks, tanks, and any other vehicles with armor." in place of "AFVs".

They were used basically for transport and protection from small arms and sharpnel, and were not intended to be armored support, per se, for infantry, as they are used today.

Yes, but how often were they involved in combat anyway?

Most of the forces in WWII, especially late in the war, deployed mechanized combined arms forces.

Ok, now how about some more detail?

Personally I don't see anything wrong with the force levels we use.

Nor do I, not even knowing exactly who "we" are... I'm just curious about "pure" infantry clashes at CM's scale(s) the East Front. Was I wrong? They were rare?

[ November 20, 2002, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Tarqulene ]

[Ivan_996]

The vast majority of tactical battles on the East Front was infantry only battles. Remember that Kursk, the biggest tank battle of the war, only had "around" 3000 tanks on the move at one time, and probably over a million men. That's a pretty large ratio of men compared to tanks.

However, critical battles that make it into the books are the ones that usually had lots of AFVs. AFV divisions, though, were usually committed after infantry and arty (both German and Russian tactical doctrine, 1941 to 1945) had already breached a hole in enemy lines.

The majority of battles portrayed in CB:BB with AFV on both sides are actually the counterattack and/or the counterrecon missions each side would take to defeat advancing armored columns.

It's not very interesting to portray the actual assault in CB:BB because they were so one-sided. Heh, imagine a massive artillery barrage, followed by waves of infantry (with at least a 6 to 1 numerical superiority), followed by really large mechanized divisions.

[Michael Dorosh]

How many of the million troops at Kursk were cobblers, drivers, clerks, water maintenance men, butchers, cooks, bakers, laundry duties, weapons technicians, supply clerks, etc.?

Still, I agree with the main point - AFVs were pretty rare and most combat was infantry only. Simply look at the number of German mechanized formations (very few), factor in Assault gun brigades, and compare to Russian units, factoring in AFVs inherent to infantry units also.

[Nolloff]

I wonder how this is going to get modelled in the next game if it´s going to be including Africa. Rommel being down to somefink like 11 tanks after El-Alamein, that´s just enough for 1 scenario.

Nolloff

[CRSutton]

Historical accuracy aside, I think that gamers just love the tanks too much to avoid them. Besides, many, many thousands were produced and there were plenty of battles where armor was present. Give the people what they want.

[TSword]

Ivan996,

Quite a bit optimistic view of the Russian manouver capability of infantry in 1943. Why was Rumjantsev (1st TA & 5th GTA) stopped dead in their tracks in August 1943 at Bogodukhov ? Why did Gallop and Star end in a fiasko in March 1943 ? I can give you the answer, because there was no infantry and no heavy support weapons following fast enough and logistical system still left much to be desired. Respectively the infantry had to ride on the tanks so thousand tanks can transport around 10'000 soldiers not much. Russian infdivs were essentially on foot. The very view Mechanized Corps couldn't make up for that deficiency. This may have improved over time but was surely not there in 1943. The german army degraded from a good motorization level(relatively in 1941) to poor motorization. At average there were around 1-2 AVF per frontkilometer (2000 km front) on the german side, and around 10 on the russian side per end 1943. Of course there was much more were the action was going.

Large scale infantry assaults without AVFs on the german side to my knowing were only common in the Northern sector and otherwise where terrain restricted the use of AVFs. On the russian side up to end of 1943 atleast (Example Mius operation) there were frequently massed infantry attacks without AVFs (The Russians concentrated their armor ruthless for their really important battles and then foremost for exploitation, which often left the breaching (atleast the first tries) of the enemy defenses to sole infantry attacks, usually with horrendous casualties if the german infantry was not already wiped out by the hour long prep artilleryfire and outnumbered 10:1 or more. Only if a breakthrough in this manner could not be achieved were tanks allocated (up to mid 1943 atleast). A really typical situation for infantry only actions for both sides (even relatively small) were the crossing of rivers to create a bridgehead big enough for the engineers to build bridges. And of course city fighting where tanks only have a siderole (although a company in the city is a hopeless entity..).

In the South where open terrain dominated offensive fighting without tanks was unthinkable.

Greets

Daniel

[ November 21, 2002, 01:05 PM: Message edited by: TSword ]

[Ivan_996]

"Why was Rumjantsev (1st TA & 5th GTA) stopped dead in their tracks in August 1943 at Bogodukhov?"

I'm not sure which action this was, but i believe they were stopped by 48 panzer corps, which was heavily mechanised and motorized. Anyway, after taking heavy losses, 5th Guards marched 200 miles north (i think it was north, could be wrong) and attacked where the German divisions weren't so tough (or mobile).

I think 1943 was a very pivotal year for the East Front. That was when Lend-Lease really began to take effect via the famous Murmansk and not so famous Vladivostock route. Perhaps i would not be amiss in saying that before Kursk many German divisions had at least some mobility, but that after Kursk Russian production and lend-lease trucks and AFV allowed the Russians to be far more mobile than the Germans, especially after the Kursk losses.

Right near the end of 1943 and certainly into 1944 the Germans began producing massive numbers of AFV, enough to almost catch up to the Russians. However, i'd like to point out that most of those AFVs went to the West Front, not the East.

[MikeyD]

I think you can't blame the game engine for tank-heavy engagements. That's the scenarios designers fault (if 'fault' is the right word). At least for me, the AI is MORE than pleased to give me straight infantry in a random QB.

I'm suspicious about trying for 'average' engagements. What do they say about American TV? If you make assumptions about America based only on Prime Time TV you'd come away with the impression the country was entirely composed of 1/3rd cops, 1/3 ghetto-dwelling crime victims, and 1/3rd horny college freshmen! That's what the common depictions of war are like. Nobody dwells on the cooks, traffic cops, and supply seargents. It's already skewed towards the 'interesting' stuff. I see no harm in that as long as you stay within historical plausibility.

[Tarquelne]

I've been playing lots of multiple halftrack-or-tank battles because they're fun. I would like to know, though, how un/common they are.

In an attempt to keep this topic ON topic, and I I can't stress this enough: I'm making no statement about how often AFVs "should" be involved. Not to be snippy - Ok, yeah, I'm being snippy - if you want to discuss that go somewhere else. My topic! Mine! Grrrrrrr, hisss!

I just want to know how often they really were involved.

[Ivan_996]

Oh, they happened very very often. All the time, as a matter of fact. Follow any of the mechanised or motorised divisions and you will see they were constantly in battle against AFVs. Their losses in AFVs were huge, although, strangely enough, not so high in crews unless they got surrounded and/or cut off. I don't know why crews did not suffer losses in correspondence to their vehicles.

I have read numerous accounts of tank turrets being blown off the chassis and still most or all the crew managed to bail out. I mean, the energy to blow off a 10 to 22 ton turret will still not kill the entire crew?!

Humans are kinda tough, i guess.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Ivan_996:

Oh, they happened very very often. All the time, as a matter of fact. Follow any of the mechanised or motorised divisions and you will see they were constantly in battle against AFVs. Their losses in AFVs were huge, although, strangely enough, not so high in crews unless they got surrounded and/or cut off. I don't know why crews did not suffer losses in correspondence to their vehicles.

I have read numerous accounts of tank turrets being blown off the chassis and still most or all the crew managed to bail out. I mean, the energy to blow off a 10 to 22 ton turret will still not kill the entire crew?!

Humans are kinda tough, i guess.

Because the turrets were not being blown off the ring by a shell weighing a few kilograms - that is physically impossible. The turrets were blown off by the ammunition brewing up - which usually happened after the crew had abandoned the vehicle and the vehicle had been burning for a period of time (although instantaneous detonation of the fuel and/or ammo was also possible, in which case, goodbye crew - but this was not always, nor often AFAIK, the case).

[Battlefront.com]

In some previous thread on this topic I actually did the math for people about how common German HTs were (roughly) by year and by region. The short answer is... it was anywhere between RARE and NOT A SINGLE ONE

For example, Army Group Center facing off in Operation Bagration had zero HTs along its entire front. Yup, even Third Panzer Army had ziltch. In fact, it had no armor at all to speak of. Hitler had assigned much of the armor to the Western and Italian Fronts, with the balance mostly concentrated around Army Group South Ukraine.

Another simple fact is that only Panzer Divisions were assigned HTs as a rule. The exceptions were some of the "elite" units such as Gross Deutschland and I think LSSAH PzGren at one point.

Panzer Divisions were supposed to have two out of their four Battalions armored. When Barbarossa was launched this is how many divisions had the following setup:

2 full Battalions (Armd) - 1 division

1 full Battalion (Armd) - 1 division

1 Company (Armd) - 15 divisions

0 Company (Armd) - 3 divisions

So, more divisions had NO halftracks than had their full or even half compliment. The bulk of the divisions had just one Company armored instead of 2 battalions.

From time to time this ratio got better, but it didn't last long because this was just prior to a major battle in which the Germans *always* lost (Case Blue, Zittadel, Normandy, Bulge, etc.). So whatever they built up was lost too and the rebuilding had to start all over again.

Steve

[Michael Dorosh]

Even the vaunted GD had a big deficit of halftracks; the Panzerfusilier Regiment GD upon formation didn't have any IIRC, and had to wait several months before being pulled out for a refit after Kursk.