Canada

[afrika31]

Ewin P. your my hero. and blashy by 1943 the russians were dismantleing the german war machine with ease the US did litte in the european theatre but i'll give u americans this, the us virtually acted alone in defeating the Japs

[ev]

Originally posted by With Clusters:

The trick is how all this is handled in a multi-player game. An Italian player might not enjoy everyone packing up and going home once Berlin is captured, if he still has something to play for (an unusual situation to be sure realistically, but perhaps not so unusual if the more experienced player was given Italy to balance out a more novice player who would be given Germany). Or what about where the Russian player goes down, and the UK and/or US player wants to fight on (and say support partisans, or any USSR minor allied nation, if such has occured), or on the flip side, the Russians fighting on if the UK has gone down (more likely to be sure), with maybe the Russians stepping in to prop up a formerly Allied Spain or Turkey (Communist/Socialist/Republican party comming into power there or something, one might imagine, perhaps?)?

SC Europe could very well be a three player game. Germany-Italy; France-UK-USA, and, Russia. The US-UK player could chose to help Russia if it finds it convenient to do so (the enemy of my enemy is my friend).

[With Clusters]

One thing that I'm not sure has been mentioned (again, if so, I'm sorry): Can MPPs be transfered among countries? The idea of the Western Allies sending troops to fight in Mother Russia (something that can and often did happen in SC1) seems a bid absurd, considering Stalin's mistrust and paranoia (doubt he'd enjoy a bunch of Capitolist soldiers trooping about his Communist paradise), but sending MPPs (in terms of Lend Lease/Murmansk type supplies and equipment) seems entirely reasonable. On another note, this might lend itself to minor allied "independance", in that they could keep some MPPs for "domestic" production, but send other's to their "patron" major power for their own uses. I believe that Canada shipped a great number of war supplies to the UK, to be used by Brittish troops (ships and planes come immediately to mind).

[Roosevelt45(the 2nd)]

This has been adressed before but no conclusion came out of the discussion then, so let's see if Bill can answer some questions about this subject now.

bill?anyone?

[Retributar]

http://www.linksnorth.com/canada-history/canadaandworldwar2.html

Canada and World War II:

Within three months an entire division of the new Canadian Active Service Force had been transported to the United Kingdom, and an agreement had been announced for a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to be centered in Canada. This project alone trained more than 131,000 aircrew personnel for the Commonwealth. Canada contributed 72,800 pilots, navigators, aerial gunners and bombardiers, and flight engineers. These Canadians saw service in almost every theater of war. The Royal Canadian Navy was increased from fewer than a dozen vessels to more than 400. It served primarily as an antisubmarine and convoy force in the North Atlantic. Some of its units were deployed from time to time as far away as the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

The forces under the command of Gen. A.G.L. McNaughton were required to spend a long and frustrating period on vital guard duty in Britain throughout the period of greatest threat of German invasion. Elsewhere abroad, two Canadian battalions sent to Hong Kong in 1941 were overrun when the colony was captured by the Japanese at the end of that year. The first engagement of the enemy by Canadian forces based in England occurred in 1942 in a courageous, but terribly costly, commando-type raid against Dieppe. In the summer of 1943 Canadian troops were sent into action with the British in the successful assault against Sicily, whence they carried the campaign to the Italian mainland.

Early in 1945 the Canadians were withdrawn from Italy to permit reunification of the Canadian Army in northwestern Europe. The climax of the war had already come, however, with the Normandy landings in June 1944, in which the Canadian Army played an important part. Instrumental in the capture of Caen, which followed, the Canadians won another major victory in the closing of the Falaise gap later the same summer. In the costly and difficult battle of the Scheldt estuary that autumn, the Canadians cleared the sea passage to Antwerp, already in Allied hands. In the bitter battle along the Hochwald Ridge in February 1945, Canadian losses were extremely heavy. This battle opened the final attack across the Rhine, which was a prelude to the unconditional surrender by Germany on May 7, 1945.

All persons over 16 years of age were required to take part in a national registration for war service, and compulsory military service for home defense only was introduced. Prime Minister King had assured the nation that there would be no conscription for overseas duty. As the war wore on, however, it became increasingly clear that the government needed to be released from the commitment. King accomplished this by a national plebiscite. All the provinces except Quebec voted in favor of conscription for overseas service if necessary. In 1944, after the Normandy invasion, the drain on manpower became so severe that draftees were sent overseas for the first time as reinforcements for the troops in Europe.

The losses in the war overseas were complemented by economic gains on the homefront. War productivity effectively ended the Great Depression and greatly increased the labor force. Canadian workers produced raw materials, farm products, and manufactured goods needed to fight the war; and this was all done in a volume unprecedented in Canadian history. Industrialization was thus rapidly advanced, through both investment of capital and striking advances in technology.

[Canuck_para]

I of course would like to see Canada finally get it's credit for output during the war but I want SC2 to be a good game. But I don't think we would have attacked germany if the UK surrendered but we would have fought on if we were alone and when the US came in we knew we were safe. Hopefuly Hubert will research the Canadian output and realise we were not an insignificant factor. I would like some method where the Canadians join any anti Germany faction even if the US is not in the game and the UK is gone.

I know Hubert does not know where Canada is but I could give him some help. Cheers.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Retributar:

My thought's exactly afrika31 ...Canada's army was made up of volunteer's...had they fully mobilized...they could have multiplied their armies by several times over...and at that time only 30% of Canada's war Production was going for its armed forces!.

They did fully mobilize, and they sent 15,000 conscripts overseas....don't kid yourself. Five divisions was all Canada could maintain - and had to use draftees to do it. Even if you take what General Burns says in MANPOWER IN THE CANADIAN ARMY, re: the wastage of men in a useless corps headquarters and structure in Italy, the resultant savings would probably only have been enough to keep the infantry units up to full strength.

They could NOT have multiplied their armies several times over. They had a population of 12 million men, women and children, and put 1 million men and women into uniform. Given the size of the contribution to the North Atlantic escorts (a sizeable proportion of those seamen were Canadian) I don't think a larger field army would have been likely - even if the King government pushed for it, which would have been even more unlikely.

[JerseyJohn]

Retributar

I want to say your first post in this thread is among the finest I've seen at SC & SC2.

Well done!

[Retributar]

Michael Dorosh

They did fully mobilize, and they sent 15,000 conscripts overseas ...They could NOT have multiplied their armies several times over. They had a population of 12 million men, women and children, and put 1 million men and women into uniform.

Im no expert on Canada's armed forces in WW2 ...but, im just going to use common-sense to analyize what you just said.

1 million men in uniform...perhaps?..where are your sources?. This is the breakdown i see. Im going to use Germany as an example of FULL MOBILIZATION ...at 17.9% .

12,000,000 X 17.9% = 2,148,000 FULL MOBILIZATION.

These are just rough guesstemates...not fact...but, close enough i think...taken from the postings in these two pages in this Topic-string.

75,000 Airmen

5 div X 20,000 per div = 100,000 men

35,000 infantry casualties

2 Brigades = 10,000 men

1000 Naval ships of all types > 300 men X 1,000 ships = 300,000 Naval personnel.

------

This equals 520,000 men total in the Canadian armed forces.

------

2,148,000

-520,000

---------

=1,628,000 Available manpower for the Canadian armed forces.

So as i said before...they could have again TRIPLED what they already had if they really wanted too!.

Yes they transferred 16,000 conscripts but there were over a million or more yet available... that could have been called upon if needed.

[Michael Dorosh]

You're assuming that these men had nothing to do in Canada. Now go back and factor in medical categories, RCMP officers, civilian policemen, dentists, doctors, politicians, miners, essential war workers that couldn't be replaced by women, POW camp guards (many of these were men in uniform - the Veteran's Guard of Canada - and are counted in the 1 million figure, incidentally), train conductors, farmers, Mennonites and other religious objectors to the war, interned Japanese-Canadians who couldn't fight if they wanted to because we had them in concentration camps,...

You can't have an army in the field without men in Canada running the ships on the canals, running trains to get the grain to market, mining raw materials, crafting those materials in factories - and while women played a part in relieving this burden, there were plenty of other men who couldn't fight due to age, medical category, religion, etc.

Canada reached its ceiling at 5 divisions, and that's without considering the political questions. King had originally wanted a limited liability army, with a maximum of one or two divisions, incidentally. We only raised a Third Division in June of 1940, when the fall of France was imminent. King was fully prepared to skunk it with only two divisions.

We tried to overreach in World War One, incidentally, too. We actually formed a fifth division in the UK, but casualties were so heavy in the Canadian Corps it was broken up for reinforcements. We raised 260 infantry battalions in World War One - enough, in theory, for, 21 and 2/3 divisions (with 12 battalions per division). In reality, it was enough only to keep 4 divisions in the line. Our population at that time was 8 million. Did you want to do some mathematical gymnastics with that one? Our national will (excepting Quebec) was a little stronger then. You are suggesting we could have had 15 divisions in WW II and a population of 12 million, so I suppose you would guess that with 8 million in WW I we could have had 12 divisions. Unfortunately, reality doesn't bear this out.

So if you are raising the equivalent of 21 divisions to keep 4 divisions manned, your assertion that we could have tripled our strength, and my assertion that we had just enough men to man what we had, seems about right.

I do suggest you read Men, Arms and Government by C.P. Stacey, as well as Manpower in the Canadian Army by E.L.M. Burns, who commanded I Corps in Italy.

You can pull as many numbers out of a hat as you like, there is simply no way Canada could have fielded 15 divisions in World War Two.

Don't forget the Germans had a much higher combat to support ratio, also. Comparing what the Germans did to anyone else is just silly since they did just about everything completely differently than anyone else.

And most importantly, read The Generals by Granatstein - we could barely find enough senior commanders to run 2 corps and an army. Where on earth would you find divisional commanders for 15 divisions and presumably at least 4 corps? We simply didn't have any experienced officers and were barely able to limp through with Burns ("Smiling Sunray") in I Corps - though he did well in his two major battles - and one or two dodgy division commanders.

We did have three divisions (nominally) in Canada - if we were in danger of being invaded it is possible we could have doubled our field army - this presumes that the entire Army overseas was able to be transported back to Canada. But the quality of many of the units would have been extremely poor and the leadership inexperienced. I somewhat doubt that the units in Canada ever exercised as divisions or even as brigades.

[ August 07, 2004, 09:24 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Retributar]

The Germans MOBILIZED 17.9% of their Population for the Armed Forces...excluding train conductors and infrastructure support personnel...and the like,...so ok in theory they couldnt field a total of 4 times what they actually fielded...but certainly they could have done more than they did if they had the determination to do so.

As far as not having enough experienced command personnel...well true that may have been the case at the outset...but no-one had all the experienced personnel that they needed...they needed to be trained and brought up from the ranks...Canada could have done that like all the other nations did.

My point is...is that if Canada really needed to...they could have contributed much more than they actually did.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Retributar:

The Germans MOBILIZED 17.9% of their Population for the Armed Forces...

And what is your source for this figure?

I presume you are including reservists, 16 year olds called up in the 1944 draft, and female auxiliaries?

[Retributar]

Actually...the German Mobilization figure was closer to 25%...not 17.9%. This information and this web-site listed below is from previous postings in this Topic-Thread. As i said...the information i gave comes from these 3 pages.

http://www.world-war-2.info/casualties/

Canada - 1,086,343 Soldiers - 42,042 KIA - 53,145 Wounded

Germany - 20,000,000 Soldiers - 3,250,000 KIA - 7,250,000 Wounded

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=34;t=000373;p=3

Originally posted by SeaMonkey:

Food for thought: from WW2 Encyclopedia:

Population/ No.in Armed Forces

France 42 million/ 4.6 million

Germany 78 million(1938)/ 17.9 mil.

Italy 43.8 mil./ unknown

Japan 72.2 mil. (37)/ 9.1 mil.

UK 47.5 mil/ 5.9 mil

USA 129.2 mil./ 16.4 mil

USSR 194.1 mil/ 30 mil.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Retributar:

Actually...the German Mobilization figure was closer to 25%...not 17.9%. This information and this web-site listed below is from previous postings in this Topic-Thread.

[Edwin P.]

Perhaps the simplest way to duplicate the Canadian war effort give the UK player a second industrial center in Canada, so they can produce units in Canada.

Additionaly, if the UK surrenders I would have Canada become a minor ally of the USA.

PS: Where are the Great Lakes on the map of Canada?

[ August 07, 2004, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Blashy]

Originally posted by Retributar:

So as i said before...they could have again TRIPLED what they already had if they really wanted too!.

Yes they transferred 16,000 conscripts but there were over a million or more yet available... that could have been called upon if needed.

I find that insulting, Canada did their absolute best during WW2 and went beyond what the UK and USA thought Canada could bring to the war. You need resources to mobilize and Canada was not a big industrial country at the time, it was just starting. Yet it managed to mobilize over a million men. You can't mobilize if you don't have resources to train, dress, feed.

Canada demanded to have a beach on D-Day, they could have left it to the UK and USA but no, they wanted to do their part, even though in many areas throughout the war Canadian units were used as cannon fodder by their Allies (Dieppe being the worst).

Anyways, IMHO Canada should be a seperate country, creating it's own units, since they often had their own commanders on the field. And it would never have surrendered had the UK being invaded, the Germans would have had to cross the Atlantic to take Canada "if you want it, come and get it"

[Retributar]

Blashy...

I was not trying to insult Canada...im originally Canadian myself!.

I just took Germany's Mobilization figures and compared them with their population figures. Then i did the same for Canada...you can do it yourself and make your own comparisons.

Granted...there is much more to it than that...but, i was not trying to do more than show those comparisons.

[Michael Dorosh]

Canadians were never used as cannon fodder by the Allies, though. You mention that Canada "demanded to have a beach on D-Day" - I am not sure that is true (after the bulk of the Army sat in the UK from December 1939 on, I am sure Montgomery and Eisenhower were more than happy to assign them an important task), but I can tell you that Canada certainly insisted on sending men to Hong Kong and again at Dieppe. I believe it was Crerar, acting as Army commander while McNaughton was in Canada, who insisted that the Canadians be allowed to carry out the Dieppe Raid.

It was Canadians who did the planning for Dieppe (Churchill Mann, especially, seems to have played a key role).

Canadians were very concerned about the "cannon fodder" thing - they insisted on sending a corps headquarters to Italy so that the two Canadian divisions there could be under Canadian command. Don't think that this meant they were appalled by the British commanding them - in fact, the Canadians in Italy loved being part of the 8th Army. Firstly, 8th Army was a famous formation that had won the war in the desert, or at least that is what the press told everyone. Secondly, the 8th Army had very lax dress regulations and concentrated on fighting, not appearances. The appearance of a Canadian corps headquarters under Crerar insured a whole raft of useless orders and directives, including admonitions about being "out of proper uniform" which the veteran soldiers of 1st and 5th Divisions looked at with disdain. Not only was the corps headquarters there primarily to get Canadian staff officers and commanders "battle experience", but it also represented a woeful misuse of soldiers - all the troops that went into this corps headquarters represented a drain on manpower (enough men to fill several companies of infantry) and moreover, there were more than enough corps headquarters in 8th Army.

But - since Canada was determined to have its troops commanded by nationals, the corps headquarters went off to Italy.

You are correct that they "often had their own commanders" - in fact, they always had their own commanders, even when it was difficult to find suitable officers. When Tommy Burns took over the corps headquarters in Italy, and was found wanting, he was left in place for two reasons - firstly, he was winning battles, and secondly, there were no Canadians to replace him and the British commander of either 8th Army or the Med theatre as a whole actually thought of replacing him with a Britisher.

There were a few exceptions of Canadians being under "foreign" command - 1 Canadian Parachute Battalion was commanded by a Canadian, but the battalion served in British 6th Airborne Division. Likewise the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment ("the Kangaroos") served in the British 79th Armoured Division. The 2nd Parachute Battalion was the Canadian component of the First Special Service Force ("Devil's Brigade") and served under a US commander.

Canadian troops may also have been under US command in the Aleutians - much of their equipment was US manufactured for that operation - but the 13th Canadian Infantry Brigade, like the rest of the force, saw no action there as the Japanese had fled by the time the Allies landed.

What Canada would have done if the UK fell is open to conjecture. Likely they would have become Russian allies; it is possible they would have fought alongside the US in the Pacific presuming that Germany invaded Russia in 1941 after the fall of the UK and the Japanese also attacked the United States. Given a lack of a base in England, it might have been that Canada joined Australia and New Zealand in clearing the south Pacific, or, who knows, even sending troops to the Soviet Union. War, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.

But I don't see Hitler crossing the Atlantic - his eyes were always firmly cast to the East.

[ August 08, 2004, 06:32 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Red Fleet]

The question is: Was Canada´s war effort unique? Was it really a major power in the war? After reading the information in this thread i would say "no". Canada did everything it could and certainly commited big time to the war effort against the fascists, but it was no major power.

Regarding unit creation. Why not implementing the good ol "Panzer General"-series modus? The Allied side can buy British and Canadian units and place them in the respective countries? Canadian units should be commanded by British HQs.

[Blashy]

HQs should be able to command any of it's ally troops.

Italian HQ commanding german, bulgarian, romanian and spanish troops all at once for example.

It should be the players choice to decide. Plenty of times Americans oversaw UK and Canadian troops, heck a few times british troops were under Canadian command.

Make it an option to turn it on or off, you can only command units from your country or total freedom as I posted above.

[Edwin P.]

I can see it now, a Russian HQ commanding US troops and the English speaking Americans don't advance because they don't speak Russian.

[Blashy]

Wether it makes sense or not, it should be up to the players.

Oh and how did you think the USSR and UK/USA worked out their strategies, translators.

[Michael Dorosh]

Canada's war effort was indeed unique - perhaps the biggest contribution was the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan - thousands of pilots, navigators, bombaimers and aerial gunners were trained in Canada because we had the room to do it here, as well as the training aircraft, airfields, etc.

We also contributed the majority of escort ships for the North Atlantic run - and in 1945 had the third largest Navy on the planet. Our air force was the fourth largest by 1945, after the US, UK and USSR.

This isn't "important"? The RCAF was pretty thoroughly integrated into the RAF, however. Not really an expert on the navy but I suspect integration was probably high in the naval services too, meaning command was exercised by the British and for the purposes of a game, they could probably be considered "British".

First Canadian Army did command British units throughout its existence; US, Dutch, Czech and Polish formations were also under command at various times.

The "English speaking" comment is funny - the Canadian Army had four French-speaking infantry battalions sprinkled throughout its divisions, and as mentioned had "foreign nationals" under command and yet no one seemed to have any problem getting other units to move.

[Desert Dave]

VERY interesting discussion concerning Canada's military prowess during WW2.

Though American born and wheat-field bred, I have always supposed... rightly or wrongly, that Canada did indeed (... AND, still does) have strong and disciplined and first-rate military forces. :cool:

I'm not sure WHY I have always had that sense and prejudice; perhaps it was, and is, "wishful thinking"... so that USA might count on having a strong and faithful partner all along that vast northern border?

Anyway, as applied to the game at hand... all of you who wish to create a more detailed OOB for Canada can easily do so.

Not only with the new Editor, where you can modify the original OOB (... adding in an HQ or AF for instance) but also with "event scripting" where you may wish to add, say, a Canadian armor unit somewhere around early 1943 or so.

As for the issue of whether Canada might "switch allegiance" from UK to USA should the Axis conquer Britain, well, I'm not sure how that might be handled, so I'll defer to Hubert on that one.

[... another interesting aspect now introduced: since Canada is VERY large on this new map, and IF their OOB were expanded somewhat... would the Axis player then dare to invade? Plenty of room for maneuvers up in that pristine, thickly forested North Country, and USA could even cross over and lend their military might to the defense of Canada... all in all, just ONE of the MANY new and challenging opportunities ]

The Canadian Royal Navy?

I would agree that they were vital and instrumental in safe-guarding the oceanic supply line to Britain; so, you might (... or who knows? Hubert may elect to do so himself) add a Cruiser group to the set-up?

After all, the Cruisers will now have that ASW capability, whereas the BBs will quite likely have a very low sub-attack rating.

Anyway, it will surely be great fun to see all of the variations and scenarios and modifications to the game. As someone has once mentioned, oh, at least 9,412 of these within a week or two!

However, no doubt whatsoever that the game that is eventually released WILL be the "gold standard" so that those who DO NOT prefer to mess around with "tweaking" and "grokking" and blue-grass fiddling, WILL have that true tested "historically faithful" game to play.

[Augustus]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Canadians were never used as cannon fodder by the Allies, though. You mention that Canada "demanded to have a beach on D-Day" - I am not sure that is true (after the bulk of the Army sat in the UK from December 1939 on, I am sure Montgomery and Eisenhower were more than happy to assign them an important task), but I can tell you that Canada certainly insisted on sending men to Hong Kong and again at Dieppe. I believe it was Crerar, acting as Army commander while McNaughton was in Canada, who insisted that the Canadians be allowed to carry out the Dieppe Raid.

It was Canadians who did the planning for Dieppe (Churchill Mann, especially, seems to have played a key role).

Canadians were very concerned about the "cannon fodder" thing - they insisted on sending a corps headquarters to Italy so that the two Canadian divisions there could be under Canadian command. Don't think that this meant they were appalled by the British commanding them - in fact, the Canadians in Italy loved being part of the 8th Army. Firstly, 8th Army was a famous formation that had won the war in the desert, or at least that is what the press told everyone. Secondly, the 8th Army had very lax dress regulations and concentrated on fighting, not appearances. The appearance of a Canadian corps headquarters under Crerar insured a whole raft of useless orders and directives, including admonitions about being "out of proper uniform" which the veteran soldiers of 1st and 5th Divisions looked at with disdain. Not only was the corps headquarters there primarily to get Canadian staff officers and commanders "battle experience", but it also represented a woeful misuse of soldiers - all the troops that went into this corps headquarters represented a drain on manpower (enough men to fill several companies of infantry) and moreover, there were more than enough corps headquarters in 8th Army.

But - since Canada was determined to have its troops commanded by nationals, the corps headquarters went off to Italy.

You are correct that they "often had their own commanders" - in fact, they always had their own commanders, even when it was difficult to find suitable officers. When Tommy Burns took over the corps headquarters in Italy, and was found wanting, he was left in place for two reasons - firstly, he was winning battles, and secondly, there were no Canadians to replace him and the British commander of either 8th Army or the Med theatre as a whole actually thought of replacing him with a Britisher.

There were a few exceptions of Canadians being under "foreign" command - 1 Canadian Parachute Battalion was commanded by a Canadian, but the battalion served in British 6th Airborne Division. Likewise the 1st Canadian Armoured Personnel Carrier Regiment ("the Kangaroos") served in the British 79th Armoured Division. The 2nd Parachute Battalion was the Canadian component of the First Special Service Force ("Devil's Brigade") and served under a US commander.

Canadian troops may also have been under US command in the Aleutians - much of their equipment was US manufactured for that operation - but the 13th Canadian Infantry Brigade, like the rest of the force, saw no action there as the Japanese had fled by the time the Allies landed.

What Canada would have done if the UK fell is open to conjecture. Likely they would have become Russian allies; it is possible they would have fought alongside the US in the Pacific presuming that Germany invaded Russia in 1941 after the fall of the UK and the Japanese also attacked the United States. Given a lack of a base in England, it might have been that Canada joined Australia and New Zealand in clearing the south Pacific, or, who knows, even sending troops to the Soviet Union. War, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.

But I don't see Hitler crossing the Atlantic - his eyes were always firmly cast to the East.