New Tank Technologies

[Shaka of Carthage]

So the answer that has been provided is simple...

Limit the "motorization" tech to a maximum number.

This one is solved... so whats next?

[Retributar]

Next,...the troop's need 'Rocket-Boot's ' to maneuver...."Forward-Marche'!!!".

[Liam]

A majority of Armies in WW2 early on especially weren't very mobile. If Germans possessed lots of Mobile technology then why is when I watch those Fall Weiss Films they're using Horses-Bycycles-and whatever else they can find to get them to the front.

As far as movement is concerned with Infantry and tanks, there are two dinstinct categories of Armor. Heavy medium, Offensive Armor. Light, Paperthin vulnerable kind. Infantry were naturally supporting Heavy and Medium armor<behind it to protect if from enemy Sappers and to resupply-fix-recon for it fully, etc...> Even most Paperthin armor was either troop transport or Recon vehicles that moved to fast to get a fix on.

So if you make Mech Infantry that can out travel Usual Armored units<make them pay for doing it> if a Mechanized unit not seeing the enemy walks into an Ambush it's dead... No matter how fast and how far it could travel. It's just the tactical qualities in SC allow for too much to be seen. Just exact a Heavy Heavy Toll for making that grave mistake. Offroad Tanks suck.. On Road they're fast.

[ev]

Liam,

The Germans had millions of men in arms. They knew how to make trucks and armored vehicles. But, they did not have the industrial capacity to supply trucks for each an every squad in the German Army. They could only afford to make enough trucks, halftacks, armored cars, and tanks for the 300,000 men that compromised their armored formations.

The armored formations required a lot of motor transport, both trucks and halftracks. All their artillery was towed by motor transport, else it could not keep up with the tanks. Each armored division had a mechanized infantry brigade. Their anti tank and anti air batteries were towed or self-propelled. They had armored cars for recon. And they had thousands of trucks carrying the supplies necessary for the fighting men. Horse Drawn were used to supply slow moving infantry, not for the panzer formations.

The Germans concentrated available motor transport on their panzer formations. Rommel's Afrika Corps, for example, was fully motorized. That's why Rommel was able to outflank the British so many times. And, about the same time, when the Germans invaded Russia, the Germans fielded against the Russians 4 PanzerGroups each of which was fully motorized.

One thing I like about the new game design is that players will have to face the decission of whether or not they want to incurr the extremely heavy cost of motorizing each and every unit. I think most players will find that most of the time it is not worth it. If the sole purpose of a unit is to defend a port city in norther France. If it is going sit on that city until a huge armada comes to blow it up, what's the point of spending valuable limmited resources to motorize that unit when you need those MPP's elsewhere?

...it was not a matter of having the technology. It was a matter of allocating limited production resources.

By the way, not every U.S. troop was motorized either. As a matter of fact, few U.S. units had motorized transport permanently assigned to them. Many units shared motor transport from a common pool. Use of that transport was prioritized by high command... Men from units that received lower priority had to march.

Compromise between quality and quantity was commonplace in WWII:

Before the war started, the Luftwaffe chose the Messerchmitt over a superior ****e Wolf model that was more expesnive. At the time the Messerchmitt was superior to any plane fielded by either the Polish, French, or Birtish Air Forces.

The Russians opted for "slower" machine guns that could be easily mass produced (were cheaper).

The Sherman Tank was not as good as many of the German Panzer V or Panzer VI, but it could be produced in high quantities.

The trade off of quantity vs. quality was always there. And it was not merely a matter of "discovering" the necessary "technolgy". Most often it was simply a matter of having sufficient industrial capacity to produce enough of it.

We seem to forget the vastness of WWII, and the incredible effort made by all warring parties. We think of Iraq 2003-04 as a huge troop commitment. The U.S. has around 130,000 men in Iraq. In the scale of SC that amount to just a couple of units. Germany was fielding 15-20 times that in 1941. On the day Germany invaded Russia, 1.300,000 German soldiers crossed the Russian border. The German army surrounded entire Russian Army Groups of several hundred thousand men each in pockets that were the size of U.S. states. And, this happened not once, but several times.

Yet, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Germany had to supply ammo, gas, uniforms, and everything else for those troops. On top of that, Germany had to replace huge losses in men and equipment, year after year starting in 1939 and all the way until 1945.

FInally, consider that Germany is much smaller than the U.S. and, and, further consider this was 63 years ago. The industrial commitment was monstruous.

Germany knew how to make trucks, armored cars, tanks, planes, you name it. And made plenty of them, albeit not enough to win the war. What is surprising is not that Germany was short of trucks. What is truly surprising is that they had enough horses...

[Lars]

Originally posted by ev:

What is truly surprising is that they had enough horses...

Well, they stole other people's.

The Demodernization of the German Army in World War 2

[Liam]

Interesting subject Thanks for the info Ev. Goes to show you that 50 guys with Rifles are better than 2 or 3 guys with Machine Guns. Especially if the 50 guys are creative in the way they use what they have?

So MPPs don't seem entirely accurate to me on the level that SC makes them. Just because you've raped the World over 3 Xs it doesn't have more trucks, tanks, and horses for all the men you can field. Slowly it may be converted!!!

[ June 19, 2004, 06:04 AM: Message edited by: Liam ]

[Slapaho]

Some interesting figures from the (British) war archives;

December 1944: 9 out of 10 German divisions (on the Eastern front) were non-mechanized

The German army had an estimated 1.1 Million horses in 'active' service.

Germany produced just over 3300 trucks (they needed about 7000 to meet requirements)

If SC2 has a more effective representation of strategic bombing (which had the ultimate effect on not only production but also technological advancement) then a better model for purchasing more expensive, technically advanced equipment may be possible. For example, Hamburg is strategically bombed and for every 1 strength the city is reduced by adds 10% to the cost of producing/replacing units.

[Retributar]

Russian Tank Mounted Infantry - NOT Motorized/Mechanized Infantry

The Russians should be given an edge (Or a head-start) on Motorized / Mechanized Infantry Vehicle Technology...even though they really didn't have much in the way of Mechanized Infantry Transport. Somehow!!!...because the Russians extensively used Tanks as their MOTORIZED-TRANSPORT they should be given an inherent Motorized Infantry Capability...without having to research it.

"Russian Ground Forces did not possess armored troop carriers like the German halftracks, an infantry battalion called the 'Motor Rifle Unit" was attached to every tank brigade and assigned to close support the tanks. A Motor Rifle Unit consisted of about 500 infantrymen."

http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/plastic/135militaryminiatureseries/35207.html

Russian Army Assault Infantry

During World War II, the Russian Armed Forces consisted of five main elements; the Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, National Air Defense and Armed Forces Support. The Ground Forces represented about 80 percent of the total manpower, being the largest in strength. It had approximately 5,300,000 military effectives at the outbreak of the Russo-German War in June 1941. However, devastating damage brought by the German Mechanized Forces resulted in more than 70 percent losses of its entire troop strength within five months. This led to rapid reorganization of the Ground Forces, and with a help of the harsh winter climate of Russia, they managed to repel German's advance just in front of Moscow. Due to the heavy losses, reorganized units became much smaller than before. Rifle Forces (infantry) reduced their divisional strength from 14,483 to 10,859. Tank Divisions, which possessed some 20,000 armored vehicles, lost about 70% of them at the initial stage of war. Most surviving Tank Divisions were disbanded, and the available tanks and crews were re-assigned to much smaller units like independent tank battalions or tank brigades. It was in 1945, just prior to the end of the conflict, that the Russian Armed Forces recuperated the pre-war level of their strength.

The main strength of the Russian counter-offensive was their tank troops. Following concentrated fire by their artillery units, the tank troops advanced in three groups, and many infantrymen rode on the tanks of the 2nd and 3rd groups. This infantry practice was unique to Russian tactics and was called "Tankoviy Desant" by the Russians. Since the Russian Ground Forces did not possess armored troop carriers like the German halftracks, an infantry battalion called the 'Motor Rifle Unit" was attached to every tank brigade and assigned to close support the tanks. A Motor Rifle Unit consisted of about 500 infantrymen. PPSh-41 or PPS-43 machine guns as support arms. Soldiers carried as many magazines as possible, and advanced while riding on tanks. Once encountering an enemy's defensive position, infantrymen would disembark from the tank, attack the position, and then return to the tank. These infantrymen were spearheads of the attack, and due to enemy's defensive fire, liable to sustain heavy casualties.

The standard uniform of the Russian infantrymen during WW2 was a simple blouse called "Gymnastiorka". Early in the conflict, greatcoats and rain capes were often used as wintertime attire. In 1940, a quilted jacket called "Telogreika" was introduced, but not enough quantities were supplied in the beginning.

[ July 06, 2004, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: Retributar ]

[ev]

Originally posted by Slapaho:

Some interesting figures from the (British) war archives;

December 1944: 9 out of 10 German divisions (on the Eastern front) were non-mechanized

The German army had an estimated 1.1 Million horses in 'active' service.

Germany produced just over 3300 trucks (they needed about 7000 to meet requirements)

...

Germany invaded Russia (1941) with 17 Panzer Divisions, 11 Motorized Divisions, 1 Cavalry Division and 120 infantry divisions. At the time Germany also had a Panzer Corps in Africa.

True, most of the army was on foot. But keep in mind this was a huge army. And note that Germany had several times more armored and motorized divisions than than the US and Great Britain put together.

[ev]

Most of the German army walked on foot and rellied on horsed to carry supplies and to tow artillery.

Having said that, the Panzer Divisions were usually motorized. As of 1941, the typical Panzer Division had:

One Armored Car Battalion with 24 armored cars

One Motorcycle Battalion with several hundred motorcycles.

Two Tank Batallions with a combined total of 100-150 tanks.

One Mechanized Infantry Batallion with 40-50 halftracks.

Three Motorized Infantry Batallions with a combined total 100-150 trucks.

One Motorized Engineer Batallion with some 50 trucks

200-300 trucks to tow artillery.

So each Panzer Division had over 200 tracked vehicles, a large number of motorcylces, and, 500 trucks permanently assigned for combat duty. They also had a large number of supply trucks and repair vehicles.

The Panzer Divisions could not have achieved the large penetrations they performed in France and Russia without motorizing infantry, artillery, engineers, and, supply.

The Panzer Grenadiers had no tanks. Instead they had 2 batallions on halftracks and 4 batallions on trucks.

The German Army, however, had two problems:

Out of a total of 149 divisions, only 29 were Panzer or Panzer Grenadier divisions.

The Panzer and Panzer Grenadier divisions needed a larger proportion of (and artillery) infantry mounted on halftracks. The Tank component in 1941 was probably enough since most Russian Infantry units lacked sufficient artillery and anti tank units. Furthermore, the Russian tanks were spread out thin in formations no larger than a Brigade. Hence there was no need to bring together more than 150 tanks per division. But the supporting arms needed better cross country mobility.

[ev]

A further note on the motor pool of German Panzer Units...

As of 1941 the 9th Panzer had 1644 trucks. A third of thos trucks were assigned to combat units. Two thirds were used for supply. I understand this was typical of hte Panzer and Panzer Grenadier Divisions. So the 29 Panzer and Panzer Grenadier Divisions participating in Barbarosa must have added somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000 trucks.

These numbers do not take into account 2 Panzer and 1 Panzer Grenadier in North Africa, nor any other units assigned elsewhere. It also does not take into account that there most have been trucks and other vehicles assigned to army and army group headquarters.