Order of Battle

[ev]

In a separate thread we read the wonderfull AAR played by Catacol and Abukede. In that AAR Catacol mentioned he was sometimes short of units. I have did some research on German Panzer formations. As of the start of Barbarosa, these were Germany's panzer formations:

Panzergruppe 1 included three Panzer Corps (XXXVIII, III, XIV). These corps were designeted Armeekorps. However XXXVIII, III each had two panzer divisions plus a motorized infantry division. Meanwhile, XIV had a Panzer Dvision plus the SS Leibstadarte and the SS Wiking.

Panzergruppe 2 included three Panzer Corps (XXIV, XLVI, XLVII)

Panzergruppe 3 included two Panzer Corps (LVII, XXXIX) These corps were designated Armeekorps, but each had two panzer divisions plus at least one motorized infantry division while one of them had two motorized infantry divisions.

Panzergruppe 4 included three Panzer Corps (LVI, XXXXVI, VIII)

All in all, Barbarosa incldued eleven panzer corps. Plus there was the Afrika Corps under Rommel.

Another motorized infantry divison was held in reserve, while two more Panzer Divisions were scheduled to join the Eastern Front later in the campaign. These three divisions amounted to yet another panzer corps. This would bring the total number of Panzer Corps to 13 panzer corps on active service as early as 1941.

More panzer corps and SS panzer corps would be formed in later years.

Some have argued Germany should be limited on the number of Panzer Corps it should have. During Barbarosa, all these Corps were fighting full blast, and they never ran out of fuel. They covered huge amounts of territory and saw furious action none stop for months. And, again during 1942 and early 1943 they did not have fuel shortages. Yet, Germany did not run out of fuel.

Fuel shortages were in great measure the result of lossing the airwar against England/US. (The bombing of refineries, chemical plants, etc.) In fact, Germany was running short of men long before it ran out of fuel. As early as 1942, the Wermacht faced shortages of men. At the time, all its Panzer formations were operating with adequate fuel supplies.

I would suggest that an appropriate WWII model would provide Germany with a goo supply of Panzer and Air formations while keeping down the number of infantry formations... so as to model their lack of human resources.

[ev]

I keep doing more research on Germany's Panzer formations. Germany had 14 panzer divisions in 1941. By 1942, it had 27 panzer divisions. And, by 1943 it had 28 panzer divisions.

In addition, 6 panzer grenadier divisions were created sometime around 1942-43.

However, some of these new panzer and panzer greandier divisions may have been former motorized infantry formations that were reorganized as panzer or panzer grenadier divisions.

[Ivanov]

All in all, Barbarosa incldued eleven panzer corps. Plus there was the Afrika Corps under Rommel.

There is a constant controversy about the unit size in the game. The best sollution for Storm Over Europe campaign, would be to make it the corps/division scale, instead of army/corps. From the other hand if the scale was changed, there would be much more units involved in the game... I think sometimes the historical accuracy has to be sacrificed for the sake of playability...

During the Operation Barbarossa Wehrmacht fielded four Panzer Groups, each one of them having various structure, consisting of panzer, motorized and infantry divisions. On the other side of the front, the Soviets did not deploy any Tank Armies. The main mechanized operational unit of the Red Army in 1941, was so called mechanized corps. Each one of them have identical structure of two tank divisions ( 375 tank each ), one motorized division ( 275 tanks - the German counterpart had no tanks ), independent motocycle regiment, anti tank battalion and other support units. In theory each Soviet "motorized corps" had 1031 tanks, more than any of German panzer groups. The most numerous 2 Panzer Group, led by Guderian, had 994 tanks. Of course most of Red Army units were in the process of reorganization and re-eguipping and only three of the mechanized corps, were close to the paper strenght. Let's not forget that there were twenty one mechanized corps in the Western Soviet Union on 22nd of June of 1941, against only four German Panzer Groups. Not to mention that they fielded around 1600 T 34 and KV 1 tanks, which outclassed any German tank of that time. After disastrous losses during first few months of Operation Barbarossa, the main Soviet tank unit was... a brigade. During the winter counter-offensive of 1941/42, the Red Army didn't fied any tank divisions nor tank corps. So getting to the point, representing Soviet units of 1941 as Tank Armies is historically incorrect, but from the other hand I don't think that it does any harm to the game playability.

And what about the Allied armoured units? There were no "tank armies" nor "tank corps" in the armed forces of the Westen Allies. So what are these units? Tank divisions? Once again, the game has to be based on the generalization and simplification.

It's worth mentioning here, that prior to the Operation Barbarossa, in order to double the number of Panzer Divisions, Hitler ordered to disband second panzer brigade in each of the existing divisions. As a result, the number of tanks in German panzer division during Barbarossa was half of the number from the time of Polish and French campaigns. So as we see, the unit structure was changing during the course of the war and it would be impossible to reflect it in the game of such a scale as SC2.

Here a structure of German Panzer Division of 1939:

And a Panzer Division from 1941:

[ev]

Yes, Hitler et al reduced the number of tanks in a panzer division in early 1941. If you notice my post above only compare panzer formations in 41-43. The point I was trying to make was:

Germany had a very large number of panzer formations engaging in huge operations without running out of fuel. Germany ran out of fuel when Goering et al lost the air war, and the allies bombed the fuel refineries.

You bring another interesting point which is how to best compare Soviet and German formations. German panzer formations were very effective even though they had fewer tanks. Just counting the number of tanks may not give proper credit to the other components of these formations.

German panzer formations had more armored recon than either soviet or allied formations (by a factor of 3). They also had more combat engineers. And, more IFV's (half-tracks with guns).

The russians were awfully short on radios, qualified officers, etc. The russians were so short of artillery spotters that entire divisions would not have organic artillery for lack of spotters. Artillery was therefore concentrated at army hq level so that the limited number of spotters would each control a larger number of guns. These deficiencies of course took a large toll on combat performance.

I do not mean to denigrate anyone, let alone the Russian people whom I greatly admire for their courage and sacrifice. But there are reasons for the defeats they suffered in 41-42.

And, although I am no fan of Hitler, the record seems to suggest 1 panzer regiment per division was enough. The key seems to lie in finding the right balance between the different components of the mechanized formation. Having a lot of tanks, while being short of other supporting units was not the best way to go.

Back to SC, one small regret I have with this game is that the only tech important to armored formations is heavy tanks. An armored formation is much more than just heavy tanks.

[Ivanov]

You bring another interesting point which is how to best compare Soviet and German formations. German panzer formations were very effective even though they had fewer tanks. Just counting the number of tanks may not give proper credit to the other components of these formations.

I agree that the German panzer formations were better ballanced than the Soviet ones. They had also more infantry, so along with more recon units and better communication due to the higher number of radio sets, it gave them better tactical flexibility. The Soviet tank corps of more than 1000 tanks mentioned above, was a totaly failed concept. They were way to heavy and impossible to operate on the mobile battlefield. The number of tanks made them also nearly impossible to refuel, a point that you mention in regards of the German panzer corps. The actual Soviet tank armies from the years 1942-45 had never more than 500 tanks, but they still lacked the infantry.

In regards to SC, the heavy tanks tech is I think another necessary simplification. For example Panther tank was lighter than the Tiger but more advanced. The Guderians 2nd Panzer Group from the operation Barbarossa had 5 panzer, 3.5 motorized, 1 cavlary and 6 ( one in the reserve ) infantry divisions. So there were probably more horses in it's ranks than the motorized vehicles. I think that the more appropiate tech category for the SC2 would be a "mechanized warfare" not the "heavy tanks".

[ev]

I want to get more experience with this patch before I make a more detailed proposal. But, generally speaking, this is what I have in mind as a suggestion for SC3: Mechanized formations should benefit from three techs: (1) Motorization (2) Heavy tanks and, (3) mechanized support.

This third tech should represent improvements in infantry fighting vehicles, self propelled artillery, self propelled anti-air, etc.

...any way, I want to give some thoughts as to which combat values should be affected be each tech.