Panzergrenadiers

[Wiem1938]

Cheers! That is very useful information. I've been experimenting with the SPW panzergrenadier coym myself, and I've managed to fit them in. When I have time, I'll post the file.
Richard

[DRG]

I was reminded by one of our playtesters that part of this issue is that the MG's included with the halftracks themselves could be dismounted and used by the squad on the ground which is one reason you see TO&E's from some sources mentioning the extra MG.

Also.... ALL formations in the game are abstractions in one form or another.

Don

[chuckfourth]

Hello
I have been having a look at this site,

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/...l/site_map.htm

It is an absolute goldmine of TOE information. I think that using this site as a source for company formations would benefit the game greatly as the formations often vary considerably from those currently in the game. That said I might suggest that those concerned might want to run their eye over the panzer grenadiers TOEs in this site prior to rejigging. For instance, until 1943 the 12 man (currently 10) truck mounted panzer grenadiers travelled in 2 protze trucks rather than the single opel and as with the armoured squads had a second LMG (currently 1). But a quick read will reveal much much more of interest.
Best Regards Chuck.

[PatG]

From the overview page of Bayonetstrength:

"The descriptions of units contained in this site refer, where possible, to the officially authorised organisations intended for use. How closely particular units resembled these descriptions is purely arbitrary."

That admission is of course the site's true strength.

Well worth reading.

[cbo]

I'm missing some direct references to the sources used for http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com. He does have a bibliography of sorts, but you cannot tell where exactly he got the specific information from.
Secondly, since at least some of the sources he uses states the specific KStN number, and since he apparently have checked some of the originals as well, he could have made proper references to the actul KStN. That would make it much easier to actually check the information.
Also, his dates are very vague - "circa late 1943" doesn't tell you much.
Actually, some of the pages he refer to in his bibliography have better information IMO.

The reality of German organisation was that a number of different KStN made for each type of unit as the war progressed and individual units were adopting those when ordered to. So you could have many older KStN still in effect while new ones were issued. Furthermore, the could be severel different but contemporary KStN for the same type of unit in operation at one time. The point is that there is not necessarily one particular organisation valid for one particular period.

As for translating the actual KStN to winSPWW2 OOBs, designers have made abstractions. For example combining the different elements of a company HQ into one unit or distributing some of companys heavy arms to the platoon organisation etc. That is a process that have been going on for 8 years with various people working on the OOBs. Some of those doing the work have had access to some very good sources that easily surpasses what you can dig up on badly referenced websites.

I think most people can appreciate that those involved in the game gets slightly pissed off when someone claims the game to be wrong because he found an unreferenced internet site saying somthing different than the game OOB, when the OOB designer have spent hours carefully trying to convert the data from the actual KStN or TO&E*.

Not to mention the fact that limitations of the game engine sometimes forces the OOB designer to make abstractions that doesn't make any sense to the untrained eye. Or may in fact not make sense any longer because the game engine have been improved.

It is by no means trivial - not even for people who have worked on OOB design and played the game for years - to figure out exactly what KStN a specific unit in the OOBs are supposed to represent.

You can of course simply decide that the game is wrong and then go fix whatever the problem is in MobHack. No problem.

But if you want to make a case that some unit needs fixing by the game designers, then you should at least have the respect for their work by stating you case properly.
If, as a playtester, I wanted a particular German tank formation in the game, I'd check all the relevant formations in the German OOB to see whether the formation I had in mind may actually exist somewhere in the OOB. If not, then I tried to figure out what those formations in the game was intended to represent. Then I tried to figure out whether the formation I wanted should in fact be a change to an existing formation or whether a new formation was needed. Then I took a cup of coffe (or a beer) and thought a bit about whether the change was actually suffciently significant to bother busy people with.
If so, then I'd present my case to the designers, including the relevant references.

If you do that, then you will have a much better chance of getting your grievances listened to and perhaps introduced in the game. You will also provide a much better basis for discussion of the changes.

Claus B

* Of course, many country OOBs and units have been created on available, but sketchy information. But if you have something better to offer, you should still do the work and make the proper argument.

PS: A good site for German KStN information is http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/kstn/okh/okhmain.htm that tries to reproduce the actual KStN. It is not without errors, but at least you know exactly what you are looking at.

[Mobhack]

A lot of the "chartered accountancy" school of wargamers bow down and worship at the holy altar of TO&E charts. "So it was written, and so it must have been".

The reality is that these things are about as accurate as modern organisational charts in businesses. (See if you can find the org chart for your organisation !. They reflect the management's view point of how things should be, and do not necessarily reflect the on-the-ground "shop floor" actuality. Civilian organisations have absenteeism due to sickness and so on, military units have the same plus battle casualties, both to "plant" as well as staff.

And in both, the "middle management" (batallion, company and even higher) will often make local "tweaks" to make the organisations work "at the coal face" level, without necessarily bothering the top-level beurocrats. They may hire contract staff if this is a way to get more people and the money comes from a different budget than "staff", and look at how the original microcomputers came in on "office equipment" budgets, without the top levels knowing about this, and without the centralised IT departments knowing that so much strategic company IT work was now being done locally in departments on Visicalc, with no IT department overview or QA of the code. same thing in our TA rifle company - we often borrowed the next door engineer coy's BRENS on a tactical weekend, if they were off building bridges. Or they would "lend" us a few guys who needed infantry tactical brush-up training, so we would then be a bit overstrength.

Some nationalities are more rigid as to this sort of thing and apply "doctrines" which all have to obey. Others, like the British are more flexible, and leave minor details up to the colonel of the batallion to adjust as he sees fit.

So a wargamer comes from the beurocratic worship of TO&E charts, and assumes things are as the chart, unless he actually spends some time reading some history on the subject. (It also helps if he has been involved in some sort of corporate organisation, whether military or civilian, so he can put a reasonable skepticism on such things as org charts in the first place!.

So a wargamer willl make such statements as "All WW2 UK infantry batallions had a carrier platoon for scouting". But history shows that most batallions actually broke these units up, as they had better use for the manpower elsewhere, and the carriers and drivers would be used as "tin jeeps" to do things like drive the RSM around on his rounds, deliver hot meals ammo and mail to the front etc.

A Wargamer will make a statement from TO&E that "a UK rifle platoon had a 2 inch mortar at platoon HQ, as well as a Boyes ATR". Well, my batallion had 2 inch mortars issued, but these stayed in the armoury, as we had better use for the 2 men supposed to carry the silly thing about. And in WW2, the Boyes was determined to be useless by many units, and was conveniently "lost". Again, freeing up manpower which is always a shortage in rifle platoons even in peacetime (there is usually 2 or 3 men away on courses, before we get to those off sick or on leave etc) let alone wartime casualties (where you add dead and injured to the same amounts off sick, on leave, or on courses etc as in peacetime, probably more off on courses in war!).

Really useful (tm) items of course did not get lost. if a rifle platoon shrank due to losses, the 3 brens would be kept, even if rifle srength shrank. Any rifle platoon worth its salt would of course try to "aquire" any really useful(tm) items that others had not nailed down, own-side or OPFOR.

One US Division in NW Europe deliberately stockpiled and issued as regular stores any captured german panzerfaust they came across. (I may well add a rifle squad with pfaust if it is not there already)

The Soviets did the same - regularly using panzerfausts, and also adding nebelwerfers to MRL units for example on and add-hoc basis outside TO&E charts so long as the ammo supply held out. There are Soviet units with captured pfaust.

So remember at all times that a TO&E chart is just a "management level ideal", just like any departmental or divisional civilian org chart. It is a starter, but must be modified by any historical research. A useful starter though - as wargamers are the sort to take a little historical "nugget" and then try to apply that to thier entire army. This is a known fact from ancient wargames to modern. The Romans used bolt throwers mounted on carts on one or 2 occasions in the field, and so about a third of Roman armies on the wargames table usually have cart mounted bolt-throwers trundling around..

So we do need to restrict the gamers choice somehow, and a TO&E chart is useful for this, but equally it cannot be treated as absolute "law" just because it is written down on paper by a beurocrat in the "human resources" department.

Cheers
Andy

[DRG]

And here's a example of an internet source vs a recognized wrtten source. It just happend that the "internet source" in this case is "Bayonetstrength"

<<<Bayonetstrength>>> regarding PzGren unit structure

It comprised a leader and assistant, armed with a machine pistol and rifle
respectively. They commanded two guns teams, each with a gunner and loader,
and four riflemen. The two gunners each carried a light machine gun and
pistol, their two assistants both pistols, the remaining four men each a
rifle. A driver and assistant were responsible for the vehicle, each armed
with a rifle. The SdKfz 251/1 armoured halftrack mounted its own light
machine gun behind a splinter shield. It was the responsibility of the
assistant driver to man this weapon, and a 'spare' machine pistol was
carried in the vehicle. One of the two dismounted MG34s could be placed on
a rear mounting enabling it to be used in the anti-aircraft role where
required. The concentration of light machine guns was enormous for such a
small unit. In action, the driver and assistant would remain with the
vehicle, the latter providing cover fire from the vehicle machine gun. The
dismounted troops could split into two teams, each with a leader, two
riflemen and a two man gun team. This negated the weakness of riflemen
covering a moving MG team with clunky bolt action weapons.

=====================

It all sound resonable and likely has some validity under certain circumstances but , in WinSPww2 the dismounted formations contains MMG's mounted on tripods which has been called into question

Here's a quote from "Schützenpanzer" by Bruce Culver and Uwe Feist

"The Motorized infantry regiments in the Panzer Divisions were
organized with two battalions each. Each battalion contained three rifle
companies and a heavy support company. A rifle company had three rifle
platoons, each of which consisted of three infantry squads ( Gruppen ) .
Each squad had two MG34 light machine guns, one on a heavy tripod mount, and
8 Mauser 7.92mm Kar 98k rifles. The heavy MG section in each platoon had two
MG34's on Heavy tripods, and there SPW's also had a heavy mount for the
vehicle's forward MG34"

I know for a fact that the OOB was not built from information provided by Culver and Feist's "Schützenpanzer" yet this source does back up the structure we have in place that included MMG's in the games dismounted PzGrenZug. That is not to say that in reality the men in a PzGrenZug wouldn't sometime use the MG34/42 as a LMG and sometimes use the Tripod and use it as a MMG. Different tactical situations would dictate the usage but it also means the structure we have now is "accurate" given the limitations of translating reality into a game. However, it also points out how information can be read one way or another.

"Each squad had two MG34 light machine guns, one on a heavy tripod mount, and 8 Mauser 7.92mm Kar 98k rifles."

Could be read by someone as ....... The squad used 2 MG34 light machine guns AND " one on a heavy tripod mount, and 8 Mauser 7.92mm Kar 98k rifles." Therefore 2 MG34's set up as LMG and an additional MG34 set up as a MMG

OR it could be read to mean there were 2 MG34's and one could be mounted on a tripod that was carried in the vehicle for that purpose.

Which is how we read it.

Don

[chuckfourth]

Hi Andy
Firstly I should say that I am not saying SPCAMO has got it wrong and Bayonetstrength has got it right, I just mention Bayonetstrength as a reference for anyone that might be interested. However Bayonetstrength's TOEs are IMHO generally more varied, bringing these into the game I think would make the game more interestig to play assuming of course that they are correct. As regards the worship of Toes, as you say they obviously form the starting point for any formations modeled in the game. And actually you could restrict yourself pretty much to the book values if you wanted to, as you can build your own formations anyway. For instance you might just grab a panzerfaust team out of the german encyclopedia when you are building your American
force.
Best Regards Chuck

[vic]

Nice, Andy!

I regularly mobhack infantry company formations removing the heavy weapons (lt. mortar & MG) from the HQ platoon. i wind up with 3 rifle platoons and a heavy weapons platoon, or attach the mortar and MG as separate "0" units (one unit section). In long campaigning the problem with "heavy" HQ platoons is that if your CO gets knocked off command can be transfered to say a mortar unit which doesn't make such a spiffy CO.

My HQ platoons usually have two units, a scout (4 men) acting as the CO (moves quickly hard to spot and nice for calling in arty at the prce of being somewhat "fragile") and a "patrol" type unit (6 men) as a sort of security XO type unit. If the CO gets knocked off during a battle command function transfers immediately to the N1 unit from the destroyed N0, meaning you still have a command unit around for rally etc. This gives the HQ platoon 10 men which is roughly equally to the full sized squad CO found in most standard OOBs.

The best thing about the individual weapons (mortar/MG)units attached as sections is they can be re-assigned (and just as easily returned) to other companies as needed (e.g. fire support etc.) especially for situations where companies have to travel light/fast and not drag weapons along (e.g. flank moves, mountainous/rough terrain, river crossing etc.)

If you use the "on map" squad re-assignment tool you run the risk of your re-ssigned unit becoming a platoon leader in which case it can't be transfered whence it came.

Andy's comment about extemporaneous "field modifications" to formal TOE is dead on the money. E.g until the USMC TOE caught up with the need for more firepower (especially MGs) at the company level, company and battalion commanders improvised independent "mobile" MG units that could be dispatched to where needed.

I view the default OOBs as representing, APPROXIMATELY, the weapons allocation to a company and as well its APPROXIMATE organization and mobhack something I view as more functional. E.g. my rifle Bn weapons company HMGs are usually in one or two unit sections that can be easily cross-attached to a rifle company on a mission appropriate basis. For the GE team my weapons company (first wave) has 4 independent (one unit section) MMG units with 2 MMGs each. These little beauties can then be shuffled around to the three "line" companies as needed. Leaving mortars and MGs with the weapons company is problematic. Where does the weapons company CO go? with the MGs or does he stay back with the mortars? With the MGs cross-attached to the rifle companies the weapons CO can stay with the mortars to rally them if necessary (the coffee is usually better with them too).

My (larger) LC organizations usually also contain one "indpendent" CO HQ platoon (attached line platoons deleted at purchase) around which I can form a task group by attaching support units or transfers from other core companies. I usually make these guys paras (experience and morale bonus at purchase). I don't use paras much (actually i think gliders are better) due to the "flak problem" but once in a while they are practical. If nothing else they make a good arty spotting adjunct to the organization (company COs can ALWAYS call in arty). [I don't usually buy FOs as they are way pricey and i am somewhat frugal with purchase points. Besides with ME as A0 who is better to call in arty fire!] Over time this CO builds up experience and becomes a betters a "leader" than the company COs you'd get if buying full companies with support points.

This type of fluid organization also helps in human vs. human play as the opponent doesn't always know EXACTLY what kind of formation he faces. If he "sees" a rifle platoon he can't be sure there are exactly two more, an MG unit and a CO in the immediate vicinity. Sometime I'll build a "scout company" consisting of one rifle platoon and a bunch (number varies, three is typical) of (two unit) scout sections, fast maneuverable and with a bit of fire support from the rifle platoon if needed. This company is especially effective if formed of "mountain" infantry and used in rough terrain. I doubt you'll see this in any "historically accurate" TOE.

Best,
Vic

[chuckfourth]

Hi Claus
Nice Link I do beleive I owe you an apology.
Chuck