Realism vs "Winning"

[codman]

Great question, not sure how to answer it. For me even though I've read tons of books on the war, I haven't a clue as to what the actual composition to any type of formation. Depending on what nation I'm playing I'll try different combinations but I tend to always start out with a company of infantry, an FO unit, a couple of scouts and then I'll add a couple of tank platoons or a company so everyone can ride. As I said I don't know how realistic my cores are but I try to keep them small and my maps big. This way I scare myself as I can't always control my flanks and I can't tell if the AI is going to do an end around. The area of realism that I struggle the hardest with is trying to save my units. Experience is like a drug and once your core gets some it's awful tough to not go back and restart a screwed up battle. Sometimes I wish that instead of gaining experience we could just get more points for a victory and perhaps we wouldn't become so attached to our units.

[PanzerBob]

Yes,interesting question, for me it depends on my mood and sometimes what part of the war I'm reading about. When I play as the Allies I usually stick to realism, and also when I start early in the war with the Germans I stick there as well.

As for "winning" Orbats and equipment, I have a passion for "What If" campaigns, these usually involve recruiting heavy KG's of roughly 2/3's Bn size as my core, fighting late 44/early 45 to Dec 46. But I really wouldn't say these even aren't too unrealistic either as I have lost or been baddly mauled, as well as kicking big butt at times.

I don't think I've ever (except during the early days of SP1 when I was still fine tuning my skills)skewed things to point where I'm more like Hammer's Slammers on the battlefield...............where would the enjoyment be in that!!!

Cheers, Bob

[blitzkreig]

Good question!

I love playing as the Germans as they played such a large part in shaping the combat equipment and tactics still in use today. The problem is they have so much cool kit! It is hard to resist, but I do normally try and opt for realism, basing my core around a kamfgruppe of PzGren.

Its worth rembering that there were actually very few Tigers and they were in most cases part of speical units so normally only get taken as support choices unless I play as SS.

Its worth remembering as a German player that there were very few Armoured infantry units availbable during the early war years to. In 1939 there were apparently only 68 251 Apcs actually in service!

[Shan]

blitzkreig said:
Its worth remembering as a German player that there were very few Armoured infantry units availbable during the early war years to. In 1939 there were apparently only 68 251 Apcs actually in service!

Ian,

You're right, the number of APCs available was very low, and most Panzergrenadier units had 1 battalion on APCs at most, but never all 3, not even Waffen-SS units. I'm not the picky type of person, just curious: 68 thousand APCs sounds in German service in '39 sounds like really way too high to me! This may be some total war production number, I might be able to find those, but even then it sounds very high! Do you have a source for this? And do we talk about the same thing - namely only SdKfz 251+250 half-track APCs?

I got a book on German weapons production with a lot of statistics and data, I meantioned it in the thread on motorcycle scouts - the numbers it provides are very detailed for most vehicles and weapons, I could tell you the numbers of various weapons that the Wehrmacht had in its inventory at several key dates during the war, the losses during every year and campaign, etc --- unfortunately in this case there is no separate number for APCs, but it says that (abbreviated) at the start of the war the german army had 3.7 million men in total, and active/in reserve 115000/9000 trucks, 2700/600 tanks, and 1300/200 light armored vehicles - this would include the 4-wheel, 6-wheel and 8-wheel recon vehicles - the book says it is difficult to find production numbers for the SdKfz250/251 series, as production numbers often include those of unarmored 1-ton and 3-ton half-track towing tractors, which are based on the same vehicle, but to give you an idea: the books I got agree that total production of the light -250 was around 7500 vehicles and over 16.000 for the medium -251. Also, AFAIK production of both versions only started in '39 or '38 and therefore the numers available on 09/1/39 must have been rather low.

[PatG]

I think he meant that there were only 68 SdKfz 251 APCs in service - not 68,251 of all models of APC.

[chuckfourth]

As you may guess form my posts I play as realistic as possible I rarely buy anything less than coy formations. Strangely I play the same as Narwan, PBEM using Italians and Japanese in that order. Nothing is more satisfying than defeating the english Armour with the poorly eqipped italians in the open desert, 8 AT guns per division etc.
I also like to play an unbalanced force by removing all traces of say armour or AA or artillery etc form my purchase.

[Shan]

PatG said:
I think he meant that there were only 68 SdKfz 251 APCs in service - not 68,251 of all models of APC.

LOL - sorry 'bout that, I know I shouldn't enter a discussion if I'm too tired to read properly... oh man!! Now, 68 sounds good, goes together with the production start in '39. Besides, the Germans also used a type of wheeled/tracked APC in small numbers called AGDZ, taken over from Austria. It was a tracked vehicle with similar in shape to SdKfz 250/251 but it hat 4 road wheels outside the tracks that could be lowered for on-road use - a rather strange vehicle, it served with artillery observers mostly.

[blitzkreig]

Shan,

I did only mean "68" Sdkfz 251s. Should have made it a bit more clear! The 250 series didn't enter production until June 1941. One of my favourite referance books for German armoured vehilces is:

Standard Catalog of German Military Vehicles by David Doyle published by KP Books in 2005 isbn 0-87349-783-x.

Its says there were aprox 6000 of the Sdkfz 250 series were made. I'm not sure about the Sdkfz 251 series.

On another realism point though it's really great being able to hammer the other side with loads of artillery fire! Trouble is depending on how big your game is artillery was in realitivly short supply.

If you think that a typical Pz Division had 2-3 artillery Btls of 3-4 batteries, each with 4 guns depending on formation and losses. A btl sized kampfgruppe is therefore unlikley to have it all on call at once! With the exception of pherhaps an assult mission. Larger pieces over 150mm would be Corps assets and would be even rarer.

It reality (at least for German Mechanised forces) you should take 1 forward observer/observation vehicle for each battery taken. This eats up support points but also means the number of batteries you take will probaberly be reduced as well as being realistic. It would be a real headache for one observer to co-ordinate the lot! Todays British Army certinally uses the one observer per battery ratio with the battery commnader taking the role in the "armoured artillery" formations using AS90.

The Germans made up for the "lack of atillery" by the introduction of inf gun units attached to indivudual btls and regiments. The 75mm and to a lesser extent the 150mm sig would be a common sight in a reinforced btl sized kamfgruppe.

Not sure on other nations though, any one any thoughts?