German divisional cavalry

[rmonical]

I have discussed the impact of the replacement AI on German armament points and the oddity that the horses in the cav elements are bought with armament points in other threads. Here I want to address the TOE of the recon elements of the 41a infantry division type. All of this information is from Niehorstor:
http://www.ordersofbattle.darkscape.net ... g_army.htm

The spreadsheet shows the organization of the recon elements. The waves with single recon company generally placed it in the anti-tank battalion. Some waves had a motorized weapons company, others had two platoons which I scored as company. Almost all of these divisions appeared in the East.

Only 54 of 149 divisions had any cavalry at all. These were a single cavalry company of 9 squads. The vast majority of the recon companies in German army were bicycle infantry. The recon platoons in the regiments were leg infantry.

So if I average across all of the divisions, there are 3.4 cavalry squads per division and 10.5 bicycle squads per division.

I propose the next update to the scenarios change the 41 and 42 infantry division TOE to 3 cavalry squads and 11 bicycle squads (which are additional rifle squads) per division. This is a change from 18 cavalry squads. The impact of this change will be to change how the replacement AI allocates replacements. Therefore, there need not be a change to the on map units because the combat difference between cavalry and rifle squads is very small.

Niehorstor does not show the '43-'45 organizations. I find the 9 cav squads in WITE to be suspicious. I suggest they all be converted to bicycle (rifle) squads.

[rmonical]

Another way to handle this is to eliminate the armament points for the horses by creating a generic recon squad element type, making it a little more expensive to cover the "cost" of the horses or bikes, and allocate 14 of those to each division instead of the 18 cav squads.

[morvael]

Build limits aside (as described in other thread) I agree that Cav shouldn't cost that many armaments, at most x2 of a rifle squad. Horses are "paid for" by larger supply use.

[jaw]

No, horses are not "paid for" buy supply use; horses are raised from birth and require continuous care and attention. That is why cavalry cost so much in the game. Horses are expensive.

Jim

[jaw]

The "cavalry" squads in an infantry division represent all horse mounted elements lumped together. There is no bicycle mounted infantry in the game.

Jim

[rmonical]

ORIGINAL: jaw
The "cavalry" squads in an infantry division represent all horse mounted elements lumped together. There is no bicycle mounted infantry in the game.
Jim

Do you mean like this?

1 Officer (K) as Company Commander (Pistol)(SMG)(on horseback)

[gingerbread]

ORIGINAL: jaw

No, horses are not "paid for" buy supply use; horses are raised from birth and require continuous care and attention. That is why cavalry cost so much in the game. Horses are expensive.

Jim

Are you serious? The GPW lasted less than 4 years so very few horses used were raised from birth that was not born before 6/41. The horses were simply procured - not that difficult in the political/economical system used by the USSR at the time.

What matters is how many horses that were available that was suitable, or probably the criteria should be not unsuitable. Compensation to an original possessor (Owner is not an applicable concept) was most likely none.

I checked Wiki, and with Keegan, A History of Warfare, p. 308 as reference, it states that the Soviets used 3.5M horses during WWII.

[jaw]

Yes, the horses were procured but nothing comes without a cost so even if the German Army
confiscated all their horses there would be an economic cost to them. In the game the
horses of cavalry elements are considered part of the element just like the men's rifles
and a cost (5 points per horse) is assessed for them. You could argue for a lower cost but
certainly not free.

[morvael]

Looks like horses that are used to move artillery are cheaper, because at 5 points per horse you can't fit even 4 of them in 20-25 points that have to include both the gun and even rifles for the crew.

[jaw]

No, squads only but I may have been too generous in standardizing the recon elements around
cavalry. A case could be made for reducing the cavalry to 9 squads and increasing the rifle
squads by 9. If you really think those extra 9 squads are causing a problem such a change
could be considered.

Jim

[morvael]

The problem with horses and cavalry elements is mainly caused by the replacement system, that prefers to exhaust all available armaments building cavalry and motorcycles (not being infantry weapons and guns they are not restricted in build numbers). Were horses treated as a separate resource, built in or next to manpower centers and used in a similar way as trucks then it wouldn't cause problems with armaments. I think with the new system having a limit on number built per turn the problem will be resolved - slow and difficult replacement of cavalry units, which were not cost effective units, leaving most of armaments for those really needed items, while maintaining the high individual cost of such elements (to represent the difficulty in obtaining horses).

[morvael]

ORIGINAL: jaw

No, squads only but I may have been too generous in standardizing the recon elements around
cavalry. A case could be made for reducing the cavalry to 9 squads and increasing the rifle
squads by 9. If you really think those extra 9 squads are causing a problem such a change
could be considered.

Jim

That is a good idea.

Anyway there is a lack of consequence how horses are treated:
- to move supplies and guns they don't cost armaments to build but only supplies to maintain.
- in cavalry squads they cost armaments to build and supplies to maintain.

I think Axis will have much better situation armaments-wise with the new patch, so manpower will remain their main concern and the cavalry squad cost problem will go away (with some limits on their build number).

[gingerbread]

I simply fail to see why horses, motorcycles or half tracks should incur a cost in ARM. That does not put the cost where it should be.

A cost, fine but of a relevant type. Either a cost in supply or draw from pools & combine with men.

[jaw]

You are both hitting on a conundrum that has existed since day one of this game system - there is no specific production of transport capability beyond trucks. Gary did not want to get into the weeds of specifying the procurement of horses, or the production of motorcycles and halftracks as unique items. The solution that was settle on was to have "organic" transport for ground elements like cavalry and mechanized infantry which would allow them to perform differently in combat than "leg" elements. Motorized units would require generic vehicles from a common pool for all elements not organically motorized/mechanized and non-motorized units would simulate horse transport through the supply system. The "real" horses, motorcycles and halftracks exist for combat purposes while the generic capability is to simulate the movement of everything else.

As I said above we could probably reduce the cost of cavalry and maybe even motorcyclists a bit but I seriously doubt they exist in enough numbers to matter for much regardless of cost.

[morvael]

As I said this will be acceptable solution once cavalry and motorcycles will not dominate amongst armaments expenses to the detriment of all other items like machine guns, rifle squads, anti-tank guns etc. thanks to more cost-oriented replacement system with limits on certain items.

However, horses were important to German war effort in a way that is probably hard to see looking from motorized/mechanized American perspective. Supply trains for German infantry divisions used horse instead of truck and this limited mobility of German infantry divisions...

[rmonical]

As I said above we could probably reduce the cost of cavalry and maybe even motorcyclists a bit but I seriously doubt they exist in enough numbers to matter for much regardless of cost.

Once Morvael's fix is in place, probably correct. The current replacement AI overproduces motorcycle and cavalry squads. As of T73 in my game with hoooper, of all armaments spent on A units, motorcycle squads take the most at 13.69%. The German armaments pool is empty and there are 420,000 men in the active manpower pool.

[gingerbread]

You might want to track the Panzer Grenadier & Panzer Pioneer Squads as well since they also cost a lot.

[rmonical]

You might want to track the Panzer Grenadier & Panzer Pioneer Squads as well since they also cost a lot.

That is just an extract. This is the entire accounting through 73. Rifle squads finally passed cavalry squads in terms of armament points spent.

[Denniss]

A build limit for motorcycles and cav squads is in place for 1.08 and it's working.
If that's backed-up by sources I'd say exchange 9 of the 18 cav squads to 9 rifle squads in 41-43 infantry divs and replace the rest with 44 inf divs.

Does anyone have details about Axis minor countries use of cav squads for recon duties? HUN divs seem to increase the cav components over the years.