"Radios in Wargames" Topic

What was the topic again?

God knows.

What was the topic again?

God knows.

I'll start again, now that SG isn't around anymore to guide the discussion.
--
Tim

Wow. What was that, 3 days?

What was the topic again?

Zardoz?

Quick, someone say something nasty about Panzer Meyer while SG is away;)

It's interesting that the same person who argues that the SS can't be held accountable for institutional war crimes is the same one who argues that soldiers should always do what they are told (and indeed, will always do what they are told) since command and control systems "never" break down in reality.

Back to the point, on principal, I don't like rules that don't incorporate friction of some sort. If I wanted troops to do exactly what I wanted them to do, I'd simulate parade ground drills. But since I don't… I rather like the challenge of having things not always go my way. Granted, it's just an opinion.
But I have done some book larnin' on the subjec'

-A.

I suspect a connection to the name "Wittmann" may have something to do with it.

Aurelian

I fully agree. Any set of rules which allows a player to do what he wants, and move his men about with inch-perfect precision and split second timing is, in my opinion, a nonsense.
My interest is in the Colonial period, rather than WW2, but one only has to read the history of a battle to realise that, more often than not, even the best laid plans quickly fell apart.
Take the Boer War battle of Colenso for example. Firstly, the Boer commander wanted to occupy a hill on the southern (British) side of the Tugela River, but none of his troops were keen to defend such an exposed position and they gapped it in the night (hours before a shot had been fired), retreating back to their mates on the northern bank. Only a telegram from President Kruger himself would convince them to return.

When the British attack got under way, Colonel Long either ignored / misunderstood / misinterpreted his orders and moved his two batteries of 15-lbers much further forward than he was meant to, bringing them well within rifle range of the defenders. At about the same time, Brigadier Hart lead his brigade in the wrong direction and ended up taking rifle fire from three sides.

The British commander, General Buller, felt the only way he could retake control of the situation – and save Long's guns – was to personnally move down towards where Colonel Long's gunners were being slaughtered and thus lost any sense of the 'big picture' of the battle as a whole.

How anyone can think that troops do exactly what they are told to is beyond me, and shows a lack of understanding of, and interest in, military history. Any player who wishes to refight Colenso (for example) has to accept that maps were not perfect, communications were not perfect, troops got lost, men got scared, sub-commanders had planet-sized egos etc etc.

If the British had radios available at this time, would this have helped? Of course it would – rather than sending gallopers after the units which were veering off in the wrong direction, Buller could have spoken directly to his sub-commander and in real-time. The Devons – who had taken up position in the village of Colenso, actually were covering Colonel Long's abandoned guns but were ordered to withdraw anyway. Had they had radio communication, they might have been able to make it clear to high command that the guns were safe as long as they stayed in Colenso and could have been withdrawn after nightfall.

Whether any of this would have had a deciding impact on the result is a different story, but to claim improved (and most importantly) real time communications would not have improved Buller's control over his sub-units is illogical. If radios do not assist in command and control, why on earth do armies use them? Why don't they still just use flags and runners?

I have just picked Colenso as an example, but others more knowledgable on WW2 will no doubt be able to come up with countless similar examples from that period.

Apparently this discussion has been started by a familiar person on a third website:

link

I was directed here after it was pointed out to me. Nothing wrong with eliciting different opinions, but a compare and contrast of the debate style on the three different sites may be of interest.

The subject of C&C applies equally to board games as to miniatures. There was a review F&M 73 that compared Squad Leader to two earlier Vietnam squad-based games.

"The Army's more bureaucratic command structure lead to a very different set of leadership problems. Units, because of the myriad radios they possessed, could operate as far from their leaders as their radios could transmit and still be able to get specific instructions. Unfortunately, this also produced a dependence on contact with higher headquarters that made units less capable of functioning once the umbilical cord was cut. Thus a disturbance in the flow of information, either through loss of a radio or loss of a leader, was far more devastating to the Americans. In the game U.S. squads can be paralyzed for up to three turns if the squad radioman is hit or their headquarters takes casualties…

"Few tactical games during this period are comparable to Squad Leader which is quite popular and is of a similar scale, but has a needlessly complex combat system, leadership rules that would be more appropriate for 18th century combat and ridiculously simplistic casualty rules. It also displays the typical American fascination with gadgets while ignoring war's social, political and logistical aspects. The wargame industry has basically ignored the more accurate portrayal of company level combat in S&D for the more glamorous version portrayed in Squad Leader."

I think the comments may be of interest here, also. In the Second World War, radio sets at the platoon level were a rarity in most armies; the British may have used the 38 set in that capacity, but it had limited range, and I don't think the doctrine was really such that they made much use of it. It was still fairly bulky equipment (compared to the U.S. "walkie-talkie") and deliberate attacks were done by companies for fixed objectives. Such low-level talk as spotting targets, etc., was not something I'd expect on the radio nets. HOW the radios are used is just as important a subject as who used them. The occasional situation report ("Baker Three reports Merry Christmas" for example, a coded messgage to tell the C.O. that a company has reached a phase line) or revised order may have been the usual extent of radio comms in an infantry unit. "Get that machine gun in the third building to the left of the church steeple" probably less a likely possibility.

How about the armored infantry? Radios in the halftracks?

Are you referring to the British, Don? They tended to use their halftracks as armoured taxis & did their fighting on foot. I'm not even sure if the British fitted radios to all of theirs as the American radios were different from the 38 & 19 sets, the likely British contenders. (Mark, Martin?)

No, I meant the U.S., but the same question applies to the Germans.

The Germans were probably the worst off of the major combatants on the western front in 1944-45 as far as radio equipment. Radios were probably used to assemble for attacks; what use they were during them is anyone's guess but I don't think they had all that many of them in the infantry units. The Panzergrenadier units had pitifully few halftracks – perhaps one company per regiment in most armoured divisions, the rest had trucks. Where were the radios? They were ungodly big and heavy contraptions in the battalion command posts, as I understand it.

There was a mount for a radio on the sidewall of the standard German SPW. As to how often a radio was actually fitted, thats a harder one to answer. link – the B & W picture 1/2 way down is a sdkfz 251 interior.

Yes, but 99% of German infantry companies didn't have SPWs…

And of the ones that did – again, the question I have is – what use were they during a running battle? The infantry dismounted to fight, as pointed out above.

I agree Michael!

Re the halftrack numbers comments: On the Western Front 1944, Panzer Lehr had all units equipped with SPWs, 2nd & 21st Panzer Divisions had two battalions equipped with SPWs and 17th SS had no SPWs. The remaining panzer divisions (1st SS, 2nd SS, 9th SS, 10th SS, 12th SS, 9th, 11th & 116th) each had one SPW-equipped battalion (out of 4 or 6 per division). Note that this doesn't include recce and pioneer battalions, which would uually also have had some companies equipped with SPWs.

A bit of trivia for you Mark – according to this site link the Becker originated SPWs of 21PzD lacked radios, unlike the 251. The interior shots (which I haven't seen before) don't show any radio mounts either.

According to a Squadron/Signal booklet I have, each sdkfz 251 had a radio. It was on the side of the hull in the A model but moved to the assistant driver's position in later models. Its usefulness would be primarily in directing the HTs before the infantry dismounted, I would think, unless the troops remained within shouting distance of the HT, and vice versa. As in, "1st and 2nd Sections dismount here and assault that tree line; Third Section, where the H… are you?"

Oh, and Pz Lehr had all those HTs in Normandy, but by the Bulge were probably down to 1 btn of them at best, like everyone else. (plus engineers and recce).

But how about PG trucks? Did they have radios?

Huw,

Judging from photos, it would appear that was indeed true. However, the one photo I've got of a platoon leader's 37mm-armed SPW P107(f) has an antenna fitted and there is another photo of a standard MG-armed SPW P107(f) with an antenna (the photo shows it on a town square, next to a motorbike -you might have seen it).

Re trucks: I imagine that they simply relied upon platoon/company radios. British & Canadian 3 ton TCVs most certainly were not fitted with radios.

Mark, I suspect that the landser simply did as all soldiers do & improvised and adapted as necessary, fitting radios & other equipment as required. It would make sense to fit a radio to the platoon leaders mount.

I'd be careful about looking at the number of SPWs available on 6 June 1944 and suggesting that they were available throughout the Normandy campaign, though.

On 1 June 1944, the 12th SS Division had 306 operational SPWs, for example and 27 were in short-term repair. In other words, 8 percent of them were out of commission, however temporarily, before the Allies even landed, be it for routine maintenance, damage by aircraft attack, mechanical failure or whatever. In action, the divisions were almost certainly hard-pressed to keep up vehicle losses. From 6 June to 22 August the Division suffered 8,000 personnel losses in killed, wounded and missing – the majority in the combat services. Tank losses (total write-offs only) between 6 June and 9 July were 51 PzKpfw IV and 32 PzKpfw V. No idea what the figure was for SPWs but as everyone here knows, Normandy was a battle of attrition and I'm not sure the raw numbers do much of a job of explaining how the equipment was actually utilized.

German radio issue is a bit of a mystery I always thought, so glad to see a few comments above in similiar vein!

The German org tables aren't helpful enough to mention radios, but if you look for radio operators there's a bit more joy.

Taking the Infantry Battalion in February 1941, there are no radio ops with the Rifle Company and the MG Company has three telephone sets. Battalion HQ has four pack radio teams, each of two men and presumably with a single set per team. By 1944 the Rifle company now has four "Funker fur 4 Feldfunksprecher b".

My interpretation was always that "Funker" was a radio operator and "Fernsprecher" was a telephonist, so unless anyone can tell better, that suggests Company HQ was to have four radio sets? The MG Company has the same at HQ, plus two line detachments. The 12-cm mortar Platoon has 3 radio ops if the translation is right, plus a cable detachment, and the 8-cm mortars (handled either as Sections with Rifle Companies or later a single Platoon) have one radio per tube. Volks Grenadier units keep the same pattern, dropping the 12-cm mortars and adding a 7.5-cm IG Platoon with 2 operators.

Motorised Panzer Grenadiers are less easy to find mentions for. 1943 they begin to refer to two Funkers with the Rifle Company HQ and one "Sprechfunker" with each Platoon. Mechanised units are a bit much too wade through all the tables, but there are more references to Sprechfunker re halftrack vehicles, near enough one per SdKfz as Don mentioned. Quite what the subtle difference is between a Funker and a Sprechfunker, I'm not sure. Perhaps the former was a more qualified signaller, while the latter had it bolted on to his job title? Most of the sprechfunker refs are in brackets after platoon/section/squad officers and NCO titles.

Gary

Gentlemen, Successful communication on the battlefield is only guaranteed when the two people communicating are face to face, and even that isn't always perfect.

During the 2003 advance on Baghdad the Marine Commander did not have secure radio communication. He was relying on iridium unsecured satellite cell phone communication to control his Division from his Hummer while his aids did everything they could to make sure he had fresh batteries. Communication failures were constant within every participant's forces, and are the subject of many AAR's, after action letters, position papers, and much hand wringing at all levels of command within DOD. It was and will be the single most difficult part of modern war until dedicated battlefield satellites become the norm.

That's why every unit that goes into combat has a well rehearsed plan, where all of the units and subunits know their job, their neighbors job, and what option B of branch plan C entails. Let's not go into the problems with items like "blue force tracker" or any of the current CCC equipment because it is going through another upgrade as we speak.

With the most recent communication upgrades, JSTARS, EC130-ABCCC, and the FM upgrade there are still problems. Almost the first words out of every AAR's senior commander: Gentlemen, the three most important words in modern combat are: communication, communication, communication, in that order!

Bill

In the games we train with communication is never a given. Whenever the moderators can they screw with the coms so leaders at every level will know what it's like to be "on your own".

Here is a bit of understatement from the establishment:

"Another issue was the need to make improvements to command and control on the move. Even with all of the improvements recently made, particularly on the land arena using different line-of-sight or beyond-line-of-sight radios, "we still have a long way to go" to ensure that information is moved efficiently and reliably from formations that are moving at high speed over great distances, Gen. Moran declares. "That is a big challenge that the Army needs to tackle as it moves toward its objective force," he adds.

The command addressed that concern primarily through the assignment of ultrahigh frequency tactical satellite channels. The goal was to ensure that they were apportioned appropriately during the different phases of the campaign".

From the UK communication forum…

Here is an excellent "white paper" that deals with the nuts and bolts issues: link

And this link to discuss the real issue: "too much info."
link which has just recently been partially respoved.

Have fun, … Bill

Quite what the subtle difference is between a Funker and a Sprechfunker, I'm not sure.

I can only guess, but since "sprech" probably means "speak," it might refer to the difference between a receiver and a tranceiver, or possibly to the difference between a radio that sends/receives only dots and dashes, and one that sends/receives voice.

Mein Gott, Ich habe es geschafft zu.

What in the world is "respoved?" I must have meant to write "improved."

I apologize for my slightly hurried, and "un proofread" post.

Be well! Bill

What in the world is "respoved?"

To be "spoved" again?

There may be a difference between a "signaller" and an "infantry signaller" just as in the British/Canadian Army there is one, if not functionally than to indicate from where the soldier is drawn. A divisional signaller in the British/Canadians is known as Jimmy, I believe, and wears Mercury on his cap badge, whereas the infantry signaller wears the badge of the infantry unit. He may, however, have exactly the same training and perform the same task.

In the German Army, a divisional signaller wore lemon yellow waffenfarbe while the infantry signaller wore white (rose pink if he was a motorized infantryman, grass green if after the change in 1942 to panzergrenadier). If your org tables reflect divisional attachments or not, I don't know. Also don't know if there would be a difference in the title designations.