"General Truck" Topic

World War Two sounded the death knell for the ‘footslogging' infantry division. By the end of the war – apart from a few specialised units (jungle and mountain divisions, in particular) – pretty much all of the western allied infantry (and increasing numbers of Soviet divisions) had integral mobility, through mechanisation and motorisation, the assignment of amphibious landing craft and vehicles or by parachute and glider. One can argue that the inability of the Germans to sustain a largely mobile infantry force led to the failure of the campaign in southern Russia, forced them to adopt a predictable World War One type frontal attack at Kursk and eventually lost them the war. Post-world war two, no serious army would consider basing their order of battle around purely foot-mobile infantry (although the British were forced to do so in the Falklands, albeit after deploying both air and amphibious mobility to get it into theatre).

That said it's difficult to simulate the advantages of mobility on the table top. Firepower (and the ability to effectively concentrate it tactically), an area where German infantry held an advantage until very late in the war, seems to be the key determinant of success (unless you are engaged in a campaign, where off table movement can enable mobility to provide tactical advantages). Generally trucks and even half-tracks and APCs are as much a liability as a boon on the table top, and often not worth the points in that type of game.

I have been interested in better simulating these advantages for some time now. My ideas are based on the "longitudinal battlefield" – i.e. a table top that is much deeper than its wide (I think I started a thread on this some time ago). The disadvantage with this approach is that your battles are fought out on a narrow front, and the opportunities for flanking manoeuvre might be limited. The advantage being that mobility provides the key to concentrating force, as much as the integral firepower available to each unit, and that trucks and half-tracks are mostly able to move around the battlefield and are not in the line of sight of direct fire weapons from the end of turn one. This approach also places more emphasis on the ability of airpower and indirect fire to hamper lines of communications, which is a more realistic role for the former and a key function of the latter.

My ideas have evolved to make this approach more effective and deliver more interesting games.

1. Unless modelling a ‘horizontal' operation (like an amphibious landing or river crossing) the table must be at least two times as deep as wide. This is realistic as most advances took place along a line of communication – a river valley, wadi or escarpment, road or railway line.
2. Only static units (fixed defences, fortifications and foot mobile infantry and static heavy weapons) can be pre-deployed on the table top before the game starts, and only by the defending force. However a proportion of this force can be deployed anywhere on the table, so initiating a running battle. All mobile forces start off table.
3. Flanking moves are allowed;
a. By pre-planning units to enter the table edge where a line of communication (track, road, railway etc.) intersects the table edge farther along the flank at the beginning of the game.
b. By taking units off table and re-entering at the point where a line of communication (track, road, railway etc.) intersects the table edge farther along the flank.
c. Off-table movement is calculated at double the direct ‘on-table' movement distance to the re-entry point, and is conditional upon dice throws to leave and to enter the table (to simulate off table events such as running into an enemy force, minefield or suffering air attack).
d. In a confined valley scenario (for example), where difficult terrain marks the table edges, then flanking movement can be restricted to dismounted troops only (for example).
4. Artillery and air strikes can be pre-registered anywhere on the table top, mortars are range restricted.

In addition to improving the advantages of on-table mobility, this approach also make reconnaissance more important and such forces much more useful. In fact its very suited to a battle using armoured reconnaissance battalion based battlegroups. I'm testing this with BGK rules. Thoughts on getting General Truck into the game?

I've seen this work well in operational level games like Megablitz where the mechanized units can exploit a breakthrough and disrupt supply of enemy units. You also need the trucks for supply of course. Don't despise the humble footslogger though. The Germans conquered most of Europe and a large slice of the Soviet Union with a largely foot mobile force. You could argue that it was the decline in combat power of German infantry divisions that led to the decline in German fortunes rather than a lack of mechanized forces. The Germans had to bolster the increasingly weak infantry with their mobile forces rather than reserving and concentrating them for a decisive attack.

Fred,

Agreed on footsloggers, especially on the defensive or in support of shorter ranged operations. But I'm not just speaking of mechanised units – also the motorisation of regular infantry, artillery and supply trains. My reading of Operation Blau is that by 1942 the Germans had so few trucks (and ability to replace losses) that most needed to be given to the mechanised forces, and it then took the infantry and supply columns so long to backfill the armoured thrusts that the Russians (despite strategic incompetence) had time to get enough reserves into the Stalingrad area and the Don bend to prevent a knockout blow. This contrasts with France, where the distances were shorter and roads were better and the Germans had proportionately more trucks available. Of course most of the Italian army was completely out of the picture for much of the desert war for this reason too. Canada alone produced more trucks in WW2 than Germany. One of the reasons you see so many captured vehicles in German motorised and supply units is that they were always operating on or close to empty when trying to equip their mobile forces, whereas by 1942 the western allies had the luxury of being able provide trucks to pretty much every unit and replace losses if they needed them, and supply the Soviet army with trucks too. After Barbarossa, the Germans never recovered their operational mobility and tactical mobility was increasingly restricted to smaller mechanized battlegroups. One of the unsung miracles of the Western campaign after Normandy was the ability of the western allies to liberally resupply two army groups without access to a major channel port for most of 1944 and '45. That was down to trucks and lots of 'em.

Sounds like you're trying to model an operational advantage at the tactical level. The advantage in increased mobility would be in where a battle was fought and how many guys you have to do the fighting, not in a flanking attack etc, which would be carried out on foot (unless you're talking about armoured infantry in halftracks).
If you want show the operational superiority of a more mobile force at the tactical level, give them more choice of terrain and a percentage increase in manpower over what would normally be available.

Shaun,

Yes and no. I am trying to bring mobility into the tactical sphere – not to have the battle mostly determined by firepower and ways of avoiding it (armour, terrain etc.). The flanking issue is less about mobility and more about compensating for what you loose by having a longitudinal table.

But the only tactical mobility around was tracks or feet. Trucks wouldn't go near a battlefield. Not on purpose anyway.

I see no particular reduction in the motorization of infantry divisions. The German ID's had always been vehicle light. Most of the booty from France went to the new panzer and motorised formations. The ID's remain unchanged. German supply was and always had been dependant on rail rather than truck transport. Despite that they managed to assemble a significant truck park loaded with supplies ready to re supply 6th Army if Mansteins relief operation had succeeded. The German offensives relied on infantry making the initial breakthrough and subsequently mopping up the bypassed enemy. In an ideal scenario PD's didn't do much fighting. It was the failure of the German infantry to crack the front that doomed Kursk. Admittedly a tough nut to crack given the depth and density of the defence, but that lead to the failure of the Panzer spearheads to achieve operational freedom and that was a problem the Germans hadn't had before.

agreed, trucks and even halftracks generally didn't get too close to the battlefield. The Germans had funny ideas about driving a halftrack into the middle of the enemy, but that only lasted until the enemy had lots of .50s, DShK, and bigger. Even a .50cal will rip up a SdKfz251, so any late WW2 antitank weapon will shred one. Even a 75mm pack howitzer is capable of getting kills.

Trucks are for operational or strategic mobility, not tactical mobility. See also: Red Ball Express. Even tracked vehicles like the M113 are not really for tactical mobility. It wasn't until the BMP and Bradley were developed that you had an infantry carrier designed for tactical mobility. And a Bradley is about as well armored as a Sherman. Not great armor, but enough to stop shell splinters and 30mm or smaller caliber cannon fire.

Agreed, but what I'm concerned about is that the shooting bit is only part of the battle – even the tactical battle – the tactical art is getting enough firepower to bear so you will definitely win the shooting bit, and better intelligence and mobility allow you to bring more firepower to bear at the right place than the other guy, and that turns the game from a shoot-me-up into chess, no?

A lot depends on your ground scale and the size of your table.

It is sort of like the longbow problem. All the things that make early guns superior to longbows font translate well to the table.

Battles where trcks have been important are not gamed because one side just gets shot up. No fun to play.

Asome of the old board games could be expanded with enough extra boards to make trucks very important to get your grunts moved around. But you sure had to be careful not to get them shot.

Play FOW on 12x8 and trucks (and thus air and art) become very important.

I'm with you, Arch.

For the folks arguing the operational aspects: yes, the Germans never had many trucks for their infantry. At the beginning of the war, neither did the Allies. By the end of the war, none of the Allies were walking.

For the folks arguing trucks don't belong on the table, I would submit you're missing the point of the 'vertical' vs. 'horizontal' battlefield. I don't believe Arch is talking about having troops trucked up into small arms range, he's talking about the advantages of a truck-borne reserve on one side vs a foot-mobile reserve on the other.

Not only should the truck-borne reserve force arrive sooner, it likely deals with, due to speed of advance, less interdiction fire. Even for the issue of air superiority with overwhelming ground attack assets (1944 Western Front), both foot and mobile reserves are both going to be delayed, but all things being equal, the mobile should still arrive sooner.

The issue is echelon; obviously this doesn't apply to a platoon-level game, and a company-level game is probably still pushing it (I believe that's where the 'Battlegroup' rules reside?). Battalion-level and above and this certainly seems to, to me, to have merit.

I must meditate on this ;)

V/R,
Jack

For the folks arguing the operational aspects: yes, the Germans never had many trucks for their infantry. At the beginning of the war, neither did the Allies. By the end of the war, none of the Allies were walking.

That doesn't apply to the Russians or the British. The Russians didn't have enough trucks, even with lend lease supplies. The British infantry divisions right through the war relied on RASC trucks to provide transport, they didn't have sufficient intergral transport to move all the infantry so in no way were motorised. Where the Brits were ahead of the game in 1940 was that nothing was towed or carried by horses. All artillery, heavy equipment and supplies was motorised.

"I see no particular reduction in the motorization of infantry divisions. The German ID's had always been vehicle light. Most of the booty from France went to the new panzer and motorised formations. The ID's remain unchanged."

Actually, one of the German biographies of an artillery officer states that his divisional artillery regiment was stripped of trucks after 1940 and they reverted to horses as tow vehicles. They didn't get trucks again until the Italians surrendered.

"The British infantry divisions right through the war relied on RASC trucks to provide transport, they didn't have sufficient intergral transport to move all the infantry so in no way were motorised."

having enough trucks to transport a full division was a waste of trucks, since troops spend a tiny fraction of their time moving. Integral transport was normally enough to fully transport a brigade and corp level RASC would come up to provide transport for the rest. This gave the advantage that when a british division did get an order to move, the allocated starting brigade could immediately start to redeploy without awaiting any additional Rasc arrival. The US pool system resulted in trucks spirited away entirely from divisions to run the red ball express and consequently having to return to divisions to start the move when it was ordered and they were elsewhere.

The brits could redeploy their first brigade quicker than the US could redeploy a combat command. but when a us division moved, it would deploy as quick if not quicker than a brit division, because the whole thing was on the road at once, while a brit division may find its own rasc would have to go back after the first taxi run and pick up the patiently waiting reserve brigade.

The pool system meant that the US in the Ardennes especially suffered from withdrawels of trucks to help with supplies, all of which went to other sectors under the pool system as they themselves were not the priority and had a big contributory factor on why so many US infantry were over run in the bulge rather than fell back. I think when you look at the main US troops doing the road blocking, they did have full integral transport, eg, cavalry units, armoured troops.

The advantage of transport is always best explained by what happens when it is absent.

Archeopteryx,
we have been moving this way for some time. One of the revalations is moving to 1:144 scale. As a first time player you take a 6 ft by 4 ft board and put a "board edge" down the middle for the first 4 ft. You then put an easy drive road (no sharp bends) round the edge giving a road about 1.8m*2+1.2m= 4.8m or 4.8km in our game scale. The two ft wide is 6oom in our scale which is a frontage of 1 platoon (very roughly) in defence. You then learn all about defence in depth. You have to deploy mortars on table and it gets horribly "interesting" with you needing to allocate "forming up points" close to the road where you can call up units as the ones infront wane in combat. You then can start to use Hanomags correctly where they advance though their own artillery and de-bus the other side of the barrage and do the standared "enciclement". Its massive fun but you need to make sure your rules can cope and its not for the faint hearted as you have a lot of balls in the air at once. If you get your head round this you can make it evem more complicated by having a second less advantagious route, say with less than ideal bridge weights to add tectical complications (headeaches).