"Really need TMP's help on this" Topic

Greetings my fellow gamers!

I have a huge request from you all. I'm trying my hand at making my own war game and I need some help.

It's going to be squad based.

What I'm lacking is knowledge on the individual squads each country would have.

I have the rifle/SMG/LMG/engineer squads down but what other squads am I missing?

Paratroops…..stuff like that. The more unique squads. Maybe a heavy weapons squad?

Is there a list, perhaps?, of each nations squad level units?

Thanks!

Try here:

bayonetstrength.150m.com

So you gave up on the idea of a board game after only two days?

TFL's Chain of Command has tons of info re: platoons for various countries at various times.

It's going to be squad based.

By squad-based, do you mean that:

a.) One squad is the total force that a player commands
b.) Squads are the maneuver elements in the game
c.) Each base represents a single squad
d.) Something else

If anything than option a, then could you also explain how large a force each player is supposed to command?

Maybe a heavy weapons squad?

As far as I recall, no formation in WWII was called "Heavy weapon squad". However, heavy weapon platoons (on company level) and heavy weapon companies, support companies and machine gun companies (on battalion level) existed.

These platoons/companies could then contain machine gun squads, mortar squads, anti-tank squads, pioneer squads, anti-tank gun squads, carrier sections, infantry gun squads and so on.

@Flint….nope, just want to expand on the boardgame I'm playing

@Grief…..hope I'm explaining myself :)

a) multiple squads on the map…lots!
b) yes….one counter is a squad of men…1 tank is 1 tank….1 gun is 1 gun
c) yes

There's an excellent boardgame pitched at exactly this level called Heroes of Normandie which others recommended to you in your boardgame thread the other day. I can highly recommend it, base game will give you hours of fun, loads of expansions if that's your thing.

Now for some tough love. I recall a recent-ish thread where you said you were going to get, and had actually ordered, 15mm stuff for WW2. Your WW2 advice threads go back 3 years now and you still seem to be changing your mind every month or so. If you had taken advice then and got painting and so on you could have a humungeous WW2 set up by now. This is a hobby where it's stupidly easy to get distracted and say "I'm going to do this…and also this…and this too…and as a side project, this…" but that way lies madness (I know from experience).

For the sake of your sanity, and the sake of actually gaming, please, please, please just pick something and stick to it!

If you're looking at 1 stand = 1 squad, have a look at the orbats and TO&Es here link and the orbats contained within the scenarios here link

However, bear in mind that in this instance, 1 vehicle or heavy weapon model represents 2-3 actuals.

@Frothers…I know, I know! It's boardgames for me, honest!

@Jemima….thank you!

If each counter is a squad, you can probably get away without a lot of in-depth information.

All you need is a rough aggregate of firepower and that's going to correlate very strongly with training, discipline and general bloody-minded-ness.

Weasel's advice is excellent. Our upcoming game, Rush of Battle, uses a scale of 1 stand = ~3 fire teams. Instead of worrying about individual small arms and look at aggregate firepower. You still need to know unit load outs to factor those values but it's easier on players if you do most of that work.

Yea, it's not going to be too hard. I mean, almost every nation in WW2 had engineers, flamethrowers, AT rifles, LMG/HMG, mortar's etc….

I guess my issue is finding out what the units are called.

For instance….did Italy have "mountain" units? What kind of gear did they use? How effective were they against tanks/fortifications?

Guess this requires lots and lots of research! (something I'm good at and enjoy!)

Thanks to all who have commented.

Italian mountain troops are the very famous 'Alpini' regiments. During World War II, Italy fielded six Alpine divisions:

1st Alpine Division Taurinense
2nd Alpine Division Tridentina
3rd Alpine Division Julia
4th Alpine Division Cuneense
5th Alpine Division Pusteria
6th Alpine Division Alpi Graie

Each division consisted of two Alpini regiments with three battalions each, one Alpine Artillery Regiment with three Artillery groups, one Mixed Engineer Battalion, one Logistic Battalion and some support units. The strength of each division was 573 officers and 16,887 NCOs and soldiers for a total strength of 17,460 men. Also each division had almost 5,000 mules and 500 vehicles of various types at its disposal.

The divisions saw combat in France, Africa, Italy, Albania, The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Greece. One Alpini battalion was employed in East Africa. In 1942, Tridentina, Julia and Cuneense division were sent to fight in the Soviet Union. In Russia, instead of being deployed in the Caucasus mountains as expected, the Alpini were tasked with holding a front on the plains of the Don River. As a result of this disastrous strategic decision, troops armed, trained, and equipped for mountain warfare were pitted in the plains against tanks and mechanized infantry, to counter which they were neither equipped nor trained.

Despite this, the Alpini held the front until January 1943, when, due to the collapse of the Axis front, they were encircled by the advancing Soviet Army. The Alpini were able to break the encirclement and fight their way towards the new line of the front established after the Axis retreat.

Only about one third of the Tridentina division (4250 survivors of 15,000 troops deployed) and one tenth of the Julia (1,200/15,000) were able to survive this odyssey. The Cuneense division was annihilated.

You want a board game with 1 counter = 1 squad and 1:1 vehciles?
I believe it's called 'Squad Leader'

Yes, as Dexter says, Squad Leader is the game you want, with more national fluff around squad/vehicles types than you can ever comprehend.

I would also echo Frothers comments.

Combat Effectiveness of squads is not a function of weapon power. And it isn't a constant value.

I googled this pdf. It has a good list of influencing factors starting page 372.
link

just want to expand on the boardgame I'm playing

What board game would that be, and which formations does it cover at the moment?

And which of the non-covered nations you would be particularly interested in?

multiple squads on the map…lots!

You did not really tell what sort of overall force level you would be looking for. This tends to affect what sort of formation information would be most useful for you.

So is the player expected to be in command of a battalion, or something else?

@Griefbringer….

Conflict of Heroes. Pretty much just covers Germany vs Russia from 41-42 and Guadalcanal

I want counters for US, UK, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan from 40-45. I know…huge undertaking, but my best friend is helping me out.

At the most, we're thinking of having, at minimum, a couple companies on the board.

Sounds like what you primarily need are battalion TOEs then.

For US, UK and German organisations, the previously mentioned Bayonet Strenght website provides quite a lot of battalion organisations (though it does not quite cover everything):

bayonetstrength.150m.com

It also has some basic information on Italian and Japanese organisation.

As for Soviet forces, good starting point would be getting hold of the Red Army Handbook 1939-1945 (also published as the Companion to Red Army 1939-1945) from Zaloga.

I suggest you familiarise yourself with those before starting hunting organisations for the Polish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, French, Slovakian, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Brazilian or Chinese militaries.

I don't want to start another thread (but I will if I have to!) :)

Here is my list of German squad sized forces.

Panzergrenadier (heavy inf squad)
Rifle squad
Panzerfaust unit
Pioneers (engineer squad)
MG 34/42 squad
Flammenwerfer squad
AT Rifle squad
Waffen SS squad
Fallschirmjager (paratrooper squad)
Gebirgsjager (light inf squad)

What infantry unit type would you add to this?

Don't you really need a matrix for your squads. Across the top of the matrix you would have division such as Wehrmacht , SS, paratrooper, Mountain troops. The rows would be the weapons or function type: rifle, flamethrower, engineer, ATV rifle, MG, etc.

Each of the division types have contained within if each of the squad types so you have Wehrmacht rifle squads,
Wehrmacht Flamethrower squads, Wehrmacht engineer squads; SS rifles squad, SS flamethrowers squad, SS engineer squad; paratrooper rifles squad, paratrooper flamethrower squad, paratrooper engineers squad (didn't they carry flamethrowers); Mountain division rifle squad, Mountain flamethrower squad, Mountain engineer squad.

There are Wehrmacht SS, paratrooper, Mountain machine gun squads.

There were likewise individual squads in the volksGrenadier's, in the Panzer Grenadier's, in the Herman Goering divisions and so forth

Bobgnar makes a very good point about matrix structure. However, rather than basing it on divisional structure, I would start with battalions, since there can be multiple different types of battalion in a given division (and battalion TOEs are likely to be the most useful starting point for OP).

So a good starting point would be to make a list of the battalions you would be interested to cover, such as:

- Infantry battalion
- Grenadier battalion
- Volksgrenadier battalion
- Volksturm battalion
- Panzergrenadier battalion (motorized)
- Panzergrenadier battalion (armoured)
- Motorcycle battalion
- Cavalry battalion
- Gebirgsjäger battalion
- Fallschirmjäger battalion

(As regards the Waffen-SS formations, they tended to follow similar battalion organisations as their Heer equivalents.)

Then once you have got a list of battalions ready, start going through the battalion TOEs one at the time, so you can figure out what squad types can be found in a given battalion. For example, starting with the infantry battalion for 1941, as covered here:

link

would reveal that the battalion has following squad-sized units:

- Rifle squad
- Light mortar section (5 cm)
- Anti-tank rifle section
- MG squad (tripod mounted)
- Medium mortar squad (8 cm)

And if you then check the organisation for their parent regiment ( link ), then at that level you can find the following types:

- Cavalry squad
- Bicycle squad
- Pioneer squad
- Infantry gun (7.5 cm)
- Infantry gun (15 cm)
- Anti-tank gun (3.7 cm)

Then once you start moving on towards later infantry/grenadier/volksgrenadier regiments, you should encounter at least SMG/StG squads, heavy mortar squads (12 cm), anti-tank guns (5 cm and 7.5 cm) and panzerschreck squads.

Naturally there are also the various platoon, company and battalion command elements, though I have no idea whether you are going to include those as distinct elements.

As regards the panzerfausts, there were no specific units designed for them. Rather, they were allocated to regular squads on top of their normal equipment as needed / available. Wargaming convention tends to be to allocate them mainly to rifle squads.

Regarding flammenwerfers, I am not entirely sure how they were officially organised, but my impression is that on tactical level they would not be grouped as squads on their own – instead you might find a single flamethrower as part of a squad with small arms. Wargaming convention tends to be that they are usually allocated to engineer squads.

Conflict of Heroes already covers quite a bit. You missed out the Polish order of battle (Price of Honour module) and all of the German / Russian 1943 order of battle that comes in their Kursk module (Storms of Steel), which is about to be re-printed over the next few months.

There is also a Monster Tanks expansion and a Marsh expansion. There ar enough scenarios in that lot to keep you playing for months and months.

Guadalcanal will probably be 2nd quarter next year and France 1940, Crete and Normandy para drops are on the promised list – though Academy games do tend to deliver late on what they promise / announce.

I am a keen WWII squad level gamer, but have never felt the need to expand the order of battle of CoH in the way that you describe, especially so early in your involvement with the game. I am left feeling that your desire to have 'everything' is outstripping your experience of how units were formed, equipped and operated i.e. are you running before you can walk (I make this comment politely and in friendliness having regard for your previous postings on the matter).

Systems also tend to break your list up into squads, teams, crew and support weapons. so for example, your flamethrower capacity is like to be associated with your engineer squads and the panzerfaust capacity will either be an allowance of the allocated weapons, or squads (say German 1944) will have an enhanced anti-tank capability to reflect panzerfauset assets. Bazookas and Panzerschrecks on the other hand are often dealt out as support weapons and machine guns are often shown as independent with inherent crew or they are allocated to squads or half squads.

It may be worth your while looking at Lock 'n load as they are bringing back into print all their old stuff, plus new modules, so that could be a fast way into a wide order of battle. I have just picked up their Heroes of the Pacific (yes another heroes system!), which looks good ……. though only ASL seems to have the multitude of squad types that you seek, with most other systems taking a slightly more generic approach to such things when they build up their scenarios.

You could do worse than go to boardgamegeek and look at the tutorial videos for Band of Brothers, Conflict of heroes, ASL and Lock 'n Load. Collectively they will give you an idea of how the systems 'manage' the whole concept of Orders of Battle.

Finally, go to Boardgamegeek and search for a game called Valor and Victory. The chap (Barry Doyle) who designed that tactical game wanted a very easy style ASL of game. He is an artist and so his graphics are excellent. He gave a lot of stuff free to the community and that covered several nations, those files I believe are still available as are his maps. Making a donation to him is appropriate if you use his files.