Order of Battle: World War II - OoB

[JTFox001]

Since we’re talking specific formations now, here’s mine:

In general I structure as follows, adding support units based on the needs of the scenario. Note that this is the OOB I hit mid campaign usually, not the one I start with as CP is limited early and gradually expands over the course of a campaign.

2x Footmobile Formation
Mission: capture heavily entrenched areas, when necessary fight enemy armor formations
Avoids: open terrain
* 2-3x foot infantry
* 1x short range siege artillery (at least 4 range, at least 2 damage to entrenchment, best performance vs entrenched units)
* (scen dependent) 1x AA (prefer 2 movement, prefer footmobile)
* (scen dependent) 1x AT (prefer 2 movement, prefer footmobile, prefer AT+ART)
* (if CP permits) 1x Tank (prefer TANK+ART)
* (if CP permits) 1x ENG

1x Mechanized Formation
Mission: move quickly to capture distant objectives
Avoids: densely forested terrain, lots of hills/mountains, dense urban areas
* 2x Tank (prefer medium, 5-6 CP, best in class)
* 1x Recon (prefer best combat stats)
* 1x Heavy Infantry (motorized or mechanized)
* 1x Engineer (motorized or mechanized)
* 1x ART (prefer self propelled or if unavailable longest range)
* (scen dependent) 1x SP AT (prefer medium, prefer AT + ART)
* (scen dependent) 1x SP AA (prefer mechanized)
In jungle heavy scenarios or scenarios with frequent landings I will often have 2-3x Marines that I will sub in to other combat formations.

And here’s my explanation for why I pick what I pick in them:

viewtopic.php?f=264&t=101735&start=40#p893522

Excellent stuff, will need to read a few times to take it all in.

Cheers

[JTFox001]

Guys, it's not ready but I have a concept under testing/developing, that - somewhat - eases this problem and makes the game a bit more clarified and interesting. I just need some demo units to make screens and better wording. Right now, I want to release AAA first, then think more after then.

Looking forward to seeing the results.

Cheers

[StuccoFresco]

That's what the main issue here, the scale. In even regimental scale, the majority of art at aa, etc would be integrated to infantry, even tank battalions gone on divisional scale as Pz Divs have PzGren battalions and motorized arty as well... The combat system of OOB fits perfectly for company level, where a tank figure can represent a squadron, an assault gun having weak flanks no longer behaves like that on higher level, having attached support, etc.

In my historical mod, I wanted to remove some of the units from Purchase Panel - e.g. for the German faction: 37mm and 50mm PaK, 7.5cm leIG or 10.5cm leFH, similarly light AA guns (2cm, 3.7cm and S-P AA with these guns) because they were part of the Wehrmacht division.
So they are somewhat 'inside' the infantry or panzer unit in OoB. I was only planning to increase the anti-aircraft defense stats for both infantry and tank units.
I would leave only heavy artillery (15cm and above), heavy anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery (e.g. 8.8cm Flak or 7.5cm PaK), self-propelled anti-tank guns (StuGs and other tank destroyers), because all these units were most often independent units at the disposal of the corps or army HQs and were assigned to support German divisions in the main operational directions, and later to defend the most important points on the frontline
This is the way to create the most realistic OoB operational simulator IMHO
Of course, a similar procedure should be performed for other fractions.

I had a semi-different idea: I used the Regiment as the base unit and divided Divisions in three "line" regiments and one battalion of Divisional Guns. The Guns provide AA and AT cover and can bombard; they can switch between the two stances. I also have Heavy Artillery Groups with greater range and heavy AA (they can switch between arty/AA modes). And of course the HQ units at Corps and Army level.

I introduced Brigades as "special" units: Assault Brigades full of assault guns and lots of breakthrough artillery, Cavalry Brigades with lots of light tanks and mobile cavalry, etc.

Keeps everything really tidy, and the incentives keeping the divisions together and HQ close (to grant AT and AA cover) makes everything much more """realistic""".

[kondi754]

That's what the main issue here, the scale. In even regimental scale, the majority of art at aa, etc would be integrated to infantry, even tank battalions gone on divisional scale as Pz Divs have PzGren battalions and motorized arty as well... The combat system of OOB fits perfectly for company level, where a tank figure can represent a squadron, an assault gun having weak flanks no longer behaves like that on higher level, having attached support, etc.

In my historical mod, I wanted to remove some of the units from Purchase Panel - e.g. for the German faction: 37mm and 50mm PaK, 7.5cm leIG or 10.5cm leFH, similarly light AA guns (2cm, 3.7cm and S-P AA with these guns) because they were part of the Wehrmacht division.
So they are somewhat 'inside' the infantry or panzer unit in OoB. I was only planning to increase the anti-aircraft defense stats for both infantry and tank units.
I would leave only heavy artillery (15cm and above), heavy anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery (e.g. 8.8cm Flak or 7.5cm PaK), self-propelled anti-tank guns (StuGs and other tank destroyers), because all these units were most often independent units at the disposal of the corps or army HQs and were assigned to support German divisions in the main operational directions, and later to defend the most important points on the frontline
This is the way to create the most realistic OoB operational simulator IMHO
Of course, a similar procedure should be performed for other fractions.

I had a semi-different idea: I used the Regiment as the base unit and divided Divisions in three "line" regiments and one battalion of Divisional Guns. The Guns provide AA and AT cover and can bombard; they can switch between the two stances. I also have Heavy Artillery Groups with greater range and heavy AA (they can switch between arty/AA modes). And of course the HQ units at Corps and Army level.

I introduced Brigades as "special" units: Assault Brigades full of assault guns and lots of breakthrough artillery, Cavalry Brigades with lots of light tanks and mobile cavalry, etc.

Keeps everything really tidy, and the incentives keeping the divisions together and HQ close (to grant AT and AA cover) makes everything much more """realistic""".

Ok, but you still classify your units as regiments, brigades, etc.
When you fight on Saipan or Peleliu it's ok, but when you attack Moscow it turns out that the CPs are enough for you only to deploy max 3 divisions (1 corps), it is a bit too little, when Moscow was attacked by 4 German armies = about 16 corps...

[Admiral_Horthy]

Also, keep in mind that a properly scaled scenario would break the game... geez I mean, you will break the game - your PC - after a 55minutes long AI turn... )

[Admiral_Horthy]

Ok, but you still classify your units as regiments, brigades, etc.
When you fight on Saipan or Peleliu it's ok, but when you attack Moscow it turns out that the CPs are enough for you only to deploy max 3 divisions (1 corps), it is a bit too little, when Moscow was attacked by 4 German armies = about 16 corps...

The vanilla Moscow scenario.. exactly that why it was strange to me, I has so few units along the front, half the soviet side could have crossed the line between my units. Even if I had twice it would have been close

[TheFilthyCasual]

Regiments and brigades are the largest unit size it makes much sense for the units to represent, as things like AA or Artillery divisions were niche units that few countries used, and some unit types (like AT guns or Recon units), as far as I know, have never, ever been used at a division scale before.

Even then, the particularity of equipment types actually makes the in-game units most similar to battalions, since battalions are the largest units that can have consistently uniform equipment (tank models, artillery calibers, etc). However, the scale of the game is too large, as if you think of your units as battalions you'll never have enough cps to field more than a division, and I'm fairly sure almost every battle featured in the game involved more than a single division.

[StuccoFresco]

Ok, but you still classify your units as regiments, brigades, etc.
When you fight on Saipan or Peleliu it's ok, but when you attack Moscow it turns out that the CPs are enough for you only to deploy max 3 divisions (1 corps), it is a bit too little, when Moscow was attacked by 4 German armies = about 16 corps...

It's a total conversion with fictional scenarios, so I can make scenarios of the same or same-ish scale. With the vanilla game it's simply impossible to create something like that because the scale change massively between scenarios.

[kondi754]

Ok, but you still classify your units as regiments, brigades, etc.
When you fight on Saipan or Peleliu it's ok, but when you attack Moscow it turns out that the CPs are enough for you only to deploy max 3 divisions (1 corps), it is a bit too little, when Moscow was attacked by 4 German armies = about 16 corps...

It's a total conversion with fictional scenarios, so I can make scenarios of the same or same-ish scale. With the vanilla game it's simply impossible to create something like that because the scale change massively between scenarios.

Oh, ok
You decide everything in such a situation

[conboy]

viewtopic.php?f=374&t=93192&p=797015&hi ... le#p797015

This conversation has been going on for a long time. As far as we can tell, there is no hex scale for unit frontage that matches artillery ranges and infantry march speeds for one turn. Maybe corps, but we aren't sure.

If you find such a hex scale (e.g.., 1 hex @ 1 km) that matches up arty range and infantry movement, please let us know!

Naval hexes are "different".

conboy

[Admiral_Horthy]

My Hex scale is, depending on Artillery ranges are 2500m - 1 Hex - ground units. Range 5 = 12500meters - plus rounding in some cases.

Naval units are completely different matter, but they could be integrated into this system.

Game scale always get stuck on two problems - Arty range and speed values. In some scenarios, heavy artillery should be able to cover the entire map...

For my company scale varian, I doubled ranges, - better but still not perfect.

[conboy]

Fortunately, references are plentiful on the issue of unit frontages:

US Discussion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... ttlefield/
USSR and Germany Discussion:
https://balagan.info/infantry-unit-frontages-during-ww2

The US field manuals are available too.

Looks like your 2500m frontage is about right for a Regiment, and that would match up with realistic gun ranges. But when you go to 800-1000m for a Battalion, then your units are moving too slowly to make historical timelines and your guns don't reach very far. That's the problem I dealt with in designing a Division-based campaign in which I wanted to show all the Battalions. I am referring to the vanilla OoB, not a mod.

Without going into this too deeply, it looks like my previous comment about Corps-level was erroneous. To get precise, you'd have to know the march rates for different units and so on (from memory, I think the US infantry single-day march rate was 12 miles). I looked all this up one time and then just gave up, but it looks like your 2500 m hex size is not too bad a complement for the vanilla version, which is what I'm sticking with. For some reason, I think Kondi convinced me the Corps was the closest match, but I can't remember why.

conboy