Phil Dunn's sea Battles, Naval Wargaming 1650-1945
Articles
Moving Armour in World War II
By Clive Essery of the Naval Wargames Society
I have been thinking further about Phil Dunn’s Campaign Game (and playing it out a bit more – I have made 22 hours of movement now further than I got in 1972). By 1972 I had got to Week 3, Day 3, Hour 0 and am now at Week 3, Day 4, Hour 2. I have also gamed out part of the major battle that is going to take place on Week 3, Day 6, Hour 4 (dawn with the changes that I made to the time). We played a bit of it at the Secret Bunker when we met there and I have replayed it, interestingly with similar results so far. I also played it at a NWS weekend many years ago in Gosport with similar results. I will play it to completion soon and then repeat it 3 or 4 times so that I get an average result – I think that I started one of the forces too far south this time, they were meant to be closer to the action at the start of the game, and I set the map out wrong.
What has occurred to me was that I had forgotten that by the second world war, a lot of army units will be armoured. I had wondered why Phil was using normal merchantmen to move the army units. This was why I introduced the large and small liners and moved the army units exclusively to those units.
It occurs to me that I need two types of army units, Infantry (without any vehicles, which will move at 2mph) and Mechanised/Armoured (which will move at a faster speed – maybe 30mph).
The mechanised will include some tanks and armoured cars as well as lorries or half-tracks, and may have less physical men than the Infantry units. It would also be more powerful for the same sized unit though may have issues if caught in closed ground such as towns. I am not sure how to handle that side of it yet, also I am not sure what sized unit 5,000 men would be, I would guess a Division but I am not sure as I have never done much land based gaming.
As well as transporting the vehicles in normal merchantmen instead of liners, the vehicles would need to be built in the first place. Note also that the vehicles could only be unloaded at a dock (in the early part of the war – it might take 4 to 5 years before true amphibious landings could take place) which means that only pure infantry could be unloaded on a beach near the target.
The Army Factories (I call them Factory Ground, code FG) would be the obvious choice, but at what rate would the vehicles get built and how would that equate to the units. At the moment a FG produces two times 5,000 tons of army supplies per week and takes 10,000 tons of steel to do that.
You could say something like:
A generic Tank weighs 25 tons and requires 25 tons of steel to produce.
A regiment has 3 troops of 3 tanks each with a HQ tank, ie 10 tanks or 250 tons of steel
A battalion has 3 regiments of 10 tanks with a HQ troop of 4 tanks = 34 tanks or 850 tons of steel
A division has 2 battalions of 34 tanks plus a HQ troop of 4 tanks = 72 tanks or 1800 tons of steel
You would also need a similar amount of artillery with towing vehicles, say 900 tons of steel if mechanised and 1400 if half tracked (the latter could be self-propelled like the Elefant)
The rest of the troops (infantry) would require mechanisation (a further 1800 tons of steel) or half-tracked (a further 3800 tons of steel) plus ammunition and other supplies for all of the force (say 500 tons a week)
This would give a supply requirement for a 5000 men group as follows:
Pure Infantry = 250 tons per week (this has no artillery or other heavy ammo usage other than AT rockets – bazookas etc)
Mechanised = 4500 tons to build and 500 tons per week
Half-Tracked = 7000 tons to build and 500 tons per week
Hence one Factory Ground could (using 10,000 tons of steel) produce either
enough vehicles for two Mechanised units and the supplies for each of them for one week, or
enough vehicles for 1 Half-Tracked unit and the supplies for them and enough supplies for 10 weeks for Pure Infantry or
enough vehicles for 1 Half-Tracked unit and the supplies for them and enough supplies for 5 weeks for mechanised or half-tracked units
10,000 tons of supplies (enough for 40 pure infantry units solving some of my current supply problems where only 2 armies are in supply!)
or any combo
An ordinary merchantman can carry the vehicles for either a mechanised or a half-tracked unit and 250 tons of supplies
A small liner can carry the men for any type of unit plus 250 tons of supplies
Hence to transfer a complete mechanised or half-tracked unit both a small liner and an ordinary merchantman will be required.
Force multiplies would be something like:
Half-Tracked = 1.5 * Mechanised anywhere
Half-Tracked = 1.5 * Pure Infantry in Towns or other close confines (woods)
Mechanised = 1.25 * Pure Infantry in Towns or other close confines
Half-Tracked = 6 * Pure Infantry in the open (manoeuvrability and tanks and artillery)
Mechanised = 4 * Pure Infantry in the open (ditto)
Units with no supplies will fight at half strength
Aircraft have a similar supply issue.
A Heavy Bomber (HB) airfield containing 2 squadrons of 10 HB each will probably need more machine gun bullets than a Fighter (FF) airfield containing 3 squadrons of 16 FF each because each HB has considerably more machine guns than a FF. An HB squadron will also require bombs (and TB/DB/FB squadrons bombs or torpedoes too). An early HB (eg Wellington) could probably carry about 14x1000 pound bombs and a later one such as a Stirling or Lancaster about 25*1000 pound bombs. Hence a HB airfield will require considerably more supplies than a FF airfield.
Assuming an early period raid, then you would need 20*14*1000 pounds per raid, ie about 125 tons (if I am right that there are 2240 pounds in a ton). You might add 4 tons of machine gun ammo per raid/sortie too (this is 2 tons per squadron).
I believe that torpedoes weigh approximately a ton and a dive bomber carried either 2x500 pound or 1x1000 pound bombs, so a Torpedo squadron would require 16 tons of torpedoes per sortie (include the machine gun ammo in this total) and a Dive Bomber squadron would require 8 tons of bombs including the machine gun ammo again. A fighter bomber squadron could carry 33 tons of torpedoes, 30 tons of bombs, 30 tons of depth charges or 1 ton of gun ammo if acting in the fighter role. A pure fighter squadron would need 1 ton of gun ammo. Float planes carry the equivalent amount, and a Long Range Recce squadron carries 60 tons of depth charges. Pure fighters acting in a bomber role carry 1x500 pound bomb apiece for 4 tons for the squadron.
Air Factories (Factory Air=FA in my coding) build supplies at the same rate as in the book and 5,000 tons of these can be carried by a standard merchantman, but each airfield can have a variable amount delivered to it. For each sortie/raid reduce the ammo dump by the above amounts, though note that no gun ammo is used unless the enemy is engaged. Note that carriers would need the equivalent amount of ammo and ships that carried float planes might need some too.