Soviet OOB11 corrections and suggestions

[DRG]

Can anyone confirm the info found here

http://www.soviethammer.net/blog/category/red-army/

that Soviet Light tank coys were 8 tanks in 1941 . They also show the Hvy co as 5 tanks and it seems to me we've been to this dance before

HOWEVER........... this *may* refer to a 1941 tank battalion ONLY ( by the text this seems to be the case ) ........... this may have been a temporary formation structure or it may have lasted for awhile. If anyone feels up to digging around let me know what you find out. It probably helps if the search is done in Russian.

It may be that this is just to illustrate how dire things had become in 1941 and this is just to show a "typical" formation not an official formation structure. They weren't exactly swimming in t-34's in Dec 1941

Ah !.... thinking "Tank Brigade" from 10/41 - 5/42 might cover this well enough. That gets through the winter of 41

[Pibwl]

According to http://art-of-tactic.com/ru/istorich...zvod_1941_goda a platoon (vzvod) in 1941 had 5 tanks in case of light and medium tanks and 3 tanks in case of heavy or flamethrower or amphib tanks.

A company should have 2 or 3 platoons.

Other source (Magnuski) writes about 15 T-26 in company from 1936 and 17 T-26 from 1938.

There are schemes from 2/41 of:
- a heavy tank co, with 3 x 3 +1 tanks (10)
http://shot.qip.ru/003M7J-2008a0M/
- a medium tank co, with 3 x 5 +1 tanks (16)
http://shot.qip.ru/003M7J-2008a0N/

My educated guess is, that the units should be same size - until heavy losses at least.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by PvtJoker

Weapon 084 Satchel Charge: has unrealistically high WH Size, HE Pen and HE Kill for a charge carried by hand. Compare to German OOB Weapon 229..

That might have something to do with the two being entirely different weapons.

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by DRG

That might have something to do with the two being entirely different weapons.

Satchel charges had more HE (typically 3-6 kg), but unlike offensive hand grenades and artillery shells, they had practically zero fragmentation effect and relied solely on blast for any apers effects they had.

A 6 kg satchel charge had about as much HE as a 155mm artillery shell, but no fragmentation effect to speak of. 155mm HE shell has HE kill 21, so HE kill 20 for the satchel charge is way out there, at least 2x too effective. WH size 10 is also bigger than the 155mm shell (8). Penetration 18 is also excessive by a factor of two -- 155mm HE shell has only 4 (which is actually a bit low).

I don't know what size of satchel charge the SPWW2 weapon data is based upon, but in practice about 5-6 kg is the max that a normal man can throw any distance. If a much larger charge is used, the user will be within the blast radius and the whole thing becomes a Japanese pole mine type suicide weapon.

I have read that up to 10 kg charges were sometimes used, but they had to be placed rather than thrown and had to have a longish time fuze, and were therefore quite impractical as AT weapons. They were also unnecessary, I might add; Finnish experience showed that a 6 kg TNT satchel charge could destroy even heavy tanks (IS-2) fairly consistently if placed on thinner top armor.

Jaeger Platoon's writeup on satchel charges:

http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/OTHER_AT_WEAPONS1.htm

Soviet satchel charges used for AT purposes were in most ways similar to the Finnish ones.

[DRG]

So what exactly does that have to do with you comparing two different weapons then complaining they are different ? Satchel charges have and have had the same stats for all nations in both games with only one minor variation for years so if you want to compare the Soviet satchel charge and the German one they you have to look at weapon #84 in both. ( and then you will find the one minor variation ) . The stats as they stand have done what we want it to do in the game for years without comment until now. I have acknowledged you appear to have a different opinion

Don

[Imp]

Originally Posted by DRG

So what exactly does that have to do with you comparing two different weapons then complaining they are different ? Satchel charges have and have had the same stats for all nations in both games with only one minor variation for years so if you want to compare the Soviet satchel charge and the German one they you have to look at weapon #84 in both. ( and then you will find the one minor variation ) . The stats as they stand have done what we want it to do in the game for years without comment until now. I have acknowledged you appear to have a different opinion

Don

Remember the game cant differentiate between placed & thrown use.
Engineers can use them as hastily placed charges vs wooden bridges, about a 1 in 10 chance of success I would guess.
For a properly placed charge buy something from the demolition formation, you can then set it off when desired to though success is not certain.

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by DRG

Can anyone confirm the info found here

http://www.soviethammer.net/blog/category/red-army/

that Soviet Light tank coys were 8 tanks in 1941 . They also show the Hvy co as 5 tanks and it seems to me we've been to this dance before

Going by Zaloga's splendid Red Army Handbook (also published as Companion to the Red Army) the Soviet TOEs seem to have been adjusted quite a lot of times in 1941-42. I have listed a summary of some of these below (please consider grabbing a nice cup of vodka before proceeding).

Motorized and tank divisions in June 1941 TOE have 10 tanks in heavy company, 17 tanks in medium company, 17 tanks in light company and 12 tanks in flamethrower company (3 gun tanks plus 9 flamethrower tanks).

Already in July 1941 division organisation was reviewed, and all tank companies (light, medium and heavy) streamlined to 10 tanks per company. Flamethrower tanks no longer seem to make an appearance on this divisional organisation.

Then in August 1941 TOE for tank brigades was issued. This time heavy companies were reduced to 7 tanks each, while light company and medium company remained at 10 tanks per company.

Revised tank brigade TOE was issued in December 1941, matching the one given in the link above. In this TOE light company contains 8 tanks (2 in HQ plus two platoons of 3 tanks each), medium company contains 10 tanks (1 in HQ plus three platoons of 3 tanks each) and heavy company contains 5 tanks (1 in HQ plus two platoons of 2). Both of the tank battalions in brigade contained one each of light, medium and heavy company, but the battalion HQ had no tanks at all, with battalion commander needing to get around on a radio truck!

Next major tank brigade reorganisation takes place in July 1942. This time both light and medium companies are standardised at 10 tanks each, battalion commanders are given their personal tanks, and heavy tanks no more show up in TOE. In November 1943 TOE also light tanks disappear from tank brigade TOE, which from then on consists only of medium tank companies (10 tanks each).

Besides tank brigades, there were also separate tank battalions established. August 1941 version features two light companies (10 tanks each), medium company (7 tanks) and battalion HQ (2 medium tanks). Revised TOE issued in November 1941 featured two light companies (10 tanks each), medium company (10 tanks), heavy company (5 tanks) and battalion HQ (1 medium tanks)

September 1942 saw introduction of tank regiment, employed as separate formation or as part of mechanised corps. In this TOE light companies are 16 tanks each (1 in HQ and three platoons of 5 tanks each) and medium companies 11 tanks each (2 in HQ plus three platoons of 3). In January 1943 this is reduced to 7 tanks per light company (1 in HQ plus two platoons of 3 tanks each) and 10 tanks per medium company.

Guards heavy breakthrough regiments, consisting of only heavy tanks, start appearing in October 1942.

In case you actually managed to read this far, I would like to recommend having another hearty cup of vodka.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Griefbringer

In November 1943 TOE also light tanks disappear from tank brigade TOE, which from then on consists only of medium tank companies (10 tanks each)..

How many Med companies for the Nov 43 brigade ? 2 ? and did the tank brigade stay that way until the end of the war or did the organization stop before that ?

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by DRG

How many Med companies for the Nov 43 brigade ? 2 ? and did the tank brigade stay that way until the end of the war or did the organization stop before that ?

Checking the book again, November 43 tank brigade consisted of three battalions, each with two medium companies (10 T-34 each) plus one T-34 in battalion HQ. Brigade headquarters fielded two more T-34s. No further changes were done to tank brigade organisation, with this structure remaining in use until the end of war.

[Besides the tank battalions, November 1943 tank brigade also featured motorised SMG battalion, AAMG company and the usual assortment of rear echelon supply, maintenance and administrative assets.]

[DRG]

Originally Posted by PvtJoker

Weapon 136 PTRD obr 41 ATR: had sights only up to 1000 meters. However, ballistics were the same as PTRS (Weapon 143). It already has a lower accuracy than barrel length (1350mm) would give it, so in my opinion you can give it the same range as PTRS. Giving them different ranges makes no sense and neither does the current range 14 (see below).

Weapon 143 PTRS obr 41 ATR: had adjustable sights up to 1,500 meters (30). Current range 14 also means that penetration beyond 250 meters is unrealistically low (ballistically the 14.5mm bullets were/are superior to 12.7mm bullets).

There isn't a source in existence that does not say in one way or another that ATR were near useless at anything more than point blank range. Wiki, which you like to quote. says......"The PTRD suffered from numerous flaws; the most notable are the lack of penetration versus enemy vehicles and inability to aim accurately "

but someone else, a fan obviously, wrote the PTRS write up "The 14.5 mm armour-piercing bullet has a muzzle velocity of 1013 m/s and devastating ballistics. It can penetrate an armour plate up to 40 mm thick at a distance of 100 meters" and it also claims the effective range against armour vehicles is 800m .

Even at the current range your best AP pen could go as high as 5 for PBR and stay at 4 all the way to 250 yards which by all accounts this would be unrealistically HIGH and increasing the range beyond what we have now only pushes that unrealistically high potential penetration even further so while the accuracy we have now is too low and will be adjusted there is no justification for increasing the range to widen the potential 4 pen zone even further than it is now

Edit........ as for "had adjustable sights up to 1,500 meters ".... that's nice. The Lee Enfield had adjustable sights up to 1300 yards and the 98k has sights that go to 2000m so how high the adjustable sights can be adjusted is worthless information in game terms and in real life

Don