Transport question

Panzerleader71 · Post by **Panzerleader71** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 3:20 pm

How many combat troops (minus driver and co-driver) could the average WWII infantry carrier (ie German 251 or US M3) transport?

Luca · Post by **Luca** » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:38 pm

The armoured carrier was designed to carry an avarage infantry squad or zug, so 8 to 10 men. In addition the carrier had a machine gunner that gave covering fire to the disenbarking infantry, so the crew of the veichle was of 3. The engineer armoured carriers carried few men because were loaded with lot of equipment. The flametrower hanomag had 3 servants manning the 3 flametrowers it was provided with.

Hope this helps!

Panzerleader71 · Post by **Panzerleader71** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:11 am

It does. And thanks for the extra info as well.

Just try to reconcile some information in a couple of games I am looking at. One (FoW) seems to say that you can pack pretty much any number of squads on board. While another says they can only carry a squad. I knew reality was somewhere in the middle.

Hugewally · Post by **Hugewally** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 3:12 am

SdKfz 251 - http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... =sdkfz+251

M-3 - http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=n ... +halftrack

Timothy OConnor · Post by **Timothy OConnor** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 3:50 am

Panzerleader71 wrote:It does. And thanks for the extra info as well.

Just try to reconcile some information in a couple of games I am looking at. One (FoW) seems to say that you can pack pretty much any number of squads on board. While another says they can only carry a squad. I knew reality was somewhere in the middle.

FOW suffers from the "clown car" rule which allows an entire platoon to ride in any surviving vehicle of the platoon. So, in FOW an entire rifle platoon can fit in a jeep, kubelwagen, or even a motorcycle. The idea was to simplify carrying capacity rules but it has resulted in some bizzare tabletop activities (then again, FOW suffers from lots of bizzare rules).

The challenge within a rules context is to figure out how many troops fit in a vehicle as a standard but to also recognize that vehicles are often over-stuffed as others within the platoon are destroyed. For my homgrown rules I have standard vehicle capacity measured in stands but allow an extra stand to ride along. Such overloaded vehicles have a greater chance of passenger casualties when hit.

In WWII don't forget that there were also smaller versions of these tracks such as the 250 and the M2.

This problem is even greater for modern gamers since most IFVs only fit 6-7 troops but some forces (eg US army) insist on organizing their mech squads as 9 men. Bradley squads used to conform to Bradley seating (2 squads spread over 4 IFVs) but their new approach has the platoon's 3 squads mixed up across 4 vehicles. Quite a mess. In theory the A3 can carry 7 men but that's still short of 2 full fire teams (and one soldier I spoke with says that 7th seat isn't really usable given its location and typical equipment loads.

Panzerleader71 · Post by **Panzerleader71** » Tue Jan 01, 2008 4:01 am

Yeah, the most I have ever heard carried on a vehicle was 30 troops being evac'd from the Bar Lev line during the opening stages of the '73 War. That was 30 troops packed on one Centurion

. Must looked rather strange when it got back to base.

Ritter · Post by **Ritter** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:14 am

The M3 and later M3A1 were designed for carrying a US squad and had seating for 13 (1 driver 12 soldiers). The 251/1 Ausf A through D were designed to carry an early to mid German squad and had seating for 12 ( 1 driver and 11 soldiers) but were very cramped at that!

Im sure it would be possible to exceed these figures but at some point it might be better to be walking - especially if someone had the beans!

Troy