GHQ-WW2 Soviet Question

[dougeagle]

I'm currently planning on a '41- '42 Soviet force for GHQ-WW2 and am curious as too why the Soviets don't get more stands than that of the Germans. I thought that the German forces in the Eastern front were outnumbered in manpower and tanks.
So why is this not reflected in the rules?

[groundlber]

Dougeagle - I can't speak for the rules, since I haven't had a chance to play them yet; but I can give some insight into the 'outnumbered Germans' legend. Most of the information Americans had on the Russian front in World War Two came from German officers. The then Soviets,now Russians, were stingy with facts and generous with propaganda. Anyway, the Germans used the classic military out of overestimating enemy numbers. (It makes defeats easier to accept/explain and makes victories more incredible).
With the end of the Cold War, the now Russians/then Soviets started declassifying their records from the Great Patriotic War. Unfortunately, two generations of historians and wargamers need to unlearn some old legends.
Col. David Glantz has an excellent series of books on the Russian front that use both Russian and German records to recount the various battles and campaigns. Read some of his work to get a more balanced view of the fighting on the Russian front. He's a much better writer than I am.
Before the Germanophiles jump on my case, I concede the Germans were usually more tactically competent than the Russians at the small unit level. But at the higher levels of command , the differences tend to even out, and after all, the fighting ended in the ruins of Berlin, not Moscow.
Preparing to receive fire.
Groundlber

[Mk 1]

Much of what groundlber has said has merit. The German view that dominated western histories of the Eastern Front of WW2 did indeed slant perceptions.

But the "Red Hordes" that German memoires recount were not necessarily fabrications, nor even mis-perceptions. Often they were good, factual descriptions of the tactical environment. If there was one thing that Soviet higher levels of command were good at, it was thinning out the less critical areas of the front to concentrate forces at the point of an attack, thus often creating overwhelming numerical advantages. Thus even in timeframes when the Soviets may have only enjoyed an overall 1.2- or 1.3-to-1 advantage in manpower, artillery, airpower or armor, the Germans defending a particular piece of the front may well have suffered a 5-to-1 disparity.

How this is or isn't modelled in the GHQ rules I do not know. But I would not expect to find this modelled in most rules systems themselves. It would seem out of place to have a rule that says the Russians get to have an overwhelming advantage for every game. Rather, I would expect the issue to be covered in scenarios for the rules.

The Soviets had a huge numerical advantage in June of 1941. But its hard to game that timeframe given the poor preparedness of the Soviet frontier armies. Give the Soviet side lots of tanks, but tell them that the crews are not allowed to fire their guns because the train with the ammo hasn't arrived yet? Or tell the Soviet player he has to drive his tanks into a peat bog? Not too entertaining as a game.

By the Fall of 1941, the Germans actually outnumbered the Russians on most parts of the front. At almost every point of the Battle of Moscow the Russians were actually outnumbered, particularly in tanks. They fed lots of men and material into the battle, but they didn't all arrive at once, so while the "flow" may have been larger over time, the "count" at any given moment was almost always smaller.

It wasn't until about the middle of 1942 that the Soviets caught up to the Germans in numbers again. Then much of their numerical strength was squandered in the abortive Kharkov offensive. By the high summer season of 1942 the Soviets were often outnumbered again.

But from the winter of 1942 on, the Soviets always had more men under arms on the frontlines. Again, the concentrations varied from one part of the front to another, but as Kursk (Citadelle and Rumyantsev) showed, the Soviets had sufficient flow that they could consistently retain the numerical advantage, and would use it.

1941/42 historical scenarios could easily swing the numerical advantage to either side. However, after that is gets more challenging to game with historically accurate scenarios. I expect most scenarios give a little more balance than history actually did. "Not much fun at Stalingrad" would be a reasonable watchword -- its hard to find opponents if every game is a foregone conclusion.

Still, tactical situations varied. So can gaming scenarios. In our games we often play with unbalanced forces, but most players on both side don't know who has the advantage until they figure it out in the game.

[cbovill]

David M. Glantz is widely considered to be the foremost historian on WWII on the Eastern Front. I have read much of his material that is based on the latest available information from ex-Soviet sources, compiled with the information that has been available from western and German sources. If you look at the appendices he includes in most of his work, I don't see this German superiority of arms and men that you speak of. In the summer offensives of 41 and 42, the Germans achieved superiority in the corridors they advanced in, but were outnumbered on the whole in all categories for the front.

This ability to concentrate inferior numbers to achieve local superiority and then breakthrough and envelopment was the direct result of superior German operational tactics. It wasn't until the late 44/45 that the Soviets were able to achieve this level of sophistication. I think the Germans were more a victim of their own early successes than anything else. They became over-confident, and over extended themselves and didn't keep up on the economic and manpower side. Their operational doctrine was sound but their strategy was flawed. Before 44, the Soviets had to rely on sheer numbers to stay in the fight.

This was a struggle between quality and quantity, and Soviet quantity was superior to German quality. I don't think the western allies were able to match what the Germans achieved in 1940, and what the Soviets achieved in 1944 until after the war. Even in 43, Soviet offensives were pretty much bludgeoning frontal assaults - because they were easier to execute, and they had the numbers to make up for the increased casualties these expensive assaults created. Soviet high command had not achieved the level of operational sophistication required to conduct the kind of offensives the Germans produced earlier. The Germans and the western allies had to develop better command, control and operational doctrine out of limitations on resources and national will to sustain high casualties.

As far as the Germans over-estimating Soviet numbers, they typically seem to have under-estimated Soviet strength as evidenced by some of the strategic decisions they made which failed to account for reality. German high command was incorrect in their initial estimates of Soviet strength and war fighting ability in 41, leading them to launch Operation Barbarossa, they were incorrect again in 42 when they thought the Soviets were finished in Operation Blau, they were incorrect again in 43 when they underestimated Soviet dispositions in the Kursk salient during Operation Zitadel. They had a history of thinking they were always just about to break the back of Soviet resistance and then suddenly swarms of formations and troops would be encountered that were unknown to German intelligence. Also, the latest Soviet information is only driving their numbers ever higher than what had previously been thought.

[Vagabond Elf]

I do play with the GHQ rules... and I don't quite get the question.

Yeah, a Soviet Bn has roughly the same number of stands in it as a German Bn. Why wouldn't it? Any numberical advantage the Soviets would have isn't going to be seen in Battalions with bigger companies (or more companies), it's going to be seen in Brigades with more Battlions.

And the number of Battalions a force has isn't seen in the Army Lists, it's seen in the Scenario.

If you're doing straight points, well, the German Cohesion averages to 17. Soviet averages to 12.5. That gives the Germans a 36% advantage in cohesion, which means the Soviets get 36% of the nominal force value in additional stands.

[Mk 1]

cbovill mentioned:
David M. Glantz is widely considered to be the foremost historian on WWII on the Eastern Front. I have read much of his material that is based on the latest available information from ex-Soviet sources, compiled with the information that has been available from western and German sources. If you look at the appendices he includes in most of his work, I don't see this German superiority of arms and men that you speak of. In the summer offensives of 41 and 42, the Germans achieved superiority in the corridors they advanced in, but were outnumbered on the whole in all categories for the front.

Chris:

It is entirely possible that Glantz has provided more recent numbers than I have in my library. But if I turn to "When Titans Clashed", I find the following in the tables:

11 Sept 1941
Soviets: 3,463,000 (active on all fronts)

Germans: 3,315,000 (Eastern Front)
Germans: 67,000 (Northern Norway)
Finns: 500,000
Roumanians: 150,000
Total Axis: 4,022,000

Ratio total Soviets:Axis = 1: 1.16

1 Nov 1941 (at the height of the German Moscow offensive -mk1)
Soviets: 2,200,000 (active on all fronts)

Germans: 2,800,000 (Eastern Front)
Germans: 67,000 (Northern Norway)
Finns: 500,000
Roumanians: 150,000
Total Axis: 3,517,000

Ratio total Soviets:Axis = 1:1.9
(That's almost 2 to 1 against the Soviets)

That said, I don't mean to suggest that the Red Army was a rapier weilded by a master swordsman. But it was far more mixed than the views promulgated by Liddell Hart and the memoires of the German generals. The Soviets DID launch mass "human wave" frontal assaults. Sometimes repeatedly against the same objective even after appalling results on prior attachs. Yes, they did. Fairly often. In heavy-handed, "brutish" fashion.

But they also showed remarkable ingenuity on many other occasions. They moved large mechanized forces across terrain that was considered all but impassable, sometimes building "underwater" bridges that were not visible from the air, but were crossable by vehicles. They withdrew large formations from frontline combat, shifted them hundreds of kilometers within one or two days, and threw them into new attacks without the Germans having the first hint. They by-passed centers of resistance and struck deep into the German's rear areas. They itentified and deliberately exploited the weaknesses of Germany's allied forces, driving first the Italians, then the Roumanians from the field (costing Germany as many as 1.5 million men out of the Eastern Front order of battle). They specifically designed tanks that could go faster across bad terrain, and go further without refueling, than any other major combattant, and then (after some painful learning) managed to run deeper and faster into the German defenses than any other allied force managed to do.

No, the Red Army was not a rapier. Often a heavy blunt instrument (a war hammer?), but also often a heavy instrument with a very sharp edge (a battle axe?).

BTW - I don't quite agree that Glantz is "the foremost"... certainly "one of the foremost", as well as one of the most prolific, and one of the most influential. He has demonstrated the value of the vast contents in ex-Soviet archives, which has caused a real awakening among Western historians. But he tends to rely fairly heavily on secondary sources, and often does not look deeply enough into German sources, so that the scholorship in his writings does not always stand up well when compared with some of the more recent (and even upcoming) work which goes deeper into comparisons of BOTH sides' primary sources for given issues/actions.

But what I have said should not be considered a condemnation of his work. In recent years no one author has covered the entirety of the Eastern Front with as much new (to the West) information as Glantz. It's just that the examination of the history of the Eastern Front in WW2 is not yet complete ... we still have more to learn.

[Mobius]

'active' really doesn't tell any kind of story anyways. Its casualties and replacements that is telling in a war of attrition.

[Ritter]

The numbers are interesting MKuno...some more fodder for thought...

Add - in the Partisans and subtract the troops needed to combat them.
What were the breakdown of actual COMBAT TROOPS to rear echelon for Germans and Russians?

Troy

[Mobius]

In June 1941 the population of the Soviet Union is was almost 197 million.
So in Nov. 1941 if there were 2.2million active military is 1.1% of the total population.
There's a war on, you think they'd mobilize.
Jan 1946 the population was about 171 million.
A net loss of 26 million.

[Mk 1]

Ritter pondered:
Add - in the Partisans and subtract the troops needed to combat them.
What were the breakdown of actual COMBAT TROOPS to rear echelon for Germans and Russians?

The activities of partisans were not organized by November of 1941. IIRC it was not until the winter of 1942/43 that STAVKA really started investing in the partisans, and it was around the Kursk battles that their effect really became noticeable.

That is not to say that there was no fighting in the German's rear areas before that. There certainly was. But it was mostly fighting with Red Army forces which had been encircled, but were not yet convinced that they were defeated. Their actions were disjointed, unguided, and more easily defeated, and did not have anywhere near the impact of later activities.

But I don't know if the Soviet frontline strength numbers Glantz quotes (all from secondary sources) included these beyond-the-front soldiers or not. I'd be interested if anyone knows more on this subject.

As to the breakdown of COMBAT TROOPS versus rear echelons ... from the interest in partisans I think the more important question would be frontline versus security (still "combat") forces. I don't have any statistics off hand on this, but I expect they are available in the literature for given moments in time. I'll have a look and see if/what I have.

As to rear-echelon vs. combat troops, the Germans had a much shorter tail than the U.S., but the Soviets had a much shorter tail still. From memory (subject to all possible error) the ratios that rattle about in my mind are something like this:

Support forces to "teeth" forces (riflemen, tankers, gunners)
U.S.: 9-to-1
Germans: 3-to-1
Soviets 1-to-2

Mobius observed:
In June 1941 the population of the Soviet Union is was almost 197 million.
So in Nov. 1941 if there were 2.2million active military is 1.1% of the total population.
There's a war on, you think they'd mobilize.

Ah, but they did mobilize. Faster than anyone else ever had. Bear in mind that during the first three months of Barbarossa the Soviets lost almost 90% of the frontline strength they had in June 1941. The fact that they had any army at all in November is nothing short of remarkable.

We have all seen the criticisms of Hitler's, and the rest of the German leadership's, repeated errors in presuming the Soviets were ready to cave-in, that just one more push would finish the task. But if they had been considering any other European nation, the Germans would have been right. They managed, time and again in 1941 and 1942, to destroy the Soviet's military. By all rights, there should have been nothing left but to walk in and take the country.

Criticisms of the appalling level of training of Soviet troops in the fall of 1941 also have a strong basis in fact. But perhaps they should be statements of wonder rather than criticism. Looking just at manpower numbers, the Soviets should have lost in September of 1941. Their standing army had been destroyed. Gone. And their most densely populated territories, their industrial and their agricultural heartlands, were in enemy hands. The population of the territory under Soviet control had contracted by about 1/3, their total economic output had contracted by more. Yet they managed to replace their entire army twice before they actually started winning any land back.

As fast as their armies were destroyed, they mobilized, trained and equipped (at whatever levels) new armies. The perception of unlimited numbers that so many Germans describe was not just so many men on an individual battlefield on a given day, but so many men next week, and the week after that, and again after that. And so many tanks. And so many planes.

It is interesting to consider the implications of the "war of attrition" view of the Eastern Front. By the beginning of 1942 the Germans commanded a considerably larger population base, and a considerably larger industrial base, than the Soviets. Even if you discount out the lend-lease materials (and I do not suggest that lend-lease was not considerable, but still even if you discount it out) the Soviets out-produced and out-mobilized the Germans by a substantial margin. But they also suffered several multiples of the losses, in men and material, that the Germans (and combined Axis) did. Through the end of 1942 the Soviets were loosing the "war of attrition". They had a smaller base, and were loosing more of it. But they were winning the "war of mobilization". They were putting more men under arms faster, and eventually reducing the imbalance of their relative combat efficiency (never matching the Germans, but closing the gap considerably).

So they managed to start winning, and by the end of 1943 their population base was growing (due to territorial gains) faster than it was shrinking (due to casualities). At this point the game was pretty much up for the Germans. The already larger Soviet forces were mobilizing faster, from an increasing base, with improving combat efficiency, while the smaller Axis forces were mobilizing slower, from a contracting base, with declining combat efficiency.

Or so I see it. Could have it wrong. Still reading, still studying, still learning.

[cbovill]

Thanks for the chart Mk1, looks like I stand corrected for the fall of 41. I still have trouble believing the Soviets only had 2.2 million troops available. Their ability to mobilize everything and everyone was as productive as their regime was ruthless, and they were constantly feeding hords of new troops and formations into the meat grinder. The Germans were not nearly as effective at rebuilding their shattered formations and the logistical system was stretched to the maximum just getting essentials to the front.

[groundlber]

Everyone - Thanks for providing some numbers to back up the various points of view. This topic brings up a serious question in game and scenario design: Where do we draw the line between historical accuracy and enjoyment? Do we force the players to blindly follow the combatant's doctrine or allow the players some freedom of action? In the case of Russians/Soviets, I've found that using Soviet tactics can actually work at the tactical level. Victory is expensive, but sledgehammers aren't precision instruments.

Groundlber

[Mobius]

="Mk 1"
Ah, but they did mobilize. Faster than anyone else ever had. Bear in mind that during the first three months of Barbarossa the Soviets lost almost 90% of the frontline strength they had in June 1941. The fact that they had any army at all in November is nothing short of remarkable.

I was being sarcastic.
They had millions of men in the pipeline. Many did not last.
In 1942 they could afford 3 massive operations, 2 of which failed. Mars and Kharkov with the loss of a 500,000 men. Still the 3rd one at Stalingrad succeeded.

And their most densely populated territories, their industrial and their agricultural heartlands, were in enemy hands. The population of the territory under Soviet control had contracted by about 1/3, their total economic output had contracted by more. Yet they managed to replace their entire army twice before they actually started winning any land back.

There is a massive population base east of Moscow. Not as dense as the west but is near limitless.

[microgeorge]

Okay, since nobody else has answered the original post correctly, let me chime in. When designing your own scenarios (see the scenario design rules), the ratio of point totals for opposing forces is dependent upon the relative cohesion values of the forces. Example : say your playing a meeting engaement on the Eastern Front in 1941. Let's just say you have set the cohesion of your German force at 17 while the cohesion of your Sovet force is 13. Your Soviet point total will be 17/13 of your German point total. If the German player was conducting a hasty assault the Soviet point total would be (17/13)/2 of your German point total. All of this is explained in the scenario design rules along with a detailed example of how to design scenarios. Once you do one or two, it realy starts to become quite easy.