WIELKOPOLSKA - Phase 3 - The Beginnings of a Plan
March 3, 1940 - 0:00 - First Armored Unit Deployment - Torun:
A very modest beginning to my future armored force arrives with a Lt. Armored division which is placed in Torun. I assign the division to Lt. General "Hubal" Dobrzanki who, while still a Major, distinguished himself as a cavalry officer during the German campaign. Hubal will make an excellent armored korp commander with his combination of logisitics expertise and sound tactical mastery. It will be important to assign Logistics Wizards to as much of my mobile forces as possible because of the signficantly higher supply and oil consumption. This will be particularly crucial as I look forward to a Russian campaign where I intend to have many armored korps operating on Offensive Supply simultaneously. Until then, I'll also want to be a frugal as possible with my oil and supply stockpiles.
March 6 - 29, 1940 - Diplomacy:
The new appointment of August Zaleski as Foreign Minister allows me to continue you my diplomatic push at 67% of the cost under Beck (59 before; 40 now). I'll begin to warm up to Romania who I hope to bring into an alliance with me. I'll do the same with Hungary later, but my relations are lower with Romania so I know it will take more time. I'm also gathering as many possible technologies from the UK (where I receive the best deals) in anticipation of losing access to the UK in the coming months. I also maintain a steady contant pressure on the USSR where I'm beginning to see signs of success.
March 8-25, 1940 - Internal Security Update:
Slowly I whittle away at the foreign spy rings within Poland. It should take me roughly 7 more weeks and I will finally have rid myself of foregn infiltrators. Once that is accomplished, I can turn my attention outwards.
March 10, 1940 - 0:00 - Improved Decryption Devices Research Compete:
Stefan Banach completes research of
Improved Decryption Devices (IntOp Chance Us +25%, and a variety of other combat surprise benefits) and is immediately put onto the next project: Advanced Computing Machine, a tech for which I received a blueprint in a trade with the UK last month. Stefan Banach is my best researcher so intend to keep him as busy as I can.
March 1-26, 1940 - Trade Update:
Trade continues to thrive. I have so many profitable trade deals that I can afford to send some spare energy to Hungary as a gesture of goodwill in my effort to bring Hungary closer to my way of thinking. My diplomatic push on the Soviet Union also begins to show some benefits with the Russians offering me a modest trade deal for oil. Because of my future war ambitions and need to support a large armored force, I want trade deals that net large quantities of oil. I also look for deal that allow me to trade supplies for money to help support my continuing diplomatic and intelligence efforts.
March 14, 1940 - 1:00 - Militia Deployment - Banská Bystrica:
The 4th Militia unit arrive where it is deployed in Banská Bystrica, a former Slovakia province with a relatively high revolt risk. Militias don't do very well at supressing revolt risk, however they're a cheap unit to use to counter any insurgents that might apprear.
March 23, 1940 - 1:00 - Garrison Deployment - Stuttgart:
My 7th Garrison division arrives and is placed in Stuttgart. Revolt risk in former German territory is now nearly completely under control.
March 29, 1940 - 2:00 - Military Intelligence:
An important result of the Improved Decryption Devices technology is that I can now see more detailed information regarding enemy troop disposition (note that question marks have been revoced from the Russian divisions along my border). This will be a key advantage in the future when I'm arranging my invasions forces.
BATTLE WINNING ABILITY ANALYSIS
I have already set in motion the builds required to achieve my goal of Lt. Armor Lvl III based mobile formations. These units will spearhead an invasion of the USSR and allow me to perform encirclement and exploitation maneuvers behind enemy lines. I'll want to take advantage of the combined arms combat bonus by grouping soft target units with my armor. The combined arms combat bonus (+5% attack, +15% defense) is achieved when a korps consists of at least 1/3 hard targets (armor, mechanized) and at least 1/3 soft targets (infantry, motorized inf, cavalry). I have attempted to create an evaluation system which analyzes mobile unit formations based on several key criteria, namely:
- Battle Winning Ability (a simple calculation based on soft attack value multiplied by organization level)
- Cost in ICdays
- Manpower (looking specifically at how to put as much potential into a single manpower point as possible)
- Supply Consumption (both oil and supply consumption and its resultant effect on Transport Capacity)
- Mobility (unit speed is an important consideration in my evaluation)
This system accounts for each of these criteria and awards a score based on the following formula:
[BWA/ICdays/10] + [BWA/manpower/10] + [BWA/tot supply/10] + speed = SCORE
Note that I have divided the first 3 variables by 10 in an attempt to regularize these values and keep the numbers more manageable. It's more of a convenience than anything. A BWA calculation by itself doesn't provide anough information to properly evaluate mobile formations. Because I anticipate fielding anywhere between 18 and 24 armored korps, I needed an evaluation system that took into account the projected TC load impact. TC load will be a crucial constraint as all of the mobile formations will be placed on Offensive Supply (OS) when the invasion gets underway and OS
doubles the supply and oil consumption of these units. Poor TC efficiency will effect the combat performace of ALL units (mobile or otherwise) and should therefore becomes a key element in any evaluation. I'm also looking towards conservation of manpower (as much as possible) therefore I have included a manpower evaluation into my formula. I want to create formations that maximize combat potential on a per manpower basis. Affordability is important as well. The cheaper these formations are to produce, the more IC I'll have to increase my supply stockpile which in turn will allow me to keep more units on OS supply longer. Lastly, formation speed is included as well. This is a particulalry important asset during encirclement maneuvers. Often just a little speed advantage can make the difference between achieving an encirclement or falling just short.
OPTION 1: Lt Arm III + Lvl I Mot Inf + Lvl I Mot Inf
This is the weakest of the formations under consideration. It's main drawback is the use of Lvl I Mot Inf, a division which has the following disadvantages:
1) higher cost than later Mot Inf models
2) slower speed than later MOt Inf models
This is not a formation type I intend to pursue. I'll likely skip Mot Inf Lvl I altogether and build the next model from scratch instead of upgrading.
OPTION 2: Lt Arm III + Lvl I Mot Inf + Lvl IV Semi Mot Cav
By swapping one of the Mot Inf Divisions in Option 1 for a Semi Mot Cava division, I begin to see the advantages of the Semi Mot Cav divisions. Those advantages are:
1) most afforable mobile formation available
2) very efficient from a manpower perspective
3) however it lacks the speed of mot inf
This formation has the same combined BWA score (1984) as Option, but scores higher because of the advantages described above.
OPTION 3: Lt Arm III + Lvl IV Semi Mot Cav + Lvl IV Semi Mot Cav
So what happens if I match 2 Semi Mot Cav divisions with an armored unit? The overall unit score improves even more. This may be a viable interim solution until I can build more powerful Mot Inf units.
OPTION 4: Lt Arm III + Lvl II Mot Inf + Lvl II Mot Inf
If I can achieve the Lvl II MOt Inf model in a timely fashion, I can realize the following advantages:
1) lower cost than Lvl I Mot Inf
2) higher speed than Lvl I Mot Inf
3) better soft attack value which has a direct effect on the BWA of the division
This is likely to be the formation I'll pursue, particularly since Mot Inf improve nicely with subsequent upgrades.
OPTION 4a: Lt Arm III + Lvl II Mot Inf + Lvl II Mot Inf + brigades
It's interesting to see what effect adding brigades would have to overall formation score. There are 3 different brigade types I would consider using:
1) SP Artillery (which has good soft attack values and won't slow my formation down))
2) Lt Armor (which add +8 organization to any division to which it is attached)
3) Armored Car (which add +5 organization to any division to which it is attached)
Brigading divisions (using this evaluation system) add significantly to the value of the overall formation. I'll definitely consider adding brigades to armored korps over time.
OPTION 5: Bas Arm III + Lvl II Mot Inf + Lvl II Mot Inf
As a check, I also evaluate Bas Arm III in place of Lt Arm III to measure if the improved combat performance of bigger armor is worthwhile. Interestingly, this formation receives a lower score than than Option 4 further reinforcing my decision to stick with Lt armored formations. The primary disadvantage of later model armored units are:
1) significantly higher cost
2) significantly higher supply and oil usage
I'll likely delay upgrading my Lt. Armored units and instead focus on Motorized Infantry and brigade developement.
CONCLUSION:
Option 4 emerges as the best mobile unit formation out of the options I've modeled. Given enough time, I'll brigade as many of these units as possible to derive the advantages demonstrated in Option 4a.
I'm not 100% confident that my evaluation system is completely valid and I certainly welcome any and all commentary.