C.O.R.E. Manpower II

[McNaughton]

Since this is something different then the old Manpower thread (discussing about events on making mp grow), I will start a new thread.

I have a question on what we should do in regards to manpower and the actual requirements to raise military formations.

If Canada mobilized 800 000 men in WW2, should they get (total) 800 mp? However, HoI does not represent many uses of manpower in the military.

- Command/Control/Signals. What about Corps/Army/Army Group HQ's? They took thousands of men to operate.

I have one source that stated that after the BEF was evacuated from France in 1940, there were still around 100 000 British soldiers in France, with most of them being these non-combattants (albiet many were a part of the 51st, 23rd, 12th, 46th and 1st Armoured Divisions). Each Army had about 40 000 men dedicated to making sure that Army requirements are met.

There are two possible solutions to this.

#1. Lower the total amount of manpower that nation's get based on the % that would serve in unrepresented HQ roles. State that 10% (or so) of all manpower in each of the nations involved in WW2 had jobs that are not represented in HoI, so all nations would get historic MP rates that are 10% lower (representing these hidden jobs).

#2. Increase the manpower requirement for specific units. Add on maybe 1-2 extra MP for each land military unit to represent Corps/Army/Army Group requirements. Add enough MP for air and naval units to not just represent their crew, but the military personell required to service/maintain these units.

Here are some numbers for mobilization (The Times Atlas of the Second World War)

USSR: 20 000
USA: 11 490
Germany: 10 800 (including foreign nationals)
Japan: 7 400
France: 5 600 (including Free French, Vichy, and Colonials)
England: 4 600 (excluding Commonwealth)
Italy: 4 500
NatChina: 3 800
Yugoslavia: 3 740
India: 2 400 (should be a part of England's manpower?)
ComChina: 1 200
Poland: 1 000 (more would have been mobilized if not occupied in 1939)
Belgium: 800
Canada: 780
Australia: 680
Romania: 600
Holland: 500
Bulgaria: 450
Hungary: 350
Greece: 150
South Africa: 140

Now, these are just the major players. But cutting their total manpower to be the following might give better numbers of military units (if we take route #1)

USSR: 18 000
USA: 10 341
Germany: 9 720
Japan: 6 660
France: 5 040
England: 4 140
Italy: 4 050
NatChina: 3 420
Yugoslavia: 3 360
India: 2 160
ComChina: 1 080
Poland: 900
Belgium: 720
Canada: 702
Australia: 612
Romania: 540
Holland: 450
Bulgaria: 405
Hungary: 315
Greece: 135
South Africa: 126

[McNaughton]

Actually, it appears like each corps had about the equivalent of 1 Divisions worth of Troops and Personell, so maybe instead of 1/10th, it should be 1/4th of all manpower are dedicated toward service/command?

This would lower the rates to...

USSR: 15 000
USA: 8 618
Germany: 8 100
Japan: 5 550
France: 4 200
England: 3 450
Italy: 3 375
NatChina: 3 800*
Yugoslavia: 2 805
India: 1 800
ComChina: 1 200*
Poland: 750
Belgium: 600
Canada: 585
Australia: 510
Romania: 450
Holland: 375
Bulgaria: 338
Hungary: 263
Greece: 112.5
South Africa: 105

*China's command and supply system incorporated very few of their actual military forces, so a 1/4 cut would overestimate the number of troops in this area.

Any thoughts?

[Steel]

Originally posted by McNaughton
If Canada mobilized 800 000 men in WW2, should they get (total) 800 mp? However, HoI does not represent many uses of manpower in the military.

1 MP apparently equals 750 men, not 1000. A 20 MP division is 15000 men.

I don't think historical mobilisation numbers translate directly into MP in the game. Better to base it off total population and make some deductions if a nation is known to have had a downturn in manpower availability (France, Italy). Then allow for some events that mobilise more MP at some cost (dissent, less IC).

[supergamelin]

Here's a link to German numbers. I do not know how reliable this is but it gives interesting info with overall numbers, population, monthly casualties......


http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html


The main Issue is HOI represents only front line divisions and some support brigades. Rear area and garrison forces are not represented. Support forces (supply signals administration....) are not represented. Higher Command structures...... are not represented........

Those represented a massive part of a country's overall military force. Especially with modern and highly mechanised armies.

An other point is that only a tiny fraction of front line forces were engaged in actual fighting. Even in an infantry division only a very small portion of the men were actual riflemen or serving support weapons. The rest, the vast bulk of the division's manpower being service personnel necessary for the division to operate but not engaged directly in fighting under normal circumstances.

[Generalisimo]

it will be good to implement conscriptions as events, so for example in 1937, Germany will call the correspondent class to duty, so mroe manpower added.
This should be made ONLY in countries that had conscription in these period of time. Does someone have a list of which they were?
The events are easy to code, you just made one and then copy & paste with only changing the start date.

[DeathwisH]

To put more control into the hands of the player, maybe we should get the option to conscript citizens perhaps every 3-6 months, depending if the country is at war. Choosing yes would increase manpower and dissent depending on govenrnment type. There should also be the option to end conscription. I would hate to play a country and be forced to conscript along historical timelines, even though my game is not really following the course of history.

[McNaughton]

Originally posted by DeathwisH
To put more control into the hands of the player, maybe we should get the option to conscript citizens perhaps every 3-6 months, depending if the country is at war. Choosing yes would increase manpower and dissent depending on govenrnment type. There should also be the option to end conscription. I would hate to play a country and be forced to conscript along historical timelines, even though my game is not really following the course of history.

Generalissimo is talking about limited warlike nations who called up conscripts during peacetime. Nations like Germany and Italy would actually conscript in peacetime, while the US, Canada and England would only call up reserves (volunteer). Most of the manpower events are going to be based off of event rather then date triggers. For example, when a nation's warenty (democracy) gets to a certain level they will get manpower, or when a friendly nation gets overrun, fears raise in that nation resulting in mobilization.

Since the war would rarely ever start historically, why should events that were based off of actions that may come earlier/later be triggered in HoI on a date basis? Some events can be date related (like the natural death of FDR), but many of the events we are working on are contingent to the actions of nations in the C.O.R.E. HoI universe.

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by McNaughton

Since the war would rarely ever start historically, why should events that were based off of actions that may come earlier/later be triggered in HoI on a date basis? Some events can be date related (like the natural death of FDR), but many of the events we are working on are contingent to the actions of nations in the C.O.R.E. HoI universe.

yes, i totally agree

[Generalisimo]

i was thinking, maybe we should tweak the manpower of UK to stop the AI building useless tanks+planes and ran out of manpower so quickly that we never see a good tank in battle.
Starting manpower of UK = X
Then divide X in 12, so at the start of every year, we have a "conscription call" or something like that to inject the manpower to the UK, so the AI uses this new manpower in new stuff
We can even add some +manpower events when they are at war and give them in the half of the year some more manpower, so , they can keep up fighting and do not waste ALL their manpower in the early units
what do you think?
we can start with UK and then move to the others....

[emperor dennis]

Sounds good... Also; is there a way to make UK AI not build so many units pre-war; they always have lots of units by 1939 in my games.

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by emperor dennis
Sounds good... Also; is there a way to make UK AI not build so many units pre-war; they always have lots of units by 1939 in my games.

they use their manpower until they ran out of it...then they start building aircraft (fighters) because they cost low MP...