C.O.R.E. Manpower

[McNaughton]

While working on the Commonwealth section tonight, I was wondering exactly what we are going to do about MANPOWER.

I currently think that the system in place in HoI does not represent manpower effectively. As it stands now...

If you start the game in 1936, by 1939 Canada will have gained 200 manpower from its starting point in 1936 (which is currently 330). This means that by the time of the war Canada will have had access to 530 manpower points. By 1945 Canada will have raised another 400 manpower points, for a total of 930 manpower points.

This is VERY close to the historic number of military service people in the Canadian army, HOWEVER, before 1939 there were only around 60 000 men avalible to the Canadian Army (through the Regular forces and Militia). However, the game gives Canada access to 530 000 men before the war, allowing Canada to field a massive army in peacetime, which would be completely impossible.

I propose that we do something similar to what Bolt did for his manpower mod, but represent Democracies better.

I propose: (Canada as an example)

#1. Lower territory manpower points (i.e., the amount of manpower gained each year through territory gains)

From 64 to 10.

#2. Lower the starting manpower pool points.

From 330 to around 20.

#3. Add events that fire in the following situations.

a) Immediate volunteers (adds 60 mp to the pool).

b) Yearly influx of volunteers (year 1, +200 mp, year 2-5 +150 mp, year 6 +50 mp, year 7+ +0 mp).

b) Conscription option (options for +0 mp/-10 dissidence, +80 mp/+5 dissidence or +200 mp/+15 dissidence).

Here would be the manpower rates and historic dates...

jan-1936: 20 (peace)
jan-1937: 30 (peace)
jan-1938: 40 (peace)
jan-1939: 50 (peace)
sept-1939: 110 (war declared +60)
jan-1940: 320 (1 year of mp growth and +200)
jan-1941: 480 (1 year of mp growth and +150)
jan-1942: 640 (1 year of mp growth and +150)
jan-1943: 800 (1 year of mp growth and +150)
jan-1944: 960 (1 year of mp growth and +150)
jan-1945: 1020 (1 year of mp growth and +50)
jan-1946: 1030 (1 year of mp growth)
jan-1947: 1040 (1 year of mp growth)
jan-1948: 1050 (1 year of mp growth)

This will really limit Democracies building super large armies before the war, and represent manpower growth more realistically.

 

[Horrorshow]

This actually looks good. Nice idea.

 

[Generalisimo]

well, the manpower issue is a complete mess... once Bolt tried to solve it but he could not finish the work... and if you look carefully there are a lot of countries that have their manpower totally messed up...
So, the manpower issue needs a lot of work...
Also the increasing manpower level needs a total rework, but, right now, you cannot separate the province.csv from the original setup, so you are obligating everyone to change the original file, a thing that i don't like... so i think we must wait to change the entire manpower issue, but we can start making suggestions right now.

if you want to start with this work, i suggets you look for the manpower in Asia and South America, they are totally messed up.

 

[McNaughton]

Yeah, it is pretty much messed up, especially now with 1.03b releasing new manpower stats.

However, I think something can be done to represent the Democracies low ability to make military forces during peacetime.

What we can do is slash starting manpower to very low levels (to between 20-100). When war is declared, they get (through an event) all manpower that was cut from the original scenarios.

For example: Canada (again)

Originally they had 330 manpower in the pool

Cut this to 20

When they go to war, they get (through an event) 310 manpower added directly to their pool.

They do not lose anything in the long run, but cannot unrealistically build a 400 000 man army by 1938 while at peace.

This will leave manpower growth alone, but put slight limitations to military growth in peace time.

Here are the nations that I think should be affected.

England*
USA
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
South Africa
France**
Norway
Denmark
Holland
Sweden
Poland***

*England started rearming in 1938, so they can start recieving their manpower through a series of small events starting in either 1938, or in lieu of German/Soviet growth.

**France had a farily large peacetime army, so, cuts to their manpower pool should be less then other nations.

***Like France, Poland had a fairly large army, but still relied on wartime mobilization to make their army large (i.e., they were not fully mobilized by September 1939).

 

[Generalisimo]

i think that we should make a list with the original manpower of every country and the new proposed manpower for CORE.
just to start making it more clear to everyone... because after we modified 10 countries we will loose track of what we have modified and what not...

 

[Juba]

Originally posted by McNaughton
While working on the Commonwealth section tonight, I was wondering exactly what we are going to do about MANPOWER.

A way could be to initially reduce the amount of manpower in provinces and when the country goes to war the original values are restored along with an immediate MP gain

 

[Generalisimo]

Re: Re: C.O.R.E. Manpower

Originally posted by Juba
A way could be to initially reduce the amount of manpower in provinces and when the country goes to war the original values are restored along with an immediate MP gain

It is more easy to reduce the initial pool, like he said.
The montlhy gain is insignificant for every country except some mayors...

 

[supergamelin]

The main issue is to simulate the pre war years. Countries like France, the SU, Poland had conscription based armies that were set. Pre war changes were mainly about equipment and organisation but the size of the army did not vary a lot. Upon entering the War reserves would be called up resulting in a huge amount of manpower getting into the army, then there would be the normal flow of manpower.

Moreover trained reserves were formed inot new units upon mobilization. In the case of the Soviet Union, it was massive.

Italy had built a large army in the 30's and barely had the means to maintain it and had problems modernizing it a lot of their resources went into supplying the army.

Germany started from nothing and increased the size of its army as manpower was not yet used. They had no reserves to mobilise.

Britain and the USA maintained small peace time armies. Britain introduced conscription before the war but at the start their army was small. However, Britain and USA maintained large navies which used a lot of manpower. So much manpower indeed that they could only field relatively small armies when compared with countries like GE or USSR.

Small countries like Autralia or New Zealand seem to be able to raise an awful number of divisions. 30 Australian division is a high number.

The problem is that the notion of manpower is very vague. does it represent the number of men going to front line units or to the armed forces in general?

Moreover the notion of unit is also vague. Does it represent a historical division with all the national variations of size or a just certain amount of men, the same for every nation?

The Italian army is a good exemple. Their divisions were much smaller than those of other nations. IIRC they had around 65 divisions historicaly which is about the number they get in the game.

Should we generalise that France would have about 100 larger divisions at start. And Russia should be able to get its 200 or so divisions that were raised in the few months following Barbarossa, growing their army to a total of around 400 infantry divisions.

The Arrival of Russian reverses was also a major aspect in the early months of the war as the border armies were simply wiped out within the first weeks of the German offensive.

This has to be clearly defined before realistic level of manpower can be set and balanced historical orders of battle can de defined.

The most simple way to simulate all this would be through the use of events representing the historical mobilizations.

 

[unmerged(14054)]

I would change mind totally about manpower. Fixed numbers should be adopted and conventions raised.

Problems, no pure HQ units (staff & supply/support units), support units attritted by combat the same way as combat elements which is not realistic, etc. Ideal situation would be having HQ elements and a more and better organziation in HOI, representing additional staff and support, and/or two manpower types combat/support each formation would be formed by a mixture of both and boths would be attrited in different forms. Unfortunatly the situation is different so we must fix it as we can.

Different manpower cost for different country formations representing reality would be cool, as well as lowring manpower and changing combat values depending on army reorganization (type 43 divions for example) by event and by tech research influence. Just some idea don't know if they can be done...

Adopting some convention for what manpower is would be the ebst: for example 1 manpower value = 1000 men including support/staff elements.

 

[unmerged(14713)]

Man power and research and so on

IMO the Manpower and research should be better managed throught events. A very tedious task, but to have a more historical game, the use of a sort of branching system base on events could do the trick.

One example :

01/01/1936 Germany a pop up should propose to choose beetween three possible distribution of the research. The response should be keep in memory and used to give tech on a pre calculated time table

ie : choice 1) all the fields even
choice 2) +20% to Army fields -10% to Air and Navy
choice 3) +20% to Army fields -20% to navy's

should be complicated, but could open a new way of managing manpower, research and eventually IC through grand strategic decision.

I wonder only if it is easely faisable.

Durin

 

[Soapy Frog]

I think this is an excellent idea. While at peace, countries should have access to a small chunk of their manpower representing their active reserves. This can be used to fill out existing formations and maybe slowly bring new formations online.

Then, upon war declaration, they get a certain percentage of their manpower pool to draw on, and they get the rest when they enact conscription.

 

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by Soapy Frog
I think this is an excellent idea. While at peace, countries should have access to a small chunk of their manpower representing their active reserves. This can be used to fill out existing formations and maybe slowly bring new formations online.

Then, upon war declaration, they get a certain percentage of their manpower pool to draw on, and they get the rest when they enact conscription.

yes, that's the idea (there is one person working on that for the Commonwealth)
but to code every event for EVERY country will be a total mess...
we could limit to the majors only (specially the US, that can have 100 units by 1938 ) at the beggining and then start modding the others...

But i think that before we start coding we need to create the entire list of manpower, for example:

-GERMANY
starting: 1000

1936: +100
1937: +100
1938: +100
1939: +500
...
1947: +100
sub-total: 1500

Total: 2500

or something like that, so everyone knows which are the effects of the events that will take place and HOW the manpower is divided between the years.

 

[Axe99]

US Manpower

(Working with Bolt's US MP events) In an attempt to address the US Manpower issue, I've cut the starting MP to 20 and reduced the amount of manpower in the provinces by 80%. I'm not sure how to add MP back to provinces, so what I've done is put in an annual event that gives back the 'missing' 80 per cent IF the US is at war. Also, assuming that the US goes to war in late '41, I've increased the 'peacetime military buildup' and 'full mobilisation' events by the MP that has been missed b/ween '36 and '41. I've hung onto Bolt's annual classes, but reduced them to 20 until '41. I'm playing my first game with it now, and it definitely keeps the US down, and touch wood shouldn't prevent it expanding from the beginning of the war in Europe onwards. It needs a fair bit more testing though.

 

[unmerged(14054)]

Are you going to use realistic manpower numbers?
Total mivilized men for Germany for example between KIA, MIA, WIA and not casualties were more than 17 million for the whole war (that would be 17000 manpower) if you are want to get a correct feeling of war (long long war and battles, and long term attrition) that would be the best.

The only problem I see is that in the game the battles are very short and the attrition too fast many times and unrealistic (derived from the exagerated importance of tech many times) instead of longer battles and sustained attrition.

 

[McNaughton]

Germany gained manpower in many different ways.

Much of Germany's 17 000 000 manpower came from outside of traditional Germany.

For example, over 500 000 Poles fought in the German army. Many German units were basically Polish units.

There should be manpower events caused by certain situations. Basically, Germany maxed out EVERY option to get those 17 000 000 men in the army.

Events like:

#1. If Poland is occupied, and manpower pool is at a certain level then: Polish Manpower event fires, giving 500 manpower to the pool and a drop in organization.

#2. Women in the workforce. Manpower pool raises, but dissidence raises (due to Nazi ideology compromized).

#3. Change service age. Instead of conscripting men 19-30, you change the age to 15-50. Increase manpower pool by XXXX, drop in organization.

So, I think that many of the above events should only fire if certain circumstances are met. Germany would not NATURALLY get 17 000 000 men in their army without certain criteria being met (i.e. if there was no manpower crisis, then these measures would not have been necessary to take). Also, since the increase in manpower did drop the quality of forces deployed, a lot of them should have generic penalties to organization. Also, there should be options to initiate these events (as maybe the Player would rather have a small but elite force vs a large rabble).

Another suggestion would to have these events not triggered by a date. Even though Germany conscripted Poles into their army starting in 1943, who says it must ALWAYS start in 1943? What if the war started in 1937, and Germany was short in manpower by 1941, should they have to wait until 1943 to get this event? Many events can be triggered to activate within a certain timespan from where another event happens.

For example, you can have events trigger 2 years after war is declared. So, if Germany did something historically in 1941, which was 2 years after declaring war, then having this event fire 2 years after war declared is much more realistic then having it always fire in 1941.

 

[jdrou]

Originally posted by Generalisimo

Also the increasing manpower level needs a total rework, but, right now, you cannot separate the province.csv from the original setup, so you are obligating everyone to change the original file, a thing that i don't like...

Actually, most province info can be changed in the scenario file:

province = { id = 116 ic = 60 manpower = 20 steel = 90 }
country = { 
     tag = USA
     warentry = 0

etc.

 

[Generalisimo]

Originally posted by jdrou
Actually, most province info can be changed in the scenario file:

province = { id = 116 ic = 60 manpower = 20 steel = 90 }
country = { 
     tag = USA
     warentry = 0

etc.

thanks, i will try that

 

[unmerged(14683)]

Originally posted by McNaughton
For example, over 500 000 Poles fought in the German army. Many German units were basically Polish units.

It depends, who you call Pole - for Germans, they were Germans, or Silesians (from Katowice) and Danzigers (from Danzig). At the start of war, they were much more picky (volksdeutch only), later they concripted everyone in sight, and german-polish prisoners in Italy become main supply of manforce for Polish Army in West.

You probably should make series of events with manpower from:
1) Sudetenland (1938)
2) provinces directly incorporated to Reich (Poznan, Danzig, Bydgoszcz, Ceiszyn) after fall of Poland,
3) from Baltic States,
4) Reactions on losing war.

 

[unmerged(13766)]

Manpower is a problem I have been concerned with since I first started thinking about how HoI works.

I believe before any truly constructive modifications can be made, agreement has to be reached on what "Manpower" actually represents.

The suggestion put forward many times is that 1 MP = 750 Men, based on the idea that 1 division represents 15,000 men, and that it HoI uses 20MP per division.

Further, using Germany for example, almost 17,900,000 men served in all services during the entire war. They started the war with 4,700,000 enlisted. This means that they enlisted a further 13,200,000 during the war or 17,600 MP's, which equates to 244 MP's per month.

OK, some of the probelms with representing this.

1. Different countries have different ratios of total men enlisted per active division. The US had in the order of 40,000 men per division, the UK 35,000, and even Germany started the war with the equivalent of 36,000 men per division.

These extra men are all the HQ, supply, depot, training, support, administration etc. personell required to keep divisions running.

To further complicate matters, averages changed during the war so that by Barbarossa, the German army had declined to about 21,000, and about 17,000 by wars end.

2. Combat losses in HoI should not necessarilly represent a total % of a division destroyed. The actual combat component of any division is in the order of 4-6000 men. Once again the rest are artillery men, support personel etc. One US division reported that in the first several weeks of the D-Day campaign they lost 25% of their full compliment, but 90% of their combat riflemen.

100 infantry strength points therefore should not represent 20 MP's, but probably more likely 5-8 MP's.


3. Different countries mobilised at different rates through out the war. Figures I have, which may be a bit doubtfull, suggest that Germany mobilised 18% of their population, while the USA mobilised only 9%

Given all of the above, should one MP represent the same amount for each country?

Should one division for one country be considered to have equivalent strength values as a division from another country?

How much should 1 MP be equivalent to?

How do you determine the MP levels for each country?

Should the available MP's per country represent the total potential manpower available, or should it be reduced to represent only the quantity that would be available to go into the equivalent "combat" component of each division?

To overcome the changes in manpower per division issue, can we create some techs that adjust the number of men required per division?

eg. a mid war division tech that reduces required manpower from 35 MP's to 21 MP's, but also reduces Max org by say 10 points. Same with a late war division tech that reduces MP to 17 per division but org by a further 10 pts. This does not reduce the firepower of the division, just its org level. Problems with this are that the AI will not be able to make a logical decision as to if these techs are required or not. Also, the manpower already used in existing divisions is not released when the new techs are researched.

Any way, these are some of the issues as I see them. I'll let everyone think about them a bit first, and then put forward my suggestions at a latter date when time allows.

 

[unmerged(13766)]

Just an addition to my previous post.

I was checking out some research sites recommended by Steel, specifically http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/70-7_15.htm.

This site shows that the US army actually enlisted 85,000 men per active division (7,700,000 men in 90 divisions).

It was determined by the US Army that this was the maximum number of divisions they could sustain at full strength for an indefinite period of time.

"It represented the relatively small, if compact, ground combat force that the country that was also serving as the "arsenal of democracy" found it could provide for a global coalition war without unduly straining the war economy and standard of living of the American people"

Much of this force was obviously employed in the massive logistical exercise of supporting major armies on opposite sides of the world.

This article further states that the US could only maintain 7.8% of its population in the armed forces, as any higher amount would adversly impact on its industrial capacity.

Slightly off topic, but something I would like to mention, this article also points out that the US only had enough naval transport capacity to ship a maximum of 4 divisions per month.

This is in spite of the largest ship building program ever undertaken in the history of the world.