Increasing Man Power from Conquered Lands
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Well saying taking over the Soviets is easy is a bit of an understatement. Nevertheless, I did join the war against the Soviets. I have 42 Divisions available for the Eastern Front. 19 Divisions occupied in England (since GB doesn't actually 'surrender' so much leave the island and keep fighting), 7 'Homeland' divisions of militia/mp and a reserve of 6 divisions which are unengaged. Through 43 we were able to cut off the Murmansk area, took Leningrad and drove down eventually taking Moscow and linking up with the Romanians. After almost getting some units encircled west of Yaroslav, I landed in Arkangelesk with the 8 Murmansk divisions and have an decent front steadily pushing the Soviets back. They waver between 92-94% on their way to surrender. That's the good news. The bad news is Italy has surrendered, being taken over by Greece, as has Turkey falling to the Free French and Greeks. Germany is about spent fighting off a French/GB invasion. Most of their divisions have 1/3 strength. I have just under 300K manpower left which is steadily going down. Still on Service by Requirement so I have a fall back still. It's actually the British that are killing me at this point. They somehow kept Plymouth in the surrender and it's a serious stronghold. I can't do anything to break it and must keep it surrounded so they don't break out into all of England. These seemingly innocent back and forth attacks have cost me another 100K losses in 43. The whole Soviet offense was done with only 43K losses! So I have lost just under 300K men at this point. I really wish I had another army as I disappear into the Russian steppe in an effort to get that last push to Soviet surrender. There is still no way to deal with the Americans, but they have been a non-factor losing probably 1000 convoys. That's not an exaggeration. I assume some of those have troops on them cause they are racking up quite 400K or so losses in men. The Kriegsmarine at least has done something joining my force of CA and Kroner class CL which are on convoy raid missions (which seems the best way to stop naval invasions) in the Northern Sea and Eastern Norway zones.
The manpower is going to be a real close thing. I can't really properly control partisans because I don't have the men to assign to stopping them so GB is just an endless stream of industry repairs. It's winter, we just entered 44. I'll probably be spent after going deeper into Russia - but at least if I can get them to surrender that will bring up a peace conference so I can puppet some things. The war with the Allies is degenerating though as I haven't done anything in that one but hold England and sink convoys. With Italy gone the Med is a mess. 44 really could go either way. If I am getting stretched really thin then Hungary and Romania have to be near their breaking points too. For people complaining about not enough war on the Eastern Front in this game it is a real close affair.
The manpower is going to be a real close thing. I can't really properly control partisans because I don't have the men to assign to stopping them so GB is just an endless stream of industry repairs. It's winter, we just entered 44. I'll probably be spent after going deeper into Russia - but at least if I can get them to surrender that will bring up a peace conference so I can puppet some things. The war with the Allies is degenerating though as I haven't done anything in that one but hold England and sink convoys. With Italy gone the Med is a mess. 44 really could go either way. If I am getting stretched really thin then Hungary and Romania have to be near their breaking points too. For people complaining about not enough war on the Eastern Front in this game it is a real close affair.
Italy conquered by Greece, let me guess, the majority of their troops were in Africa.
Germany's issue is probably equipment. I really wish there was a way to actually see in single player what your allies need (without using the console). That would be the next logical improvement in the Lend Lease system now that it is working.
Good job on the Russians. You are going to have to drive to the Urals to knock them out unless Japan is taking the Far East. Just isolating the pockets in England is probably best until you finish off the Russians. One suggestion, if you have planes capable of STR bombing, bomb the Plymouth port. No port, no supplies. No supplies, no problem.
Germany's issue is probably equipment. I really wish there was a way to actually see in single player what your allies need (without using the console). That would be the next logical improvement in the Lend Lease system now that it is working.
Good job on the Russians. You are going to have to drive to the Urals to knock them out unless Japan is taking the Far East. Just isolating the pockets in England is probably best until you finish off the Russians. One suggestion, if you have planes capable of STR bombing, bomb the Plymouth port. No port, no supplies. No supplies, no problem.
Germany was able to get about 1m Soviet citizens (as defined by the 1941 borders) into various Eastern troop units at their peak, plus some losses prior to that time and additional men afterwards. On top of those guys serving in separate units, there were also Soviet citizens serving in the majority of divisions in the Wehrmacht, actually integrated into the German units, and that wasn't just divisions in the east but also those facing the western allies. Various establishment figures I've seen for 1944 divisions suggest there were at least 1500 Russians in those German divisions. That's at least another 400,000 men. Now these men may not have been assigned to the rifle sections, rather filling support roles, but they freed up Germans to fight and so need to be considered manpower in the HOI4 sense. Conservatively it would be fair to say that the Germans recruited at least 1.5m Soviets into combat units, and that's with harsh occupation laws in place. Conversely, the numbers recruited from western occupied countries was proportionally smaller, despite what I would deem to be less harsh occupation laws in place.
With France, how much manpower did Germany get? At least 20,000 and maybe as high as 40,000 would be ballpark, depending on how the Milice is classed with regards to its anti partisan duties. Seeing that we need to form units to suppress resistance I think it should be included in full.
Belgium and the Netherlands are interesting in that they provided about 40,000 & 50,000 respectively to the German armed forces - more than France but with much smaller populations.
I think the only way to get somewhat accurate manpower levels from occupied territories would be to have some very complex formulas looking at the cultural relationship between various nations and/or ethnic groups including the degree of correlation in politics, and the degree to which the legitimate government is hated by its citizens.
Although for the recruits from the Sovjet Union I believe the harsh treatment actually increased the number of "willing" people.
Sovjet prisoner of war weren't protected by the Geneva Convention and treated very badly. Among those Germany recruited mostly non-Russians with political promises - and the concrete chance to get a decent amount of food again. I guess the latter did convince most of those who joined the Germans. If you've got the choice to either starve or help the enemy, many people will consider to colleberate.
It's been awhile since the test, but I was able to get these numbers from occupied France. With the divisions I use, it amounted to one division and some change. (Which I named SS Charlemange and then sent to die gloriously (and ironically) in North Africa.)
Regarding Soviet manpower, I imagine that is something that won't ever be included in the game for both balance reasons and due to forbidden topics. Although I wonder if the continuous NF for suppression could be modified to increase manpower from occupied territory only. That would make the NF more useful, and Germany could get her extra manpower if she's willing to pay the price.
Another way to approach German manpower from the Soviet Union may be to allow Germany to form integrated puppets from Soviet territory while still at war with them. These could include Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belorussia, Ukraine, Crimea, Don Cossacks, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan etc. Something similar should be done with Croatia, as they formed a significant number of (quite poor) divisions that were losing ground to Tito's partisans even with German assistance. Then there's the problem with the game mechanics of no resistance in those puppeted regions which should only really be the case for the Baltic States - maybe a distinction between countries that were independent at game start vs those formed from another nation's starting territory?
Edit: maybe additional national foci for Germany that are only available when at war with Soviets and in control of specific territory? Once war starts they tend to run out of choices in the NF tree pretty fast.
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Yeah, which is why I was thinking of the continuous NF.
War-specific puppets might be an answer.
The puppet idea would be good. I know they thought about the Ukraine as a puppet and Germany certainly followed that policy in World War 1.
The continuous focus would take a lot of work. Probably easier to mod the amounts of base population available from non-core areas, and then maybe mod the % each level of suppression provides. If you were able to actual recruit a decent amount from non-core, the decision of suppression level would take more thought. Right now it is a no brainier, go straight to nasty so you get 100% resources and factories. The recruitable population is negligible and the loss of PP doesn't hurt by the time you are deep in Russia. Most of your focuses and ministers are picked so only getting 0.70 per day is not an issue.
Well, finally took out the Soviets, they surrendered. But you know how Peace Talks go - I tried to puppet the Baltic States, Moscow and Ukraine. Germany seemed to override them after I had selected the options. I mean whatever, I can foresee Germany doing this. So I got what resource depots I could. I did have puppet Baltic States. BTW this was my favorite Eastern Front struggle so far, very intense. I fought off a couple invasions of GB, I send my glorious Southern Army and a Romanian Exp Army to the South to stop the Allies in (Conquered) Turkey. Somehow the Western Allies had tons of divisions there. Where are they getting there manpower after surrender? After losing a couple hundred thousand Swedes and Romanians by the end of 45 I had pushed to the gates of Istanbul and taken Cairo pushing south. But now the US invasion, after beating it a couple times is in full force in south eastern africa. My CA fleets also have been shredded by advanced GB CV. How did they build these after surrender??
I am all for a nation keeping the fight going after a surrender but they seem to get way more build bonuses then they should. I had to go to servies with all adults in late 45. In now have an extra 770K (after dropping to 75K). Germany is basically nothing but an occupying force at this point. Italy is reclaiming Italy from Greece and Greece is close to surrender. This is one of the best Paradox game scenarios I have played. A ton rests on decisions and I am on a razor's edge. Africa might be a mess. Why does Russia surrender and that's it, but when the Western Allies surrender they keep fighting and honestly getting stronger?
Oh also took out the Plymouth area in GB. Thanks for the Tip. I captured 68 Lancaster bombers and did Strat bombing in the area Eventually it wore them down to nothing. I don't have ships to prevent landings in GB now though and they have a CV fleet in the area, I guess they still have MP for an invasion though I can't imagine where they are getting it. So, its not enough I took out Scandinavia, GB and forced the Soviets to surrender, now I have to drive around Africa. Come on. Give a Minor Nation a break.
I am all for a nation keeping the fight going after a surrender but they seem to get way more build bonuses then they should. I had to go to servies with all adults in late 45. In now have an extra 770K (after dropping to 75K). Germany is basically nothing but an occupying force at this point. Italy is reclaiming Italy from Greece and Greece is close to surrender. This is one of the best Paradox game scenarios I have played. A ton rests on decisions and I am on a razor's edge. Africa might be a mess. Why does Russia surrender and that's it, but when the Western Allies surrender they keep fighting and honestly getting stronger?
Oh also took out the Plymouth area in GB. Thanks for the Tip. I captured 68 Lancaster bombers and did Strat bombing in the area Eventually it wore them down to nothing. I don't have ships to prevent landings in GB now though and they have a CV fleet in the area, I guess they still have MP for an invasion though I can't imagine where they are getting it. So, its not enough I took out Scandinavia, GB and forced the Soviets to surrender, now I have to drive around Africa. Come on. Give a Minor Nation a break.
I don't have any expectation of most suggestions from players being in the game anytime soon as most of them look at making the game more realistic and Paradox seems to think realism is incompatible with fun gameplay.
Ostland was over the Baltic States & Belorussia, but each was still separate from the others so I'd still set them up as separate puppets. Ukraine is pretty self explanatory. I listed the Crimea separately as it was the Crimean Tartars who formed self defence units and later an infantry brigade - they weren't Ukrainians. Similarly the Don Cossacks had a degree of autonomy and ended up fielding a cavalry corps. One I didn't mention earlier was the Kalmucks. The Caucasian states could potentially be grouped into a single puppet, but I think it would be better to have them separate. One of the issues with amalgamated puppets is they start getting to the point where they can field significant forces rather than a hodgepodge of different small units. In regards to Russia proper, I would not allow the Germans to form puppets from that territory, but force them to occupy it and supress resistance as there were no plans for Russian autonomy. As a quick rule of thumb I'd look at today's map of the former USSR and those countries that are now separate from Russia should be releasable puppets.
No. They got a Waffen-SS Division from each of the Baltic countries, one from France, one from Belgium, one from the Scandinavian Nations, a couple, mostly understrength, from various caucasian mountain people, kossacks, tartars and soviet muslim minorities.
Actually the one million is all in.
Those are the so-called 'Hilfswilligen' (literal: "willing to help"), which gave the nice word 'Hiwi' for a menial labourer to the German language. About 800 000 in various support tasks (read: hauling stuff, cooking meals, etc.) and 200 000 in police formations, read: partisan hunters and concentration camp guards.
None of those appear in-game for reason having to do with Paradox no-genocide policy.
Out of those you later get the 'Ostlegionen', the Eastern Legions and the Wlasvow Army, with the Ostlegionen recruiting from soviet union minorities and the wlasow Army for the ethnic Russians. The former are pegged at between 40 000 to 100 000 troops of dubious combat power (of those deployed to Normandy none had any significant military impact) and the later between 100 000 to 125 000 people mainly in 'Self defense groups' an early attempt of the Vietnam era technique of arming political friendly elements in partisan areas and slowly, in 1944 and 1945 transforming into Russian Exile Army... though they never got there.
Fun fact:
Parts of the Georgische Ostlegion, the Georgian Eastern Legion started an uprising on Texel
and had the dubious distinction of getting hunted to extinction by the Wehrmacht well beyond the capitulation of Nazi Germany since it was viewed as an internal matter of military justice.
As it stands now you get a small trickle of collaborateurs and the militarily adventurous and in exchange you get no discipline problems.
I think the Dev could take a look at the manpower system from conquered land in future DLC. Right now it is either 100% from core states or 2% from non-core states which is not very flexible or realistic. For example, Northern Transylvania at the time consist of 50% Hungarian and 50% Romanian. So Hungary should be getting 50% manpower from it after the Second Vienna Reward. Any thought?
Even as late as the period Oct 44 - Jan 45 there were 750,000 - 800,000 in formed Eastern units (ie not German units), and that's after some losses. I have a detailed book on the German army of the Normandy campaign, and German Divisions in the west included around 1500 Hiwis each on their establishment. There were around 100 Divisions outside the eastern front and more than 200 on the eastern front at that time. When the Latvian SS Legion was formed, German units were ordered to send their Latvian Hiwis to the new unit, but one division commander reported that 48% of his men were Latvians and if he complied, his division would be rendered ineffective. He kept his Latvians. Even if his division was weak, that would still be in the order of 2-4000 Latvian Hiwis in the Division, suggesting divisions on the eastern front could employ many more than the authorised number of Hiwis. Even if we just apply the 1500 figure to all divisions rather than allowing for more Hiwis in the east, that's still 450,000 in the Army without counting those in non-divisional units. The Luftwaffe & Kreigsmarine had employed at least 100,000 Hiwis between them in addition to those in the army. That's at least 1.3m still in service late in the war, after some losses, and more joined after that as another book I have mentions Russians deserting to the Germans in 1945 in order to fight against Communism. I use the figure of 1.5m as I believe its more accurate than the commonly quoted 1m.
Yes the Hiwis were mainly used in supporting roles, but I think you're wrong on them not needing to be represented in the game. We have 1000 man infantry battalions in game, despite most battalions actually being between 700-900 at full strength, meaning there is some attempt at showing supporting divisional units in battalion strengths. Additionally, even in a battalion a lot of the personnel do not normally fire a weapon at the enemy - they cook, undertake repairs and maintenance, drive supply or equipment wagons etc. Those are the sort of tasks Hiwis commonly undertook in German units, meaning that fewer German men are needed to fill up a battalion to full strength. We also have an attempt to reflect navy & air force personnel through manpower in excess of that needed to man the vessel or fly the plane being tied up when ships or planes are deployed, again meaning that the 100,000 Hiwis assigned to those services should be represented.
In regards to eastern police units, I again disagree that they don't need to be shown in game. We have partisans showing up as resistance that damages buildings etc and we have a mechanism to combat that resistance - namely forming units that sit in the occupied areas trying to keep things safe from the partisans. That's what the eastern police units did and so the personnel should be represented.
I'm not saying these units performed at levels equal to German units, and I'm not saying there weren't problems in their employment from time to time. For example in addition to the Texel rebellion, an anti partisan brigade defected to the partisans in mid 1943. It was ultimately more or less destroyed by the Germans later on. However the sheer number of recruits from the Soviet Union at the very least freed up hundreds of thousands of Germans to fight rather than undertake supporting roles, and also provided some worthwhile combat units, and so is therefore something Paradox should at least look at in order to give a passing nod to their advertised claim about the game being an authentic war simulation.
Due to issues like the USSR not liking to admit so many of its citizens served the enemy and Germans not liking to admit to Hitler exactly how many Russians were helping them (due to unmentionable reasons barred from discussion in the forum), a lot of the information easily available on the eastern troops is vague and/or incomplete. Being somewhat serious about WW2 and dabbling from time to time in designing my own operational level WW2 wargame (keep an eye out somewhere between 2030-2040 at the rate I've been going - I think I'll need to retire to really get it moving) some years ago I invested in 10 books that specifically dealt with the issue of foreign volunteers in the German armed forces. These are not your commercial history books where the author is looking to make money by telling an engaging story, but rather the published efforts of researchers who have spent years digging through archive records. The story telling can be non-existent and the editing and presentation sometimes poor, but the details in them is stuff you just don't get elsewhere.
In terms of foreign units, some of the notable elements were:
5 SS Pz Div contained about 1500 Dutch, Danes, Norwegians, Finns, Walloons & Flemings when first committed. It later included an Estonian battalion and in common with most nominally German SS divisions, included volksdeutsche from SE Europe.
6 SS Geb Div included a Norwegian ski battalion
7 SS Geb Div & 18 SS PzG Div were primarily formed from volksdeutsche from Hungary, Romania & Yugoslavia
8, 22, 33 & 37 SS Kav Divs & 25 & 26 SS Inf ended up primarily Hungarian units
11 SS PzG Division Nordland was primarily foreign manned with Danes, Estonians, Finns, French, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, Swiss & even a few Brits included or attached at various times
13 & 23 SS Geb Divs were Bosnian/Croatian
14 SS Inf Div was Ukrainian, along with many police battalions
15 & 19 SS Inf Divs were Latvian, with more than 100,000 serving when police and home defence units are counted
20 SS Inf Div was Estonian, with more than 100,000 serving to include police, border & home defence units
21 SS Geb Div was Albanian (& not successful)
23 SS PzG Div & 34 SS Div were Dutch, along with internal security units
24 SS Geb Div & 29 SS Inf were mainly Italian
27 & 28 SS Divs were Belgian, along with internal security units
29, 30 & 36 SS Inf were Russian/Belorussian or contained significant numbers and there were also a few non-SS Russian divisions
31 SS Div was mainly Czech
33 SS Div was French, along with internal security units
There were maybe 20 Croatian Divisions, including 3 formed for the Wehrmacht
There were 2 Cossack cavalry divisions, a dismounted brigade and numerous smaller units, in total more than 80,000 served
There was a Kalmuck cavalry brigade
The Lithuanians didn't form any units larger than a police regiment, but had more than 50,000 in total
More than 100,000 troops served in various Caucasian units - mostly in individual battalions
The Crimean Tartars formed a mountain brigade
There was a Bulgarian AT battalion
There were 2 Romanian regiments
There was an Indian regiment (never saw combat because the Germans didn't trust it to actually fight)
Some of the SS numbers are duplicated as some divisions were disbanded or destroyed rather quickly. Many were formed late in the war when the Germans were really desperate and some were never able to take the field as they never received an adequate provision of weapons to conduct even basic training.
That's some excellent information, thanks for posting. Upon going over this and thinking about areas with mixed ethnic groups (like the above Transylvania example) perhaps conquered MP should be pooled so to speak. You know how when your allies send you forces and they still have their national flag in the unit identity panel? Well maybe your occupied territories generate a pool of MP that you can eventually use to form divisions. How quickly that pool forms would be dependent on how close your governments match, your ethnic populations, the government of the previous ruler (many Soviet peoples joined the Germans because conditions for them were so awful in the Soviet Union it was in there interest for the Germans to win - of course the Germans squandered much of this goodwill by their draconian measures), the leniency of occupation rules and so on.
Most Hiwi joined for reasons of survival, forbidden by forum rules. Others - for revenge. They lost their privileged status, and became equals.
It sound be noted that most of the 'Divisions' you qoute were understrength battalions in most cases, sometimes even worse.
Wallonien had less than a thousand Belgians, Langemarck had about a thousand 1000 Dutch. Both of those were 'Divisionen' which would mean between 10 000 and 20000 men. All in all the overall commitment by those groups only came up to that (Dutch around 22 000, Flemish 20 000, Wallonian 20 000).
Denmark contributed around 5000, Finnland less than 2000, Norwegians 4000, Swedes about 500, etc.
The reason it is quite problematic to count divisions for the discussion of this topic as regards to HoI4 is that a division is not raised and then retains its menpower. People get killed, requiring reinforcement. Given that the turnover rate with Waffen-SS units routinely was around 50% and could raise even higher, those divisions would soon be just overstrength regiments and then a couple of batallions. Neither of which are modeled independently in HoI4.
HOI4 is quite flexible in what a division can be, ranging from 1,000 men up to 20,000 or more. The German army was also quite flexible in the number of men that made up a division. In mid 1944 a standard infantry division had about 12,500 at full strength, but some with smaller establishments were full strength with 7,500 men. In 1945 a division could be considered full strength with just 4 infantry battalions plus some supporting arms. High losses were not restricted to SS units, but also felt by many army units. In HOI4 terms, by the end of the war every division in action should be lacking in manpower with the pool empty. With an empty manpower pool in 1945, what Germany was probably doing in HOI4 terms was keeping at eye on divisional manpower levels and once a division lost enough men they switched its template from 6 infantry battalions to 4.
Yes some of those divisions I listed were small, but many others were not. For example the 2 Hungarian SS infantry divisions both had about 15000 men, but lack of equipment kept both from serious action. The 3 Baltic SS infantry divisions were all full size divisions with 9 infantry battalions as was the Ukrainian SS Div (22000 in Dec 44). 8 SS Cav was still able to muster 13000 men after detaching a regiment to assist the formation of 22 SS Cav. 11 SS PzG maintained a strength of 9-12000 throughout 1944. 7 & 13 SS Geb had more than 20000 each at full strength and still had 20000 & 13000 in Dec 44. 18 SS PzG had 11000 in Dec 44. 21 & 23 SS Geb dropped to rgt strength once the Soviets drew near. 22 SS Cav had 8000 in Dec 44. 23 Dutch SS PzG had 2 full regiments plus supporting arms which would have put it around 10000, but it did take heavy losses defending the Baltic States. 24 SS Geb was a small division, probably never more than 6000. While 27 & 28 SS (the Belgian divisions) were smallish they still would have had around 20,000 between them at full strength with 5 infantry regiments between them as well as 5 supporting battalions each. The Italian 29 SS Inf had 15000 in Dec 44. 30 SS would have had around 10000, but lost heavily withdrawing from southern France. 31 SS had 11000 in Dec 44. 33 SS Cav was small and quickly destroyed meaning its number went to the French SS division which still mustered 7500 men in Feb 45. 34 SS, the other Dutch division, probably mustered 6000 men when it became a division in Feb 45. 36 SS still had 6000 in Dec 44. 37 SS Cav probably mustered at least 10000 men, but was formed so late that only a battle group ever saw action. The 2 Cossack Cavalry Divisions were both strong cavalry divisions. The 3 Croatian divisions formed for the Wehrmacht all had the standard 6 infantry battalions in 3 regiments and so would have been around 12000 men each.
