Unit Production

[Fiago]

Hey there, i was looking around the forums and couldnt find anything about a possible way to create units as the axis. It has always been quite annoying for me, since i sit on a massive stockpile and manpower but cant use them.....
I know units get rebuild after they were destroyed and so n so but my question is, if there is any way or mod out there, that enables me to produce new divisions as the axis.
Idk maybe its just me, but it doenst seem realistic if the axis got reserves just sittin around doing nothing, instead of training new divisions.
For example, i am playing the axis 41-45 and i am now in july 43, just took most of the caucasus but now the W-Allies are about to land on sicily. I got 1.4 million in the manpower pool (900k germans) as well as 4k rifle squads and 1k Pz3 and about 450 Pz4....wouldnt it be logical for me to be aible to train new divisons? Like at least security divisons or inf regiments idk.....

[Denniss]

Axis have to live with the units you have.
How come you have so much manpower and tanks in pool ?
You need to get that stuff to your frontline units

[Fiago]

I mean i only play on medium difficulty just with soviet moral at 110....actually most of my units are at good TOE, those in the other TB are also fitted well enough to maintain the required numbers
I understand that you have to life with what you get, i just find it odd to not be aible to use them other then reinforcing if that makes sense

[Redmarkus4]

Originally posted by Glüwein OP:

wouldnt it be logical for me to be aible to train new divisons? Like at least security divisons or inf regiments idk.....

Yes, that would be very logical and it doesn't feel like a huge developmental change. Just allow the Axis theatre boxes to contain manpower and vehicles from the pool... You don't even need to form units as such. Just send reinforcements.

[trooperrob]

interested in this.
Is it a balance feature?
historically I think the Germans were very poor at reinforcing depleted units, rather creating new ones (and presumably withdrawing for refit non-combat effective units hopefully).
would be interesting to create brigades for example of captured kit (eg French arty).
Would it make the game impossible to win if the Germans could create more units?
Remembering that Germany had many other theatres requiring manpower so not all could be sent east.

[Denniss]

Soviets did bleed down unit then disbanded and reformed them.
Germans at least tried to withdraw depleted units for rebuild, typically in quieter sectors like France.

[HB]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

interested in this.
Is it a balance feature?
historically I think the Germans were very poor at reinforcing depleted units, rather creating new ones (and presumably withdrawing for refit non-combat effective units hopefully).
would be interesting to create brigades for example of captured kit (eg French arty).
Would it make the game impossible to win if the Germans could create more units?
Remembering that Germany had many other theatres requiring manpower so not all could be sent east.

No, its a design failure. The Germans had the Replacement Army, from which freshly trained individuals were sent to replace losses in field formations, along with wia returning to duty within a year and going back to their parent formation, those taking longer went in the Replacement army and assigned anywhere. It also provided new full formations, this is poorly re resented in game as you get what you get as happened historicaly, and in game often has no relationship to what is happening, so you might need more replacement but you cant have them but you get new formations, or you might have a surplus and have no way to use it. AH refused to allow units to not be reinforced, and re built a shattererd formation would spend time being re built behind the lines, a typical ID spent a third of its time on the EF away from the front but still in the EF, and this is when it was rebuilt and lived of the land as supply for food had stopped to free up freight for POL and munitions, around 2 out of 3 went as replacement while 1 in three went as a new unit from the manpower in the replacement army.Soviets on the other hand abolished individual replacement of losses early on and moved to re building whole formation at a single stroke, so a a formation was run down to a cadre and rebuilt when STAVKA wanted it so, this lasted til c43 and replacement of individuals rather than whole formations became the norm.

[Denniss]

Guess what the replacement army was fed from: freshly recruited men. In WitE those may directly go to units. Plus there are many newly formed unit arriving with full or at least partial Squad equipment present so they arrive with manpower.
There's at least one weakness and that's disabled recovery, in late 44 and 45 many men previously considered unfit were sent to units again. Maybe not as combat squads but in support or construction roles.

[HB]

I dont have to guess, i know the replacement Army had a tad over 1.2 million members for mid 41, of which some were static divisions, some were working up as new divisions for service, and together made up c570k manpower, some were in training schools being trained ( some working in industsrty and just deferred their service)or re trained on new equipment, a whole slew of medical exempt, so the fresh monthly intake of newly mobilised for service, the number of freshly untrained was minimal so your guess is of no use to me. In June 41 the Replacemnt army after providing the last several waves of new formation, had available for use, 200k replacement for LW and KG, for the Heer it had 561,600. Numbers you dont see in game, nor does the manual use replacement army, just refers to a manpower pool that is not based on fresh intake. In 44 the Replacemnt army was almost 3 million strong, its 900k replacements equalled those to sick for military duty, of which 129k were sent back to duty, as rear area garrisons while still unfit, each one filling the same role they were trained for rather than as you suggest and in game they are equipped for free as no one has to make their equipment for them as its not drawn from stocks.
The weakness in the injury recovery in game is that it has no basis in reality, since we have the numbers and time it took to be sick and the game uses fantasy rates instead.

[Valerian]

The forces gathered together for Operation Barbarossa represent the absolute maximums capable of Germany and continental Europe under Nazi administration. It is likely no room for further expansion existed under their administration with perhaps maybe the possibility of doing a better job mobilizing Ukrainian Hiwi's against the Soviets earlier but is has never been clear how Germany would have armed so many more men earlier than they historically did. Up to 1/3 of the new motor/Panzer formations of 1941 made use of French and British trucks recovered from the collapse of France without which a whole generation of Panzer Divisions never would have existed. The production capacity of Germany was already maxed out and the Nazis proved unable to efficiently administer any of the territories they occupied due to their own tendency to horde production and resources inside Germany.

For instance despite capturing most of France's arms industry intact, the French Arms industry never matched the pre-invasion production output again during the war due to chronic coal shortages inflicted by Germany's prioritization of its own energy industries to keep production in the Ruhr high. This is is the sort of amateurish management Nazi policies inevitably caused and the results were usually mixed or sometimes counter-productive. Adam Tooze goes into this much in his book Wages of Destruction.

You cannot build more units for the Axis powers because as it is-the present force allocations for Germany and her allies were already an unsustainable drain on the economy of Europe and could never really be sustained.

[HB]

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

The forces gathered together for Operation Barbarossa represent the absolute maximums capable of Germany and continental Europe under Nazi administration.

Except in 41 the Heer was c 5 million ( out of c7.2 million total armed forces) and went up to c 6.5 million ( out of 9.5 million) by 43. Donmt you have access to ww2 history books?

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

It is likely no room for further expansion existed under their administration with perhaps maybe the possibility of doing a better job mobilizing Ukrainian Hiwi's against the Soviets earlier but is has never been clear how Germany would have armed so many more men earlier than they historically did.

Except it expanded by millions, all of them armed from new production. See Enduring the whirlwind G Liedke or the German History series for ww2.

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

Up to 1/3 of the new motor/Panzer formations of 1941 made use of French and British trucks recovered from the collapse of France without which a whole generation of Panzer Divisions never would have existed.

Except thats a made up number, in 41 only 2 new Panzer Divs were created, to add to 17 created in late 1940) of the 151 Division for Barbarossa, inc 9 Sec Division, 40 made some use of captured MT.

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

The production capacity of Germany was already maxed out and the Nazis proved unable to efficiently administer any of the territories they occupied due to their own tendency to horde production and resources inside Germany.

Except German military production rose from 41 each year. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/opk2000mobilisation.pdf

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

For instance despite capturing most of France's arms industry intact, the French Arms industry never matched the pre-invasion production output again during the war due to chronic coal shortages inflicted by Germany's prioritization of its own energy industries to keep production in the Ruhr high. This is is the sort of amateurish management Nazi policies inevitably caused and the results were usually mixed or sometimes counter-productive. Adam Tooze goes into this much in his book Wages of Destruction.

You seem unable to understand WW2, the french workers were now working in Germany making German war material, because thats were the factories and coal both were.

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

You cannot build more units for the Axis powers because as it is-the present force allocations for Germany and her allies were already an unsustainable drain on the economy of Europe and could never really be sustained.

Nope, its a game design flaw, you get in game roughly the same increased mobilisation of history, but your game is not coming playing out with the same strategic outcomes, so you get for free ( production of equipment) new formations when in history disasters meant you needed to mobilise more, you in game might not want or need them, as you did not have that disaster, but might need more equipment or replacements for existing units etc. And in game you absolutely will not have to contend with Russia with anything close to what it mobilised.

[Valerian]

Wehrmacht manpower figures are highly misleading throughout the war since they do not usually or even often reflect actual front line troop strengths the Germans themselves had multiple definitions for.

The new Panzer Divisions were created by cutting down the number of tanks in the regular Divisions and then using appropriated French/British and later Russian war booty to fill in the other glaring equipment gaps. Next point

Figures on rising German production have been covered extensively by Tooze and other authors-they are to be taken with great caution as they are often presented in a spectacular and exaggerated matter. This is because figures for raw production in Germany were taken directly from Albert Speer for so many decades-distortions of reality they were as they intent was encourage the home front to ever greater and greater efforts when in reality the rate at which German production grew during World War 2 was pathetic compared to the Allies and even the bereaved Soviet Union. You're welcome to argue that point with the 8,500ish Panzer IVs Nazi Germany manufactured vs the 32,000 T-34s the Soviet Union produced and 38,000 Shermans the US then further went on to manufacture. This topic simply is not comparable no matter how rosy a view one takes on a disingenuous line graph.

I've reviewed Liedtke before, in my opinion-his glasses on Germany's supply/production situation are too rosy.

[HB]

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

Wehrmacht manpower figures are highly misleading throughout the war since they do not usually or even often reflect actual front line troop strengths the Germans themselves had multiple definitions for.

You were wrong, just admit to yourself, everyone else already knows your wrong, to being uniformed, and move on instead of changing the subject from German records for mobilised, to front line line strengths.

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

The new Panzer Divisions were created by cutting down the number of tanks in the regular Divisions and then using appropriated French/British and later Russian war booty to fill in the other glaring equipment gaps. Next point

Your missing that you dont know when that happened, or what it actually meant, how did Russian war booty end up in pre invasion Panzer Divs eh?.

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

Figures on rising German production have been covered extensively by Tooze and other authors-they are to be taken with great caution as they are often presented in a spectacular and exaggerated matter.

Indeed, your the sole internet user who thinks, wrongly, that Germany did not increase production after 41.

[HB]

Originally posted by Hawkeye:

I've reviewed Liedtke before, in my opinion-his glasses on Germany's supply/production situation are too rosy.

Your uniformed opinion is noted, he, like every other historian, uses the German OH records for the most part.

As for your child like grasp of German AFV production, not a single author agrees with you and your nonsense.

Date Number of vehicles produced that year.
1937–1939 262
1940 290
1941 480
1942 994
1943 2,983
1944 3,125
1945 435
Total 8,569