Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
I came across this over on reddit, and figured that someone here would find this interesting:
The Dutch 1940 Rifle Platoon
The Dutch 1940 Rifle Platoon
"The Dutch 1940 Rifle Platoon" Essay
- Thread starter Uncle_Duke
- Start date
Bob Walters
Senior Member
Including sources!
Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
...Most of which are in Dutch, so your mileage may vary.
I wonder how the modern feeling is on the caliber of the rifle round, the 6.5x53rimmed? I think that modern armies would be very happy with a 6.5mm intermediate round, and it was the fact that the round was rimmed that caused the problems?
Also, did the platoon leader really carry a klewang? Crazy.
Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
I'm not sure I'd describe 6.5 x 53R as an intermediate cartridge. From the little bit I can find on Wikipedia, it looks like the 6.5 x 53R has performance about half way between 5.56 NATO (itself an intermediate cartridge) and 7.62 x 54R, very much an old school battle rifle round.
Of course, I'm not an expert on such matters. For real details, I highly recommend the YouTube Channel Forgotten Weapons, and specifically these two videos:
(A Few Of) The Many Faces of the Dutch M95 Carbine
Book Review: The Dutch Mannlicher M.95 and the 6.5x53.5R Cartridge
So much depends on the loading and the projectile and the projectile itself. In any case, differences in rifle cartridges have a negligible affect on the outcome of battles, let alone wars.
Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
Very true. As I said, I'm hardly an expert. That sort of subtlety might matter in a skirmish level game, but in ASL terms other factors are more important, including:
1) Number of men in a squad
2) Whether those men are equipped with bolt action, semi-automatic, or fully automatic weapons
3) Whether the squad includes an organic machine gun
4) Level of training
I have previously posted a rough guide as to what seems to be the deciding factors in ASL FP and range.
Now remember that John Hill's SL starting point were some 4-6 German and 4-4 Soviet counters from another game. Purely arbitrary. 4 is also a nice number in that it is divisible by 2 twice.
The following is not JH's original though process, just what I analysed from what has emerged from ASL over the years. It's not even what might have been in later designer's heads when introducing new squad types, just what has emerged from the dust.
The base FP for a squad is 3. This I suppose represents any form of fire, no matter how effective or not. The "bad men over there" thing.
+1 per LMG in the squad, BAR and MG-42 treated the same, practical ammo limits smoothing out the differences.
+1 if the majority of individual weapons are semi-automatic rifles.
+1 per 3-4 SMG in the squad.
+1 for particularly good quality troops, especially if CC ability is perceived to be needed to be boosted to match historical performance.
-1 for particularly bad quality troops, CC a consideration.
Range is a little less rigidly defined. Most units have 4/5 hex range which applies to rifle (bolt/semi) armed squads with a single LMG at most. Apply national stereotype or grade for 4 vs 5.
2-3 for mainly SMG armed troops or particularly low quality troops.
6 only for troops armed with a GPMG type LMG (IE Germans) or multiple LMG and semi-auto rifles (many US), sheer volume of fire getting a little extra reach.
Of course possibly reduce when going down in grade (E->1->2->G/C).
Spraying Fire added if using a GPMG type or multiple LMG or mainly SMG.
Assault fire if training or practice gave a tendency to fire while moving and using mainly semi-auto rifles or SMG.
Note that none of the above takes into account round type except that SMG rounds are short range. Neither does it distinguish LMG, except Germans always get spraying fire due to their MG-34/42 and 6 hex range for some E/1 squads.
What is almost amusing is the rifle round arguments that had raged over the past century plus. Pre WW1 the emphasis was on long range rifle fire. WW1 show artillery to be the main killer with MGs trailing significantly behind and small arms, bayonets and grenades sulking at the back of the class. Post WW1 long range rifle was re-emphasised, the generals thought WW1 was an aberration. The Germans thought differently and started work on an intermediate round (7.92x33mm) that eventually emerged mid-WW2. Post WW2 many nations looked into intermediate rounds, the Soviets with their 7.62x39mm and the British with their .280" (7x43mm) rounds. The US kept insisting on keeping a modified .30-06 which became the 7.62x51mm NATO. Like the zeal of the converted the US eventually plunged into the intermediate pool with the 5.56x45mm. While those rounds (and the later Soviet 5.45x39mm) were adequate for most situations, some more open theatres, like Afghanistan, required something with a bit more carry and now there were and are proposals for something in the 6mm-7mm size.
The world's first assault rifle, IE capable of firing full auto but using a smaller rifle cartridge, was the Russian Federov Avtomat made 1915-'24 which was designed originally for a Federov's own rimless 6.5mm cartridge, but later changed to use the standard Japanese 6.5x50mmSR semi-rimmed Arisaka rifle round as these were already available in bulk. It seems the rifle round debate has come full circle.
Now remember that John Hill's SL starting point were some 4-6 German and 4-4 Soviet counters from another game. Purely arbitrary. 4 is also a nice number in that it is divisible by 2 twice.
The following is not JH's original though process, just what I analysed from what has emerged from ASL over the years. It's not even what might have been in later designer's heads when introducing new squad types, just what has emerged from the dust.
The base FP for a squad is 3. This I suppose represents any form of fire, no matter how effective or not. The "bad men over there" thing.
+1 per LMG in the squad, BAR and MG-42 treated the same, practical ammo limits smoothing out the differences.
+1 if the majority of individual weapons are semi-automatic rifles.
+1 per 3-4 SMG in the squad.
+1 for particularly good quality troops, especially if CC ability is perceived to be needed to be boosted to match historical performance.
-1 for particularly bad quality troops, CC a consideration.
Range is a little less rigidly defined. Most units have 4/5 hex range which applies to rifle (bolt/semi) armed squads with a single LMG at most. Apply national stereotype or grade for 4 vs 5.
2-3 for mainly SMG armed troops or particularly low quality troops.
6 only for troops armed with a GPMG type LMG (IE Germans) or multiple LMG and semi-auto rifles (many US), sheer volume of fire getting a little extra reach.
Of course possibly reduce when going down in grade (E->1->2->G/C).
Spraying Fire added if using a GPMG type or multiple LMG or mainly SMG.
Assault fire if training or practice gave a tendency to fire while moving and using mainly semi-auto rifles or SMG.
Note that none of the above takes into account round type except that SMG rounds are short range. Neither does it distinguish LMG, except Germans always get spraying fire due to their MG-34/42 and 6 hex range for some E/1 squads.
What is almost amusing is the rifle round arguments that had raged over the past century plus. Pre WW1 the emphasis was on long range rifle fire. WW1 show artillery to be the main killer with MGs trailing significantly behind and small arms, bayonets and grenades sulking at the back of the class. Post WW1 long range rifle was re-emphasised, the generals thought WW1 was an aberration. The Germans thought differently and started work on an intermediate round (7.92x33mm) that eventually emerged mid-WW2. Post WW2 many nations looked into intermediate rounds, the Soviets with their 7.62x39mm and the British with their .280" (7x43mm) rounds. The US kept insisting on keeping a modified .30-06 which became the 7.62x51mm NATO. Like the zeal of the converted the US eventually plunged into the intermediate pool with the 5.56x45mm. While those rounds (and the later Soviet 5.45x39mm) were adequate for most situations, some more open theatres, like Afghanistan, required something with a bit more carry and now there were and are proposals for something in the 6mm-7mm size.
The world's first assault rifle, IE capable of firing full auto but using a smaller rifle cartridge, was the Russian Federov Avtomat made 1915-'24 which was designed originally for a Federov's own rimless 6.5mm cartridge, but later changed to use the standard Japanese 6.5x50mmSR semi-rimmed Arisaka rifle round as these were already available in bulk. It seems the rifle round debate has come full circle.
Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
I would be very interested in reading that, but cannot seem to locate it through this site's search function. Am I correct in assuming that it's more comprehensive than the (excellent) version you've posted here? If so, would you be willing to provide a link?
I'm particularly interested in how this was applied to the Japanese, as the SW Allotment suggested in Chapter H bears no resemblance to the TO&Es I've come across.
Thank you!
The my previous posts containing the above were a bit more wordy than what is above, but what you have in post 8 has the gist of it. My previous versions had a bit more explanations and examples but the rules of thumbs were the same. I can't be bothered to find so will give some examples and exceptions here.
For examples of the extra text, from memory:
A US Army squad should be 3 (base) + 1 (semi-auto rifles) + 1 (1 BAR) = 5. This matches the 2/G USA squads but the E/1 squads have 6. However my reading of historical accounts suggest that a 2nd BAR was common enough once the USA squad had been in combat for a while. US troops seem to 'acquire' extra toys more than other armies, so an extra BAR or a couple of SMG or even maybe a M1919A6 LMG might be common enough so that on top of it's already impressive FP, it would warrant an extra FP.
The early Italian platoon had a LMG squad and a rifle squad, the LMG squad had 2 LMG sections (2 LMG each) and the rifle squad had 2 rifle sections (no LMG), a section being the equivalent of an ASL squad. So a LMF section should be 3 + 2 (2 LMG) - 1 (low quality) = 4 and the rifle section 3 - 1 = 2 (low quality). Thus you should get 2x 4-4-6/4-5-6 and 2x 2-3-6/2-4-6 squads in a platoon. The existing 3-4-6 ASL squad is an smeared average of the early war LMG and rifle sections with 4 per platoon. The later Italian platoon did indeed move to 4 and later 3 equal squads each with 1 LMG like most armies. So a bit of a kludge for early war platoons, but works for me. The Italian 4-4-7 E squad just does not have the -1 for low quality applied.
The Polish squad had a BAR and about 20 riflemen. From a fair few points within ASL it really should be represented by a 4-5-7 plus a HS as it was about 50% bigger than contemporary squads. Usually a 2-4 extra riflemen make no difference (the British squad varied between 7 and 11 men during the war), but an extra 7/8 is practically an extra ASL squad. Being bigger also means more transport PP so 1.5 squads would be closer to history. However ASL ignores this.
The Soviet regimental SMG company had 31 man platoons with 3 x 10 man SMG squads who had no LMG, so 3 + 3 (E, 10 SMG/3 FRD) = 6 or 3 + 2 (1, 10 SMG/4 FRD) = 5, both with only 2 hex range. Assuming the 1 not as skilled as E or missing a few casualties.
The USA 747 and German 838 correspond to no WW2 organisation that I can think of. I feel they are leftovers from JH's impressionistic SL days, being the proverbial 500lb gorillas in the room. I would recommend using the German 548 for AE, whatever about DC, FT and the like, the German AE were little different in small arms from a normal rifle squad. A 667 is closer to what I have read about US paras.
Note that that only covers squads. SW and SW allocation are an entirely a different matter. I suppose they represent platoon spares (many platoons had an extra LMG), platoon lt. mortars, etc or even the platoon crack LMGer or ammo reserve. Toss into that company or battalion level MG/Heavy Weapon assets. Here a designer might have less to go on and need to use whim or gut feelings more.
The Japanese Platoon should have 3 x LMG squads and a lt. MTR squad. The LMG squad is the standard rifle squad but the lt. MTR squad should have 3 x 50 MTR, while in ASL you only get about 1 x 50 MTR per platoon. A historically based platoon should have 4 x squads, 3 x 50 MTR and maybe an extra LMG. All I can say is that ASL does not accurately reflect that. I suppose the designers decided a SW for nearly each Japanese squad was just too much.
With a few exceptions ASL does not seem too bad in reflecting relative values, in my view. My rules of thumb were generated from looking at what ASL already supplies. They are not what the designers used. I remember when I posted the earliest version, that one of the USMC designers (Steve Swann?) said they simply got the USMC 768 by looking at the existing USA 667 and adding 1 FP for the extra BAR. I just thought some might find my rules of thumb useful while looking at previously uncovered or unusual TO&E/OoB and wanted to translate to ASL.
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Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
You've really done your homework on this. Thank you very much for sharing the fruits of your research. I'm rather relieved to see that your explanation of the Japanese lines up with the research I've been doing (about 90% of my info is coming from the US "Handbook on Japanese Military Forces" (TM-E 30-480, dated 15 September 1944). Do you have any sense of how much the "on paper" strength of a Japanese infantry unit (I'm thinking at the battalion or regimental level here) varied over the course of the war?
Again, thank you for sharing your work-- it's incredibly helpful.
I confess I'm not really up on Japanese TO&E, a bit here, a nugget there.
The one thing that did strike me is how variable Japanese organisations were. Divisions moved from square (2 Brigades of 2 Regiments each) to triangular (3 regiments) during the '30s and into the '40s. You also had so called Mixed Brigades (detached from divisions) and Independent Mixed Brigades with quite variable strengths, basically mini-divisions. These could have from a regiment (3 battalions) to 4-6 individual battalions to 2 regiments of Infantry. Such Brigades nearly always had an artillery battalion or regiment and some engineer and signals troops, in rare cases tanks. The Germans were noted for forming Kampfgruppe with whatever was regarded as necessary (or just what was available) for a task from any mix of formations, but once fighting was over the troops returned to their parent organisation. The Japanese semi-formalised that practice.
The Infantry battalion seems to have had a fairly stable base of 3 Infantry companies and a MG/HW company and usually had a pair of 70mm battalion guns (sometimes a pair of 37mm trench guns instead) and a pair of AT (20/37mm and more rarely 47mm) but rarely any organic medium mortars. I think that at one stage the square divisions had 4 infantry platoons a company but moved to 3 infantry platoons, often when moving to a triangular divisional structure. Again you might see artillery or other types attached semi-permanently to regiments and battalions, depending upon the situation.
As I said, I am weak on Asian OoBs/TO&Es, but the Japanese produced such a variety that at times I feel like it's trying to cage smoke. Herding cats I am used to, but pinning down Japanese OoBs I find exhausting.
The one thing that did strike me is how variable Japanese organisations were. Divisions moved from square (2 Brigades of 2 Regiments each) to triangular (3 regiments) during the '30s and into the '40s. You also had so called Mixed Brigades (detached from divisions) and Independent Mixed Brigades with quite variable strengths, basically mini-divisions. These could have from a regiment (3 battalions) to 4-6 individual battalions to 2 regiments of Infantry. Such Brigades nearly always had an artillery battalion or regiment and some engineer and signals troops, in rare cases tanks. The Germans were noted for forming Kampfgruppe with whatever was regarded as necessary (or just what was available) for a task from any mix of formations, but once fighting was over the troops returned to their parent organisation. The Japanese semi-formalised that practice.
The Infantry battalion seems to have had a fairly stable base of 3 Infantry companies and a MG/HW company and usually had a pair of 70mm battalion guns (sometimes a pair of 37mm trench guns instead) and a pair of AT (20/37mm and more rarely 47mm) but rarely any organic medium mortars. I think that at one stage the square divisions had 4 infantry platoons a company but moved to 3 infantry platoons, often when moving to a triangular divisional structure. Again you might see artillery or other types attached semi-permanently to regiments and battalions, depending upon the situation.
As I said, I am weak on Asian OoBs/TO&Es, but the Japanese produced such a variety that at times I feel like it's trying to cage smoke. Herding cats I am used to, but pinning down Japanese OoBs I find exhausting.
After I posted that, I had a thought of 3 x squads, 3 x 127 vehicular crews, 3 x 50 MTR and possibly an extra LMG might be better, though less fair for 448 squads. You could use 128 Striped infantry crews with 448 squads instead of 127 vehicular crews, I suppose.
jrv
Forum Guru
I have frequently read that one of the largest causes of casualties in the PTO was the Japanese knee mortar. I don't know whether its fearsomeness is over-stated, or ASL just doesn't do it justice.
JR
JR
Bob Walters
Senior Member
It also depends on timeframe. Early War is different from late war.
Uncle_Duke
Senior Member
That's an interesting idea. I'd been throwing around the idea of representing the Grenade Discharger squad as 3x Half Squads with a 50mm MTR each. I think your approach of using crews better represents the inherent firepower of 12 men with Arisakas, the trade off being that in your method, the crews have self-rally capability.
Tom Morin did something similar in Valor of the Guards, pairing vehicle crews with medium and heavy machine guns, but what applies in Stalingrad doesn't necessarily work in the South Pacific....
A fascinating article. Thank you! I think the article explains the casualty figures quite well: "Probably the main reason for the knee mortar’s reputation for deadly effectiveness among Allied soldiers resulted from the sheer numbers of the weapon employed in the field." Sheer numbers, combined with the fact that it could be used for point blank range direct fire (a facet not entirely represented in ASL), meant that it could be of extraordinary utility in jungle where American or British mortars would be useless.
My sense is that the Type 89 is fairly well modeled in ASL terms except in a couple of respects: I might allow it to fire at 1 hex range even when in dense jungle, and I might also allow it to fire from within a pillbox.
In absolute lethality terms, it's about as effective as rifle fire from either a crew or half-squad, but with two major advantages: Range, and Rate of Fire. It also has the ability to place SMOKE. I find the SMOKE capability to be the Type 89's most useful quality, and when playing as the Japanese, I'm prone to use them to dump WP all over the place until I run out.
I was more thinking about limiting the inherent FP and it prevents HS from recombining to give the Japanese an extra squad. Note that having a Striped 128 crew (in a 448 platoon) as part of your OoB is forbidden by the rules, but that's what SSRs are for
. 3 Squads, 2 HS, 3 MTR and a LMG would also work. The advantage of using an AFV crew is that the Japanese player is 'encouraged' to use them to man the MTRs, their self rallying ability and pathetic FP helps in that regard. The downside is: do you really want self rallying units in a normal infantry platoon?Of course there is a problem with crews; too few of them unless you have BRT or multiple CoB/RS.
It looks like there is no easy answer and eventually you will have to go "F*** it, I'll just have to pick X".
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Machete was standard issue to the British Army - they're useful for clearing brush and chopping roots when digging in, not as a weapon. Come to think of it, we still have machetes for general issue.