WesWorld

Warning, long and boring. Read at own risk.

Prologue :
I ceased quantifying my land and air forces in 1938 for a number of reasons, ranging from the rancor and bile being spilled, to what I felt were unacceptably advanced equipment being fielded, to sheer quantities being put forward.

Current :
As part of getting my countries back in order, I have resumed work on clarifying a progression of equipment. What I've referred to as a Military Equipment Progression. It doesn't satisfy all desires, but this will give folks an idea of what type of equipment the Belgians and Dutch field. Generally, I don't wish to tie myself down to dates or numbers, in large part because identifying a proper baseline is hard, and then actually keeping up to date with everyone's posts - esp when they diverge in tech level - is difficult.

However, I became curious as to the numbers of armored vehicles it would be reasonable to postulate the Belgians fielding. I made up a list of what would be "Nice" and it seemed large, so I consulted Brock, and he thought it large, and then I ran comparison numbers....and felt it actually wasn't.

So..what basis to use. Simplese would be to say, well 1/5th the population of France, so 1/5th the army. Or 1/9th Germany, so 1/9th the Army.

But....the Belgians had one of the highest per capita incomes- they earned more for the their population size, and they also spent a great deal on their military due to the mismatch in sizes. So that should be a proportionately larger budget than the French.

Plus, the Belgians didn't fund a navy like both countries.

In the original timeline, the Belgians were rearming their forts and trying to buy arms (having difficulty finding people selling). Pushing their defense expenditures up to 25% of their budget in the 1930s Depression, they fielded roughly 650,000 soldiers, with reserves rounding them out about 900,000 in the standing army alone. Pretty good for a country of 8 million.

Then...there's what you buy with that $.
One key point I've long held is 1 of item X is not equal to 1 of item y.

1 "tank" does not cost the same as another "tank". Especially if one is 14 tons and another is 40 tons, and a 14 ton armored car cost less than a 14 ton scout tank. So shouldn't you be able to have 1 x 40 ton, or 3 x 14 ton, or perhaps 5-6x 14ton AC...for about the same "cost"? Yet people see the numbers, and 200 tanks don't impress like 600 scout tanks or 1100 armored cars. I bet the last is more likely to get you grief than the first.

Cost wise, one could field 200 B-17 heavy bombers or 1,000 P-51 fighters for roughly the same "price", and the fighters would take less flying personnel to boot. For the Netherlands, I simplified this as an "Engine Count", as that's a reasonable comparison, and also was a limiting factor production wise.

Likewise a 26.3 ton Stug IIIG costs roughly 70% of a 26.3 ton PzIVF2, Then there's conversions of old chassis - It's cheaper & faster to add a section & road wheels to a PzI chasis and stick a superstructure on it for a Pzjgr I, than it is to build a brand new dedicated vehicle.

There's even the consideration of what to build the vehicle out of. Cast armor was faster to manufacture and cheaper than welded or riveted rolled armors, and far cheaper than face hardened. Of course it doesn't stop projectiles quite as well, which led to appliques of rolled on top of it. British battleships were considerably cheaper than USN battleships, which were made of expensive STS steel and had higher pressure steam plants than the RN vessels. They were probably built with more overtime expense as well.

Then there's Wesworld economics vs. Real World Economics.
In Wesworld, countries are "richer", and many are much more developed. The Great Depression did not happen. WWI was less impactive to the combatants.

So, using historical data, whats the Belgian defense budget relative to neighbors

So, in evaluating what "Belgium" could reasonable have, I think the relative GDP per capita for Pre-WWI is most relevant as the baseline GDP per capita. T

hen use that and the pre WWII population to generate a "wesworld" current GDP for each country. That forms the tax base.

In this case, the best comparisons would be Belgium's neighbors, France and Germany - Germany more so due to the lack of the empire.

Poking about Wiki, I came up with 1907 populations and 1913 GDP, in 1960 dollars. Close enough.

So dividing the 1913 GDP by the 1907 population, using Belgium as "1.0" you come up with the following ratios of Per Capita GDP
Belgium : 1.0
France : 0.645
Germany : 0.671

I think the total government tax take of GDP should be presumed to be similar. Otherwise you'll have folks announcing they are taking in 100% so they can do x....

Then there's the question of Defense spending. Lacking other data, one would presume this was similar as well.
However, we know that the Belgians historically were spending 25% (in the Depression) as they couldn't count on France (cancled the 1920 pact in 1936) and Germany was heavily rearming. In Wesworld they can't count on France, and the Germans massively rearmed and now are dearming(1)...but added France as an Ally. So the Wesworld threats haven't been to dissimilar to the OTL - actually Hrolf was fielding a larger than historical military, not less. SO.... I'm guessing they are still spending that 25%.

France and Germany however, are members of the dominant alliance on the continent. None of their neighbors can reasonably be considered a threat, especially if Russia and Atlantis enter. One can't expect they are spending they are spending 25%, maybe...15% Maybe less? So lets say 15%.

So we have the following budget ratios :
LON 1937 Population x 1913 Per capita GDP ratio x tax base x % defense spending

Belgium__: 8,501 * 1.0 * 1.0 * 0.25 = 2125
France___: 39,284 * 0.645 * 1.0 * 0.15 = 3803
Germany__: 77,178 * 0.671 * 1.0 * 0.15 = 7765

So by this logic ... Belgium should be able to field 56% of the French Military, and 27% of the German.
Which sounds high, but the math makes sense. Pop * Per capita GDP = $ * % spent on def = Def budget.

The biggest unknown is the % the French/Germans spend on the Military, and 15% sounds reasonable.

Now one can say "But what about the French Colonies !?!".
Well, one presumes they are fiscally self supporting (the OTL Japanese ones weren't though), but one should also count the cost of the French Navy in there. 11 Battlewagons, 11 Carriers, 14 heavy and 26 light cruisers 82 destroyers, etc...vs the Belgian 1 heavy, 4 light cruisers, 18 destroyers....France is spending waaaaaay more on the navy, let's presume the Empire pays for that.

Meanwhile the Germans field 12 battlewagons, 7 carriers, 4 heavy and 16 light cruisers, and 100 destroyers - almost all built in the 1930s. The entire Belgian fighting navy displaces only a bit more than a single Sachsen class Battleship.

So postulating that the "Reasonable" Wesworld Belgian defense expenditure is 27% of the German and 56% of the French (and trust me, I'm still having a bit a shock at those conclusions, I expected ~15-20 & 30-40) ....is rational ?

(1) Long Edit Well, someone had said they were (Germans disarming), or I had that impression. Looking at Bruce's Admin Structure, I count 56 divisions, while Hrolf's 1938 OOB had 57. Both have 9 panzer divisions (though Bruce has 2 x 9th) however Hrolf's 9 x 1938 Panzer Divisions had a bit over 9,405 men / 192 tanks, while Bruce's 1940s have 13,285 men / 248 tanks, so actually the strength- at least in those formations, has increased to 2,232 Med & light tanks. Presumably about 104,583 tons of tanks.

Meanwhile the French have in 1940-43 built 2,304 medium tanks- mostly 34 ton char-8A2 for 87,370tons, albeit only 1000 or so are in France.
In addition in France proper there are ~500+ of their 14.5mt , 75/60 armed Char-6D with the presumably expensive oscillating turret (new bearing path, more assembly, more gears, etc)-
so 94620 tons,
....plus the 40mt Char-13 heavy tank in whatever numbers that occurs.
....plus any old tanks they haven't disposed of - like the FT-37- in whatever numbers they occur. Since the FT-37 mentions "upgunning in the 1940s" sounds like its around.
Let's guess 500 of each? That would be another 49,500 tons (note, ton- 2000lbs, mt- 1000kg, 2200lbs, I'm bouncing back and forth).
So French total guess : 144,100 tons of tanks?

144,100*0.56 = 80,696
104,583*0.27 = 28,237

while my "would be nice number" (factoring in cost savings such as AC vs tank, rebuilds, assault guns, cast armor)... came in at 83% of the allowable under the German comparison.

So, if anyone's awake and wants to chime in, tell me the glaring obvious flaws I've missed. Submit your own concept as to how to do this !! Or tell me I spent waaaay to much time plunging down this rabbit hole and it's time to wake up Alice.

Whoa!
That's some serious analysis beyond anything I've ever contemplated.
The defence spending figures are surprisingly high. My only immediate thought is, reading Belgium could field 56% of the French Military, and 27% of the German by your calcs and the interesting tank tonnage comparisons) is that you probably need a more detailed breakdown to see how Germany and France spend their defence budgets. For example. France probably spends more on maintaining fortifications, Germany might spend more on national AA defence etc. Belgium might afford 56% French military power or 27% German military power, but how Belgium apportions that military power is going to differ in terms of defences, unit mix, equipment and the air force etc.

Interesting info on German military strength, I admit I haven't gone into the military cuts in detail but from what your saying is that Germany is in fact not disarming at all but increasing her military power, albeit in slightly revised, smaller packages. Britain and France have Empires to disperse units and equipment but Germany either has to sell or scrap. Argentina did get a large sum of Ju-88s but its interesting to note all recent German tank offers have been for new-build Panthers rather than older stored stocks of refurbished PzIII and PzIV. I'll need to dig a little deeper myself I think.

I have tried to follow the argument presented, and find myself concerned regarding the juxtaposition of data presented from a variety of sources separated in time. This concerns me, as a far better course would be to rely upon data, even estimated data, representing the same point in time. That said, I found some interesting economic data in Wikipedia that bears upon the discussion, at least in my opinion.

GDP for 1938 stated in millions of 1960 dollars

Belgium: 8,501
France: 39,284
Germany: 77,178
Austria: 4,320

Total Germany and Austria: 81,498

If one calculates the relative size of the GDP, that of Belgium is but 10.43% that of Germany and Austria combined (the present WW situation) or 11.01% of Germany alone. The corresponding percentages for France are 48.20% and 50.90% respectively. Now, the economic situation that prevails in WW is far different than historical, as you have cited. However, it is reasonable to presume that such differences apply equally to all nations, so the relative percentages would continue to prevail.

GDP per capita for 1938 stated in 1960 US dollars

Belgium: 1,105
France: 936
Germany: 1,126
Austria: 640

I feel uncomfortable attempting to aggregate the German and Austrian GDP per capita data to make a complete comparison with the Belgian figure; I do believe that the lower Austrian value would be diluted by Austria's smaller population, and not have a significant downward revision to the German value. In my opinion, the Belgian and combined German values would be very close.

On the basis of this data, one can simplify and put on a consistent basis the calculations of the relative defense spending of Belgium, France and Germany

Belgium: 8,501 * 0.25% = $2,125
France: 39,284 * 0.15% = $5,893
Total Germany: 81,498 * 0.15% = $12,225

The Belgian expenditure would thus represent only 17.38% of that of Germany, using the relative percentages you proposed; this is substantially less than your 27% estimate.


Now, on the question of German rearmament/disarmament - however you choose to look at it - the present plans for the Heer (which will be updated in the encyclopedia at the close of 1944) call for a draw down to forty-four divisions in the active army, with approximately 600,000 men. Of those however, sixteen divisions would be panzer divisions with a total establishment of 3,648 tanks - presently a mix of Panzer IV and Panthers. If we take 35 tons per tank as a happy average, that would be 127,680 tons of tanks, exclusive of other armored vehicles.

If we apply the value of 17.38% to the total mass of tanks, this would limit Belgium to 22,196 tons of tanks. If we apply the same percentage to manpower, the active strength of the Belgian Army would be 104,307 officers and men. Based on the 1930 Belgian census which credits the nation with 8.1 million inhabitants, that represents 1.29% of the total population. In comparison, the 600,000 men of the Heer represent but 0.78% of the German population.

I therefore think that the Belgian Army would have a far smaller tank force than you have postulated, and that the burden of manpower would be a crushing one on a nation the size of Belgium.

Now, is this a rabbit hole? Personally, I think so.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
Interesting info on German military strength, I admit I haven't gone into the military cuts in detail but from what your saying is that Germany is in fact not disarming at all but increasing her military power, albeit in slightly revised, smaller packages. Britain and France have Empires to disperse units and equipment but Germany either has to sell or scrap. Argentina did get a large sum of Ju-88s but its interesting to note all recent German tank offers have been for new-build Panthers rather than older stored stocks of refurbished PzIII and PzIV. I'll need to dig a little deeper myself I think.

Before going too far, too fast, please see my response to Kirk. The Heer is actually downsizing; the updated data will appear in the encyclopedia at the close of the year, as drawdowns are, of course, gradual.

Germany has been flogging surplus Panzer IVs, though they have yet to find a wide market. Two battalions worth were donated to Hungary a while back. The situation is one of "well, we can supply Panthers in X months, but we can supply Panzer IVs now", which was the offer to Romania. They, however, don't like to have the same vehicles as their friendly neighbor, Hungary.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
Meanwhile the French have in 1940-43 built 2,304 medium tanks- mostly 34 ton char-8A2 for 87,370tons, albeit only 1000 or so are in France.

Check your math. 2,304 * 34 is 78,336, not 87,370.

But if you use the figures I posted in my encyclopedia and break them out by type and weight, you get 2,340 Montbruns AND DERIVATIVES for 79,429. Still 89% of your numbers. Not exactly a rounding error, there...

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
Meanwhile the French have in 1940-43 built 2,304 medium tanks- mostly 34 ton char-8A2 for 87,370tons, albeit only 1000 or so are in France.
In addition in France proper there are ~500+ of their 14.5mt , 75/60 armed Char-6D with the presumably expensive oscillating turret (new bearing path, more assembly, more gears, etc)-
so 94620 tons,
....plus the 40mt Char-13 heavy tank in whatever numbers that occurs.
....plus any old tanks they haven't disposed of - like the FT-37- in whatever numbers they occur. Since the FT-37 mentions "upgunning in the 1940s" sounds like its around.
Let's guess 500 of each? That would be another 49,500 tons (note, ton- 2000lbs, mt- 1000kg, 2200lbs, I'm bouncing back and forth).
So French total guess : 144,100 tons of tanks?

I'll give you the actual figures, because you're way off.

In Metropolitan France, the Armee de Terre has deployed six armoured divisions (Division blindé) and four Brigades de réaction rapide. The Armoured Division has fourteen Bruyere light tanks, a hundred sixty-eight Montbruns, thirty-four tank destroyers and assault guns, thirty-six SPGs, twelve SPAAGs, thirty-two armoured engineering vehicles, and forty-two Montbrun A3s. (Total tank count is 228 per division, plus 100 other support hulls.) The BRRs have twenty-eight Montbruns, twelve SPGs, and four SPAAGs. Thus, France fields, at the end of 1943, 1,370 Montbruns and 748 derivatives in the Metropole, plus 84 Bruyeres.

In North Africa, France fields three Divisions légère blindée, which are built around three battalions of Bruyeres - a hundred and forty apiece, plus thirty-six SPGs, twelve SPAAGs, and thirty-six armoured engineering vehicles. So there's a total of 420 light tanks plus 264 derivatives.

And there's twenty-four unarmed training tanks at Saumer.

In total, the French OOB requires 1,456 tanks in the Metropole and 420 in the French Union. (Not including Indochina, which is coming out of their local budget.) The higher production figures in my encyclopedia account for spare vehicles, replacements for vehicles written off in training accidents, etc. Some of the 108x Char-8A1 Montbruns were sold to the Philippines (for the cost of transportation) and so are no longer in the inventory.

The Char-2E Lefebvre, which everyone still insists on calling the FT-37, was removed from active service at the end of 1943, and there were only 252 of them manufactured. They're currently parked awaiting either upgunning or scrapping. The Char-13 which you reference is not yet in production, so there are ten pre-production vehicles and that's it. So where you've calculated a thousand vehicles and 49,500 tons, there are actually only 252x and 11,740t...

Totals by requirement:
- Char 2E: 252 (reserve)
- Char 6: 504
- Char 6 derivatives: 264
- Char 8: 1120
- Char 8 derivatives: 748

Totals by production:
- Char 2E: 252 (reserve)
- Char 6: 630 *
- Char 6: derivatives: 330 *
- Char 8: 2048 *
- Char 8 derivatives: 935 *
* - Includes vehicles surplused out, does not include foreign orders.

So if I rough-tally up my numbers the way you did (including the Montbruns sold and the Lefebvres in reserve), I come up with 102,036 tons. Your "French total guess" is about 150% in excess of what I consider realistic. It does not inspire my confidence in the rest of your cited figures, though I haven't checked them myself.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
The defence spending figures are surprisingly high. My only immediate thought is, reading Belgium could field 56% of the French Military, and 27% of the German by your calcs and the interesting tank tonnage comparisons) is that you probably need a more detailed breakdown to see how Germany and France spend their defence budgets. For example. France probably spends more on maintaining fortifications, Germany might spend more on national AA defence etc. Belgium might afford 56% French military power or 27% German military power, but how Belgium apportions that military power is going to differ in terms of defences, unit mix, equipment and the air force etc.

France doesn't spend much at all on maintaining their fortifications - particularly not in comparison to the fort-happy Belgians. Remember that in the late 1920s, France decided to build a mechanized army instead. There are a few defensive structures still remaining - a bit of a Mareth Line in Tunisia, some defensive structures in the Alps and Pyrenees to hold up Italian or Iberian attacks, and some forts remaining in NE France from 1870 and 1917, which mainly serve as things like division or corps headquarters.

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
France doesn't spend much at all on maintaining their fortifications - particularly not in comparison to the fort-happy Belgians. Remember that in the late 1920s, France decided to build a mechanized army instead. There are a few defensive structures still remaining - a bit of a Mareth Line in Tunisia, some defensive structures in the Alps and Pyrenees to hold up Italian or Iberian attacks, and some forts remaining in NE France from 1870 and 1917, which mainly serve as things like division or corps headquarters.

My statement was a hypothetical statement, generally militaries don't spend the same proportions on the same areas as each other.

I share the same unease as Bruce on basing these figures on pre-WW1 stats, I assume Kirk felt the expression in 1960 dollars (that data itself causing room for errors) was nearer to what might be now as opposed to 1907 data expressed in 1907 dollars. Of course GDP for Bel/Fr/Ger moved differently relatively to each other between 1907-38 and so projecting forwards from 1907-38 or 1907-44 is as difficult as using 1945 data to extrapolate GDP for 1985. Bruce's figures puts a revised perspective on things. As does Brock's revised tank force strengths. Perhaps there is a danger of digging too far into stats and making fancy calculations when what you really want is probably closer to eyeing up the OTL Belgian levels.

As Kirk points out, 1 of X does not equal 1 of Y. So how many tons of vehicles or tanks France or Germany produces still isn't helpful. Even if France makes 102,000 tons of tanks and Belgium could (on Kirk's initial figures) make 50,000 tons, that does not really factor how much of that is heavy armour or light armour. More light armour = more engines for example and more tank guns required for production. Getting a mix right based on pure tonnage is hard. Better to develop an OOB for your armoured units and get what force you need from that.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood

I share the same unease as Bruce on basing these figures on pre-WW1 stats, I assume Kirk felt the expression in 1960 dollars (that data itself causing room for errors) was nearer to what might be now as opposed to 1907 data expressed in 1907 dollars. Of course GDP for Bel/Fr/Ger moved differently relatively to each other between 1907-38 and so projecting forwards from 1907-38 or 1907-44 is as difficult as using 1945 data to extrapolate GDP for 1985. Bruce's figures puts a revised perspective on things. As does Brock's revised tank force strengths.

The very great advantage of using the 1938 data expressed in 1960 dollars is that is consistent for all the nations involved.

Quoted

Perhaps there is a danger of digging too far into stats and making fancy calculations when what you really want is probably closer to eyeing up the OTL Belgian levels.

<snip>

Better to develop an OOB for your armoured units and get what force you need from that.

Quite so. Depending upon your objective, a set of figures can be made to support varying conclusions. No one will doubt the argument that OTL Belgian military strength could have been far larger than it was, given Belgium's economy; it was far more a reflection of internal politics. The suggestion to established a rational OOB and derive requirements from that is a far wiser course JMHO.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood

Quoted

Originally posted by Brockpaine
France doesn't spend much at all on maintaining their fortifications - particularly not in comparison to the fort-happy Belgians. Remember that in the late 1920s, France decided to build a mechanized army instead. There are a few defensive structures still remaining - a bit of a Mareth Line in Tunisia, some defensive structures in the Alps and Pyrenees to hold up Italian or Iberian attacks, and some forts remaining in NE France from 1870 and 1917, which mainly serve as things like division or corps headquarters.

My statement was a hypothetical statement, generally militaries don't spend the same proportions on the same areas as each other.

Understood. Still, I'm trying to point out that France has consistently de-emphasized fortifications on the basis of developing a small, highly-mechanized army. From my understanding of pasts posts, Belgium has invested in mechanization as a defensive backup to fortifications. So here's my bone: why are my tank numbers being used to justify Belgian numbers, when the role of Belgium's armoured forces is drastically different from my own? I'm not spending on forts so that I can spend on armour. But Belgium is spending on BOTH, and then my numbers are used to derive a percentage for Belgium's forces. It ignores vital factors: I intended to make my forces more oriented towards mechanized warfare.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
I share the same unease as Bruce on basing these figures on pre-WW1 stats, I assume Kirk felt the expression in 1960 dollars (that data itself causing room for errors) was nearer to what might be now as opposed to 1907 data expressed in 1907 dollars. Of course GDP for Bel/Fr/Ger moved differently relatively to each other between 1907-38 and so projecting forwards from 1907-38 or 1907-44 is as difficult as using 1945 data to extrapolate GDP for 1985. Bruce's figures puts a revised perspective on things. As does Brock's revised tank force strengths. Perhaps there is a danger of digging too far into stats and making fancy calculations when what you really want is probably closer to eyeing up the OTL Belgian levels.

As Kirk points out, 1 of X does not equal 1 of Y. So how many tons of vehicles or tanks France or Germany produces still isn't helpful. Even if France makes 102,000 tons of tanks and Belgium could (on Kirk's initial figures) make 50,000 tons, that does not really factor how much of that is heavy armour or light armour. More light armour = more engines for example and more tank guns required for production. Getting a mix right based on pure tonnage is hard.

Right. I've consistently had France use an almost Soviet example of military production: I choose a design that is good enough - maybe not world-beating, but competitive with what else is out there - and then I send it into series production for as long as I can justify it, producing as many as my conscience and sense of realism will let me get away with.

Building all those Montbruns was a case in point. Building a hundred medium tanks of a single type, you have to cover the start-up costs for manufacturing over 30,000 different parts. But the same tank, produced at high rates with, say, 2,500 units, drops to anywhere between one third to one-half the price. So a brand-new French Char-8 Montbrun cost about 40% the price of a Char-2E Lefebvre.

Could the French convert old tanks hulls into support vehicles? Yes - and France certainly had plenty to use. But there were hidden costs to that course. The French Armoured Cavalry Branch has tried very hard to streamline the equipment they send out into the field. 79% of the 2,203 vehicles assigned to a French Division blindé fall into one of two vehicle types: the Char-8 Montbrun and the Berliet GBC-4 vehicle family (medium truck and infantry carrier). As a result, there's an economy for parts and maintenance, as well as things like fuel.

Rebuilding those old tanks, with their small production quantities and all their old, outdated engines, transmissions, gearboxes, etc, would have added a lot to the requirements for the maintenance and support arms. Not to mention there weren't enough vehicles to cover all six armoured divisions equally - even if I'd just made armoured engineering vehicles out of them - and so each division would've ended up with dissimilar sets of make-do armour, all of it running up the costs. Those hidden operating costs and hassles meant that new vehicles were more economical to acquire than rebuilding the old.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
Better to develop an OOB for your armoured units and get what force you need from that.

YES.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
There's even the consideration of what to build the vehicle out of. Cast armor was faster to manufacture and cheaper than welded or riveted rolled armors, and far cheaper than face hardened. Of course it doesn't stop projectiles quite as well, which led to appliques of rolled on top of it.

Re-reading the original post again, I twigged to this comment and then ran back to one of my reference guides on armour, and I think this statement is not entirely correct. Permit me to quote:

Quoted

Cast armour, though slightly inferior ballistically to rolled armour plate, gave particular scope for improving resistance to penetration by suitable shapes. Castings were applied with particular success on the Stalin tanks of 1944 and the experimental British Valiant of the same period in the form of hull fronts with double curvature, which meant that frontal attack against them was at large composite angles. The construction was improved upon further on the later Stalins and on the American ellipsoidal one-piece cast hull introduced on the experimental T42 medium tank and adopted, after thickening up, on the M48 medium and the M103 heavy tanks. However, the production of such large hull castings is apt to tax industrial resources and the general trend has been to limit large castings to turrets where, in addition, welded construction out of rolled plate is more difficult to apply than to hulls.
- Armoured Forces, Richard M. Ogorkiewicz

While I have seen some information to the contrary, it all comes from sources I deem less reliable than this.

Well, I read through and assembled a response to the various comments, got a little more back than I expected.

Bruce :
I went with various information from various points in time because Wesworld is not like the Original Time Line. 1938 data is unlikely to properly represent the nations in question.
A nation like Belgium, which was industrial and exported, and via Antwerp's waterlinks transhipped, would have suffered disproportianately in the Great Depression, after the damage of WWI. Here the Great Depression simply didn't happen, and WWI was less impactive. Belgium's GDP should be higher than 1938. Using Pre WWI seemed more in-line with where Wesworld is. Further, between the 1922 Benelux formation and the 1930s PETA formation, there are free trade flows that should greatly help boost Belgium's more industrialized economy. So no, it's not reasonable to assume that the Wesworld changes apply to all nations equally because Wesworld history varies widely nation to nation.

Austria : For the initial 1913 GDP I used just Germany's 1907 pop and 1913 GDP. For the 1938 defense budget I used the LON's breakdown to include Germany - but not the Studetenland, and Austria into one population, and applied Germany's GDP. So I assumed the Austrian GDP had made parity.

As for the present plans for the Heer, nice to know they are going down, one could presume that dropping from 56 divisions to 44 roughly means the % used for the Defense budget drops from 15% to 10%. But if my attempt is to use my neighbors to establish a reasonable basis for defense levels, the peak peacetime strength would be a reasonable benchmark, I can then choose, based on storyline issues, if the Belgians also feel comfortable enough to decline from 25% to 10%.

Now, that's without starting to look at matters such as the expenditures consumed by the navy. The 4 Sachsen class battleships alone cost £115.842 / $461 million by Springsharps math, and are manned by (averageing the two) 10,080 men. Costs for WWII equipment are all over the map due to where in the production run, how monetary conversions are made, etc, but one example is a Panther cost ~$60,000, so one could buy 7,691 OTL Panthers for the cost of your Sachsens, which is a bit more than the raw steel cost. At 17.38%, that would be 1,336 Panthers, with a crew of 6,680...or 0.7% of the manpower the Belgians fielded in 1940, even if support manpower was factored they could crew them easily.

As for manpower, since the Belgians historically fielded ~900,000 active & reserve men, I don't think a Belgian army of 104,000 is reasonable- we knew it was bigger. Draftees and mandatory reserves are cheap, and were widely used to sustain large armies. Conceptually I figure the Belgians use such for most of the Infantry, re-enlistees retrain, reserves for all services, but esp Fortress/Rear AA/Quartermaster, and full time officers/NCOs as cadres for the rest. Armored units typically take more money, but less manpower, the equipment serving as a firepower multiplier.

I find it interesting though you came up with the lower 17.38% generating 22,196 tons post 1944. That's actually very close to my "would be nice" number (adjusted for relative costs).
Now, since my "would be nice" is including all Belgian tank destroyers and assault guns, which I've yet to glean out of the German numbers, it sounds like I can have a *larger* force.

Yikes, and that was just the first comment.
You folks really need to get bored by my ramblings quicker.

Brockpine


Char-8 number : I windowed my browser, brought up a spreadsheet and windowed that, entered the build numbers and tonnages and totaled. I'll presume I made an error somewhere in there. I did say *mostly 34 tons Char-8A2* as that was the predominate variant. Doing that again, I get the 2,340 (I seem to have transposed the 4 and 0) for 79,428 tonnes - I did note I was converting to English units and using the notation ton and mt, so 1.1 * 79,428 = 87,371. So no rounding error.

Actual numbers : Ok, I'm way off. I was only doing so much digging, so just looked at what was in the Encyclopedia. There all I had to go from was your list of builds for the Char-8, and your PM statement you had 1600 tanks in metropolitan France with ~1/3 of the light. Which I figured meant there was at least 500 of the Char-6 types about. As for the Char-2 and the 13, ok overshot there, but I did say it was a guess. I made it very clear I didn't know how many were there.

I also pointed out (or tried) that I was making the presumption that the French Empire was paying for the Navy, which left France to pay for the Army. Hence using the full production run of the mediums as the counting point. However, I also made no effort to tote up the tonnage of the TDs, AGs, SPGs, SPAAGs, or armored engineering vehicles. If they are 43% (100/32 of your hulls, that's a big chunk of tonnage.

Overall I think going off German numbers makes better sense, because they don't have overseas possessions impacting things

So the numbers, as I presented them, were decent. The biggest hit is the overshoot on the heavies, and ignoring the support vehicles. But I was aiming for a starting discussion point and presenting a methodology for comparison.

Quoted

fort-happy Belgians

The Belgians haven't built the late 1930s forts they did OTL, they did spruce up the existing historic ones and defense lines in the early/mid 1930s- much like the Dutch. Think more Siegfried line than Maginot line. The 60L50 fortress gun has instead been adopted as an ATG. Currently they are looking at building small fortified works with emplaced guns as rally points and fire bases, but nothing like the giant concrete blocks with 1000s of men. The coastal batteries are the first step in that direction, and don't include the giant underground galleries. Further, I paid for those out of the Naval Budget, so they don't impact the Army budget.

Hood
Actually, the 1960 constant number was simply because that's the format I found the data in when using Bing. Using "constant dollar" is a common economic expression. Since they were all presented that way, they should all have been changed the same ways. So, it should be close enough.

The problem with using historic Belgian data is severalfold.
1. Their buildup was in the midst of the Great Depression
2. They invested heavily in forts
3. They had problems, like the Dutch, getting the equipment. They couldn't even get all 25 of the AMC-35s they ordered from France, they got 12. They still fielded ~300 T-13 TDs, 42 T-15 LTs, had 75 old FT-18s, and 90 ACs, so close to 500 armored vehicles of various types - mostly small and home built on modifications to license.
4. They misunderstood how the battlefield would evolve.
5. Apparently, they weren't allied to France from 1920-1936, and so couldn't rely on them as a backstop. They've had to go it alone much longer in WW.

Here
1. The economics- as I outlined to Bruce, should be different
2. They haven't spent the same money on fortifications. Plus, under the "everyone is richer" theory,
3. Industrial bases & domestic capacity for most countries is higher in WW. Here, a much more militarized Netherlands has long leaned on Belgian armanent industry, and as part of the 1933-34 Belgian depression I had their Benelux partner, the Netherlands, invest in capital improvements, modernizing Belgian industrial plant.
4. There's alot more armored formations, and a great deal more buy off on mobile warfare. I think at this point it's reasonable for the Belgians to expect a different type of war.

Quoted

As Kirk points out, 1 of X does not equal 1 of Y. So how many tons of vehicles or tanks France or Germany produces still isn't helpful. Even if France makes 102,000 tons of tanks and Belgium could (on Kirk's initial figures) make 50,000 tons, that does not really factor how much of that is heavy armour or light armour. More light armour = more engines for example and more tank guns required for production. Getting a mix right based on pure tonnage is hard. Better to develop an OOB for your armoured units and get what force you need from that.

Well, that's kinda the basis for the post- what's a reasonable comparison point? Tonnage seemed a metric one could add up pretty easily, and it's what we use for navies.

We don't charge more for DDs and Subs, even though I've read Subs had both shorter lives (seals, fatigue) and higher costs (training, engineers), while Carriers we don't even pay for the air wing. The RAF did some study once and found that for the cost of a battleship lifetime, they could field a wing of bombers (dunno how many or what type)- aircraft cost alot and we ignore it.

I could use engine HP instead. But then we have the problem that a simple Ford-Antwerp V8 had 95hp and an SU-76 type used two of those, while a standardpanzer uses a V12 850hp diesel, which I presume is built just for that production, and requires a more specialized transmission and suspension. That gets far more speculative than simple tonnage. Far simpler to say 3x 14t = 42t.

Then for my purposes I was tossing in some simple cost factors, such as a casemented TD such as the Stug III costing ~70% of a PzIV of the same tonnage (again, Ijust found the one data point and used it, can't do an exhaustive comparison, hard to find the numbers and time), took a WAG that a cast hull cost 90% as much and so decided the Belgian SU-76 type at 14t would cost 14 x .7 x .9 = 8.82tons, while a 14 ton rolled armor tank would cost 14 tons.

At this stage, it's all just a first draft of a concept.

Brockpine
In the Belgian depression (1933-34?), one of the economic stimulus items specifically noted was the Dutch-financed construction of casting works, that's where the base hulls for Dutch tanks have been coming from. So this was dealt with back then.

Also, while it may have been a problem to cast a 1-peice hull for the nearly 50 ton M48, part of that- from my readings elsewhere- was controlling the cooling rates to get proper structure throughout the thick casting, not to mention sheer mass manipulation.

The reason for the tank orders from the UK and Chile are that I'm keeping Belgian homebrew at ~20tons or less, an M18 Hellcat clone being the largest, and the Dutch use it for the internal skeleton, keeping the castings thin. So this is much more comparable to a Souma S35 type casting than a M48. Though by now the Dutch can tell the Belgians about not trying to simply put a couple large bolts in to hold it all together.

Conclusion
Anyhow, thank you all for the input.

I'm curious what responses you'll have

Let me know if you think there's a better way I could go about this.

Feel free to present an alternative methodology.

OOB comments : That was where I got my "It would be nice" numbers - assigning battalions of AGs to Inf Divisions, so many mech units, etc. Then i thought, gee this is alot of hulls. But most are small and simple. What is reasonable anyhow? How would I figure that out. Then as I related I bounced it off Brock and he felt it high also. So then I embarked on this...


I will say the amount of work I've already sunk into this, an hour + on this reply and hours on the base concept...seems a bit much, considering I don't really want to specify numbers in the first place. So, I'm looking for a pretty simple methodology here that I can turn from action into "sim reality".

Quoted

I went with various information from various points in time because Wesworld is not like the Original Time Line. 1938 data is unlikely to properly represent the nations in question.

If you choose to cherry-pick data to suit your preconceptions, that's your business. However, please do not expect me to accept it as reality beyond your own construct.

Quoted

A nation like Belgium, which was industrial and exported, and via Antwerp's waterlinks transhipped, would have suffered disproportianately in the Great Depression, after the damage of WWI. Here the Great Depression simply didn't happen, and WWI was less impactive. Belgium's GDP should be higher than 1938. Using Pre WWI seemed more in-line with where Wesworld is. Further, between the 1922 Benelux formation and the 1930s PETA formation, there are free trade flows that should greatly help boost Belgium's more industrialized economy. So no, it's not reasonable to assume that the Wesworld changes apply to all nations equally because Wesworld history varies widely nation to nation.

The same argument could be made, from different directions, for every nation in WW. Germany apparently dot not suffer the effects of hyperinflation or the heavy burden of reparations. I could argue that Germany's WW number should be higher. I will not, because there is no good way to account for all the potential WW impacts on historical reality.

Quoted

Now, that's without starting to look at matters such as the expenditures consumed by the navy. The 4 Sachsen class battleships alone cost £115.842 / $461 million by Springsharps math, and are manned by (averageing the two) 10,080 men. Costs for WWII equipment are all over the map due to where in the production run, how monetary conversions are made, etc, but one example is a Panther cost ~$60,000, so one could buy 7,691 OTL Panthers for the cost of your Sachsens, which is a bit more than the raw steel cost. At 17.38%, that would be 1,336 Panthers, with a crew of 6,680...or 0.7% of the manpower the Belgians fielded in 1940, even if support manpower was factored they could crew them easily.

I am sorry, but I choose not to mix apples with oranges. I find this aspect of the discussion a real rabbit hole.

Quoted

Originally posted by BruceDuncan

If you choose to cherry-pick data to suit your preconceptions, that's your business. However, please do not expect me to accept it as reality beyond your own construct.

...

I am sorry, but I choose not to mix apples with oranges. I find this aspect of the discussion a real rabbit hole.

Ok, this is where what I discussed previously about our having problems communicating comes up.

I presume you're not trying to be insulting.
I assure you that from my perception, you are.

As for where the "reality beyond your own construct.", you know, as the Belgian player, I really am well within my rights to assert that the Wesworld events 1914-1944 are sufficiently different than OTL such that 1913 GDP ratios are the most relevant ratio.

Well, I don't think there's any point in my trying to update the Belgian & Dutch OOBs it that's the type of collaborative attitude I get to look forward to.

Speaking as a moderator...

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
As for where the "reality beyond your own construct.", you know, as the Belgian player, I really am well within my rights to assert that the Wesworld events 1914-1944 are sufficiently different than OTL such that 1913 GDP ratios are the most relevant ratio.

No, you are not within your rights to say that.

You are within your rights to say that Belgium has not suffered from the Great Depression or the Great War and has acquired a certain amount of financial authority. You can even say "I have a GDP of X." But you are not within your rights to prevent any other player from saying the same sorts of things about their countries. If you want to declare that you have such-and-such an economic ratio to another player's nation, then you need to work that our collaboratively with the player of that nation, in such a manner that you both agree. Instead, you declared an absolute statement which affects other player countries and insist you have a "right" to do so.

You do not.

This is a collaborative game, not a sort of fanfiction board. You need to work WITH other players to establish a mutual consensus, particularly when you make sweeping statements that affect their countries, instead of making absolute declarations.

You really and truely read my post " as the Belgian player," and thought I was declaring the right to decide for other nations? Because, somehow running Belgian comes with a secret super to do that?

Ya, right, of course the way to read that. Or you could realize I'm not saying a thing about other countries. I'm responding to Bruce's assertion I'm cherry picking data by picking Belgium's GDP relative value. Not passing judgement on others.

If I wanted to Cherrypick, my understanding is Belgium industrialized back in the 1800s, while Germany really took off in the 1900s, and had mostly finished by 1913, so I'd get back before the turn of the century and find those numbers.

Instead, I had the hypothesis that WWI was a point of departure for the economics, so I looked for an found pre-WWI data, 1913 in fact. Oooh how horrible of me.

You know, look back at my posts.
When I say

Quoted

At this stage, it's all just a first draft of a concept.

and

Quoted

Feel free to present an alternative methodology.

I was trying to present an idea and discuss it, and I get this garbage in response?

And you get high & mighty and lecture me on collaboration ?

I'd like to put my moderator hat on and tell ya all to simmer down.....

The difficulty you've introduced here is your assertion that the 1913 ratio of GDPs will hold true. Bruce and I do not think that is the case. Stating that caused you to reply, and I quote:

Quoted

As for where the "reality beyond your own construct.", you know, as the Belgian player, I really am well within my rights to assert that the Wesworld events 1914-1944 are sufficiently different than OTL such that 1913 GDP ratios are the most relevant ratio.

The problem is not that you're estimating Belgian numbers or such. The problem is that you're doing so in relation to France and Germany as well. Specifically, you are declaring that your role as the Belgian player gives you the right to say that our GDP/capita is 30% smaller than yours. I think that's rather rude and presumptuous of you, particularly as you've arrived at this opinion without mutual consultation, not even asking what WE thought our own figures ought to be. You should know both Bruce and me well enough by now that if you'd asked such a question, we'd both have said "Hm, okay, let's compare figures and see what's reasonable. What do you have? Okay, here's what I've got..." I've tried to encourage people who put this level of thought into working out their non-naval forces, so having to hash things like this is highly counterproductive to my objectives.

Quoted

Feel free to present an alternative methodology.

Hood and I did present an alternate methodology. Rather than trying to create some kind of formula, put together a quick and dirty order of battle and derive your numbers from that.

Let me demonstrate what I mean.

You state that the population of Belgium is 8.9 million. Most Western countries generally field between five to fifteen active soldiers per thousand people in the population. If you presume a Belgian Army of 890,000, this means one of every ten citizens (including women and children) are soldiers - or one hundred soldiers per thousand. That's a backbreaking strain on an economy - unless you want to go the North Korean route and have a garrison state, or the Israeli route and have a rich superpower providing you with military aid.

Let me presume instead a figure of fifty soldiers per thousand, giving 445,000 men in the standing army, with more in the reserves. Your post indicated you thought this was an achievable and realistic figure. (I myself would not go over twenty soldiers per thousand people because I think it would hurt my economy too much - and so I think this figure represents an extremely militaristic state. But that's my personal opinion and I digress.)

Let's further presume that you want six infantry corps, each composed of three 16,000-man infantry divisions and spare change. Let's just call the corps at 64,000 men each. Sum up six 64,000-man corps, and you get 384,000 men scattered through eighteen infantry divisions.

Going straight to the armour, you've implied to me that each division has an infantry-support tank battalion. Let's presume that each battalion is composed of three companies (squadrons), and each company is composed of three platoons, each composed of four tanks. The company has two spare tanks, bringing their total to fourteen. The battalion has six spare tanks, bringing their total to forty-eight.

Quoted

Quoted

Tank Company
- 3x Tank platoons: 4 tanks
- 1x Command platoon: 2 tanks
- Total: 14 tanks

Quoted

Tank Battalion
- 3x Tank Companies: 14 tanks
- 1x Command Group: 6 tanks
- Total: 48 tanks

Alternatively, in one of your PMs to me, you stated you figured 72 tanks per "regiment" (which I take to mean battalion -sized formations - the term regiment being used by many European forces for a battalion of cavalry lineage). 72 tanks per battalion is a bit large for what I've seen during the period, but we can work with that anyway, to give you an alternative setup:

Quoted

Quoted

Tank Company
- 4x Tank Platoons: 4 tanks each
- 1x Command Platoon: 4 tanks
- Total: 20 tanks

Quoted

Tank Battalion
- 3x Tank Companies: 20 tanks
- 1x Command Group: 12 tanks

If we presume that each Belgian division has a tank battalion in support, this means we've got eighteen battalions with 48 vehicles each - or a total of 864 vehicles. (Mind the fact that I'm using the term 'tank' loosely here - the vehicles you use may be the light or rebuilt vehicles - assault guns or such.) Using the larger figure, there are 1296 AFVs.

Next, let's address independent armoured formations. Guessing from your PMs and statements, it seems Belgium has an independent formation in the more traditional cavalry role. Let's call it an Armoured Brigade for now. Let's presume it pairs three mechanized infantry battalions with three tank battalions. (The US Army used a similar setup for their Armoured Cavalry Divisions in the 1940s; and France uses this general organization for the Division Legere Blindee units deployed to North Africa.) In this setup, the Brigade thus boasts 144 tanks with the low number, or 216 at the high number.

So what's the total? For the smaller battalion size, I'd thus estimate 1,008 vehicles total. For the larger, 1,512.

This seems to me to be a much more useful methodology than attempting to put together ratios and such to the neighbors.

That's a fair sized army, I'm running the Romanians at ~350, 000 right now and that's with double the population.

Myself when I did up the US armed forces, I looked at what Canis and Hrolf posted, looked at the size of the Iberian Army, and went from there. It's also worth noting that Canada a nation of 11-12 million put 1.1 million in uniform during 1939-45. So can Belgium have expenditures of this size? Sure but at a cost elsewhere. I just hope the citizens of Belgium can save money for when their old and don't get hurt because I cannot see much in the way of government expenditures on social programs. Though whether that is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion.

Well, the Italian Army is small (in active service personal, RA said that a large force could be raised if needed from reserves which I have not yet detailed) at ~300,900 on a population of ~45 million (not counting the 5 million that just voted themselves in). I dont have figures for the Air Force and Navy (yet).