WesWorld

So, will this sort of progression be acceptable? This way my intentions are clear.

Tank guns

RA 45L48 -> FRC C 60L50 -> Cockerill 75L54 -> Cockerill 90mm

76L9 gun/mortar -> none


Light / Amphibious Tanks
Carden-Lloyd M1931 -> T-40 (USSR)
none -> M29 Weasel (USA) -> Buffalo IV (UK) w/23mm
LTA-36A -> PT-76 (USSR)

tanks
LT-33b -> Pz-II bel -> IKV 91 (Sweden), just 1940s tech.

Combat Tanks
T-35 -> T-41 -> Centurion III (UK)

The T-35 was slower S-35, armed with the 45L48, but with a turret ring which would make it upgunnable to the FRC60mm or an 25pdr gun. The -35A with the 45mm was the basemodel, with a -35B 75/16 infantry support model added. The -35C model thinned the top/bottom armor for greater hull armor, followed finally by the -35D model which increased weight more and maxed out the suspension. While the -35A had a groundpressure of 8.5psi, the -35D ran either 11 or 12.5psi.

The T-41 was meant to be an assault tank somewhat analogous to Churchhill III -> Black Prince A43 (UK). In 1935 the Dutch started the drive train & suspension work, aiming for something near flatcar/bridge maximums, to provide an assault tank options. Lower ground pressures and lower top speeds than many, starting with the FRC60mm gun. The Turret ring would allow upgunning to the Cockerill 90mm. I cleared with Hrolf the use of the USA's T20 or T14 as a illustrating picture.

Design concept of a thin cast hull with flanges holding the hardened armor plates was meant as both flavor and a plausible means of cheaper quality construction. Thin castings cool faster for higher quality control and provides a stiff unitary skeleton to attach other elements to. I used it on the LTA-36A, and meant it to be the way the LT-35D was constructed. Happenstance was that when I did the T-40's tanksharp, this spaced armor also generated a resistance to hollow charge warheads.

Bonus
Now, while I don't intend on posting stats regularly, the T-35A stats are up, the LTA-36A specs were posted in the 1936 news:


11.5 tonnes
5m long, 2.7m wide, 2.9m high
2 hull positions (Driver, MG/Radio), 1 turret positions (Commander/Gunner)
1x 23L52 MG, 2x 7.92mm MG (hull/coax)

190hp diesel engine
Max spd : 30mph
Range : 200miles
0.3m ground clearance, 8.5 psi
Transiting freeboard : 0.9m, transiting speed : 4.5mph
Dropped in freeboard : 0.4

0.5tons of cargo represent extra seals, small schnorkel air intake for >.6m waves

Armor front/side/rear/top/bottom
Turret: 38 / 16 / 16 / 8 / na
Hull : 30 / 20 / 20 / 20 / 8

And I did do a T-41- not sure I finished..but rough T-41 specs, later version with 90mm gun, but without armor upgrades would be :

41.1 tonnes
6.5m long, 3.75m wide, 3.02m high
2 hull positions (Driver, MG/Radio), 3 turret positions (Commander/Gunner/Loader)
1x 90mm,3x 13.2mm MG (hull/coax/Pintle)

190hp diesel engine
Max spd : 17.6mph
Range : 107miles
0.42m ground clearance, 8.17 psi

KE equivalent
Armor front/side/rear/top/bottom
Turret: 101 / 101 / 49 / 26
Hull : 124 / 108 / 59 / 18 / 16

HEAT equivalent
Front Hull/Turret : Res Bazooka
Side Turret : Res Bazooka
Side Hull : Res Super Bazooka

Just to clarify; the vehicles you have listed are what you're deriving baseline stats from (and possibly graphics), not a claim on the development of the actual vehicle that would prohibit the historical owners from developing theirs, yes?

Correct. Where I'm saying Centurion III (UK) it just means that the Dutch would have something similar at a time in Wesworld where it would be appropriate.

I see that my cut & paste dropped the -> signs, I'll go fix that.

Thanks for sharing the insight with us! As for the details; I, the humble layman, shall await more expert commentary. Seems reasonable, though.

First an aside : between the AEGIS partners, the UKN and a couple outside sources, the Dutch are pretty good for raw materials.

UKN Mineral Resources : Oil, tin, cobalt, copper, niobium, tantalum, diamonds, zinc, manganese, tin, lead, uranium (source for 80% of the Manhatten project OTL), bauxite (1943 Suriname mines provided 60% of US consumption), Iron, chromite, small amounts of nickel, copper, platinum.

Agricultural products : palm oil, rubber , quinine, timber, etc.

AEGIS/SANTA provides : Iron, nickle, mica, tungsten, mercury, oil, magnesium, lead, zinc, rubber, vandium, copper, sulpher etc etc


Second : not to pick on Bruce- it's quite evident he does a great amount of high quality work- , but the post including the total # of planes in the German Airforce is actually a good example of why I don't want to be forced into TO&E and/or vehicle details.

In this thread :
http://www.jk-clan.de/wbblite/thread.php…988&sid=&page=2

I came up with what seemed a reasonable method for sizing the Dutch airforce. I used historical Germany as a basis, as it was rapidly rearming and preparing for war. The historical Luftwaffe of summer 1939 (according to Wikipedia) had a aircraft strength was 4,201 operational aircraft; 1,191 bombers, 361 dive bombers, 788 fighters, 431 heavy fighters, and 488 transports. To "standardize" relative costs of fighter vs. bomber/transport (ignored recon/trainer), I used # of engines, and I set the Dutch at around 2/3rd the engines of the historical Luftwaffe in 1939. In total, the rough number of 1939 German Fighter/bomber/transport engines was 6,101.


Yet the 1941 Wesworld peaceful Luftwaffe is 23,709 aircraft strong. Granted, only 10,868 are Fighter/bombers/transports, but that is 2.5x larger. The USAAC at peak war strength in 1944 was 80,000
A rough count of engines gives 5,962 fighter engines, 9,113* bomber/transport engines. for a total of 15,075 engines, roughly 2.5x historical.

I'm not going to say that Wesworld Germany can't have that many, I just don't care enough to expend any energy on the argument. Heck, just counting the engines took more effort than I want. It's an example where I looked at a historical basis to try to make a reasonable guess at what I should have....and someone else came up with an entirely different answer.

The effect it does have is : I'm going to withdraw my offer to update my TO&Es and likely I won't bother to create an Equipment progression.

Should Germany ever invade, we'll have to hash it out then, and I'll go back to the logic in the above thread for the relative amounts.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
Yet the 1941 Wesworld peaceful Luftwaffe is 23,709 aircraft strong. Granted, only 10,868 are Fighter/bombers/transports, but that is 2.5x larger. The USAAC at peak war strength in 1944 was 80,000
A rough count of engines gives 5,962 fighter engines, 9,113* bomber/transport engines. for a total of 15,075 engines, roughly 2.5x historical.

[...]

The effect it does have is : I'm going to withdraw my offer to update my TO&Es and likely I won't bother to create an Equipment progression.

Yeah, I know what you are talking about. When I saw the numbers - especially about the number of trainiers - I knew I had to comment on it. But instead of the standard "That´s not realistic, you can´t do that", what Bruce might find offending, I worked for days on a "scientific" response, read through Len Deightons "Battle of Britain", David Irvings "Tragedy of the German Luftwaffe", Cajus Bekker "Angriffshöhe 4000", Janusz Piekalkiewicz "Luftkrieg 1939-1945" and other books to gather information. I scanned the net for data, got in contact with site owners to verify their data, asking for sources, I spend a lot of time on a dissertation I could lay my hands on that dealt with the reason why the Luftwaffe ultimately failed, based on tons of data including detailed information on the amount of trainers build etc. Finally all this technical data on production numbers etc. I coupled with arguments about political will, costs and the like but in the end I never got around to write it all down into one article because real life permitted to do so and today, weeks later, I already lost track of some of the data, although the pile of books with all the yellow Post-Its in them is laying just about 60cm right hand of my computer on the desk..... I know now full well that the Luftwaffe even at the peak of atrength never had much more than 5,000 front line a/c (depends on how you count and on the sources) and that even before the war where trainer production was the highest, there were never more than about 20% trainers of all airframes produced. But these few values tell you nothing without knowledge about the data base, and the reasons why. They don´t make a useful answer. So it´s frustrating and instead of wasting all that time I probably should have better played with my baby girl instead. Well, at least it forced me to browse and read again books I had collected over years, and for sure it provided me some insight into the matter, but it also told me just how much time and work has to be put in this to get a half-way realistic result. And even then you might not convince anybody because this is all fantasy land and people should get what they find appropriate and interesting for their countries... Live and let live. But the consequences are obvious.

Just like you, I can state that I have no interest to create, complete or update the SAEs OOB, TO&E and other details to the level others have aimed for, especially regaridng army stuff. But also on aircrafts I will post only what I find interesting enough to work on it, leaving warships as the only matter, I will do my best to keep my encyclopedia up to date. Warships, not civilian stuff.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
But instead of the standard "That´s not realistic, you can´t do that", what Bruce might find offending

I believe we also discussed the pitfalls of that approach and the necessity of avoiding it when we had our little explosion about the size of the Bulgarian Air Force, too.

There is a difference I think between aircraft that you have according to numbers produced, and aircraft that are acctually on hand. I understand this may be hard to believe, but if Germany can muster more aircraft than she had in OTL 1941 I would be extremely surprised. 23,000 aircraft may sound like a lot, but I would venture to say that Germany is still outnumbered by all the various nations that border her. Considering that the Dutch and the Italians both have airforces that combined are likely near or surpass her strength in numbers of fighters/bombers/transports, I would think in the face of it that the Netherlands is quite safe at least so far as an air attack is concerned.

Without a Nazi regime and a total war scenario there would not be the doctrine, the political will, the funding and the industrial basis to build and maintain such a huge airforce.

I also think there is no in game scenario that really threatens Germany and forces them to generate such an airforce. Pointing at the neighbors does not help because they are just pointing back. That spiral has gone out of hand and airforce strength in Europe can hardly be called realistic in any way. Using the unrealistic high numbers for one players country as argument to push your own is not leading us anywhere.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Without a Nazi regime and a total war scenario there would not be the doctrine, the political will, the funding and the industrial basis to build and maintain such a huge airforce.

Well, historically during the 1930s with the political will actually there, Germany was pretty much bankrupted by it's military expansion - and that was with OTL Germany having a massively smaller Army, Air Force and especially Navy compared to this WW version. It's just silly in same way as Mexico being the aviation powerhouse of the world. Being different from OTL is what this is all about, but there should really be some semblance to real-world constraints (or alternatively a really good argument why things are pushed).

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Without a Nazi regime and a total war scenario there would not be the doctrine, the political will, the funding and the industrial basis to build and maintain such a huge airforce.

Well, historically during the 1930s with the political will actually there, Germany was pretty much bankrupted by it's military expansion - and that was with OTL Germany having a massively smaller Army, Air Force and especially Navy compared to this WW version. It's just silly in same way as Mexico being the aviation powerhouse of the world. Being different from OTL is what this is all about, but there should really be some semblance to real-world constraints (or alternatively a really good argument why things are pushed).

A "really good argument" is in the eye of the beholder. I could put together what I think is a "really good argument" for a 1945 nuclear fission moon-rocket that would convince half the people here and not the other half. For the people who disagree, it's a pretty lame argument; for the people who agree with my conclusions, it *is* a really good argument. It's a matter of personal perspective. For a more restrained example, I am frankly rather skeptical that Nordmark could unite Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland. Doubtless a "really good argument" was made for it on startup, which apparently people found convincing at the time. But I disagree, and in many ways it's as fantastical to me as a 1945 nuclear moon rocket. There are a dozen other things in this sim which were justified with "really good arguments" which I think are total hooey. Unless we want to nominate a judge of ideas, though, that's neither here nor there - we all have to accept what's happened in the countries we don't play.

Still, this thread seems to have wandered off topic from discussion of the Dutch military and meandered towards potentially contentious criticism. Unless there's a demand to continue on this line via a thread split, might I humbly suggest we return to the original topic?

[SIZE=1]Also PS: I fixed the misspelling in the thread title, as it was grating horribly on my technical-writing senses, just couldn't take it anymore.[/SIZE]

Nice smokebomb. ;o)

I think there is no way back to an original topic as Kirk clearly stated he has no interest in working out more details - based on his experience with Germany. So to me, discussing Germany's Luftwaffe strength is indeed in line with the original thread.

It would be interesting to hear Bruce' point of view on all this as he's the active player for Germany and I´m sure he can speak for himself and presents his arguments.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Nice smokebomb. ;o)

I think there is no way back to an original topic as Kirk clearly stated he has no interest in working out more details - based on his experience with Germany. So to me, discussing Germany's Luftwaffe strength is indeed in line with the original thread.

Discussion might perhaps be in line with the original thread, yes; but all I've heard so far is criticism. You said in your post that putting together a "scientific response" is a waste of your time, which implies to me - whether you meant it that way or not - that you'd rather complain about an issue rather than contribute to resolving it politely (even just agreeing to disagree.) I hope I'm wrong, of course, but it's still a shaky foundation to forge a collegial discussion on.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
Just like you, I can state that I have no interest to create, complete or update the SAEs OOB, TO&E and other details to the level others have aimed for, especially regaridng army stuff. But also on aircrafts I will post only what I find interesting enough to work on it, leaving warships as the only matter, I will do my best to keep my encyclopedia up to date. Warships, not civilian stuff.

I haven't had much interest in doing such detailed workups for Canada; what framework I have beyond general ideas comes from the assistance of folks like Brock, Bruce, and Hood. So I can certaintly understand not wanting to do things to the depth and degree that they do.

On the other hand, I also know those folks have offered to help (or in fact, do most of the leg work) on such areas for pretty much anyone in the sim, as they've done for me, and others. They generally only ask for guidance and framework, to ensure what they come up with is in line with the player's vision.

I've always thought one of the more interesting aspects of the Sim was the variety in the focus and interest of our players, and generally felt appreciative that most were willing to share their expertise and creativity with the rest of the board.

I end up saying this fairly often lately, but wish I didn't have to feel like it's something that needs constant reinforcing; The board and sim is not a game to be one, but a collaborative effort. From a player's perspective, I'd like to see more collaboration come back to the boards.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
I think there is no way back to an original topic as Kirk clearly stated he has no interest in working out more details - based on his experience with Germany. So to me, discussing Germany's Luftwaffe strength is indeed in line with the original thread.

I see two points being asserted as "the same issue", when I think it's more distinct than that;

1) Kirk does not wish to delve into the "nuts and bolts" details of the UKN's non-naval components.
2) Germany has a larger army and air force than OTL, despite not being a military dictatorship preparring to conquer the world.

The former is rooted in the topic and purpose of this thread; the proposed equipment of the UKN's army. The latter seems a more nuanced discussion better suited for the various threads which Bruce originally posted his data. Or, since it seems to be moving into conceptual territory not unique to Germany's Air Force, a thread in the meeting place, wherein the board can discuss the issue in general.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
It would be interesting to hear Bruce' point of view on all this as he's the active player for Germany and I´m sure he can speak for himself and presents his arguments.

Given the assertions made, I'd concur on wanting to hear Bruce's thoughts on the matter. But as stated above, this thread may not be the proper venue. The discussion seems to have evolved far beyond the equipment Kirk was envisioning for his army, and into another general discussion on the scope of the sim, and what standard (or standards) players should hold themselves to when it comes to non-naval matters.

We've had these discussions before, but they generally go around in circles, and nothing much comes of them. I'm not opposed to having another one, but If so, I'd appreciate there being a consensus that this should be one that has some manner of finality and conclusion to it.

With the Mod hat on, I'm considering copying the bulk of this thread to the Meeting Place to serve as a more proper venue.

Just want to clarify- I'm only picking on Bruce's Germany as an example. Bruce obviously works hard on his nation, so I expect his results are "reasonable" to him.

This type of thing happens in both specific equipment and in TOE. Two people can work to get a "reasonable" result and wind up with wide disparities, with one result being out of scale enough to discredit another. Further, one person can put far more work into their results, and it gets no more credence than something just whipped up (explicitly not a reference to Germany). Hoo's description is an example of how hard it is to find a reasonable basis.

Then there is the problem of people creating something which causes a bitter firestorm. Apparently there was something regarding Bulgaria I missed (I did see a nice write up on trainers, I apparently have longer retention and lower attrition rates ) there have long been spats over Mexico/Italy, I remember Persia's bomber being shouted at..not to mention Tanks and bazookas.

I *may* still do a general progression with analogs and no dates- but experience- with more than this case- indicates that specific equipment and/or TO&E - are subject to being rendered either inadequate or overblown as my version of "reasonable" clashes with others.

As long as there is no economic underpinnings, this will be the results. We have a rough economy for the Navies, not the Army/Air Force.

And completely off topic- while looking at hospital ship possibilities for Belgium, I found this picture, very nice.

Hospital

That is a pretty neat picture - I like it. Thanks for posting it.