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This post has been edited 3 times, last edit by "Kaiser Kirk" (Nov 8th 2013, 8:41am)
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "BruceDuncan" (Nov 8th 2013, 7:38pm)
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Originally posted by Hood
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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.
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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.
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Originally posted by Hood
Better to develop an OOB for your armoured units and get what force you need from that.
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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.
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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
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fort-happy Belgians
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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.
This post has been edited 2 times, last edit by "Kaiser Kirk" (Nov 9th 2013, 7:22pm)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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At this stage, it's all just a first draft of a concept.
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Feel free to present an alternative methodology.
This post has been edited 3 times, last edit by "Kaiser Kirk" (Nov 14th 2013, 8:40am)
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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.
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Feel free to present an alternative methodology.
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Tank Company
- 3x Tank platoons: 4 tanks
- 1x Command platoon: 2 tanks
- Total: 14 tanks
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Tank Battalion
- 3x Tank Companies: 14 tanks
- 1x Command Group: 6 tanks
- Total: 48 tanks
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Tank Company
- 4x Tank Platoons: 4 tanks each
- 1x Command Platoon: 4 tanks
- Total: 20 tanks
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Tank Battalion
- 3x Tank Companies: 20 tanks
- 1x Command Group: 12 tanks
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