Royal Romanian Air Force

I have hived the Romanian air assets off into a seperate post to make it easier to read
Under operational control of 4 Fliegercorps :

Royal Romanian Air Force  (GAL)

Gen Celareanu
Regt 1   
                           (1) SM.79B, (1) PLZ 37B, (1) He 111H3
Regt 2  
               (1) Potez 63 B 2, (1) Bloch 210
 

Fighter Regt 1     
(1) He 112B, (1) Bf 109E3/4, (1)IAR-80/A
Army Cooperation Regt 2          
(1) IAR-37, (1) IAR-38, (1) IAR-39


July 1942 Acquisitions from Germany

(2) Bf-109E-4
(2) He-111H
(1) SM-79 II
(1) Ju87B

1943 Acquisitions from Germany :

(3) Bf-109G
(1) Bf-109G-6
(4) Ju-87D
(3) Ju-88
(1) IAR-80

 
 


Royal Hungarian Air Force

Here is the missing Hungarian air component for Barbarossa :

Royal Hungarian Air Force

LtGen Magyarossy
Fighter Group 1 
                                   (1) CR. 32
Fighter Group 2  
                                  (1) CR. 42 or Re. 2000*
Bomber Group 4                                   
(1) Ca. 135b, (1) Ju 86K-2SR
Recon Squadrons
                                 (1) He 46, (1) WM21

Long Range Recon Group
                    (1) He 170A

October, 1942 acquisitions from Germany

(1)* Bf 109F-4  to re-equip Re 2000 unit.
(1) Ju 87D-1
(1) Ju 87D-5
(5) Me 210
Sources as per the previous post
 
 

Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front

This year, I revisited my NQM Orbats for the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front. This does not include the Feltluftgau (Special staff groups for controlling logistics in the Field) as even I recognise that an interest in logistics can become obsessive at some point :-) The orbat will of course be tweaked as I have taken 1941 as my starting point.  As ever, the (bold numbers in brackets) are the number of models needed to play the campaign with NQM.


Fw 190 Jagdgruppe of 4 squadrons

Luftflotte 1

GeneralOberst Keller
Kampfgruppe zur besonderen Verwendung (KGr zbV)106 – (1) Ju 52

Fliegerkorps I

General der Flieger Foerster
Kampfgruppe (KG)1                          (2) Ju 88A
KG 76                                                 (3) Ju 88A
KG 77                                                 (3) Ju 88A
Jagdgruppe (JG) 54                            (4) Bf 109F

FliegerFuehrer Ostsee

Oberst von Wild
Aufklaerungsgruppe        (1) He 60 or Bv 138 or He 114 or AR-196
Kuestenfliegergruppe (KuFlGr)806     (1) Ju 88A

Luftflotte 2

GeneralFeldmarshall  Kesselring
KG zbV 1                                            (1) Ju 52
JG 53                                                   (3) Bf 109F

Fliegerkorps II

General der Flieger  Foerster
KG 3                                                   (2) Ju 88A
KG 53                                                 (3) He 111H
SturmKampfGruppe (SKG) 77          (3) Ju 87B
SKG 210                                             (2) Bf 110
JG 51                                                   (5) Bf 109F
KG zbV 102                                        (1) Ju52
KG zbV 105                                        (1) Ju52
In Nov 1941 the HQs of Luftflotte 2 and II Fliegerkorps were sent to the Mediterranean theatre,

Fliegerkorps VIII

GenOb  Dr Richthofen
KG 2                                       (3) Do 17Z
StG 1                                       (2) Ju 87B
StG 2                                       (1) Ju 87B, (1) Ju 87R, (1) Bf 109E
Zerstoerergruppe(ZG) 53       (3) Bf 110C or E
JG 27                                       (3) Bf 110E or F
KG zbV 9                                (1) Ju 52

Flakkorps I

GenMaj  von Axthein
FlakRegt 101                           (1) 20mm Flak, (2) 88mm Flak
FlakRegt 103                           (1) 20mm Flak, (2) 88mm Flak

Luftflotte 4

GenOb Loehr
KG zbV 50                                         (1) Ju 52
Deutsche Luftwaffe Mission in Rumaenien
JG 52                                                   (1) Bf 109F
KG zbV 104                                        (1) Ju 52
Seenotstaffel 8                                     (1) He 59

Fliegerkorps IV

GenLt Pflugbeil
KG 27                                                  (4) He 111H
JG 77                                                   (1) Bf 109E

Fliegerkorps V

GenLt Ritter von Greim
KG 51                                                 (3) Ju 88A
KG 54                                                 (2) Ju 88A
KG 55                                                 (3) He 111H
JG 3                                                    (3) Bf 109F

Flakkorps II

Gen der Flak Dessloch
FlakRegt 6               (1) 20mm Flak, (3) 88mm Flak
FlakRegt GG           (3) 20mm Flak, (2) 88mm Flak, (1) 37mm Flak
 Under operational control of 4 Fliegercorps :

Royal Romanian Air Force Air Combat Group (GAL)

See following post for GAL


Sources :
 http://uncleted.jinak.cz/minorafe.htm#hungary (Accessed 31/01/2012)
http://niehorster.orbat.com/011_germany/41-oob/luftwaffe/__okl.html (Accessed 30/01/2012)
http://niehorster.orbat.com/015_hungary/44_oob/corps-air.html (Accessed 31/01/2012)
http://niehorster.orbat.com/031_rumania/41-06/_airforce.html (Accessed 31/01/2012)

Boyd, A. (1977) The Soviet Air Force since 1918. London, Macdonald and Jane’s.

Have Fun Modelling Logistics

Or … “Sergeant Bilko goes to War”


Troops work frantically through the night somewhere east of TOBRUK to crossload fuel from army to corps transport

Combat mechanisms in most wargames are complex, yet Wargamers enjoy rolling dice to calculate them. There is no reason for much simpler logistics mechanisms to be dull or tedious. As long as they are an integral part of the game, they should not slow it down. If logistics slow a game down, they will not be played and if dull, players won’t play the game.  Simple really. So how does NQM do it?


Army Railhead somewhere east of TOBRUK with no rails in sight, but lots of trucks. Note the Junior General truck printed onto card in the foreground
Firstly, logistics are modelled. Figure gamers love modelling, and I’m no exception, even with my dodgy modelling skills. The previous post but one showed a logistic train from railhead to fighting unit.
The only complexity not previously discussed is that in pursuit, motorised units use 2 POLs (Divisional Fuel  Loads)  per day and no CUs (Divisional Ammo Load) or FUs (Artillery Load), as they are racing along in pursuit of a defeated enemy. In defence, up to 2 CUs (because the defenders will almost certainly have to fight off more than 3 attacks) and as many FUs  (usually one) as can be brought forward or have been stockpiled. Likewise in attack, up to 2 FUs of artillery will be fired off to soften up the defenders and 1 CU of ammo expended as the division goes in.


Sergeant Bilko's English cousin WO1 "Brummy" Stokes reads the Racing Times in his supply depot. "Want any jam mate?"
I have showed divisional and corps supply dumps being modelled. Most players will not want to bother with the calculations of how many  CUs, FUs, and POLs are in these dumps. If you want the full flavour of desert warfare however, then modelling the flow of supplies moving forward is very instructive, and helps to explain why battles were followed by long lulls of apparent inactivity as the logistic troops raced to build up supply dumps and repair damaged fighting vehicles.
Page 18 shows how this works … so how were the sums arrived at :

WARNING – SIMPLE MATHS START  :-(

A division consumes somewhere between 200-400tons of supplies a day* split broadly into Ammo (CUs), Artillery Ammo (FUs) and Fuel (POL). If each NQM model represents 30 trucks, then a 3-tonner can lift 90 tons and a 5-tonner 150 tons, so say 1 model per 100 tons. Conveniently, most NQM divisions have 3 trucks to supply 1 each of CUs, FUs and POL.

RELAX – SIMPLE MATHS END :-)

* The Allies planned for up to 650 tons/day at D-Day, but this was pessimistic. Simple sums derived from van Krefeld’s Supplying War.
 
 

Camouflage nets 2

The glue is set and the paint is barely dry as 1st Shock Army rolls out to try a breakthrough on the northern flank of MOSCOW. It’s a bit early in 1942 for 85mm guns yet, but this is the model that I stuck the cam net to.


A camouflage net of rolled gauze prior to drybrushing renders this Old Glory UK T-34/85 barely visible against the yellow background.
A bit of brown paint with sand drybrushing and that’s it really. They looked fine without foliage, though I may stick some on later. Don’t laugh, this counts as super detailing for me


:-)

1st Guards Tank Division (The Tank element of an NQM Tank Brigade)
 
 

Logistic Dumps and Trucks


Without getting too complicated about logistics, I find that simply putting railheads and dumps onto the table gives decent appreciation of why breakthroughs are so devastating to an army. Marauding enemy finds itself amongst a rich array of depots stuffed full of goodies, and the disrupted army finds itself similarly short. Modelling opportunities for NAAFI, PX and soup kitchens abound.
You can see below a schematic representation of the chain from the railhead on the left of the picture through to the fighting troops on the right. I just run the trucks in a line between the depots to mark out the logistic routes used for supply. For a division of perhaps 10 fighting vehicles, suddenly having up to 20 trucks in a logistic tail gives a better appreciation of why modern armies are perhaps not as nimble as we would all like to think. The yellow lettering above the trucks lists the German designation for the transport columns and the green lettering below the dumps gives the level of depot. Depots can be co-located if roads are sparse.


The Logistic Chain from Railhead to Fighting Troops

Full marks to Tim Gow for spotting that there were not enough trucks in the picture above.  Each division should have its own transport companies as well as the corps level transport and army level transport shown above. The labels below of  ‘A’ and ‘B’ echelons apply properly to battalion level units, not divisions as we see here.


The full representional logistics chain, showing why divisions have roughly a 2:1 ratio of trucks to tanks