Historical(ish) question

[Trusty Sapper]

Out of interest does anyone know what military unit (squadron, batallion, etc) each purchase stands for. That is- for 3 IPCs how many men would actually show up on roll call if this were an actual war?

Presumably everything would be scaled to the most expensive purchase so one battleship unit equalled one battleship

Trusty Sapper

[Jennifer]

No idea, honestly.

Here are my guesses:

1 Infantry = 1 Battalion which is approximately 6 companies of 4 platoons; a platoon being 4 squads of 10-12 men.  So about 960-1152 combat infantry (not to include battalion staff and attached units like medics, etc.)  So I would guess, 1 infantry ~ 1000 men.

1 Armor = 1 Company ~ 6 tanks with a crew of 5 (30 men.) + staff.

1 Fighter = 1 Squadron which is 12 fighters (1 pilot each) + crew

1 Bomber = 1 Squadron which is 4 bombers + crew (about 6 men per bomber, so about 24 men)

1 Battleship = 1 Battleship

1 Carrier = 1 Carrier

1 Destroyer = 3 Destroyers

1 Submarine = 3 Submarines

1 Transport = 5 Transport ships

---

But that’s not hard and fast, that’s just my PERSONAL opinion.  Someone else may have concrete numbers from somewhere. And no, I did not go and double check those figures, a Battalion may have more companies, been a while.

[Imperious Leader]

The land units are army level, so each infantry unit is 3-5 corps worth of infantry.

Naval and air are different with general ratios

battleship, CV unit = ~5 BB’s

Cruiser= ~ 10 CA’s

Destroyers= ~ 15 DD’s

Subs = ~ 20 subs each

Fighters = ~ 2,000 front line aircraft

[Zero Pilot]

This is an interesting question to speculate. Don’t think there is a definitive answer to it but it’s interesting to ponder.

One IPC supposedly represents “1 million man hours of production”. But how exactly “1 million man hours of production” relates to actual WWII dollars and literal man hours of production labor and material costs is probably anyone’s guess.

Personally I don’t believe the IPC’s stately “1 million man hours of production” is based on any true math. I think it’s just a very impressive number imprinted onto the game’s warbucks to signify that you are indeed buying more than just 1 single tank or artillery etc.

Let’s compare a few numbers:

A Sherman tank cost $33,500 in WWII dollars.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_cost_of_a_sherman_tank_in_ww2_dollars

A P52 Mustang tips the register at $51,000.
http://www.greatplainswing.org/p51.htm

A B17 cost $238,329.
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher2/b17_29.html

And an Iowa Class battleship costs a whopping $125 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_class_battleship

So yes one could play with the figures and attempt to come up with some all serious significance between the costs of the units in the game, the abstracted value of an IPC and actual numbers and costs in WWII dollars if one were so inclined.

However I think you’ll find that IPCs in the game are very abstract indeed and meant to represent “relational” economics for purposes of gameplay as opposed to historically representing the actual costs and true numbers of wartime equipment and personnel.

But it’s still fun to speculate. ~ZP

[losttribe04]

I thought that 1 INF = 1 INF divison.  In WWII the US had 110 divisions.  (not counting the times that they were esentially recreated after being consulidated to make full size units.)

It has been a wile since I have brushed up on unit sizes since I got out several years ago, but I want to say 1 (light) INF division = (ball park) 16,000 soldiers (with 3 BGE’s).

[A Former User]

Agreed, the rubric on the warbux is mainly to spur the imagination and to look impressive - I consider it way too modest, in relation to the scale of the game. 1 IPC is probably closer to 100 million man hours - or 10 million at the very least!

Think about Germany with 30 IPCs to start. What is a turn? A four-month period?

How many million workers (including slave labor as the war slogged on) did Germany have in the factories? In round numbers say 10 million. Working 10 hours a day = 100 million man hours / day. Per day!

Times say 100 days in a “turn” = 10 billion man hours. So, how many IPCs is that? 100 IPCs, if they are each worth 100 million man hours!

A&A is a historical simulation - but it’s less that, and more: a game!

So 100 million man hours per IPC. That would be my best guess.

[Crazy Ivan]

An Army Corps consists of 3 divisions plus several specialty Brigades. If you look at the number of German Corps on the eastern front against Russia in 42 the revised board is a fairly good representation of  the actual number of troops that were in the field there at that time.
A German Army Corps on paper was about 60,000 men, ( most units were always under-strength due to casualties, illness, etc…).
The Russian comparison to this was their Armies, with somewhat more men, around 70,000.
Artillery were usually support units, at brigade level,(3 to 4 brigades to a Division) although the Russians did field several artillery Armies, but with far fewer men than the Infantry Armies.
Armor Divisions and Corps had less men than the Infantry units, around 2/3erds, and about half of their vehicles were tanks, The rest being other types of motorized haulers for supporting Infantry, artillery, and supplies.

[losttribe04]

If you are going to figure the IPC value you also need to take into consideration how long of a period one round lasts.

I don’t know as that would be so easy to tell b/c of the diffrence in the spaces from classic to revised.

If you figure 1 month to get a navy from ECanada to France in classic then in revised each turn would need to be 2 weeks to go the same distance.

Then the hard part would be should figuring diffrent units speed.  It doesn’t take a BMR a month or two weeks to move 6 spaces.

My point is the IPC value is contengent upon the time span of a round.

LT

[Crazy Ivan]

:roll:
Ahhh, Now it’s the “Space-Time continueum” therory of Axis and Allies!
I love it when this happens  :lol:
Having been across the Atlantic and Pacific on ships, I can tell you that it dosen’t take a month, even dodging subs, etc…
This is a game, and arbitrary movement factors apply that have nothing to do with historical accuracy, for that you will have to try some other historically accurate games.
Each game turn in AA is a campaign season, about 6 months to a year. I’m guessing of course, since it is all arbutrary any way. :wink:

[losttribe04]

I know it doesn’t take a month now (with the advent of ships that have 3 reactors powering them.) I was just trying to ball park how long a ship of that era would take.

Lets say the average A&A classic game took 10 rounds.  On the box and on the IPC’s its dated September of 1941.  Then R1, G1, UK1 happen.  We know that Japan hit Pearl on December 7, 1941.

This could suggest that wile the other four players sit idle waiting for their turn time is going by.

[dezrtfish]

IL’s estimate is about as close as your going to get.  Every thing in the game is abstract as has been pointed out already.  There is certainly not a full army of mulitple corps.  And the IPC value is all based on balancing the unit values.

[Guest]

Let’s assume that 1 IPC equals 1 million man hours of production.  I have some data on production per man hour that I can plug into that.

In the US, for aircraft, 1 man hour of production produced 1 pound of airframe weight or 1 horsepower of engine.  A P-51 was then roughly worth 7500 man hours of production, a P-47 worth about 14,000 man hours of production.  Call it that a standard fighter would cost you 10,000 man hours of production.  Fighters cost 12 IPC in A&A Classic.  1 IPC buys your 100 fighters, so 12 IPC would be you 1200 fighters.  A B-17 would cost you about 40,000 man hours, so 1 IPC buys you 25 B-17.  Fifteen IPC buys you 375 B-17, or about 10 bomber groups.

A Sherman tank took about 2,000 manhours to assemble, or one man year.  One IPC buys you 500 tanks, 5 IPCs buys you 2500 tanks.

A battleship would take 3 years to build, using about 2,000 men, or 6,000 man years.  A man year is 2,000 man hours, so a battleship should represent 12 Million Man Hours, or 12 IPC.  In the game, battleships cost 24 IPC, so each ship miniature represents two battleshps.  Main problem with battleships was armor and turrets, so building in less than 3 years is tough, unless you do a lot of prework.

A carrier could be built in 2 years, or 8 million manhours, or 8 IPC.  In the game, 18 IPC gets you two carriers plus change, so adding the air group to each carrier is reasonable.  Figure 10 destroyers equal one carrier, so for 12 IPC you get 15 destroyers.  So far, not too bad, the numbers are reasonable.

Next is the transport.  Using mass-production methods, you could estimate that one man could produce 100 Gross Register Tons, a measure of cargo capacity, in a year.  A Liberty ship was 10,000 Gross Register Tons capacity, so 100 man years or 200,000 man hours.  For 8 IPC you get 40 transports, 5 per IPC.

I do not have good information on Infantry costs, but that would be considerably different for the US verses everyone else, as the US essentially motorized all of its divisions, unlike the Germans, Russians, and Japanese, all of whom depended heavily upon horse-drawn transport.

Now, these production rates are for the US.  British production rates were a tad lower, as were the German, with the Japanese rates a lot lower, less than half of the US rate. I have no adequate information on Russian production rates.

[ABWorsham4]

Wow, awesome post! Thank you for the infomation.