We certainly do not have as much data as we'd like, but there is a lot more available than there used to be. The real question is, what use can the war-aming community make of it, and specifically what use is it to Europa? There are a few things that, to me at least, seem clear from the statistics:

1. Casualties in killed and wounded between the attacker and the defender followed fairly predictable relationships throughout the war.

The Germans at their best could inflict about 3 times the casualties on the Soviets as they received while attacking early in the war, while the Soviets at their best could inflict 1 casualty for every 2 suffered while attacking late in the war.

BUT... encirclements completely changed these ratios. An enemy force that got surrounded and "cleaned up" was all virtually unanswered points for the encircler--his losses were minimal, and the enemy losses were 100% (yes, I know a few men always got away from encirclements, but essentially a surrounded force that did not break out or get relieved was lost to the order of battle).

The question is, does our CRT cause attacker's casualties in the ratios expected, and do encirclements cause enormous "unanswered" casualties in our games.

2. Even disregarding the casualties caused by encirclements, the relative effectiveness of the German and Soviet forces at inflicting casualties on each other changed considerably during the war.

Specifically, the opponents of 1941-42 were not the same as those of 1943, and 1943 was different from 1944. Are these differences reflected in the units and the statistics of our games? In order to reflect them, do we have to change unit sizes from year to year? The Germans officially estimated that their divisions in 1942 had only 80% of the mobility they had in 1941. Soviet 10-15,000 man rifle divisions in 1941 took 3.5 times the losses a 7000 man rifle division took in 1944 to inflict the same casualties on their German opponent. How do we reflect changes like these in the game?

3. Right now, "Special Replacements" in the game return 20-25% of losses ("manpower") to service.

In fact, unisolated, unencircled casualties included, on the average, 60-75% Recoverable casualties. Even allowing that some of the "recovered" will not recover for a long time, possibly not until after the war, and that, within the 2 week, 25 km hex scale of the game some of the "unisolated" casualties were in fact captured, this seems like a large discrepancy. However, if 50% of the unisolated strength point losses return as Special Replacements, doesn't that increase the importance of encirclements to inflict Permanent Losses? And that per cent would also seem to bring us closer to the actual figures from the war.

4. As a rule, artillery is lost in retreats, defensive defeats, and encirclements.

The attacker does not lose a lot of artillery, except to enemy counterattacks. While the Soviets show a lot of lost "guns" even in 1944, the majority of these were light and medium mortars and direct support (antitank) weapons. The Soviets regularly kept the bulk of a division's heavy weapons "up front" in direct-fire positions or close support positions, and just as regularly took great casualties in these support weapons. In contrast, the Germans considered their divisional artillery, which normally fired from well behind the lines in indirect support, as the basis for their defense, even when most of the front-line infantry became casualties.

When the Soviet air force attacked the German artillery positions on a large scale in June 1944 for the first time, this was given as a primary reason for the collapse of Army Group Center's position and its subsequent destruction. Also in contrast to the figures, there is no evidence of any Soviet artillery (non-antitank) brigade or division taking serious casualties after 1942. In fact, Soviet statistics show that only 2.2% of all personnel casualties were suffered by "artillerymen."

The question, then, is should separate artillery units take casualties when they are part of an attacking force? Remember that of all the Soviet casualties suffered in the war, "rifle troops" (which includes everyone forward of the rifle regiment command post) suffered 86.6% of the total. In Europa, it is not uncommon for the Soviet player to routinely pay for his exchanges with rocket artillery regiments, and this does not seem justified by the data.

5. The Soviet armed forces reached a maximum of 11,500,000 men and women in uniform in mid-1943, including troops in training, reserve units, and soldiers stationed in the Far East and guarding borders.

It remained that large until 1945. This means that, in 1943-44, the Soviets replaced approximately 3,918,076 troops. While it is hard to relate that precisely to Infantry Replacement Points, with the current "ir" schedule the best you could get is 702 Infantry Replacement Points (if you held only the territory held historically, you would get somewhat less).

If the required troops are divided by the maximum possible number of 'ir's, each infantry replacement in 1943-44 is worth almost 5600 men. This means each Soviet rifle division requires 16,700 to 22,300 men to rebuild it. Given that the average Soviet rifle division had between 6000 and 9000 men on an official establishment of less than 11,000, it seems the replacement rates need some adjusting, especially late in the war. Remember, this is in addition to Special Replacements ("Recoverable Losses") received during this same period.

I hope all the figures and approximations presented herein provide some food for thought. Since the end of World War II, the bulk of our information in the US concerning the Eastern Front has come from German memoirs translated into English or German records on microfilm in the US National Archives. Now that equivalent Soviet material is available from their archives, we have to look very closely at our 50 year old assumptions about the war. Some will remain valid, some will evaporate, but none can simply be taken for granted any lonver.

Bloodbath: Casualties on the WWII Eastern Front

Introduction and War Totals
Barbarossa 1941 and Soviet Winter Offensive 1941-42
German Summer Offensive 1942 and Soviet Winter Offensive 1942-43
Soviet Summer Offensive 1943 and 1944 Offensives
Equipment, Tank, Aircraft Losses 1941-44
Conclusions