Question about Division numbers (Why so low?) and Casualty Totals

[Ricky B]

For the first question on number of men present, the games only show those at the pointing end, and even more those that are carrying rifles, firing machine guns, etc - those men represented in the man type fighting units. Those men with vehicles or units with guns are not represented at all.

But ultimately, I have seen an estimate before that for the US and maybe close for the British Commonwealth, 60% of the manpower in the army was non-fighting, the Germans had about 40%, and the Soviets only 20% were tied up in non-fighting positions. I don't recall the source and it may be off in specifics, but seems right overall at least. Anyway, based on that you can count on the divisions having quite a few more men than listed, if you want to do math to account for all men lost then boost it by whatever factor you like, there isn't any "one" factor in that case. Also, losses as listed are vague anyway, they include not just casualties and prisoners, but those men separated from their unit and not fighting, for example, part of the manpower that gets recovered when a unit rests.

And finally, both the Soviets and Germans ran their divisions well under strength in most cases, so even with the tail accounted for most of their divisions would not reach 10,000 men. I think the Soviet average for a rifle division was just over 5000 men for most of the latter 2 years of the war, for example.

Rick