Speed of WW2 Trento Division in 1941

[Wargames]

I'm trying to calculate a speed for the Trento motorized division in 1941. I have it moving over 300 miles in 3 days in April. Another time 52 miles in one day, about 350 miles in 10 days and 162 miles in 5 days. So I get 100 miles day once, 52 miles a day once, and about 33 miles per day three times. I'm going to assume I either have wrong numbers or 100 miles is on a paved road, 50 miles a dirt road, and 33 off road.

I figure some wargamer has done this math already.

Thanks!

 

[David Wormell]

Good question!

I would say that the 100 miles a day must have been on the via Balbia.

Trighs or tracks varied in quality depending upon the terrain they were passing through. Often they were little better than off road as you call it. The advantage was that most of the time you could follow them, and avoid getting lost in an otherwise largely featureless landscape.

For wargaming purposes it is worth remembering that any unit using a road or track in North Africa has to travel in a convoy pretty much single file and will move only at the speed of the slowest vehicle. My solution would be to look at the transport types available. 4+Wheels. Tracked. Half-Tracked. Motorcycle. Foot etc. Then add a modifier if said vehicle is also towing. Then look at Road types available. Tarmac. Trigh. Track. Clear. Rough etc and apply modifiers for each vehicle type on each surface. Road speeds of vehicles are readily available.

 

[jwsleser]

It is situational. Remember that armies used standard movement rates. Often the SOP for convoy movement is somewhere between 15 and 25 mph. What are the planned stops for maintenance/refuel? Usually movement is only 12 hours a day. In A.S., how much fuel is available?

Tactical movement slows things down. Terrain slows things down.

How is the unit moving? Is everything moving at the same time, or are trucks moving in stages as they must move multiple units.

Time scale is important. Is a turn one day or a week? What factors in the game impact movement?

Pista! Jeff

 

[Wargames]

I like simple. 33 miles per day off-road (camel trail), 66 miles per day dirt road, 99 miles per day paved. So dirt road doubles speed and paved triples. I'll see how close it comes.

 

[Wargames]

I found this:

The impact of terrain on British operations and doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943. Neal Dando Plymouth University January 2014

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/29818958.pdf

Unfortunately, the author has a doctorate in philosophy.

 

[Francoquarter]

deleted, sorry i was wrong, homonymy

 

[jwsleser]

Thanks for the link to the thesis. Dando's thesis was published by Helion From Tobruk to Tunis . I am not sure whether the book adds to his paper.

I like simple. 33 miles per day off-road (camel trail), 66 miles per day dirt road, 99 miles per day paved. So dirt road doubles speed and paved triples. I'll see how close it comes.

Thank certainly works, especially if the game turns are longer than a day.

Pista! Jeff

 

[Wargames]

Okay. I found the problem David was alluding to-soft sand. Apparently its not limited to the "Sand Sea". Nothing gets through it and parts of the Via Balbia are built over it. It means leaving the road is an invitation to getting stuck. Still, travel is amazingly fast if you're in a truck and amazingly slow on foot. Tenth Army was a snail if not worse.

 

[Wargames]

For the curious, I'm using four day turns as it works well on my map scale for movement (And also British supply ran out in four days.). For example, in four days the Brescia division could move 180 miles or 45 miles a day on a paved road. That's slightly less than than one half the distance of Trento Division could make before it lost its trucks. Since Brescia only had enough trucks to relay two of their four battalions at a time, that sounds about right. More game info upon request.

David is also correct about trails appearing on maps that aren't actually useable as dirt roads but only useful for navigation. Half of all battlefield map trails are useless as roads. I suspect the trails down from Sofafi and Rabia guarded by the 63rd Cirene were not vehicle useable in 1940 and Cirene mistakenly stopped here, thinking it was Bir Enba. Had Cirene moved up to Bir Enba, the 19 mile gap in the line between it an the Maletti Group disappears. At the same time, Cirene would be blocking the road to Sofafi and Rabia. All routes are now covered and a major blunder averted. Has anyone else considered the Sofafi and Rabia trails to be impassable? I know the original Italian invasion plan for September 13 makes no mention of using it but does of Bir Enba.

 

[Wargames]

Dando's thesis was published by Helion From Tobruk to Tunis

He actually does a pretty good job. I discovered the weakness of Bardia and the problems of "soft sand" from him.

 

[Wargames]

Good question!

I would say that the 100 miles a day must have been on the via Balbia.

Trighs or tracks varied in quality depending upon the terrain they were passing through. Often they were little better than off road as you call it. The advantage was that most of the time you could follow them, and avoid getting lost in an otherwise largely featureless landscape.

For wargaming purposes it is worth remembering that any unit using a road or track in North Africa has to travel in a convoy pretty much single file and will move only at the speed of the slowest vehicle. My solution would be to look at the transport types available. 4+Wheels. Tracked. Half-Tracked. Motorcycle. Foot etc. Then add a modifier if said vehicle is also towing. Then look at Road types available. Tarmac. Trigh. Track. Clear. Rough etc and apply modifiers for each vehicle type on each surface. Road speeds of vehicles are readily available.

I can't find a map showing the "shifting soft sand" locations which appear to be the biggest obstacle to vehicles. Any suggestions?

 

[jwsleser]

Ignore it. It is a bit of chrome that doesn't fit with a 4 day turn. None of the accounts that I have read indicate that shifting sands were a problem.

Pista! Jeff

 

[Wargames]

Ignore it. It is a bit of chrome that doesn't fit with a 4 day turn. None of the accounts that I have read indicate that shifting sands were a problem.

You may be right. I made a 1941-42 game and this problem never arose. I found several references to "soft sand" impeding movement in "The impact of terrain on British operations and doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943 by Neal Dando." So I thought I should account for it.

However, on rereading his references, he describes only two areas with "soft sand", one being El Alamein. Those areas proved too small to bother with on my map. In "German Methods of Warfare in the Libyan Desert" I found the Germans referencing "shifting sand dunes" slowing their vehicles but with this addition: "Shifting sand dunes can generally be circumvented." So, again, no problem.

The other area was western Cyrenaica. Problem sand was described as "There was more soft sand between Agedabia and Antelat which caused vehicles to become bogged down again." I can put this on my map. Also, the Italians ran into it at Beda Fomm.

"The coast road crossed over low hills and was often bordered by soft sand dunes which were impassable, especially in wet weather. These features restricted the Italian retreat in February 1941 and contributed to their defeat at Beda Fomm."

Again, I can probably identify this area via satellite maps. So it seems to be a rare occurrence as you say. Thanks for the reply.

 

[jwsleser]

ou may be right. I made a 1941-42 game and this problem never arose. I found several references to "soft sand" impeding movement in "The impact of terrain on British operations and doctrine in North Africa 1940-1943 by Neal Dando." So I thought I should account for it.

Dando is describing areas of soft/shifting sand. While ways through these areas were changing, the area itself wasn't. The main problem is that much of Libya/Egypt was mainly unmapped and units were finding these areas by trial and error. Many of the trails that go though the desert south of the Gebel, while suitable for camels/horses weren't necessarily good for tracks and wheels. Rocks were a bigger problem than soft sand in my reading.

There are three places were sand/salt seas contain movement: Alamein, Mersa Brega, and Wadi Akarit in Tunisia. All the other areas could be bypassed in some manner.

Beda Fomm is a good example. The sand dunes might shift, but the area was well known for soft sand. It didn't change.

Pista! Jeff

 

[Dili]

Note that a Mot. Division moving single line Via Balbia is spread for 20km in length if it has about 2000 motor vehicles at mere 10 m per vehicle. The time deploy even all combat units can be a whole day or more.

 

[jwsleser]

Dili has made an excellent point. Most people (including wargamers) have little idea what it is like to actually move a division-sized formation and how much ground it actually covers. This is where hex size is important, deciding how to represent the physical aspects of operations.

One must remember rest/maintenance and refueling stops. If you establish a refuel point for the march, the pastime of the serials must be great enough to allow for the length of time needed to refuel. If the time to refuel a serial is 1 hour, the next serial must be at least a hour behind or you create a big traffic jam of vehicles. As an example, when I organized a brigade move using one route, 16 refuel nozzles at the refueling point, and company sized serials (20 vehicles), a pass-time of 10 minutes gave each vehicle 2.5 minutes on a nozzle. For a M1 tank, that was 150 gallons using a high-speed ROM kit. Now image doing the refueling with 55 drums and hand-crank pumps, or worst, jerry cans.

In my real-life example, one 155 SP battery arrived five minutes late. I could either refuel that battery setting the entire march back and starting the infamous yo-yo effect, or order it to drive through and use its own organic assets to refuel when they had a chance. I ordered them through and the DIVARTY commander wasn't a happy camper. Fortunately the Div Cdr approved the decision.

Pista! Jeff