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Speed of WW2 Trento Division in 1941

Wargames

New Member
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!
 
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

Administrator
Staff member
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

New Member
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. :)
 

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
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

New Member
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

New Member
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 if four days 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 could 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 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.
 
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