Early mock-up of East Front Main Menu with “panzergrau” color scheme

The Campaign Series East Front Order of Battle files (*.oob/OOB) were originally created by Talonsoft for the first release back in 1997. Since then, they have been continuing added to and expanded upon with each successive release, including the various Matrix Updates. Unfortunately, this has lead to a mish-mash of organizations, ID coding and an incohesive mess. Instead of attempting to correct and massage the existing data, it has been decided to start from scratch for East Front III.

A major enhancement with the order of Battle files, is the extra numeral in the platoon ID from five to six characters. Unfortunately, this nullifies all the previous OOB files, but this addition provides thousands of unique identifiers (UID) that can used for creating the new platoons. The new UID capabilities have provided the opportunity to fill in the proper strength point levels for various platoon types to ensure that the organizations being created are more accurate than ever before.

The enhanced UID’s have also allowed me to create different branches within the organizations, which will display unique chits on the map. The new branches are;

• Heer,
• Luftwaffe,
• Waffen-SS,
• DAK, and
• Grossdeustchland.

Adding these new branches have burned through a lot of the new UID’s, but I believe it will be a visual delight to see on the battlefield when playing.

East Front III 1939-1941 will have certain units that are easily indentifable with the 2D and 3D icons/bases. Part of this means building these specific units with unique ID’s and structures (from the platoon up, of course). Here’s a sample of Grossdeutschland circa September 1940:

Snippet from Platoon18.oob

German Order of Battle 1939-1941

East Front III will cover the German OOB organizations that span between January 1939 and December 1941. Additional dates will be covered in the future East Front III DLC’s.

Apparently Amazon delivers on Sunday! 

Creating the organizations for the Germans is a challenge. Even during the three-year time span, the various structures changed on a regular basis for all branches. The panzer and infantry forces changed considerably between how they started the war in September 1939 to how they looked as they advanced on Moscow in the winter of 1941.

Infantry Divisions

When looking at the Infanterie Divisions in the OOB files, you will see that I did not detail each division, but each group of divisions that were created in the waves (welle). I have made an effort to recreate each welle and updated it accordingly as the war progressed. Each division in the welle is based on the authorized Tables of Organization & Equipment (TO&E) information that I could find. If you are creating a scenario using one of these divisions, it will be up to you as the scenario designer to ensure that what the actual strength for the division is modelled (assuming the unit isn’t at full strength at the time of the battle) and to adjust the unit identifiers for each subunit to the proper one, but choosing the right division to start with will make that job much easier! One other thing to keep in mind is that a 1. Welle Infanterie Division from 1939 will look differently than a 1. Welle Infanterie Division from 1941, so make sure to choose the appropriate year in the organization editor.

Panzer Divisions

The Panzer Divisions (and variants) on the other hand, I took the liberty of creating each one based on the authorized TO&E. You should be able to choose the year and find the correct Panzer Division to suit your scenario creation needs. As discussed above, it will be up to to model the actual strength, but the rest has been done for you. The Panzer Divisions changed more frequently than the infantry, so expect to see numerous renditions of the various Panzer Divisions. One thing to keep in mind is that it may have taken a few extra months for the specific Panzer Division to be upgraded to the latest authorized TO&E, so make sure you’re choosing the right division!

Source Material

This task took nearly a year to complete. It is a mammoth undertaking, but fortunately there is ample resources out there that helped me in their creation. I have a large collection of books that cover organizations and TO&E and while I used the information from a number of them, the main sources to create the above are from Tessin, Jentz, Nafziger, Askey and Niehorster. In most cases, the sources were consistent and in cases where they weren’t, I did my best to interpret what goes where and when. Please feel free to send corrections or additions my way should you spot them.

New research material for Campaign Series East Front III. Highly recommended!

Data structure

I mentioned above the addition of the additional branches. To create these meant duplicating/triplicating the various Heer platoons to be specific to each branch, but coding them with UID’s, with a specific range for easier data management. The following is a breakdown how the German platoon data is structured:

 PXX0001 – PXX0299 Tanks, Light Tanks, Self-propelled Gun (as SU-100) 
 PXX0300 – PXX0399 GD Tanks, Light Tanks, Self-propelled Gun (as SU-100) 
 PXX0400 – PXX0499 DAK Tanks, Light Tanks, Self-propelled Gun (as SU-100) 
 PXX0500 – PXX0699 SS Tanks, Light Tanks, Self-propelled Gun (as SU-100) 
 PXX0700 – PXX0799 LUFTWAFFE Tanks, Light Tanks, Self-propelled Gun (as SU-100) 
 PXX1001 – PXX1199 Artillery (Self-propelled and towed) 
 PXX1200 – PXX1299 GD Artillery (Self-propelled and towed) 
 PXX1300 – PXX1399 DAK Artillery (Self-propelled and towed) 
 PXX1400 – PXX1499 SS Artillery (Self-propelled and towed) 
 PXX1500 – PXX1599 LUFTWAFFE Artillery (Self-propelled and towed) 
 PXX2000 – PXX2199 Infantry (All types) 
 PXX2200 – PXX2299 GD Infantry (All types) 
 PXX2300 – PXX2399 DAK Infantry (All types) 
 PXX2400 – PXX2499 SS Infantry (All types) 
 PXX2500 – PXX2599 LUFTWAFFE Infantry (All types) 
 PXX3000 – PXX3099 Headquarters (All types) 
 PXX3100 – PXX3199 GD Headquarters (All types) 
 PXX3200 – PXX3299 DAK Headquarters (All types) 
 PXX3300 – PXX3399 SS Headquarters (All types) 
 PXX3400 – PXX3499 LUFTWAFFE Headquarters (All types) 
 PXX4000 – PXX4099 Leaders (All types) 
 PXX4100 – PXX4199 GD Leaders (All types) 
 PXX4200 – PXX4299 DAK Leaders (All types) 
 PXX4300 – PXX4399 SS Leaders (All types) 
 PXX4400 – PXX4499 LUFTWAFFE Leaders (All types) 
 PXX5000 – PXX5999 Off-map Airplanes (All types) 
 PXX6000 – PXX6099 Reconnaissance Vehicles (Armoured Cars, Recce Jeeps, etc) 
 PXX6100 – PXX6149 GD Reconnaissance Vehicles (Armoured Cars, Recce Jeeps, etc) 
 PXX6150 – PXX6199 DAK Reconnaissance Vehicles (Armoured Cars, Recce Jeeps, etc) 
 PXX6200 – PXX6299 SS Reconnaissance Vehicles (Armoured Cars, Recce Jeeps, etc) 
 PXX6300 – PXX6399 LUFTWAFFE Reconnaissance Vehicles (Armoured Cars, Recce Jeeps, etc) 
 PXX6500 – PXX6799 Helicopters and ON MAP aircraft (All types) 
 PXX6800 – PXX6979 Naval Units (Boats, Landing Craft, etc) 
 PXX6880 – PXX6989 GD Naval Units (Boats, Landing Craft, etc) 
 PXX6890 – PXX6999 SS Naval Units (Boats, Landing Craft, etc) 
 PXX7000 – PXX7199 Transport units (All types of Trucks, APC’s, IFV’s, etc) 
 PXX7200 – PXX7299 GD Transport units (All types of Trucks, APC’s, IFV’s, etc) 
 PXX7300 – PXX7399 DAK Transport units (All types of Trucks, APC’s, IFV’s, etc) 
 PXX7400 – PXX7499 SS Transport units (All types of Trucks, APC’s, IFV’s, etc) 
 PXX7500 – PXX7599 LUFTWAFFE Transport units (All types of Trucks, APC’s, IFV’s, etc) 
 PXX8000 – PXX8099 Antiaircraft (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX8100 – PXX8199 GD Antiaircraft (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX8200 – PXX8299 DAK Antiaircraft (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX8300 – PXX8399 SS Antiaircraft (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX8400 – PXX8499 LUFTWAFFE Antiaircraft (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX8500 – PXX8799 Rail 
 PXX8800 – PXX8999 Misc Buildings, special units (Factories, News Crews, etc) 
 PXX9000 – PXX9199 Antitank (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX9200 – PXX9299 GD Antitank (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX9300 – PXX9399 DAK Antitank (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX9400 – PXX9499 SS Antitank (Self-propelled, towed, man portable) 
 PXX9500 – PXX9599 LUFTWAFFE Antitank (Self-propelled, towed, man portable)

You can see how the various branches have set UID’s for their units. In most cases, these swaths of UID’s leave enough space for the additional platoons that will come with the future DLC’s, although the Heer infantry is nearly running out of UID’s!

Conclusion

Order of Battle creation is a labour of love and there are many challenges ahead, but do know that we’re making every effort to ensure that you have the most accurate organizations to build scenarios. As the DLC’s get built, we’ll be adding more and more related countries with encompassing scenarios.

Thank you for your support!

Jason Petho

Side Note: For the Soviet fans out there, you’ll be happy to know there is the regular army, GUARDS and NKVD units in the new OOB structures.