World War II Order Of Battle : Units, Commanders, Men

June 22
1941

World War II Order Of Battle

May 9
1945

USER GUIDE

The World War 2 Order Of Battle project is a collaborative work : each registered member can contribute to the OOB tree structures, and detail elements they contain.
Order of Battle (OOB) trees are work in constant progress, with content enriched over time. And so is the site itself : its architecture, pages, functionalities adapt corresponding to the needs expressed by users.
So, feel free to tell what you think would improve ww2oo.net, and check-in regularly for changes ! To do so, you can use the forum or mail directly to webmaster : anton@staldata.com

You will see below a summary scheme explaining how to contribute and setup OOB elements, as well as functional rules of the site.
Screen forms contains detailed instructions for each input field, and specify which are mandatory.
Once you are familiar with the basics, you can start building OOB trees.

Note that you can build OOB tree as long as it takes place on the Eastern front between 1939 and 1945, although it is not excluded that in the future, you can build OOB trees for any WWII battle, and even battle for any period in History, like Middle Ages, Antiquity...
The future look of the site depends on you !

ORDER OF BATTLE REPRESENTATION

ORDER OF BATTLE CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

I. Initialize the OOB

To create a new OOB, go to the Edition Menu and select "New Order of Battle". At this stage, you are supposed to define the key elements : year and month.

A WW2OO - type OOB reflects the hierarchical structure for all inline units (not reserve), for a given year and month. It consists of the following levels :

- Level 1 (GHQ) : "STAVKA" for USSR, "OKH" for AXIS.
- Level 2 : Operational Direction (USSR), Army Group (AXIS)
- Level 3 : Front (USSR), Army (AXIS)
- Level 4 : Army (USSR), Corps (AXIS)
- Level 5 : Corps and Division (USSR), Division (AXIS)
- Level 6 : Brigade

WW2OO expects your OOB to display the two opposing sides : Soviet against German (or Axis) with at least a Root-level for both.

Initializing new OOB tree

1. From the Home page, follow the "Edition Menu" link

2. Select "New Order of Battle" from the Menu

3. Fill-in the data input formsheet (or at least mandatory fields)

4. The new OOB root appears in the main display page

II. Populate the OOB

Basically, there are 3 data streams in the site : UNITS, COMMANDERS, MEN.

UNITS refers to every formation classes currently featured in WW2OO : Fronts, Armies, Corps, Divisions, and Brigades. Each Unit is typed (Infantry, Tank, Cavalry...), positioned in the OOB tree by linking to a parent formation, and has a Commander.

COMMANDERS refers to every kind of commanding officer which plays a role in the battle. The generic term 'Commander' is refined, when linking to a formation, by 3 possible variants : Formation Commander, Chief of Staff, and (if Soviet) Political Officer.

MEN refers to manpower strength for each formation. Gives the approximate number of total men in the Unit at a given date (with an error margin target of 500 men for great Units, and 50 for smaller). Some decimated Units in Stalingrad were indeed reduced to that number.

When creating a new unit, you must define a minimum ID info, and indicate its main Commander. Additional info is optional (Chief of Staff, Men strength, dates). Fill-in the "Add New Unit" input form, accessible from any parent Unit, or from the EDITION MENU.

Adding new Units

First method : from an existing Unit detail page (by attaching the new unit as child of the current one)

1. From the OOB page, select a parent unit

2. In the detailed unit view, select "ADD CHILD UNIT"

3. Fill-in the data input formsheet (or at least mandatory fields)

4. The new unit appears in the main display page

Second method : from general Menu page (creation from 'scratch' without prior specification)

1. From Home or OOB page, follow the "EDITION MENU" link

2. In the Menu page, select "NEW UNIT"

3. Fill-in the data input formsheet (or at least mandatory fields)

4. The new unit appears in the main display page

Adding new Commanders

Input form accessible from general Menu page

1. From Home or OOB page, follow the "EDITION MENU" link

2. In the Menu page, select "ADD NEW COMMANDER"

3. Fill-in the data input formsheet (or at least mandatory fields)

4. The new commander is ready and available for assignment to units

Modifying strength figures

(screens and instructions yet to come)

III. Submit the OOB to public

WW2OO OOB trees run in two modes : Test and Live. Test mode is used for OOB trees under construction and not yet public. Live mode is used for officialized and published OOB trees.

Test mode is reserved to registered members. As a WW2OO community member, you can choose Test mode to start or to continue building your own tree, or in Live mode to see public trees, submited by other community users.
Your newly created tree starts with private status (or Test mode) : you are the only person who can see it. You can edit and refine your tree by adding unlimited amounts of items.
When you judge that your OOB is operational, you can submit it to approbation, and propose it for public mode (or Live mode) : everyone can see it (but not change it).

ORDER OF BATTLE STATUS WORKFLOW

1. PRIVATE MODE

The newly created Order of Battle is available for visualization and modification by yourself only.

To populate your OOB with units, you can either use the parent-child method (by selecting "Add child" from any Unit Detail page that you want to use as parent, beginning with your newly created Root), or the classic from scratch method (using "Edition Menu", then "Add Unit", then selecting your newly created Root from the "Parent" list.

When you judge that your OOB has some sufficient ground, you can choose to submit it for approbation. There is no particular rule for that decision : you may submit an OOB which contains but a few elements, and continue its construction in public mode.

2. APPROBATION PHASE

After you submit your OOB, an official WW2OO administrator needs to validate it, by checking global accuracy and mainline presentation. This does not suppose an absolute perfection from your OOB! An incomplete tree, or one with minor errors, will pass the approbation process. The inacurracies will simply be noted and forwarded to author.

The only purpose of the approval is to prevent publication of totally inconsistent or non-sense content (like attributing a Brigade command to J.Stalin, or creating the "99999th Panzer Army").

When approved, the OOB status is set to public

3. PUBLIC MODE

Your OOB tree goes Live! In this mode, every visitor of ww2oo.net (even if he is not a registered member) is able to visualize your tree page. However, he can not change it. Modifying the OOB remains your privilege, and that of admin.

You can now see your OOB tree among the others "Live status" trees. Remember that you can continue building it even in that mode (everyone will see your modifications in live).

Remember that you can build OOB tree for any battle on the Eastern front !

Now, it's up to you...

START BUILDING NOW

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last major update : 2011-10-27