Which military vehicles were the most commonly used during WWII?

Then there is the famous Prussian military theorist Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, he fought in the Napoleonic Wars and published his military theories in "On War" and "About War" (published posthumously). His works are still studied, and they had huge influence on German military theory, including WWII. Another Napoleonic Wars military theorist was the Baron De Jomini. A Swiss officer that served on Marshal Ney's staff (and also held a commission in the Russian Army). His book "The Art of War" is still studied in military academies and colleges. My older son got me a copy for Christmas and I'm reading it right now. One of the keys to Napoleon's success was his development of the Corps system. His Corps were combined arms formations that included cavalry, infantry, artillery, their own logistics and engineers, etc. They were capable of independent action unlike most armies of the era. He was able to move rapidly (a key military tactic), disguise his primary objective (a key military tactic), allowed for a rapid reaction to, or exploitation of, enemy movements (a key military tactic) and could rapidly combine to fight a battle. He also introduced meritocracy to the selection of military commanders unlike most nations at the time where officer's positions were assigned by noble birth or social status.
An interesting side note pertains to Marshal Jean Baptiste Bernadotte. He was born to a middle-class family in southwestern France. He served France in the Revolutionary Wars, was promoted to marshal by Napoleon and had fought under him in the Grande Armee. King Charles XIII of Sweden had no heirs and adopted Bernadotte, with Napoleon's approval. One of the factors was Sweden's intent to invade and assimilate Norway, and a fear of Russian military moves against Sweden, they needed a soldier. Bernadotte had achieved a great deal of success and renown as a military commander. Due to King Charles XIII being an invalid, Bernadotte, now Crown Prince Charles XIV John, became regent of Sweden in 1810. He paid off their debts, reorganized their economy, and implemented a strong independent foreign policy.
Due to French provocations, Charles John joined the 6th Coalition against Napoleon, negotiated with and acquired additional allies, had a major part in crafting the military strategy of and led the Swedish Army. He played a major role in Napoleons defeat at Leipzig (the largest battle in Europe until WWI).
He was the primary architect of the Trachenberg Plan, whereby the strategy of; "avoiding direct combat with Napoleon, engaging and defeating his marshals whenever possible and slowly encircling the French with three independent armies until the French Emperor could be cornered and brought to battle against vastly superior numbers" was adopted.
He is also the monarch that first adopted strict Swedish military neutrality as a governmental policy when two of her allies, Great Britain and Russia tried to drag their ally Sweden into their disputes over the Ottoman Empire in 1834. This policy remained in effect until 2009.
The current Swedish Royal family are descendants of this former Marshal of Napoleon.

 

Quite impressive - most of it was unknown to me.
However, this is also due to the fact that my favorite topic is the German Schutztruppe in German East Africa and I specialized there on the artillery.
As far as Napoleon is concerned, we had a battle practically on my doorstep in September 1813, which is re-enacted every 2 years - I took part in it years ago as a "Lützower Jäger" (the black-red-gold of the current national flag comes from them).
In reference to a rather famous quote: I love the smell of black powder in the morning......

 

Which battle?

 

Battle of the Göhrde - Wikipedia
Lützow Free Corps - Wikipedia

Measured by the usual scales of the time, rather a skirmish. For those who received bullets at the time,
however, this difference was probably of a more academic nature

 

Trucks. Gotta move men, ammunition, food, fuel, medical supplies & personnel, etc.

Moving trucks or playing Red Ball Express doesn't make for excitement; unless they're intercepted. During the Battle of the Bulge, Rifleman Eugene Blount was told to drive a truck and along with other drivers were captured by the SS. They were to be executed when Blount spoke up (he took German in high school). He told the SS major that they were being observed by two divisions artillery observers and would be obliterated. Then as if on cue they were shelled. After the shelling, Blount crawled out from beneath a truck and offered something like 17 for 120 (SS) men. That is, spare the 17 truckers and save 120 men. The SS major agreed and Blount got them to US lines where they changed roles with the prisoners freed and the SS men being taken prisoners (and we know that at the Bulge the GIs generally killed any captured SS man).

Some wargaming rule sets had a breakdown of company/battaltion. I remember one set that set an American or German battalion at about 10 tanks (each tank representing 5 vehicles), one supply truck, one ARV. A Soviet battalion was 4 tanks (2 tanks for a company of ten and two companies per battalion or 21 tanks in real life for four models/gaming pieces).

BTW, we used Angriff or some rule set from the UK.

 

Some thoughtds.

#1 Wargaming is a compromise between historic accuracyy and fun. Fun has to win, otherwise no one plays.

#2 For historic accuracy the most common form of German transport was a horse and cart of some description. There is a vast mismatch between the German armed forces that fought in WW2 and those portrayed by re-enactors and wargamers. The Sdkfz halfttrack was a rarity, forming the transport of only a minority of Panzer Grenadiers, most of which moved by trucks.

#3 The tabletop figures and AFV models are representations - chess pieces. Apart from the visual visimilitude there is no reason why models cannot be used to represent some other troop type. Get the army that appleals to your sense of history.

#4 The biggest problem I found with modern and WW2 hgames is the significance of the microterrain, the dips and folds in the ground that can have a disporportionate effect on the outcome of a battle. Have you considered basing your battles on terrain you can visit? This means you can site weapon systems and know the limits of visibility etc.

 

Tabletop games, the ones I have played, never fully modeled such micro terrain features. Probably because creating such terrain on a 4x8 or 8x16 would take quite some time. At best, a percentage die roll was made for finding a hull down position.

The closest we came to using microterrain was a discussion on renting out a local minigolf course and using that as our battlefield. Sounded really cool, but nothing ever came of it.

 

The last time I did any C20th tabletop gaming was in 1981 with a brother officer. By then we had "played" the British Army's Brigade and Battlegroup Tactical Trainer which was based in the old cinema at Bovington Camp in Dorset. This was a three exercise designed to exercise a brigade or battlegroup HQ who would play a day of battle from a mocked up HQ complex.

Day One was a briefing about the situation - usually a Fantasian invasion and the issue of order to the lower controllers (Company/squadron commanders and FOOs for the battlegroup game nd COs and BCs for the brigade ex.) These would feed in the inputs to the HQ from the units/subunits they commanded.
Day two was a recce day. The lower controllers went off to site their troops. A great day swanning about Dorset meeting up in a pub for lunch.
Day three saw the battle fought out on the floor of the cinema. The exercise staff controlled the enemy and umpired the results of engagements. We Lower Controllers would react as if we were in the field and report the results over the communications system.

This is not a bad structure for a wargame with table top rules replacing the umpire events. It gives players a chance to think about siting weapons on real ground, rather than laying out symbols on a table.

One game idea for a NATO - WP game was to allow the WP player to pick a 5 km wide track through the countryside as the main line of attack. The NATO player picks where to fight.

 

Yep, first time you're on the receiving end of enemy fire you definitely gain an appreciation for microterrain.