As mentioned above, I remember reading somewhere that each unit has 1 or 2 howitzers per 1,000 men and that the number of "tanks" describes how well the unit is equipt. I believe that comes out of the US army vehicle guide, V1. Here is a military break down of vehicles
AFV = Armored Fighting Vehicle, is described as something with a large caliber gun as a main weapon and alot of armor. Its a fancy way of saying "tank" like the T series of soviet tanks, the M-1, Challenger, even the older tanks like the M45A5.
IFV = Infantry Fighting Vehicle, is a Bradley or BMP. Its something that carries infantry and has chain guns or ATGMs that can stand up to tanks. Their gunnery is stabilized, meaning they have fire control and thermal.
APC = Armored Personal Carriers, are the old versions of the IFVs. They typically do not have the same level of armor, speed, and most importantly weapons. Typically they have ring mounted weapons, such as machine guns. Some do have ATGMs, but there is a huge difference between an ATGM mounted to a turret and fired by a gunner and one fired from an open ring mount on top of a "track".
I took the numbers listed in the US army vehicle guide completely litterally as to "how well equipt" the unit is and created formulas on how many other vehicles they would have. For example, the 16th Armored Division has 2,000 men, 4 M-1s and 14 M1A1s. Then, I used the US army vehicle guide and opened the TO&E. I determined that each armor battalion has 58 tanks. Then I shot across to the spread sheet and noted that each armored division has 6 tank battalions. The 16th therefore should have started the war with 348 tanks. So 5.2% of the 16th Armor's tanks survive. I then use the TO&E to figure out the total number of assigned M2s, M109s and so on, and give the unit 5.2% of each. For light infantry, or for divisions with no tanks, I work off the premise that 1 artillery piece survived for each 500 men, and then based off the total number of surviving artillery pieces, I add in 1 IFV or APC per artillery piece, as the book stated that generally, the units with tanks had more equipment surviving.
Of course, none of this is set in stone with units having the perfect amount of gear in ratio destroyed. With replacement vehicles of different types, different circumstances and so on. This is simply a rule of thumb I use to build a unit, then I create circumstances that make sense to make it more realistic.
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