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Ebbingford
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Mon Aug 03, 2015 5:32 am

British orders
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PBEM Game 001~GBR.rar
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"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.


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deathsheep
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Mon Aug 03, 2015 3:00 pm

tomtein wrote:I see. Thanks, Shri. Although who says that you need a arty to form a Russian division :) ? Only Ivan and his handy rifle can do.

If poor Ivan is sent into battle with one.

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Shri
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Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:49 am

deathsheep wrote:If poor Ivan is sent into battle with one.


This bit of pedantry may come as a surprise to you and several others-

Contrary to the popular notion, the Russian army was decently armed and had sufficient artillery. Norman Stone's book is a starting primer on this subject.
For eg: The Entire German army (excluding colonies and fortresses and training establishments) had only 6500 guns at the start of the war of which 1500 or less were of - Medium and Heavy and Super heavy kind (the total super heavy was less than 25 and included a lot of Austrian Skoda 305s).
The army had to rip up the pre 1903 guns and even take helmets from Berlin police and use fortress artillery to arm the 9th and 10th armies in late October 1914. This situation was remedied only by early 1915.

The Russians (including their Fortress guns) had nearly 7000. the problem was typical of Tsarist Russian behaviour of a "push me-pull you", there were some 2000 medium and heavy artillery guns but over 90% were in the vast fortresses of Ivanograd, Novo Georgisk, Brest Litovsk, Kovno, Warsaw, Rovno, Sevastopol, Kronstadt etc. Also another 500 of the light/field artillery guns were in forts along-with millions of rounds of ammunition.
For eg: most of Congress Poland's forts fell fast and cheap in early 1915 and the total booty provided the Germans with over 1 million ammo rounds and nearly 700 Medium and Heavy Artillery and 200 Light/Field artillery, most of this ammo and guns was sent to help the Austrians, Turks and Bulgars and this helped these German allies fight well for over 2 years.

In addition, the Russian Artillery officers hated the Infantry officers and often thought that their main duty was to preserve their guns at all costs and not to help the infantry in their charges. (mainly because artillery officers were nobles and upper class city merchant's sons (many of the artillery officers were Baltic Germans) who were literate, well travelled and fairly westernised compared to many infantry officers who were semi-literate country bumpkins with boorish habits).

Again Russia kept the World's largest Cavalry army well into WW1, with the total Cavalry divisions being greater than the entire CP's cavalry divisions (this again drained a cream of the officers esp. Literates, Nobles etc, since Cavalry Divisions carried prestige in the Tsarist court and also with the Ladies! - very important for morale but useless in war) and this put a tremendous strain on logistics.
Russia had some 35 Cavalry Divisions, CP had some 25 all put together at start, soon reduced to around 15 by early 1915 (by converting them to mounted infantry and splitting existing divisions into individual squadrons which were used mainly for reconnaissance, holding supply lines and as emergency reserves)
Eg: To supply a cavalry corps of approx. 8000 sabres, it took 2 trains, but an infantry corps of 30000 rifles could be supplied with the same 2 trains. That means they ate fodder worth 4 men but did the job of 0.75 men i.e. were in net effect only 20% efficient as an infantry corps (funny thing is cavalry in game is smaller than it was but isn't eating as much supplies or as useless as it was, though the smaller numbers means effects are reduced once trenches come in).

Now, the low literacy meant - Officers and NCO deaths impacted Russia worse than any other nation (Russian officers were terrible at staff work but incredibly brave at the front, as a %, Russia and Germany lost maximum number of officers in both wars).
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

tomtein
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Tue Aug 04, 2015 1:25 pm

Very interesting details, Shri. I also am bemused how people regard the Russian army as so poorly equipped and backward. Though plagued by many weaknesses the Russians were quite capable and if people like Brussilov were not so few and far between the outcome of the Eastern front could've been very different.

Altaris
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Wed Aug 05, 2015 2:04 am

To me, with this mod, the Russian's weakness should be in artillery (particularly medium/heavy) and officers. Initially, the Russians should be fairly decent, but they should have a hard time keeping pace with Germany in particular in the mobilization of the homefront for the war effort.

What I can't stand in a WW1 game is for the Russians to be so weak and ineffectual that the Central Powers can simply ignore them the whole game. I've seen this too often. The Russians were a real threat in 1914-1915, and only a very concerted Central Powers effort in the East in 1915 broke that threat.

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Shri
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Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:10 am

@Altaris

Can you please look at Germany, no hurry; but posting my orders without getting the belgian mess sorted means i have to retreat to AACHEN and KOLN.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

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Metatron
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Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:06 pm

Shri wrote:Now, the low literacy meant - Officers and NCO deaths impacted Russia worse than any other nation (Russian officers were terrible at staff work but incredibly brave at the front, as a %, Russia and Germany lost maximum number of officers in both wars).


Actually the literacy rate in russia went up drastically in the 2 decades before WWI. In 1914 about 42% of the population was literate, but that number hides the fact that women were disproportionately much more illiterate than man (orthodox religious priests and schools of course...). Meaning that male literacy was actually higher than that. In 1913 army recruits were reported at around 2/3 literate. Of course geographical disparities meant that certain units from certain areas would have had higher literacy (cities and urban centres) while others lower literacy (rural and far east regions).

Of course that is not even close to the 99 % literacy of Germany but Austria-Hungary had some regions in it's empire that could rival Russian illiteracy rates, mostly on the fringes, gallicia and bosnia. But the cliché of the massively illiterate Russian soldiers is very much been how Europeans saw russia at the time (even into WWII) but it does not live up to the facts. (also soviets blamed post WWI decline of literacy on the russian empire of course and not on the complete collapse of the russian society during the russian civil war, so the bolchevik could take all the credit for their literacy campaign in the 1920s)

The main problem (beside arty) for the russians as you said was the officer and nco replacement (as for most nations) since it's peacetime officers and nco's were not really enough to build up into a multi million army. Once the trained officers and nco's died the russians had a massive problem to train replacements for their massive army.
-There is safety in numbers.
-Well there is also death in numbers. It's called a massacre.

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Shri
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Wed Aug 05, 2015 6:43 pm

Metatron wrote:Actually the literacy rate in russia went up drastically in the 2 decades before WWI. In 1914 about 42% of the population was literate, but that number hides the fact that women were disproportionately much more illiterate than man (orthodox religious priests and schools of course...). Meaning that male literacy was actually higher than that. In 1913 army recruits were reported at around 2/3 literate. Of course geographical disparities meant that certain units from certain areas would have had higher literacy (cities and urban centres) while others lower literacy (rural and far east regions).

Of course that is not even close to the 99 % literacy of Germany but Austria-Hungary had some regions in it's empire that could rival Russian illiteracy rates, mostly on the fringes, gallicia and bosnia. But the cliché of the massively illiterate Russian soldiers is very much been how Europeans saw russia at the time (even into WWII) but it does not live up to the facts. (also soviets blamed post WWI decline of literacy on the russian empire of course and not on the complete collapse of the russian society during the russian civil war, so the bolchevik could take all the credit for their literacy campaign in the 1920s)

The main problem (beside arty) for the russians as you said was the officer and nco replacement (as for most nations) since it's peacetime officers and nco's were not really enough to build up into a multi million army. Once the trained officers and nco's died the russians had a massive problem to train replacements for their massive army.


I do not know where you got that 42% figure, i got my data from the 1913 census which said 32% was approx. literate, maybe 42% is male literacy.
Anyway, Russian literacy meant just counting from 1 to 10 and signing the name, a so-called literate Muzik couldn't become a good NCO.
I guess as early as 1871 the Germany, France and England had 70%+ literacy, so that means nearly 90% of the males were literate by then.That also means that by 1913 they were 3rd or 4th generation literate. Using complex machinery, signals, air-planes, artillery plotting etc requires a decent grasp of subjects at-least a high school level knowledge.
In Russia till 1862-65 there was serfdom, so the soldiers in the great war were at most 2nd generation literate and more often that not 1st generation literate.

http://ourworldindata.org/data/education-knowledge/literacy/

All countries faced shortages of Officers and NCO's; though the Western countries- England, Germany and France could replace much faster and better than Italy, Russia and Austria. Austria and Italy were not much better than Russia in many aspects. Ottomans were even worse.
The French had conscripted some 83% of the pre-war population and thus were able to replace at a faster rate than others.

The Germans actually erred in not conscripting enough troops or spending enough money on the army pre-1913, they instead spent it on the 'luxury fleet', had the Germans increased the conscription rate from 52% to even 65% and stopped the naval bills, 2 things would have happened-
1. Germany would have started with 10 strong armies in 1914, instead of 6 strong, 1 super-strong (1st army) and 1 weak (7th army).
2. England may not have acted so adverse to a Germany not having a strong battle-fleet. Maybe if by late 1914 it looked that the French were getting badly thrashed they may have entered the war, but that would have become too little and too late.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

Altaris
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Fri Aug 07, 2015 3:02 am

Sorry for the delay responding, I've barely been home this week.

Return to Neutral for NM above 100 is a game engine thing, it happens in all AGEOD games. It will slow down considerably once you get below 110 or 105 NM, and stop completely when at 100 or below. I consider this as a decline in the initial wave of war "euphoria" which went through Europe in 1914.

Supply moves through regions with 51% or greater control, and you have to have some rail capacity available to move supply via the rail lines. I imagine this is where the problem lies.

I can research in further detail over the weekend, but it's likely going to be late Saturday or Sunday before I get a chance.

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Ebbingford
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Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:28 pm

Game 2 is catching us up here...... :cool:
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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tomtein
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Wed Aug 19, 2015 9:43 am

I apologize for using the thread for an off-topic, but since the things are a bit stale latelly, would some of you guys be interested in playing a PBEM as WE and EE?

Altaris
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Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:54 pm

Sorry for the delay guys, I'm completely swamped this week moving into new house and prepping my old condo for rental, on top of working some heavy overtime at work. It's doubtful I'll have time to do much for about another week.

It might be best to bring this game to an end, as it seems to have fizzled out. For next test game, I think I'd like to keep it down to 2 players. Easier to keep track of people.

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Ebbingford
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Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:44 pm

I think it has only fizzled out because Shri was worried about the loyalty issue in Belgium.
Highland charge has gone awol again but Shri was doing Austrian orders anyway.
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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Shri
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Fri Aug 21, 2015 3:34 pm

@Altaris and @Ebbingford

I am sorry to have stopped the game, BTW i wasn't AWOL just that i would like the Belgium thing fixed somehow if possible, else it is very difficult to continue the game in the position the game is in - the German armies in France are nearly "OUT OF SUPPLY" and will have to retreat to a -
Duisburg-Aachen-Luxemburg-Colmar line or something.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

Nostra
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Sat Aug 29, 2015 5:52 pm

Shri wrote:@Altaris and @Ebbingford

I am sorry to have stopped the game, BTW i wasn't AWOL just that i would like the Belgium thing fixed somehow if possible, else it is very difficult to continue the game in the position the game is in - the German armies in France are nearly "OUT OF SUPPLY" and will have to retreat to a -
Duisburg-Aachen-Luxemburg-Colmar line or something.


How did that happen?
I am also Germany in the Paradox Forum game and had no supply problems at all with my advance going as far as Versailles.

Nostra
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Sat Aug 29, 2015 5:52 pm

Altaris wrote:Sorry for the delay guys, I'm completely swamped this week moving into new house and prepping my old condo for rental, on top of working some heavy overtime at work. It's doubtful I'll have time to do much for about another week.

It might be best to bring this game to an end, as it seems to have fizzled out. For next test game, I think I'd like to keep it down to 2 players. Easier to keep track of people.


The Paradox Game isnt fizzled out yet but turns there havent been run in ages

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Shri
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Sat Aug 29, 2015 8:40 pm

Nostra wrote:How did that happen?
I am also Germany in the Paradox Forum game and had no supply problems at all with my advance going as far as Versailles.


Please see our latest SAVED GAME, all of a sudden, Belgium is between 40-50% German from 100% German. Some issue with the Occupation code. I have already played the - RAPE card long ago.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

Hubu
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Sun Aug 30, 2015 10:54 pm

Hello! Would it be possible for one of you to upload the latest version of the mod somewhere? The link in the other thread is broken...
Thanks, and good game :)

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