Yankees can't naval transport to France

[TheDoctorKing]

So I got the Americans in the war. They get a nice, though small, army to start. First turn they are in the fight, I try to sea move their army to France. Guess what, the farthest they can move is right off the coast of Britain. They can't land either in Britain or France. I think it is the theater assignment thing again like I mentioned in an earlier thread when trying to move a British army from Britain to Egypt. They just won't go there.

Same problem with the Japanese - I finished up with the Asian colonies and the Japanese can land in Siberia but not go across the Trans-Siberian to help their Russian, er, um, "friends" out. This is historically reasonable, but the map shows a highlight on the Ural box when I try to move them - I just can't find the sweet spot to drop the unit to make them move there. Their navies are just fine with moving to European waters, btw. I have the Japanese navy up in the North Sea and other units in the South Atlantic chasing the remaining German commerce raiders.

[Random]

I have never found a sweet spot to get the AEF to France or the UK in one turn, it always takes two. On the first turn they get from the United States Box onto the Atlantic Sea Zone on the Main Map. On the second turn they can move from the Atlantic Sea Zone to a friendly port.

This used to bother me until I read more about the AEF and how very large contingents of American troops waited for months after they arrived in Europe, training, awaiting their artillery or combat service support or marking time until the leaders untangled the political issues caused by their mere presence before being placed into the line. Now I just consider that the frustrating movement delays imposed by WW1G are merely unintentional reflections of the real situation.

-C

[TheDoctorKing]

Interesting.

I wondered about that - the US should probably not start with three corps (even understrength). The US Army in 1917 was something like 25,000 men. The Marine Corps was less than 10,000 - they certainly should not be the most powerful corps in the game. If the US had one understrength corps and no RP to start, this would probably be about right. Then let them raise their army through builds. This would delay them an appropriate amount of time.

[Random]

I don't know, I have a pretty respectable opinion of the AEF. American divisions were BIG! In 1918 an American division had about 60% more manpower than a typical British or French division and twice that of a German division. With lot's of artillery and an unmatched logistics tail, I do not think that the US units are over rated although the tendency in British circles is to write them off as incompetent and poorly led. I suspect that there is a great deal of chauvinism in that perspective and too many British authors mock the US Army for taking longer than a year to learn what it took the BEF well over three years and half a million dead to discover about mechanized warfare.

For all of its flaws, I think that the AEF was the decisive factor in forcing Germany's capitulation in 1918.

As a Canadian I am hugely proud of the accomplishments of the CEF (whose strength is also exaggerated in WW1G) but I think that the game's designers really give the US Army its due.

If only it was easier to get them to the Front...

I wondered about that - the US should probably not start with three corps (even understrength). The US Army in 1917 was something like 25,000 men. The Marine Corps was less than 10,000 - they certainly should not be the most powerful corps in the game. If the US had one understrength corps and no RP to start, this would probably be about right. Then let them raise their army through builds. This would delay them an appropriate amount of time.

I don't think that there is any reason why this could not be done. You would need to edit the appropriate entries in the Nations.csv, Reinforcements.csv and Detachments.csv files in the scenario and the ProductionCosts.csv file in the DB folder. Maybe some others too, have not really looked at it. You would also have to script the AI so that when playing as the CP the US forces would build reasonably.

Not convinced that the results would prove worth the effort but you never know.

Maybe if I can get enough spare WW1G time I will try this in the 1916 Scenario and if it works, porting a Mod over to the Grand Campaign should be fairly straight forward.

-C

[TheDoctorKing]

I agree with you as to the fighting power of American units. I just don't think that the USMC and the regular American army deserve to be corps when they enter. The US military did take more than a year before they were ready to enter actual combat - the US declared war in April 1917, and the first American unit to enter combat was the 369th (Colored) Infantry, the "Harlem Hellfighters", part of the French 16th Division, that first entered combat 8 May 1918, and later fought in the 2nd Battle of the Marne and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Since they fought as part of the French army (white Americans didn't want American blacks in combat units), they should probably count as replacement points for the French rather than as a separate unit.

I, too, appreciate the Canadian unit in the British army. I designed an Advanced Squad Leader mini-campaign once, featuring the Royal 22ème Regiment fighting German Panzer-grenadiers in central Italy for control of a fortified house, Casa Berardi, overlooking a gorge. In ASL, Canadians are generally considered elite troops, with the added benefit (shared with all Commonwealth troops), that they don't "cower" under fire, simulating better fire discipline.

[Shri]

I had spoken of more canadians, saxon and bavarians once and the game designers told me this-

All allied men- Shock Troops were CANADIAN. (includes scots and irish)
All axis men- other than Prussians were Bavarian or Saxon.

The CANADIANS, SCOTS, IRISH and ANZAC were the SHOCK troops of the ALLIES alongwith US MARINES.
For the GERMANS- it was GARDE & GARDE RES. KORPS, ALPEN KORPS (best division of WW1) and BAVARIANS.

SIMPLIFICATION