John Lee's 'great war' Entente vs MP9090 as Central Powers

[gwgardner]

On the Eastern Front, the Russian 1st and 9th Armies have renewed the push towards Gliwice, in order to cut the Austrian army in Galicia off from its rail supply lines. The time Stavka is certain that it has prepared sufficiently to make sure that the enemy will not be able to push Russian forces back.

Austrian forces in Galicia are not going to budge if they can once again oust the lead Russian units from their advances.

[gwgardner]

These offensives are going have a heavy toll in casualties, far outstripping replacements. They are in fact desperate measures.

[StuccoFresco]

Well, it looked like Entente was going to lose the war of attrition, so some kind of strategic risk was to be taken.

[Cfant]

Concentrating on the Austrians may indeed be a good idea. I wonder what the British can achieve in the fields of Flandern... cool match you have here!

[gwgardner]

Sept 19, turn 60

The fighting on all fronts has indeed meant heavy losses, especially in rifle squads.

[Cfant]

How is it done in the game: russians light rifles, brits and french normal rifle squads? serbs and itlians light, too? And the CP: germany normal, A-H and Ottomans light?

[gwgardner]

Sept 26, 1915
turn 61

The Italian Front is stabilized. There are signs that the enemy is pulling forces from Italy to shore up their lines against the French and Russian Fronts.

Turkish/Bulgarian forces are continuing to hammer the Serbian holding force - which is really no longer holding, but disintegrating.

Serbian high command has repeatedly drawn forces from Belgrade to send to the south, but it's just not going to be enough. Any hope of Italian or French support seems unlikely, due to the lack of railroads from the Adriatic.

[gwgardner]

The Germans are pushing divisions up against the British offensive in Flanders. GHQ believes it still has a force advantage there, and the offensive will attempt to further roll up the German line.

[gwgardner]

The Gliwice Offensive is stalled. If the enemy can reinforce with German units, it is probable that Russian forces will lose their toehold across the Austrian rail lines. Stavka is ordering a continued effort to broaden the bulge, to obtain better supply and reinforcement lines to Gliwice.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: Cfant

How is it done in the game: russians light rifles, brits and french normal rifle squads? serbs and itlians light, too? And the CP: germany normal, A-H and Ottomans light?

Exactly.

[Cfant]

Could you show supply in Galicia? If you see no chance to take kattowitz I'd think about a retreat to shorten the line. How much reserves in manpower has Russia?

[gwgardner]

Russian supply is good, with rail lines. I don't know about the Austrian supply.

I was playing last night, and did a 'close' and a 'save and close' as I've done many times, to save my progress, and the game quit. I then got an email from Slitherine saying the game was over.

I had not made any attacks that turn, was still making initial moves. I can only think that

1) PBEM++ made an error;
2) TOAW made an error;
3) I had some casualties while withdrawing a unit from the front line, perhaps that caused a game end due to a casualties threshhold;
or
4) operator error.

The scenario has a lot of potential if someone cares to upgrade it, especially with separate replacement pools for each country.

[Cfant]

I wouldn't play Pbem++ ever again. If it fails, the game is lost. And it fails from time to time. Very sad to hear that, would have been very interesting to see who gets the upper hand. Seemed to be in the balance at the moment...

[gwgardner]

It's my first bad experience with PBEM++, so I suspect it's a TOAW problem.

[Cfant]

I only have used Pbem++ with TOAW, so you absolutely may be right [:)]

Thanks for the AAR!

[larryfulkerson]

I wouldn't play Pbem++ ever again.

+1

[IslandInland]

I have enjoyed reading this AAR 3 years after the fact.

I am currently playing this scenario (4 turns in) and was curious to see if there are any issues. The replacement rates and lack of separate pools for each nation seem to be a problem but I will persist with it as it hits the sweet spot for me in terms of map size/scale and unit size.

There are no notes at all with the scenario even the scenario briefing is the sparsest I have ever seen.

"The Great War
1914-1918
224 Turns
1 turn = 1 week
1 hex = 20 KM"

As was noted in the AAR the scenario is crying out for editing by someone who knows what they are doing. Unfortunately I don't fall into that category. Also unfortunate that the AAR ended abruptly as it was an enjoyable read.

[Raindem]

This looks similar to Piero Falotti's Great War scenario. They were good scenarios in their day, but lose a lot in the translation to TOAW 4.

So FWIW, I'm in the process of developing a brand new WW1 scenario from the ground up that will take advantage of TOAW 4's new features. Specifically to your point, each nation will have its own infantry type so replacements and attributes can be better controlled.

[golden delicious]

This looks similar to Piero Falotti's Great War scenario. They were good scenarios in their day, but lose a lot in the translation to TOAW 4.

So FWIW, I'm in the process of developing a brand new WW1 scenario from the ground up that will take advantage of TOAW 4's new features. Specifically to your point, each nation will have its own infantry type so replacements and attributes can be better controlled.

...and it'll be a transatlantic map with an American Front variant? No?

I started looking at an "American Front: World at War" scenario after playing Tane Woodley's scenario and then realised I didn't want to map two continents. I was interested in the problems for the British Empire in prioritising fronts since Canadian grain really would be essential for Britain in this hypothetical.

[Raindem]

...and it'll be a transatlantic map with an American Front variant? No?

Sorry, no American Front this time.