Supply for British forces giving penalty.

[wodin]

WIll thier be some kind of attack penalty given to the british forces?

The reason being is that unlike the French and German they had no labour battalions. Which meant that men supposed to be on rest spent all their time taking supplies or building railway lines up to the front.

This did I feel have an adverse effect on the British Infantry who undertook most operations totally exhausted.

[GWL_Tim]

The British army did have labour battalions http://www.1914-1918.net/labour.htm but the poor bloody infantry were used for a lot of things - labour, repairing trenches and carrying supplies up to the front.

[FrankHunter]

I don't believe the war demonstrates the British were worse at attacking than anyone else so there is no penalty.

[j campbell]

Frank,

in the playtests have the german managed to hold off the western allies for long period of the war maintaining a qualitative and quantitative (mortars, hand grenades etc) advantage over their enemy counterparts?? meanwhile systematically elimnating 1 major opponent in the war every year (Belgium 1914, Serbia 1915, Rumania 1916, italy 1917, and Russia at the end of 1917??

Churchill had noticed the imbalance in casualty statistics early on an decided that the imbalance was caused by the allies continuously attacking while the germans defended but this was not the case-when on a comparable level the germans carried out an assault (by the standards of the allies) they were almost always successful.

most decisive was the german advantage in artillery and leadership. the biggest question to ponder perhaps was "why were the germans so much more proficient at killing their enemy with artillery than the allies?"

2 out of 3 german fatalities were from artillery fire while 50% of wounded were from small arms
7 out of 10 British fatatlities were caused by artillery and 3 outof 4 french fatalities were caused by artilllery fire.

If i read the rules correctly battles are modified according to leadership/tactics and research effects more than overall raw strength so despite the allies having more manpower they might not necessarily psuh through based off attrition alone-am i correct ?

thanks for all the hard work on this project.
john

[GWL_Tim]

There's a book by Nial Ferguson called The Pity of War which I believe deals with a lot of this. It also studies why men continued to fight in such appalling conditions. I can't actually rememebr the conclusions re the casualties - I'll have to go back and check. However I imagine that it was more to do with the Germans protecting their men better rather than being better than killing the Allies. The Germans built deep dugouts and strong defensive positions whilst the Allies (certainly in the British army) had a policy of not making the trenches comfortable. Also the Germans I believe first adopted the policy of lightly held front lines. Another factor maybe the German counter attack methods - immediately counter attacking to regain lost ground - this I suspect would lead to more small arms casaulties rather than artillery.
I'll see if I can dig anymore info up!

[FrankHunter]

j campbell : Yes, battles are heavily modified by other factors besides strength. However, quantity has a quality of its own. But readiness "1" troops are useless compared to readiness "9" for example.

Better defensive tactics are an R & D choice covered by "Trenches".

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: GWL_Tim

There's a book by Nial Ferguson called The Pity of War which I believe deals with a lot of this. It also studies why men continued to fight in such appalling conditions. I can't actually rememebr the conclusions re the casualties - I'll have to go back and check. However I imagine that it was more to do with the Germans protecting their men better rather than being better than killing the Allies. The Germans built deep dugouts and strong defensive positions whilst the Allies (certainly in the British army) had a policy of not making the trenches comfortable. Also the Germans I believe first adopted the policy of lightly held front lines. Another factor maybe the German counter attack methods - immediately counter attacking to regain lost ground - this I suspect would lead to more small arms casaulties rather than artillery.
I'll see if I can dig anymore info up!

The Germans adopted lightly held front trenches about half way through in August 1916 with the arrival of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Previously, Falkenhayn had demanded the foremost trenches be held at any cost. He didn't demand men be packed into them, but thought men once in retreat were more difficult to control. In practice, Commanders obeyed this by packing the forward trenches with the maximum number of men they could.

That's why in many of the earlier defensive battles, German casualties were as heavy as the Allies attacking them.

You're right to point to German counterattacks as a possible reason for their casualty figures, but equally once they had discarded the notion of forward defence, most of their purely defensive dispositions were about countering enemy artillery, and providing defence in depth. Digging in on reverse slopes, to hide from artillery, holding the foremost trenches (the most heavily bombarded) with few troops and then preventing further advances with well sited machine guns further back, all meant they were perhaps less exposed to shell fire than the Allies who packed their forward trenches for longer.

Regards,
IronDuke

[IronDuke_slith]

ORIGINAL: j campbell

Frank,

Churchill had noticed the imbalance in casualty statistics early on an decided that the imbalance was caused by the allies continuously attacking while the germans defended but this was not the case-when on a comparable level the germans carried out an assault (by the standards of the allies) they were almost always successful.

most decisive was the german advantage in artillery and leadership. the biggest question to ponder perhaps was "why were the germans so much more proficient at killing their enemy with artillery than the allies?"

2 out of 3 german fatalities were from artillery fire while 50% of wounded were from small arms
7 out of 10 British fatatlities were caused by artillery and 3 outof 4 french fatalities were caused by artilllery fire.

If i read the rules correctly battles are modified according to leadership/tactics and research effects more than overall raw strength so despite the allies having more manpower they might not necessarily psuh through based off attrition alone-am i correct ?

thanks for all the hard work on this project.
john

Not quite, I think. I think British casualties by artillery were more a feature of their defensive tactics of packing the trenches than an overwhelming German advantage in artillery. Certainly for German offensive action, which was usually small scale between 1914 and 1918 (with the clear exception of Verdun), artillery played a key part, but not in the sense it caused many casualties. Most German offensive action during the war was undertaken by Stosstruppen. Although artillery could be used in intense (but brief) preparatory bombardments, it was often employed to do other things to aid the Stosstruppen.

It would for example engage in counterbattery fire to prevent allied artillery from interfering with the attack. It would interdict approach roads to the area the Germans were attacking to isolate the battlefield. It would attempt to disrupt the defensive system (perhaps by knocking out only portions of a trench, or a handful of key positions) so that Stosstruppen could infiltrate through the gaps and attack the trenches. Finally, they might just fling a few shells at the Allied trench line's gerneral direction to keep the Allied soldiers pinned whilst the german troops manouevred.

You're right to point to increased emphasis in the German army on small unit leadership. this was a feature of both World Wars.

regards,
Ironduke

[j campbell]

Ironduke,

no the numbers cited are correct -regarding casualty causes-i have the source inside John Mossier's book "Myth of the great war'. All sides maintained causes of death figures-these are from what is recorded historically. You are quite correct to point out the advantage the Germans held in leadership -this was maintained throughout the war-especially true in the Argonne forest early on (where combined arms tactics were developed). Contrary to most sources which cite combined arms tactics used first by Von Hutier on the ostfront they were developed in the Argonne in 1915. i will have more tomorrow on both these topics including sources cited.