Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: hjaco

Contrary to popular belief, the standing Russian Army in 1914 was a well equipped and well trained fighting force. Its troops and equipment at least matched the Germans, if not bettered them and the standard was much higher than the average Austrian soldier (hence why Russia managed to defeat the Austrian military several times in the early stages of WW1).

....but some abstraction has to take place to reflect that the Russians formations were not pound for pound equal to the Germans. Example, Russian divisional artillery was grossly inefficient compared to the Germans. They were badly organized into larger batteries and suffered from an unwillingness to expend shells to save the infantry not to mention there were not enough of them. That is just the tangible effect and doesn't reflect the more abstract leadership problems and divisions that were rampant in the Russian army at the corps levels the game is played at.

My gripe is the way the numbers needed to figure out the CV of a unit is not exposed. I assumed, that A=A. If a German A and a Russian A are different things then I don't get any real info to know that and that is what isn't right. I still do not understand the A, B, C D grades on units if those grades are just masks for a number from 1-9 which is what it sounds like. Just show me the 1-9.

The reason I used letters instead of numbers there was that way when you see a quality B corps you know immediately where that stands among your troops, whereas if you saw a 7 you'd have to do a mental check to recall if that was good. After all, for Germany that's actually a C class formation and you might prefer to find an A or B instead. The idea was that letters would be "quicker".

Just thought I'd ask; it's over 30 years since I was "into" WWI. Rennenkampf and Samsanov HQs only having one offensive apiece should slow down those Russian A's.
I have some research materials on the way, but I do know the four German Korps at the Battle of Tannenberg: I, XVII, XX, and 1. Reserve. That Reserve Korps mayhap is not an A, but can't be sure at this point.

I, too enjoy digging into the "nuts and bolts" of wargames as well as editing/changing them, when possible.

This game seems to have a good strategic feel, with just enough detail, but not too much micro management. Discovering the actual potentials of the various forces is requiring some spadework, which for WWI, I guess is accurate