U.S. army too srong?

[FM WarB]

I'd like a list of U.S. "Corps" that enter the game, and at what strength, before I evaluate this.

[FrankHunter]

1st corps has a strength of 40. 2nd through 6th have strengths of 36. 7th through 10th have strengths of 34 and 11th through 16th have strengths of 32. Starting with the 11th quality drops to B.

[FM WarB]

thanks, Frank

[EdinHouston]

as an aside, one change I would make to the game is to lower the combat values of all US corps, from 40-36-32 down to 32-28-24. In an historical sense, its silly that the US could amass over 150 strength points to attack a German hex defended by a maximum of 96 strength points. When I see the US fight in the game, it seems more like one of those 'alternative history' sci-fi books, where someone has gone back in time to arm Pershing's troops with Sherman tanks and a few tactical nukes I understand Frank's reasoning in terms of historical unit strengths (oversized corps), but it seems to me the practical consequences in game terms are just too unrealistic.

[Kaliber]

I agree the US corps are too big. I've read the threads pertaining to the endless discussions about the size of US divisions (which I btw. consider a poor argument), their equipement etc. I personnaly don't know enough about WW1 OBs, tactics, logistics and the like to make an argument as to the historical correctness or incorectness of assigning a high CV value to the US corps.

My point is really simpler: As I understand it, there are two values (quality and CV) who reflect morale, equipment, training, tactics, logistics, leadership etc.) That's just fine with me. The problem is US corps overruning fully entrenched and full strenght german stacks like mastodonts. This just doesn't feel right and makes the end-game much less open and a CP hold-out strategy too difficult. IOW it limits the game and that's a bad thing. EdinHoustons proposal (32-28-24) seems to be a good starting point, maybe his numbers are a bit too low. What about 36-30-26?   

PS: I'm not seeking to offend anyone, make some sort of anti-american argument or what not. Just hoping to make a great game even better.

[FM WarB]

How soon after U.S. DOW do the 16 U.S. "Corps" get into action in the game? Is there any delay for training? Only four U.S. divisions seem to have been active by 21 March, 1918.

The 11/11/1918 U.S. oob shows nine Corps with a total of 28 divisions, plus two unassigned and one with the Belgian army. There were also 11 cadre and depot divisions, used for training and replacements for the active divisions in France.

It seems to me the U.S. Army is too strong in the game. I wonder if they also get in there too fast.

[FrankHunter]

2nd and 3rd corps arrive 4 months after the DoW.
4th and 5th corps arrive 6 months after the DoW.
6th and 7th corps arrive 8 months after the DoW.
8th and 9th corps arrive 10 months after the DoW.
10th and 11th corps arrive 12 months after the DoW.
12th and 13th corps arrive 14 months after the DoW.
14th and 15th corps arrive 16 months after the DoW.
16th corps arrives 18 months after the DoW.

[FM WarB]

Thanks Frank. So in game terms, Pershing was right...Concentrate the American army, if you can.

[FrankHunter]

This would be a perfect reason to add an editor to the game so stuff like this can be changed according to player whim since I doubt there will ever be full agreement on the values.

[FM WarB]

I would Love a senario/forces editor!!!!
Such a feature might shut me up, with traditional designer of game with editor answer: "If you dont like it, change it."
Sure you want to do it??

[FrankHunter]

Oh lord, did I say that? I think someone was impersonating me moments ago [:)]

[Mike Dubost]

I think US strength may not be quite as out of line as some have suggested, given a roughly historical entry date. My major concern is that the US forces are so strong regardless of the time of US entry.

The reason I say this is that some years ago I took a wrong turn in the stacks of a library and happened upon My Experiences in the World War by Pershing while searching for a different book. It is a fascinating book, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in WWI. Pershing devotes multiple pages (in several chapters) to his disagreements with the other Allied and Associated Powers regarding the proper training and use of the US Army. Apparently by mid-1917, the British and French were training new units strictly for trench warfare while Pershing insisted on training the US forces for manuever warfare (I forget his exact term, but it clearly meant the ability to fight outside a trench), over the objections of the British and French. This is less well-known than his equally stubborn insistence on having a US force separate from the British and French rather than feeding US troops in as replacements.

I think this would have made US forces more effective man-for-man (at least in comparison to units with comparable length of service). However, when did the British and French resort to just training new units for trench warfare? I suspect an earlier US entry would have meant less qualitative difference between the Allied and Associated Powers. Also, Pershing would probably not have been AEF commander had entry pre-dated the Mexico punitive expedition. Would a different commander have been as stubborn?

[FM WarB]

My impressions are that Pershing's disdain of trench war expertise cost the AEF in the Meuse-Argone. The policy of having a unitary US army was Government policy, so Wilson would have bargaining power given the credit of US help, for all the good that did.
just impressions, as I am back into WWI, after some time pre and post.

[OrvalB]

Pershing was in the unique position of having a fresh army, with a ton of replacements guaranteed to show up. The allied commanders had for a very long time resisted the basic fact that they were engaged in siege warfare. But by late 17 and early 18, they had no choice; in the case of the French, there were no men left; in the case of the Commonwealth, the governments were no longer willing to give Haig more men to throw into hopeless offensive sausage machines, and were deliberately starving their own armies of reinforcements, lest they launch more insane offensives. Which turned out to be handy in the face of the great German offensives of 18; they had reserves.

To the TE generals of late 1917, who were just starting (criminally & belatedly) to realize what was going on, Pershing looked kinda like a 1914 idiot, which they had all been themselves. The problem was that they were half right and he was half right: mystical troop morale and commander Will fared pretty poorly when confronted with barbed-wire and machine guns and coordinated artillery; on the other hand, without some offense that led to penetration and then maneuver, it would be pretty hard to win anything at all, short of attrition.

It is notable that how soon after brushes with actual Western Front combat, Pershing's units rethought a lot of their training strategy, and suddenly got a lot more willing to accept Brit and French tactical advice.

In the end, what amounted to intelligent attrition ended the game, and the US military took a little too much of that lesson away (hell, attrition basically won the Civil War, right?) The US military from Union times believed, took the lesson then, and has always since been about attrition. Korean casualty ratios. Vietnam body counts. Iraqi leadership lists. Whatever.

But Guderian and Rommel and Manteufel and Rundstedt and all the rest of the boys took away a slightly different lesson, and from a vastly inferior position pretty came so close to game set and match that it is still scary to play out the what might of beens.

The US Army functioning as a unit was probably a good thing. The US Army as the tactical saviour of the West, well, not so much.

[ILCK]

The disparity always seemed to me to be more a function of the relative strength of the US Army when it happened to arrive- like Mike Dubost said. The US units were stronger/better merely because they were not the shredded remnants of the armies already there. In other words, a US unit in 1914 against a German or French or UK units would not have been better/stronger....likely much worse. The US didn't enter in 1914 and by 1918 they were "better".

The thing is the game already has a mechanic to handle this - exhaustion and the attrition decline of unit quality not to mention that by 1918 neither side will be fielding full strength corps so the US units do not need to be made bigger against the absolute size of the peacetime European forces because they will be bigger relatively even at a more "normal" size.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: ILCK

The disparity always seemed to me to be more a function of the relative strength of the US Army when it happened to arrive- like Mike Dubost said. The US units were stronger/better merely because they were not the shredded remnants of the armies already there. In other words, a US unit in 1914 against a German or French or UK units would not have been better/stronger....likely much worse. The US didn't enter in 1914 and by 1918 they were "better".

The thing is the game already has a mechanic to handle this - exhaustion and the attrition decline of unit quality not to mention that by 1918 neither side will be fielding full strength corps so the US units do not need to be made bigger against the absolute size of the peacetime European forces because they will be bigger relatively even at a more "normal" size.

Ok, I don't want to upset anybody here, but while the US army may have been bigger and had more reserves , it certainly was not "better" in terms of quality to even the British or French Armies of 1918. First of all the US had to borrow almost all of it's artillery and aircraft from the French and, to a lesser extent, the British. The reverse of course would happen in WWII. The performance of the US Army in the final offensives of the War was, at best, adequate and, according to some, dreadful. In the last 100 days the Canadian Corps (of just 4 divisions) alone captured more ground and inflicted more casualties on the Germans than the entire American Army, while taking far fewer casulaties. My own view is that if the stacking size of the American units can not be increased to 4 (and Frank has said this is hard coded in) then the units should be reduced in CV. Again, I don't want to offend anybody; in WWII the American army, navy and airforce all performed remarkably on the battlefield, but in WWI the American Army was just not that effective.

[Kaliber]

Well Frank, what do you say? Both the military historians and those speaking more in terms of play balance seem to be pretty much in tune. As of yet, no one has spoken in favor of retaining the current US corps CV strenght. An editor would of course be a nice feature, but personnaly I would greatly prefer the CV strenghts to be modified in the vanilla version. Experience tells me that most games are usually played like this and gamers don't want to negociate CV strenghts each and every time before starting a new game.

[FM WarB]

U.S. Combat values have been decreased by four in 1.30f.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

ORIGINAL: ILCK

The disparity always seemed to me to be more a function of the relative strength of the US Army when it happened to arrive- like Mike Dubost said. The US units were stronger/better merely because they were not the shredded remnants of the armies already there. In other words, a US unit in 1914 against a German or French or UK units would not have been better/stronger....likely much worse. The US didn't enter in 1914 and by 1918 they were "better".

The thing is the game already has a mechanic to handle this - exhaustion and the attrition decline of unit quality not to mention that by 1918 neither side will be fielding full strength corps so the US units do not need to be made bigger against the absolute size of the peacetime European forces because they will be bigger relatively even at a more "normal" size.

Ok, I don't want to upset anybody here, but while the US army may have been bigger and had more reserves , it certainly was not "better" in terms of quality to even the British or French Armies of 1918. First of all the US had to borrow almost all of it's artillery and aircraft from the French and, to a lesser extent, the British. The reverse of course would happen in WWII. The performance of the US Army in the final offensives of the War was, at best, adequate and, according to some, dreadful. In the last 100 days the Canadian Corps (of just 4 divisions) alone captured more ground and inflicted more casualties on the Germans than the entire American Army, while taking far fewer casulaties. My own view is that if the stacking size of the American units can not be increased to 4 (and Frank has said this is hard coded in) then the units should be reduced in CV. Again, I don't want to offend anybody; in WWII the American army, navy and airforce all performed remarkably on the battlefield, but in WWI the American Army was just not that effective.

I don't want to sound like I believe the US can do no wrong, and I am not offended at your statement, but I would like to take issue to some extent with it.

Yes, the Meuse Argone offensive did result in unecessary casulties due to inexperienced troops and incompetent commanders. However, there were those who claimed the German defenses in the area could not be broken, and the AEF did break them. Given the terrain, that was an achievement.

How was the terrain on the Canadian segment of the front? I think that there were some dominating ridges that they had to take near the start of the offensive, but the area was not as heavily wooded, nor were the local heights at the far side of the battle area as they were in the Meuse Argonne. Meaning no offense to the brave and capable Canadians, but maybe this comparison is unfair to the AEF.

As far as the artillery and aircraft being borrowed from other nations, please note two things. 1) the equipment was borrowed (I am unsure of the precise proportion, but it was most of the artillery and virtually all of the aircraft), but at least a significant portion of the men were American. If you think there were no US artillerymen in France, the ghost of Harry Truman would like a word with you [:)]. 2) this is not a deficiency in the US Army, but was due to the negligence of the Wilson Administration. As far as performance of the units, US artillery has generally been regarded as very good from the time of the Mexican War to the present.

To be blunt, the fact that the guns were from France was due to the fact that despite war orders from abroad, the amount of munitions manufacturing available to the US Army was negligible. Given the lack of munitions re-supply, it made perfect sense to use French equipment even given that (an inadequate but non-zero number of) US gun tubes were available. And to have effectively ZERO military aircraft production in the country where the airplane was first flown (and was even demonstrated to the military prior to the war) is a gross failure. The lack of preparedness is something for which Wilson should have been censured.

As far as the US being "better", that is a very subjective judgement, I admit. However, the fact that the Allied generals had accepted trench warfare as a permanent feature of the war (implied in their training troops only for trench service) does mean that niether the generals nor the troops would look for ways to change the situation.

I hope I don't sound defensive here, but I do feel that I should make an effort to support my position.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: ILCK

The disparity always seemed to me to be more a function of the relative strength of the US Army when it happened to arrive- like Mike Dubost said. The US units were stronger/better merely because they were not the shredded remnants of the armies already there. In other words, a US unit in 1914 against a German or French or UK units would not have been better/stronger....likely much worse. The US didn't enter in 1914 and by 1918 they were "better".

The thing is the game already has a mechanic to handle this - exhaustion and the attrition decline of unit quality not to mention that by 1918 neither side will be fielding full strength corps so the US units do not need to be made bigger against the absolute size of the peacetime European forces because they will be bigger relatively even at a more "normal" size.

I do agree that the date of entry is the main driver in the apparent relative strength, but please note that comparing the AEF as a whole to the 1914 BEF is close to comparing apples to oranges.

Given that the BEF was a long-service professional army when the AEF was mostly a mixture of volunteers and draftees (mostly enthusiastic but all green) levenend with a scattering of long-service professional officers and NCOs, this does not truely fulfill my criterion of comparable length of service. For that, one could perhaps look at the Marine component of the 2nd Division (The Rock of the Marne). I will admit that the USMC was different from most armies so this is not a perfect comparision, but it was made up of long-service professional troops.