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Played CORE as Austria in an effort to resist Anschluss, and noticed that the OOB as well as many techs, Generals, etc. are incorrect, acutally Vanilla 1.3 DD is often better.

The is a great wiki entry on this, in German however (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Österreichisches_Bundesheer_(1920–1938)) . I have checked it with my own sources and it is reliable. I will summarise here:

In 1936 conscription was reintroduced, and the Austrian Army (Bundesheer) greatly increased. All brigades were transformd to divisions - and these divisions were of 12,000 men, not 9,000, which implies a 9 BN and not 6BN organisation (which is also what is was).

LAND OOB
The units were:

1. Division
2. Division (+ ARTY)
3. Division (+ PIO)
4. Division (+ ARTY?)
5. Division (MOUNTAIN troops)
6. Division
7. Divison (raised in early summer 1936)
(8. Brigade - small division size - raised early summer 1936)

Schnelle Division (tricky - it had 1 Motorised Brigade, 1 Cavalary Brigade, 1 "tank regiment"/ armoured car + support troops - have a look at the wiki amd make your own decision.

AIR OOB (Jan, 1936)

Fliegerregiment Nr. 1 (fighter)

Fliegerregiment Nr. 2 (tac bomber)

Have a look at the wiki for equipment.

Fortifications
A critical error IMO is the absence of fortifications in all Versions. They always played a critical role in Austrian military thinking, even to to the late 1980s.

The "Jansa Line" was planned to be built in early 1930s to protect against a German invasion, but only partially actually constucted.
Relative to the game, the Provinces LINZ and SALZBURG should each have a Levl 1-2 fortress.

KÄRNTEN (KLAGENFURT) had strong fortifications build prior to 1914
Level 1-2

LINZ all of Southward facing Tirol was re-fortified after 1918, the north recieved some bunkers in 1930. Level 1-2

Equipment and Officers
In 1936, the Austrian Army was somewhere between 1934 and 1918 equipment - IIRC it would be CORE 1934 equipment, and should be in the middle of modernisation.

Also, ALL the comanders of these units are listed - it's great. Quite a few of these commanders became well known in the Wehrmacht.

Finally, the Ministers, Genrals etc. needs to be redone - sorry I cannot here right now. Again, the website helps a great deal.

Also, the tech teams need to be changed. While I do not have the names at the moment, the entrie "Blitzkrieg" strategy was partially a Austrian (theorteical) invention, many Austrian military theorists were taught in Germany before and after the Anschluss. The actual doctorine of the time was "fairly" mobile, and should (probablly) be Mobility based.

No to Anschluss Event
Needs to be fixed - in my Game Germany does not seem to have an Event string if Austria says No. Germany had invasion plans; there should be a sizable chance that it will occure.

However, fighting German Blood should cause a significant Unrest hit for Germany - easily 10% if not more.

If Germany declares war, Austria should als take a sizable Unrest hit - about 2x that of the German Unrest sounds about right. Also, Austria had about 100,000 men Milita PLUS the 50,000 extra moblilsation troops. The Milita was poorly equipped, in total I would suggest an additional 5 Milita Divisions immidinetly made available PLUS the usual "mobilisation event".

If AUT says No, a second German event should occur with the following:
1. "Accept the Decision - Press for Military Alliance" (GER unweighted chance 20%,)
2. "Offer the "Großdeutsche Bündniss" (Greater German Alliance) (GER 50%)
3. "Unite by Force" (GER 30%)

If 1 - AUT joins the Axis as an independant, takes a 5% unrest hit, etc.
If 2 - AUT joins the Axis as a puppet state, takes a 5% unrest hit
If 3 - GER invades, usual triggers.

If 1 or 2 is turned down by AUT, a third event fires:
"Last chance - Unite or War", either AUT backs down or there is war.

If Austria joins Axis, sometime after Victory over Poland a second "delayed Anschluss" event chain has sizable chance of firing per day/month (say a 75% chance over 3 years):

"Finally Anschluss" (GER)
1. "Take Over the Govenment" (75% chance) or 2. "Leave them Alone"
If 1, Austria gets the Final Offer
"Submit?" - if Yes (75%) then Anschluss, if No it takes a massive unrest hit (30-40%) and War breaks out.
 
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My information says that there was no Austrian Air Force at Jan 1st, 1936 - it was only formed when they reintroduced Conscription on April 1st, in violation of the Treaty of St. Germain, almost certainly as a response to the reoccupation of the Rhineland by Germany. This is also (of course) when the Army expanded significantly.

This is all rather under represented, perhaps, as things stand at the moment, but it does mean that the 1st Jan 1936 OoB is not as you list. At that date, the Army was probably about half the size you show, I'd say.

Tim
 
Hi,

There seems to be some differences depending on what source data is being used. What I found doing a rather quick search implies a starting OOB of 6 INF + 1 CAV and possiblly 2 Air units. Now it's very hard to say what strength these units should really be. But at least they appear to exist on paper.

mm
 
6 INF + 1 CAV units, sure - but at 1st Jan 1936, my information still shows them as being Brigades, not Divisions. And the Air units are also tricky - there were certainly unit commanders for the 2 Flieger Regts in 1934... but there is no record of real aircraft for them. Aircraft markings (roundels, etc) aren't recorded until 1936.

The Treaty of St Germain prohibits Austria from having an Air Force - article 144 says :-

"The armed forces of Austria must not include any military or naval air forces.

No dirigible shall be kept."

I suspect therefore, that the "formal" announcement of the Air Force, and probably the real existence of proper military aircraft (as opposed to trainers, etc) did not occur until 1st April, when they also broke the treaty in regards to Conscription.

Tim
 
Hi,

The source I'm using shows the conversion to divisions ocurred in 1935. This was from www.axishistory.com, which is generally pretty good. I'd expect the German Wiki article is reasonable as well as it looks pretty detailed. Again, hard to say how strong these units would be. But probablly better to have more units at partial strength in this case. Also, from looking at things these divisions appear to be at an odd crossroads. They are right in between the 6 Bn and 9 Bn strength for INF and also between the INF and RES with respect to heavy weapons. So we could reasonablly assign them as 9 Bn RES or 6 Bn INF and either would be pretty accurate. And of course some/all could really be MTN.

As for the Luftwaffe it's a bit unclear when they really got military aircraft. I'd suspect you are correct that there weren't any combat aircraft available until 1936.

mm
 
If we are into "Austria corrections" I have wondered a bit about the many "country XXX protests Anschluss" events. Historically, only Mexico protested against the Anschluss ... which is the reason that there is now a Mexikoplatz in Vienna.
 
I don't have the sources available, but I know other countries protested - such as Italy (though that must've been more of a gesture considering the Axis agreement).

I'll take a look at adding an option for a human GER player to skip End of CZE, but remember that this will also automatically (IMO) skip Memel and Danzig events as well.
 
baylox said:
I don't have the sources available, but I know other countries protested - such as Italy (though that must've been more of a gesture considering the Axis agreement).

I'll take a look at adding an option for a human GER player to skip End of CZE, but remember that this will also automatically (IMO) skip Memel and Danzig events as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Baylox,

Ad 1): I am quoting from High School history class knowledge there, which is not always the most reliable of sources ... :p

Ad 2): A new option would be great.

For the semi-what-if afterwards, my 0.02 €:
Claiming Memel might be skipped as the Lithuanians would not be scared enough to cede it (Memel leads to to the British guarantee for Poland in HOI2 as it stands).

Claiming Danzig might still happen, with lower Allied support and thus a larger probability for the Poles to fold or to fight without Allied support.

Of course, any what-if is wide open to personal speculation ...

Best Regards

T.
 
1The OOB I gave was from the wikki link included, please have a look at it before commenting, you can translate with google. I have looked at my own soures, which are quoted in wiki as well, and it is by far the best you will find open source online.

2. The OOB is the correct one. ALL brigades (such as Brigade Burgenland) converted to Divisions in 1935. Although conscription was introduced in April 1936. By March 1936 Austria had an active army of 120,000 men.

3. The fact that OFFICAL conscription was introduced in April 1936 is incorrect and irrelevant. The Genève Disarmament Conference of 1932/33 had allowed Austria to conscript forces for a "Military Assistance Corps" on a 6-month conscription basis. By Jan. 1936, Austria already was a majority conscript army.

4. Austria started training pilots in 1938, in 1933 the first units were set up and aircrafts purchased. All the exact aircraft are listed in the wiki article. Of course these were old aircraft (biplane, mostly) but it was a reasonable sized force for a country of its size. Given the amount of Austrian "air experts" (aces etc.) in the Wehrmacht you should not be surprised that they started their careers before 1938.

6. While we are at it, the officers in CORE as well as standard 1.03 DD are wrong, Schönburg-Hartenstein for instance was Defense Minister and not active army at that time(trust me, i do know). Again, the wiki has a perfect list of officers and ALL the unit commanders.

7. I noticed no-one commented on fortifications; this is however a critical issue and I hope it is addressed.

8. Generally I had a problem with number of Austrian factories, they are WAY to few (IIRC even Slovakia has more). While "Vienna" includes a bunch of other cities and towns with heavy industry it should have around 14 IC if not more (compared with other towns in the Reich). Linz is way off, around double,.

9. The techteams could be looked at again.

10. The assertion that only Mexico officially protested Austria's annexation is NEARLY correct - trust your high school history ;) - the USSR also protested but they didn't really count....

11. The divisions are all THEORETICALLY 9BN units. In fact, only 1, 4, 6 and 7 DIV had 9 BN. The others had 7 BN, but extra arty and engineers. Given that there was also the 8. Brigade PLUS "Army Troops" I think we can safely say they were all 9BN units.

12. The schnelle division is very tricky to get right, I hope someone can have another look, the exact TO&E is on the website. IMO it should be 1 Early Motorised DIV + 1 "second stage" (advanced) armoured car.



13. I played the most recent CORE version; Austria does indeed have a number of excellent events, however when I say "no" to the Anschluss nothing happens, Germany does not have an event at all in response.
 
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Siddhi and others,

I did a bit of googling in German references in the morning and can confirm the essence of what Siddhi is stating. Of course he seems to have a lot more detail knowledge ....

In any case, brigades were transformed to divisions in 1935 (and it would take an event in any case to model this in HOI2/CORE, so why not have them in place from the start).

I am not so sure about fortifications, from what I have read, fortifications against Germany were planned but not implemented. Fortifications against Italy: since Italian fortifications are still fairly plainly visible when travellig in the area, the fact that I have never seen any Austrian fortification may count a bit, but I have no sources on this.

Best Regards


T.
 
Tegetthoff said:
Siddhi and others,

I am not so sure about fortifications, from what I have read, fortifications against Germany were planned but not implemented. Fortifications against Italy: since Italian fortifications are still fairly plainly visible when travellig in the area, the fact that I have never seen any Austrian fortification may count a bit, but I have no sources on this.

.
Click to expand...

Fortifications by very nature are a tricky subject.
IF you read German, the following posts are interesting http://www.team-delta.info/Forum/archive/index.php?t-3111-p-2.html if not definitive.

Jansa Line (Enns Linie - Plan DR): some positions finished by 1936; the "full line" would have been equiviliant to the Czech defenses, therefore I say give them 1-2 Fortifications in 1936.

Klagenfurt: 200 years worth of constantly upgraded defenses; Steirmark (Styria - i.e. Graz) did not have any as this was a "safe" border under the Monarchy

Tirol: No defenses prior to 1918, after partion of Tirol basic defenses (fortified positions) established both southwards and northwards facing (especially the Brenner pass). In 1936 still basic, therefore 1 might be ok.

Tegetthoff, if you are in a googling mood ;) you mind looking for a refernce that I have in hardcopy in one of the my old BH books somewhere; namely that an Austrian was responsible for the original Blitzkreig concept. Also, if we could get some hard facts for the number of factories that would be .... shall we say, leiwand :D .
 
Some good - English language - information may be here, including commanders (Austro-Hungarian web page with a 1st Republic Bundesheer section):

http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/troophis.htm

If somebody really bothers to read this (unfortunately several pages are missing), it would answer all questions relating to Bundesheer equipment and OOB. Regarding industrial strength this may also give some idea how hard it was for the Bundesheer to procure suitable heavy weapons, so we have to be carefull to translate 1936 factories into war making potential.

http://books.google.com/books?id=q4...ts=By6-zx2BjX&sig=shuGfBDGrxsgrfi_loqvi6b94Qs

Regards

T.
 
Hi,

2. Just going from the 120,000 man figure it's still a bit hard to say how many of these men were proper combat troops (modeled tooth) and how many were in support units (unmodeled tail). This ratio really varied wildly between nations so anything I'd suggest would merely be a guess due to my rather limited knowledge of the Austrian forces. Still, I'd tend to agree that 6+1 is a reasonable OOB for AUS.

4. From what I could tell the Air OOB is for 1938. So that is 2+ years of development from the 1936 OOB. Since these aircraft were pretty much surplus from other countries they could have been acquired pretty quickly and we can't just use production data to verify availability. I'd suspect that in 1936 Austria had very few if any "combat" aircraft but instead mainly had trainers and observation types. If you can get some hard info for earlier this would be very enlightening.

6. Right now rebuilding the AUS officer pool isn't a high priority. AUS generally is out of the game by 1938 and GER really doesn't need more help in this area. OTOH, if you want to submit a fix proposal I'm almost certain it would get worked.

7. Fortifications: I'd be inclined to think that most of this was still "planning stage" at start due to treaty limitations. Of course the older fortifications would still be available and should be included much like other ones are.

8. AUS Economy. We're working the world economy for 0.40 so this will be reviewed. However IIRC the total Austrian economy was less than 10% of the German one so I don't expect a major revision here.

9. Teams: Need more concrete suggestions here. I'd like to see a bit more justification re: Austrian influence on the Blitzkrieg before we give them credit for this.

11. As noted earlier, while they may be 9 Bn, units they are a bit smaller than the model 9 Bn INF unit and also lighter in equipment. If we were to swap this they would go to 9 Bn RES/MTN rather than INF. This would probablly be a good thing for AUS from a defensive perspective. Also would align them with GER tech wise, which is probablly the most likely alliance.

12. Schnelle: All of the variations on "modern cavalry" are a bit hard, as every nation had a slightly different idea on how to do this. Thus we get a lot of variation that we can only approximate with our limited units. In this case the number of horses and bicycles definitely indicates a CAV type formation (vs. MOT) and the low amounts of heavy weapons also points to CAV. So I think the current characterization is pretty accurate. Based off of the 1938 TO&E the only thing I'd consider doing is adding in the 1936 Cavalry Motorization tech to the starting set up. But I'd need a bit more solid info to support this.

13. The Anschluss Chain go some revision for 0.32 which was just released this weekend. Is this the version you are refering to?


mm
 
Tegethoff, thanks for the links.

MM,

2. As the website says, 2 of the divs did not reach their full TO&E, however close they got, anyway d there are few armies in the world that actualy did have their real TO&E.

4. The website does give 1938 equipment listings, but the TO&E was set in 1933, as it says on the website, and squadrons were set up in 1934. the units in question are nearlly all biplanes, but so was the polish airforce.

7. I have a hunch that the "treaty limitations" often mentioned here are slightly misunderstood basically hardly any of those limitations were actually applied post 1933, it is hard to imagine from a present day POV but there you go. the fortifications KLAGENFURT are historical, the SALZBURG and LINZ were (JANSA LINE) were started IIRC in 1933 but by 1936 had only been 1/3 compleate, given that they were to be equivilant the Czech defenses I think a rating of 2 is reasonable. This defenses are still there BTW, some of the modern fortifications are built right next to them.

8. fair enough.

9. o/c, this is going on memory, anybody had to slog through history of military theory might be able to help out, otherwise maybe i can find something. however i can definietly say that the austrian theorists massively outstripped their "means".

11. sounds good.

12. this is relative to the rest of the game; so whatever you say based on your experience. however the austrian "light tanks" / armoured cars were kind of...cute, they were very popular with the Wehrmacht later on. I would therefore give a more advanced "armoured car" rating and attach as brigade.

13. ah, got the wrong one then! will get to it, thanks.
 
Hi,

4. the issue isn't that the aircraft were biplanes. Most of the other powers are using biplanes as of 1936 as well. However most airforces have a lot of aircraft that we don't model. In particular, there are a lot of trainers/observation/liason aircraft that just don't fit in. So while Austria may have had some flying machines earlier than 1936 we really need some better info to determeine what would be reasonable for the 36 OOB.

7. I'd be fine with adding in some level 1 fortifications for the Jansa line if your info indicates actual construction was 1/3 complete in 1936. So to summarize we'd want:


KLAGENFURT: 2
SALZBURG: 1
LINZ: 1

How much more progress should AUS make prior to the Anschluss?

mm
 
dec152000 said:
Hi,

4. the issue isn't that the aircraft were biplanes. Most of the other powers are using biplanes as of 1936 as well. However most airforces have a lot of aircraft that we don't model. In particular, there are a lot of trainers/observation/liason aircraft that just don't fit in. So while Austria may have had some flying machines earlier than 1936 we really need some better info to determeine what would be reasonable for the 36 OOB.

7. I'd be fine with adding in some level 1 fortifications for the Jansa line if your info indicates actual construction was 1/3 complete in 1936. So to summarize we'd want:


KLAGENFURT: 2
SALZBURG: 1
LINZ: 1

How much more progress should AUS make prior to the Anschluss?

mm
Click to expand...

4. the exact OOB and TO&E (+ commanders, plus history) of the Air Arm of the Bundesheer can be seen in the wiki article. It does not give the exact number of planes, but does give the types. basically however there is no doubt that Austria had - relative to the day and the country's size - an actual "air arm".

7. FM Jansa was appointed in 1933 and dedicated his work to preparing Austria to meet Germany in battle. The entire Bundesheer was built up, adjusted, and organised for this task. From the start, Jansa's strategy was to delay the Germans rather then stop them dead, and hope that others (Italy) would arrive before Linz was lost.

While Jana finished many things, the full fortification system he envisioned was not compelated. Some of it certainly was, and can still be seen today. These are SALZBURG 2, LINZ 2- I give them 2 given a comoparision with the CZE and ITA defenses of the time, these were easily comparrable.

A few positions were also put on the mountain passes in tirol, which easily qualifies TIROL for 1 as well.

KLAGENFURT had historic fortifications going back centuries, plus, the invasion 1919 of the SHS Monarchy had prompted the construction of new fortifications. KLAGENFURT 2.

Also, looking at the notes I again, I missed that one of the "unique" aspects of the Austrian TO&E was the (for the time) heavy reliance on Anti-tank cannons, of which every infantry division had 40. In his memoirs JANSA refers to them often, as at 4,7cm they could defeat anything the German could throw at them.

This means that at least 2 DIVS should have Level 2 anti-tank cannon brigade attached by 1936. By 1938 they were ALL so equipped.

In terms of how much progress was made until just before the Anschluss, the majority of efforts 1936-38 were in the expansion of the airforce, the increase in supplies and stores, continued construction of the fortification lines, and introduction of a new Command and Control System (1936)- oh just realised CORE has that so please include - and especially the expansion of the reserves and milita system. The emphasis on Infantry rather than tanks was intentional, the infantry was increasingly well equipped and by 1938 was comparable certainly to Italian and possibly German standards.



Basically IMO Austria is rather weaker then historic. While Austria was the "cripple that remained after 1919" without 1/2 of the monarchy's heavy industry and 3/4 of the population, they DID inherit 3/4 of the officer corps and 3/4 of the technological R&D capacity.

It is btw completly unrealistic for Austria to have less IC then Hungary, which it does have in game. At least 1 IC more should be there, which would
Using Vanila techs; Arty should be +1, Armoured car +2, Light tank+2, ATG +2. Naval techs should also be appropriate for a late Great War Navy, and 1 medicore tech team should also still be around. IMO the IC techs should also be higher, only 1 away from GER standards.
I would REALLY welcome it if someone could have a look again at the wiki website and also suggest changes to the officer corps (which is wrong in the game) and the techteams (also slightly underpowered). Austria should have more techs then are able to reasonably equip - this was an across the board issue, and applies to tanks as well. Again- while Austria lost most of its material strength in 1919 it did keep the most of the officer corps and research capacity of what used to be one of the Great Powers.

Austria's Anschluss is also seen too much as "inevitable" in hind-sight. It was far from so, and one of the most realistic parallel-history scenarios is the War breaking in in 1936 over Anschluss issue, with Italy on the side of the allies. This would things quickly to a WWIII frame, which I am eager to explore.

Jana's memoirs as related to this period can be found here:
http://www.diemorgengab.at/fmljansa/aljamem10.htm
 
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Hi,

Unfortunately I don't read German very well and the Google translations are never all that good. So I really don't catch all of the info found in that wiki article.

Anti-Tank: these weapons are assumed to be part of a standard 1935 TO&E. Actual numbers depend on unit type and size. 40 would be a bit heavy for 9 Bn RES/MTN, but light for 9 Bn INF. So any aatachments based on this would be somewhat limited. As for the Bohler, it was a decent gun for the day. However it had relatively poor ballistics and didn't have markedly better performance than smaller guns of the 37mm type. Therefore it (and the SOV 45mm) are grouped with the 37mm guns as 1936 AT Guns.

mm
 
The Anschluss isn't on the cards in 1936, so I just can't see any option for a war over it then.

Austria is indeed probably a bit weak in IC, as things stand. However, you have to realise that 99%+ of games (probably) will be played by people who DON'T play Austria, and thus, Germany will take over Austria in those games. Any boost to Austria thus effectively ends up being a boost to Germany. This is one significant reason why Austria is at the strength it currently is.

Austrian tech teams are some of the best in the game for a non-major power. Heck - compare them to what France has, and tell me which set of teams you prefer...

It's unlikely that you will see any revision of Austria for the current version of CORE, since we are now wanting to move on to 0.40. But I would expect to incorporate a number of the suggestions here into the 0.40 version of Austria.

Tim
 
- the OOB i gave is historic, and is also used in vanilla, so i hope it can be adopted.

- intersting about the bohler, never knew that.

- "austrian tech teams good" - ok, if you say so, i don't have an overview, but fair enough.

- "weak because of gameplay" - that i have a bit of an issue with. i recently had a look at the CCCP game in Vanilla and was shocked to see the SKN Base Area was more industrialised then entire Austria and the troops were more developed. also, the comparission with Hungary stands. "beefing up" Germany with Austria could intelligently be controlled by events - in RL, Germany got only SOME of the techteams and SOME (if not most) of th army - many officers and senior NCOs were deeemd politicaly unreliable and were dismissed. In game terms, i would dissolve at least one if not 2 divs upon Anschluss. Finally, absorbing Austria was a major administrative undertaking and should cause a "dissent" hit to Germany simply to simmulate the disruption - say 5%.

- "Anschluss not an issue". This is seriously incorrect. Austria had a Nazi terror group since 1933, there were also running battles with many casulties with the federal army. After a failed Nazi coup Italy nearly marched into Austria, and the entire Austrian army was ALLOWED to be beefed up to meet an expected German drive south - politically and militarily.

- The chance that Italy, Hungary and Austria will join in alliance should be made a bit higher. If this Alliance does stand the chance that Austria will fold to an Anschluss should be rather small, say 25-33%. This is a major "what if" - if Germany seeks to invade Austria and fight, even if only the Austrians, this will raise the beligerence nicely for the Czech events and should also increase the chance they will decide to fight as well. Latest by this point the allies should be likely to intervene.
 
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