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Originally posted by StephenT
Kaiser Bill - my reference to "Territorials" was to the French Territorial Divisions (numbered 80 to 170), not the British Territorial Army.

The British Territorials should be the equivalent of second-line troops from the other major powers, such as the French and German Reserve Divisions, who already had training. The French Territorials, and the German Landwehr divisions, on the other hand, were third-rank troops who were generally considered unfit for front-line service.

In fact, four French Territorial Divisions (81st, 87th, 88th, 97th) were later redesignated "Active Divisions" as a mark of recognition that thery were better than the other Territorials :)

Johan - Putting units in the build queue will just make them appear in March 1914 ready for action... A better solution would be to use either add_division or build_division events (perhaps "add" for the French and "build" for the Russians?). We could give the Germans their reserve divisions (but not Landwehr) from the outset but at, say, 35% strength, to represent their historical advantage in early deployment.
Click to expand...

Stephen,

My mistake, I will read more carefully next time. You are quite right about the French territorials, I think they perhaps could be militia, same for German Landwehr The problem is, as you say a few were later re-classified. Certainly the German Landwehr were a lot worse than there reserve divisions. I do hold on to the fact that they were deployed at full strength for the invasion of Belgium. They made up a substantial part of the invading army which suprised everyone.

That said, if we start in January, they have plenty of time to be brought up to strength.

With the build queue you're right again. Can we not make the time longer though, like with some of the Itallian ships, long time-low IC cost. Timed to bring them out staggered Sept-Dec 1914.

Events is definitely the best method, it just takes time to script them.
 
I was reading a book (History of the portuguese army) and it had the (supposed) OOB for Portugal. Supposed, because Portugal never actually mobilized for WWI... :rolleyes: I don't know if anyone covered this, but I'll just drop it in regardless...

The law (written in 1912/13, passed in 1914) divided mainland Portugal in 8 military regions. There was to be an active division in each region, and a reserve one. The active divisions would have 4 regiments of 3 battalions each, a machine gun batteries group, an artillery regiment and a cavalry regiment. The reserves had two infantry brigades and... And I forget what else... :eek: The mobilization would assign the 20 to 30-year-olds to the active and the 30 to 40 to the reserve. All the 40 to 45s would be territorials, undivisioned, assigned to garrisoning and similar duties. There would also be an independent cavalry brigade. Most of the artillery was undivisioned too.

What would you suggest for division types? I would think something along the lines of Inf for the actives and mil for the reserves, but... And "pretend" yanking out the divisional cavalry into the brigade, making it a division.

Some problems: like I said, Portugal didn't mobilize; the troops engaged in France were formed independently of this plan; The army only had about 100,000 Vergueiro rifles (a Mauser variant, portuguese design). At best, that should cover the active divs, so the reserves would either be unarmed or use the old Kropatscheks. :( That's made worse by giving 20,000 of them to South Africa. (The forces in France used Lee-Enfields. That left the Vergueiro where they would be needed in case of mobilization and simplified logistics for ammunition)

As for weaponry (this is more tech than OOB, but...) the rifles were the aforementioned Vergueiros (6.5mm, supposedly very accurate) and the 1886/89/96 (kept trying to keep it up-to-date) Kropatschek (8mm). And some others...
The artillery used Schneider-Cannet (is that what they were called? I forget... French 75mm) lights and Krupp howitzers (damn, forgot the caliber) bought in 1904/5.
The machine guns were Maxims, Vickers and Lewis. (The Vickers and Lewis in .303 caliber to match the Lee-Enfiels, so I guess only used in France)
 
I'd suggest that we have infantry divisions for active troops, a militia division for the reserves and a half-strength cavalry division to represent the independent cavalry brigade.

I'll leave you to interpret the weapons issue as you wish. :)
 
I just realized how poorly I worded that... That's 8 regions, each with 2 divisions, one active and one reserve. Just in case you understood it like I wrote it (8+1) and not like I meant (8+8) ;)

But then, if a battalion has 1,000 men (roughly) those active divs are only 12,000 fighting men. I think the "normal" divisions around this time were over 20,000, so maybe making them 4+4 could be better. Opinions?
 
It sounds fair :)

As long as we have a relatively accurate portrayal of the Portuguese Army in 1914, then I'm not too concerned about the particulars.

You're opinion on this matter probably counts more than most, too.
 
Elisson and I had come to the conclusion that one vanilla infantry division would be around 15 MP (or 15000 men) with more being added for attached brigades. So you might get it to be 6+6 or something close to that.
 
Just an idea here, but since it seems that most countries did not use mainly division-sized formations until late in the war (or post-war), especially not in the rest of the world, and to prevent artifically inflating smaller forces....

Couldn't the land and air forces be made cheaper (IC and manpower-wise) and used to represent regiments or brigades, (or in the case of air units, squadrons) rather than divisions? Historic divisions could still be represented, as a group of such brigades... and combat stats would not need to change, because if this is done to ALL units, then the stats would still be correct relative to one another...

For example, when I was doing some research on American WWII divisions, I noted that the unit histories indicated many of them were formed in 1921. This indicates to me that the US did not have division-sized formations prior to this; indeed, even in the Civil War, they were rare; troops were often deployed in brigades of around a third of what we're discussing as divisional strength. In the 1865-1900 period, the basic unit used in the US was the regiment, and in many cases even those were broken up into smaller units at different locations. For quite a while, for example, San Diego's garrison was a single infantry company.
 
Couldn't the land and air forces be made cheaper (IC and manpower-wise) and used to represent regiments or brigades, (or in the case of air units, squadrons) rather than divisions? Historic divisions could still be represented, as a group of such brigades... and combat stats would not need to change, because if this is done to ALL units, then the stats would still be correct relative to one another...
Click to expand...

Divisions that are not up to full strength (ususally before a war starts) can be represented by having full org, but its strength reduced accordingly.

I had recommended to Elisson a while ago that there be two doctrines (mutually exclusive of course) to represent the different division strengths found among the powers.

Basically for those with smaller divisions (mainly the western powers) it would cheapen the MP requirement but increase the soft attack values [+1 perhaps](to represent the increase in firepower that made up the difference for the lost manpower.) and a slight increase in IC needed to manufacture all those extra guns (+2 IC perhaps).

Base divsion would then be 15 MP - 3MP = 12MP

Those with larger divisions (the US, Russia, Bulgaria, etc.) would have another doctrine that would increase MP for one division but then give an increase to defense values (say +1)[the increase in defense representing the more men to throw into combat].

Base divsion then would be 15MP + 5MP = 20MP

Some countries would start with neither one of these and their base division would still be 15 MP, and then if they so desire could choose one of these doctrines (they should not be a requirement for anything else).

However I do not know if he finished them before he left.
 
I would say there are some problems with the idea to use regiments or even brigades as the basic blocks. For one thing, you'd then be stuck with an obscene number of units when fighting WWI with millions on each side. And the command limits on generals would mean a Field Marshall could only command something like 2 divisions...
 
Yes... this should remain true to HOI's divisional levels..

having a general command a regiment is quite odd.
 
I'd say the division was the main building block of armies in this era - no question.

What may confuse the issue is that there were two armies which were very unusual, because they were small, professional, all-volunteer forces whose only role was colonial policing and fighting native tribes. The pre-war British and US armies did revolve around regiments. For all other armies, ever since the time of Napoleon, the division was central.
 
The problems I see with using divisions -

1) trying to simulate different-sized divisions with tech/doctrine modifiers won't work, because as you get techs improving their stats, the differences will not change (in raw numbers) but WILL in relation to each other. So if you have some "half-division" force that has a soft-attack of 3, and a full division has a soft-attack of 6, and then you gain +4 by techs, you get 7 and 10... not the same proportion at all. The same problem arises using if using 'models' of the same unit type to represent different unit sizes.

2) using below-strength units allows artificial and unrealistic inflation of troops almost immediately by reinforcing them up to full strength. There isn't, as far as I know, a way to prevent this, by either player or AI.

The only reasonable ways I can see of doing it are what I suggested (using regiments or brigades, not divisions, as the base force), or representing those smaller forces with militia units (which would, at least in the British and American cases, do a disservice to their memory, as they were regular army).

As far as the leader unit size - is that not moddable? I think it is....
 
Originally posted by StephenT
I'd say the division was the main building block of armies in this era - no question.

What may confuse the issue is that there were two armies which were very unusual, because they were small, professional, all-volunteer forces whose only role was colonial policing and fighting native tribes. The pre-war British and US armies did revolve around regiments. For all other armies, ever since the time of Napoleon, the division was central.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with Stephen. There were differences in the rifle strength of divisions, and their respective firepower, but they were the building block of armies. If you read the historical accounts of large battles, they are usually expressed in terms of divisions, and tend not regiments/brigades.

Secondly there is a problem of terminiology. A british regiment conatins a dozen or so battalions circa 1916, and almost never would any two battalions be in the same brigade. A German regiment has three, and they all fight together. Other armies had 2, 3 and 4 btn regiments. The number can also differ with different troops types within a country, i.e. moutain troops 4 btn regts, line 3 btns regts. With brigades the system is even more problematic because they are made up of a number of regiments, again, not uniformly the same number of regiments across the nations. In short, few armies have the same rifle strength in regiments, even less in brigades.

Finally, and much more significantly, all the 'extras' are generally attached at divisional level. As Stephen pointed out, the division is the cornerstone of contental armies. Only at division are artillery, cavalry, engineers, command, logistics aircraft, bells and whistles attached in large numbers. A division ios a composite unit containing all these arms in proportions laid down by national doctrine. Germany had more artillery, Russia more rifles, etc, etc... Below division forces are not homegenous fighting forces, they are merged to form divisions, and I think the differences, which I agree are great, are about doctrine more than anything else.
 
I think that it could be problematic to try to model the difference in unit sizes between the various nations.


Just like in retail HoI, it would be best just to choose a generic division size to be used by all nations. Otherwise balancing issues might become really complicated.

Let's say that countries A and B are identical in all respects except division size. Country A's divisions are twice the size of country B's. Let's also assume that we are modeling division size and that country B can make two of its smaller divisions in the time that it takes A to make one.

Countries A & B meet on the field of battle and neither side has any special advantage. Techs and leadership is also equal.

Country A: six infantry divisions

vs

Country B: twelve infantry divisions

I have no experience in moding, but how hard is it going to be to ensure that this is a fairly even fight? What if we throw a country C into the equation with its own divisional strength.

Then we also have issues with unit deployment balancing. Country B has the option to thinly garrison areas with its small divisions. Country A cannot do this in game, but in 'reality' they could have used an overstrength brigade to fill the same role.


EnPeaSea
 
There could be something of use there, although the building blocks of armed formations in TGW shall remain the division as opposed to the regiment. In any case, regiments were not deployed in their entirety, but with battalions being sent to various parts of the globe. Furthermore, the much respected 'World War I databook' lists the various organisational arrangement of each countries' divisions, suggesting that the authors agree that the division is the basic groundwork for most countries' armies.
 
I know that StephenT Had posted a nice NavyOOB for Germany earlier in this topic but here we go with a much more accurate Version.
TypeDesignations are from StepehnT's posting in the techstopic (page 6)

OK , HERE WE GO :)
#########################################

name = "Mittelmeerdivision"
leader = Souchon
location = 743
Ships
name = "Goeben" type = battlecruiser model = 1
name = "Breslau" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "Osstasiengeschwader"

leader = von Spee
location = 1626
Ships
name = "Scharnhorst" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Gneisenau" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Nürnberg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Leipzig" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Emden" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "S90"
leader =
location = 1626
Ships
name = "S90" type = destroyer model = 0
# Remaining ships at tsingtau ( some torpedoboats and gunboats). II think #together they may count as flotilla



name = "Dresden"
leader =
location = 266
Ships
name = "Dresden" type = cruiser model = 1


name = "Karlsruhe"
leader = 420
# on the way to relieve "Dresden
location = at sea
Ships
name = "Karlsruhe" type = cruiser model = 1


name = "Königsberg"
leader =
location = 1309
Ships
name = "Königsberg" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "Küstenverteidigungsgruppe Ostsee"
leader = Prinz Heinrich von Preussen
location = 598
Ships
name = "Friedrich Carl" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Augsburg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Magdeburg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Lübeck" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Amazone" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Undine" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Thetis" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Gazelle" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Flotilla 1" type = destroyer model = 1
name = "Flotilla 2" type = destroyer model = 0



name = "Erstes Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader = Hipper
location = 589
Ships
name = "Seydlitz" type = battlecruiser model = 1
name = "von der Tann" type = battlecruiser model = 1
name = "Moltke" type = battlecruiser model = 1
name = "Derfflinger" type = battlecruiser model = 1
name = "Blücher" type = cruiser model = 2



name = "Zweites Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader = Maas
location = 589
Ships
name =
name = "Strassburg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Stralsund" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Graudenz" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Kolberg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Flotilla 4" type = destroyer model = 2
name = "Flotilla 5" type = destroyer model = 2

name = "Drittes Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader =
location = 589
Ships
name =
name = "München" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Danzig" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Stuttgart" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Hela" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Frauenlob" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "Drittes Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader =
location = 589
Ships
name =
name = "München" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Danzig" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Stuttgart" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Hela" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Frauenlob" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "Viertes Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader = Rebeur-Paschwitz
location = 580
Ships
name =
name = "Roon" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Yorck" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Prinz Alabert" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Prinz Heinrich" type = cruiser model = 1

name = "Fünftes Aufklärungsgeschwader"
leader = Jasper
location = 598
# Also in the baltic
Ships
name =
name = "Hansa" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Vineta" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Victoria Louise" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Hertha" type = cruiser model = 0

name = "Küstenverteidigungsgeschwader Weser"
leader =
location = 589
Ships
name =
name = "Adriane" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Berlin" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Niobe" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Flotilla 6" type = destroyer model = 2


name = "Küstenverteidigungsgeschwader Elbe"
leader =
location = 589
Ships
name =
name = "Nymphe" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Medusa" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Flotilla 7" type = destroyer model = 2


name = "Erstes Geschwader"
leader = von Lans
location = 589

name = "Nassau" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Westfalen" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Rheinland" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Posen" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Helgoland" type = battleship model = 1
name = Ostfriesland" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Thüringen" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Oldenburg" type = battleship model = 1


name = "Zweites Geschwader"

leader = Scheer
location = 589
Ships
name = "Deutschland" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Hessen" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Hannover" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Schlesien" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Schleswig-Holstein" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Braunschweig" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Elsass" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Lothringen" type = battleship model = 0

name = "Flottenflaggschiff"
leader = von Ingenohl
location = 589
Ships
name = "Friedrich der Grosse" type = battleship model = 1

name = "Drittes Geschwader"
leader = Funke
location = 589
Ships
name = "Kaiser" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Kaiserin" type = battleship model = 1
name = "König Albert" type = battleship model = 1
name = "Prinzregent Luitpold" type = battleship model = 1



name = "Yorck" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Prinz Adalbert" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Friedrich Karl" type = cruiser model = 2
name = "Regensberg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Kolberg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Stuttgart" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Stettin" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Danzig" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Hamburg" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Berlin" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "München" type = cruiser model = 1
name = "Flotilla 14" type = destroyer model = 2
name = "Flotilla 15" type = destroyer model = 2
name = "Flotilla 16" type = destroyer model = 2
name = "Flotilla 17" type = destroyer model = 2


name = "Viertes Geschwader"

leader = Schmidt
location = 589
Ships

name = "Wittelsbach" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Wettin" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Mecklenburg" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Schwaben" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Zähringen" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Braunschweig" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Elsass" type = battleship model = 0

name = "Fünftes Geschwader"

leader = Grabow
location = 589

name = "Worth" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Kaiser Friedrich III" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Kaiser Wilhelm II" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Kaiser Barbarossa" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Kaiser Karl der Grosse" type = battleship model = 0
name = "Brandenburg" type = battleship model = 0


name = "Sechstes Geschwader"

leader = Eckermann
location = 580

name = "Beowulf" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Odin" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Ägir" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Frithjof" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Siegfried" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Hagen" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Heimdall" type = cruiser model = 0
name = "Hildebrand" type =cruiser model = 0


name = "Flotilla 8"
leader =
location = 580
name = "Flotilla 8" type = destroyer model = 0

name = "Flotilla 3"
leader =
location = 580
name = "Flotilla 3" type = destroyer model = 0

name = "Flotilla 9"
leader =
location = 580
name = "Flotilla 9" type = destroyer model = 0



name = "U-boote Division"
leader = Bauer
location = 589
Ships
name = "Flotilla 1" type = submarine model = 0
name = "Flotilla 2" type = submarine model = 0
name = "Flotilla 3" type = submarine model = 0

***capital ships under construction***

name = "Grosser Kurfürst" type = battleship model = 2
[ready July 1914]
name = "König" type = battleship model = 2
[ready August 1914]
name = "Markgraf" type = battleship model = 2
[ready October 1914]
name = "Kronprinz" type = battleship model = 2
[ready September 1914]
name = "Derfflinger" type = battlecruiser model = 1
[ready July 1914]
name = "Lützow" type = battlecruiser model = 1
[ready August 1915]
 
Looks good - nice to see authentic names (in German) for the fleets and squadrons.

One point: the Osstasiengeschwader (should that be Ostasien- ?); I know the Emden was formally part of the squadron but I'd created it as a separate fleet to simulate von Spee's decision to detach Müller to operate alone.
 
Originally posted by StephenT
Looks good - nice to see authentic names (in German) for the fleets and squadrons.
One point: the Osstasiengeschwader (should that be Ostasien- ?); I know the Emden was formally part of the squadron but I'd created it as a separate fleet to simulate von Spee's decision to detach Müller to operate alone.
Click to expand...

Thank you , And yes I mean Ostasien .

With the Emden Iwas torn back and forwards and decided then to build the 100% exact OOB for June 1914. A German Player will do such a detachement as he like and also the KI is merging and splitting fleets as she likes

Spocky

P.S.
Now I'm working on the refinery of the Kuk Navy and then I'll provide a package of Admirals ( some with pics )
 
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