New Units

[Orel]

I find it would be interesting if new units were added to the current game such as:

-Machine gun battery(8 machine guns). A unit that would reflect the participation of common machine guns in the war. Right now there is nothing of that sort.

-supply trains(railroad ones, have spoken of them in another thread). This act as supply trains based on railroads.

Will add more ideas on new units later on.

[PhilThib]

Machines guns did not really operate as independent batteries, did they? Their firepower is already represented in the defensive fire values of infantry models

[Orel]

Machines guns did not really operate as independent batteries, did they? Their firepower is already represented in the defensive fire values of infantry models

I would detach them from the line infantry. After all, not every regiment would have them and machine guns at the time were quite expensive, among the captured items one would often find both artillery and machine guns mentioned side by side. I would make them an independent unit yet would make it possible to merge them with regiments.

And I believe they did operate as independent batteries(in the sense that they would operate as a single team and not part of one of the regiment's battalions). I believe Colonel Zhebrak(sadly not represented in the game) was killed when the Whites encountered a Red machine gun battery. In World War I there were also numerous examples of machine guns acting as a unit.

[Philippe]

I think that when considering a question like this it is important to keep in mind that you're dealing in a strategic level game and not a tactical one.

HPS' France 1914 (designed by Ed Williams) has plenty of machine gun companies as separate units. They don't really operate as independant units because they're tied to their parent unit's supply and command net, and they're far too vulnerable to operate on their own. But above all, the scale of France 1914 and Revolution under Siege are radically different: France '14 is one kilometer per hex, battalion and company sized units, and a turn lasts a couple of hours of real time at most. And a few knowledgeable people have even complained that the machine gun companies should be integrated into higher level units, and that in a tactical game.

My guess is that to justify showing them as separate units in a strategic game, there would have had to have been a really significant shortage of that type of equipment, and even so, it would probably need a rule which only allowed it to have more than nominal strength when integrated with another unit.

Was the availability of and use of machine guns in the Russian Civil War that much different from what happened on the Western Front at the start of WW I?

[Orel]

I think that when considering a question like this it is important to keep in mind that you're dealing in a strategic level game and not a tactical one.

HPS' France 1914 (designed by Ed Williams) has plenty of machine gun companies as separate units. They don't really operate as independant units because they're tied to their parent unit's supply and command net, and they're far too vulnerable to operate on their own. But above all, the scale of France 1914 and Revolution under Siege are radically different: France '14 is one kilometer per hex, battalion and company sized units, and a turn lasts a couple of hours of real time at most. And a few knowledgeable people have even complained that the machine gun companies should be integrated into higher level units, and that in a tactical game.

My guess is that to justify showing them as separate units in a strategic game, there would have had to have been a really significant shortage of that type of equipment, and even so, it would probably need a rule which only allowed it to have more than nominal strength when integrated with another unit.

Was the availability of and use of machine guns in the Russian Civil War that much different from what happened on the Western Front at the start of WW I?

The idea I support is simple: an infantry regiment is an infantry regiment composed of almost entirely soldiers with rifles. There may be a machine gun company attached to it, but it is a special unit type: this is why it cannot be counted as part of an infantry regiment in the situation of a Civil war. There could be more than one, there could be none at all machine gun companies per regiment, allowing a great deal of irregularity.

The tachanka after all, is a separate unit type although it consists of the same machine guns mounted on carts. Why not the same be done with common machine gun companies, with the ability to attach them to regiments whenever possible?