Belgian army at start of the war

[LoupVert]

Minipol, now that you received the Holy Grail, could you please clarify some things so we get our numbers straight here?

An army division consisted of:

- 3 or 4 mixed brigades
Each brigade:
- 2 infantry regiments
- 1 artillery unit 12 guns of 7,5 cm)
- engineers corps

- divisional troops:
- 1 cavalry regiment of 500
- artillery 12 or 24 7,5 cm guns
- engineer corps
- service corps

This meant only 3 pieces of artillery per infantry battalion.
(...)
The army had 120 machine guns at the start of the war.
6 Maxims for each of the mixed brigades of about 5.000 men.

From "Les grandes manoeuvres de l'armée belge en 1913" (ISBN: 978-2-87551-047-1),

"les brigades mixtes comprennent (...)
deux régiment d'infanterie
un groupe d'artillerie
une compagnie de mitrailleuses
un peloton de gendarmerie

Another sources says:
In oorlogstijd
1 Staf
2 Infanterieregimenten
1 Compagnie mitrailleurs
1 groep van 3 bereden batterijen artillerie
1 Peloton Rijkswacht
http://www.abl1914.be/organisatie/sam1913inf.htm
http://www.ablhistoryforum.be/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2328


Can you please confirm that brigade also had engineers elements?


As for the numbers, my first source says that the mixed brigades were made off:

- 150 officers
- 6300 men
- 12 7,5 cm guns
- 6 machine guns (dog drawn!)
- 30 Gendarmes (used a light cavalry)

The second says:
In 't geheel bedraagt de gemengde brigade, in oorlogstijd, aan vechtende bestanddeelen, 150 officieren, 6928 manschappen, 502 paarden en 67 voertuigen.
De 13° gemengde brigade telt 126 officieren, 5368 manschappen, 502 paarden en 67 voertuigen.
De 14° gemengde brigade telt 158 officieren, 6942 manschappen, 506 paarden en 67 voertuigen.



Would you have a figure for each brigade so we draw a realistic average?



Also, in 1913 at the PFN (Namur) there were 2 "Drachen-balloon" for observation, serviced by a "section aérostatique" made of 1 officer and 60 men (interestingly, a "Balloon observation brigade" have six "planes" and 60 men in EAW), would you know how many there was in the whole army and where were they deployed?

At the 1913 "Field Training eXercice" in NATO parlance, there also was two radio signal elements (wireless telegraphic, "T.S.F" in french), would you know too how many there was in the whole army and where were they deployed? (in WEA, the Signal Brigade is 1600 men strong)

(...)Belgium had 30 planes, half of them were operational at the start of the war.
34 pilots and observers were available.

Given that an aircraft element in game is 6 planes and 60 men strong, and that a complete unit is 8 elements strong (48 A/C) plus the 100 men strong airbase, maybe that a air unit at 25% of its strength could fit in?



Last but not least, how could be best simulated the reserve regiment each Belgian mixed brigades was made off while ingame the brigade are made of two regular regiments?

[minipol]

Hey, tonight I will have a look and see if I find more info in the book.

[caranorn]

13th and 14th Mixed Brigades are exceptions to the rule.

Concerning Engineers, there seem to have been maybe a company per Army-Division which is negligible.

Concerning aircraft, I'm not sure the in game data can be relied on. That is I'm not sure other nations' air elements actually represent just 6 aircraft (look at how artillery and cavalry is obviously using the wrong flavour data).

Likewise in game divisions are composed of two ~6 battalion elements (that is two German/French brigades each as an element, or 3 British brigades as two elements). This is an unlucky abstraction as it can only lead to confusion, this is made worse by these brigades being given regimental names. In short the Belgian divisions in game currently have two infantry elements (mistakenly named regiments) representing the mixed brigades, plus artillery. And yes, that means that in this respect already the Belgian Army is understrength in game as each Army-Division had a minimum of 3 brigades of 2 regiments of 3 battalion (plus 13th and 14th brigades at Liège and Namur). To be correct the Belgian divisions in EAW would require 3 elements (in my earlier post I was assuming badly mobilised reserve regiments being under strength from the start, but considering how the Belgian Army evolved (eventually each army division of 6-8 regiments would split into two (1st into 1st and 7th, 2nd into 2nd and 8th etc.) of 3 regiments (which is close to the organisation of late war German/French divisions) through the war that's less than ideal).

Note, we seem to have a disagreement on the artillery strength. The various artillery regiments seem to have formed roughly 8 field batteries (that is including the howitzer batteries but excluding heavier artillery). By comparison German divisional artillery had 72 guns/howitzers, British likewise 72 guns/howitzers, French only 36 guns (though they had another 48 field guns per corps slightly making up for the divisional weakness). Even assuming just one large battery per brigade plus 1-2 batteries per army division one comes to 48-60 (ignoring the additional brigade of the 3rd and 4th army divisions) guns.

The question would be how to represent this situation in game. For the immediate time I'd suggest leaving division organisation as it is now and just placing the divisions forward (on the Gette line) as those positions were reached before the Germans managed to move more than cavalry past Liège. Intermediary one could modify the Belgian divisions in the unit files to have 3 instead of 2 infantry elements plus the usual artillery element. For the long run I'm researching massive changes to all armies' TOE (in game terms model and unit files) and OOB (starting forces and force pools) (but after research that would require renewed game testing)...

[Shri]

i am quite sure of my calculations. It is 50% for the German and Austrian Armies, for the rest i do not know.


Now as to the BUFFING of BELGIUM, pre-war German Corps had 144 Guns, this included 36 Howitzers (Medium Artillery) + 108 Field Artillery (Light Artillery) + they all had a Corps level Artillery of Heavy Howitzers (Heavy Artillery) of 16 Guns.
Now this means you have to give a pre-war German Corps - 3 instead of 2 Light Artillery as in game, 1 instead of 2 medium artillery but 1/2 Battalion of Heavy Artillery i.e. 162 guns (game is in multiple of 18 so 160 cannot be reached). Also pre-war German Infantry Corps had 45000 Men + 1 Air Detachment (Air Squadron). This means each division had some 15000 fighting troops not 12000. So you need to have 4.5 brigades of infantry instead of 4 brigades in a corps.
This will considerably boost the corps fighting power, as - More Men, More Guns, though you lose 1 Medium, you gain 1 Light + 1/2 Heavy. More or less compensated but the boost in manpower will mean more loss bearing capacity.
This will topple game balance! do we want that?

[caranorn]

i am quite sure of my calculations. It is 50% for the German and Austrian Armies, for the rest i do not know.


Now as to the BUFFING of BELGIUM, pre-war German Corps had 144 Guns, this included 36 Howitzers (Medium Artillery) + 108 Field Artillery (Light Artillery) + they all had a Corps level Artillery of Heavy Howitzers (Heavy Artillery) of 16 Guns.
Now this means you have to give a pre-war German Corps - 3 instead of 2 Light Artillery as in game, 1 instead of 2 medium artillery but 1/2 Battalion of Heavy Artillery i.e. 162 guns (game is in multiple of 18 so 160 cannot be reached). Also pre-war German Infantry Corps had 45000 Men + 1 Air Detachment (Air Squadron). This means each division had some 15000 fighting troops not 12000. So you need to have 4.5 brigades of infantry instead of 4 brigades in a corps.
This will considerably boost the corps fighting power, as - More Men, More Guns, though you lose 1 Medium, you gain 1 Light + 1/2 Heavy. More or less compensated but the boost in manpower will mean more loss bearing capacity.
This will topple game balance! do we want that?

Only just saw your post from two days ago.

First of all, German Regular Divisions had roughly 13000 infantry (2 brigades each of 2 regiments each of 3 battalions (~1050 men) and 1 MG company (~100 men)), to that you could add about 750 cavalry and 250-500 engineers, those divisions as a whole had about 16000 men, the difference being found among artillery and then non combattants.

In comparison a Belgian Army Division (3x brigade) would have had a total of 22000 men (harder to determine the proportion of infantry as we have a good indication of the brigade size (~6500 men) but that includes some artillery) (3 brigades each of 2 regiments (and 1 MG company + artillery) each of 3 battalions (~1000 men)). A realistic estimate of infantry strength would be 18000 infantry (rather more than less), to that one could add 550 cavalry and 100-200 engineers.

So the infantry ratio is 1,385 in favour of the Belgian organisation. Of course the quality of that force is an entirely different matter.

Right now the German army is in game terms pretty balanced (note that Reserve and Ersatz Divisions as well as Landwehr Brigades were differently organised), I expect this is because it was used to set the "template" for other armies. So a better representation of the Belgian Army would not affect the German Army (unless one is to go the way of my long term proposal)...

Two notes:

1) I'd say it's a mistake to make 105mm howitzers (and similar) medium artillery. They were field artillery just like the 75mm (and similar) guns. Medium artillery would be 105mm guns (not sure such a piece was in common use in WWI) and 155mm howitzers. Heavy would be 155mm guns and 203mm howitzers (the heavy category being open to the top except for the rare railroad- and coastal-guns). That is certainly how such pieces were employed, their maneuvrability and also better reflects their capacity (a 105mm howitzer cannot deal the same kind of damage to an entrenched position than a 105mm gun could). Note I myself only came to that realisation about a year or two ago, the problem probably stems from our familiarity with WWII artillery where f.ex. the 105mm gun/howitzer was noticeably better (and heavier) than old 75mm guns. Even then a 105mm gun/howitzer in WWII is still at least in theory a field gun and not medium artillery.

2) I just realised that Belgium probably had a serious shortage of rifles. I find 93000 rifles available in 1914 (minipol could you check that up?). Going by minipol's numbers we'd have 85000 first line infantry, some 6000 cavalry (half the cavalry served with the Army Divisions) plus the fortress troops (more than 50000 men I'd hazard). Even though not every infantry/cavalry-man would carry a rifle this leads to an obvious shortage (while that could in time be made up from french and british stocks, that couldn't have happened overnight (2nd Line Territorials often had to use obsolete Japanese rifles well into 1916)).

[Shri]

I have already stated that- Reserve and Landwehr and Ersatz are different. Now there is also another aspect, all divisions are equal in TEAW.
In real- A German/British Division of pre Great War, had much better training and leadership, firepower than all other divisions. French came a close second. Russia, Austria were mostly laggards. Whereas Ottomans, Italians, Minors were severely lacking in - Modern Rifles, Quick Firing Artillery and also in Logistics, Ammunition, a STAFF etc.
This made their effective combat power much weaker.

As it is, i have never managed in my games (play at LT. AI level with some AI bonus) to reach Amiens/Reims leave alone Paris in 1914. Also in higher AI difficulty, AI builds a lot of troops and has 2 Death Stars, 1 British and 1 French roaming around to kill your armies, if Belgians are further buffed, all game balance is gone. Then CP will be defeated in 1916 itself- You will have Franco-British troops in the RUHR. This is what i am cautioning against.

[caranorn]

I have already stated that- Reserve and Landwehr and Ersatz are different. Now there is also another aspect, all divisions are equal in TEAW.
In real- A German/British Division of pre Great War, had much better training and leadership, firepower than all other divisions. French came a close second. Russia, Austria were mostly laggards. Whereas Ottomans, Italians, Minors were severely lacking in - Modern Rifles, Quick Firing Artillery and also in Logistics, Ammunition, a STAFF etc.
This made their effective combat power much weaker.

As it is, i have never managed in my games (play at LT. AI level with some AI bonus) to reach Amiens/Reims leave alone Paris in 1914. Also in higher AI difficulty, AI builds a lot of troops and has 2 Death Stars, 1 British and 1 French roaming around to kill your armies, if Belgians are further buffed, all game balance is gone. Then CP will be defeated in 1916 itself- You will have Franco-British troops in the RUHR. This is what i am cautioning against.

Agreed on first paragraph.

I have against the ai (Lieutnant) at repeatedly reached Lille on the first turn (with a 3-4 region front so as to sweep any resistance away) and Amiens and St. Quentin at least once in the third turn. Never managed to move against Paris itself (not due to ai capacity, but rather because I could not believe my own recon telling me Paris was almost undefended). In none of those games did I see a serious BEF (probably because I defeated it before it could grow), there didn't even seem to be any reinforcements to said BEF (for a time I thought there were more British units moving around, they turned out to be Belgian and french forces under British generals). No serious french forces either in the north. One problem in my main game probably was the french suicide attacks against Metz (I rotated french corps and divisions in and battered ones out, the ai on the other hand just kept attacking with the same units leading to the destruction of complete divisions and corps). No massive builds of new ai units either (Pocus noticed that in a save I sent him).

I don't think I'd have any problem to sweep forward deployed Belgian corps away either, but unlike the current deployment I'd be much less likely to wholesale destroy them (iirc three Belgian divisions still in play in the game I sent Pocus). Germany has more than enough strength in it's 1st and 2nd Armies to deal with both the Belgians in a correct deplyment and the BEF (supposing it gets correctly reinforced), but at least it won't be the easy march it is now.

In any case, if giving the Belgians their historic army breaks game balance something is wrong with the game. First you create the historic situation, then you try and see whether you can more or less replicate the historic moves. Clearly currently the setup in Belgium is broken, if fixing that setup breaks game balance then something else is likewise off (by the way, British artillery is also too weak at setup). You don't go and tweak the historic data to get the results you like...

P.S.: Just realised one area we might disagree in first first paragraph. The Russians wre victorious in their first few encounters in East Prussia. So neither their equipment, nor their training was so bad at start (yep worse than German Regulars, but not much worse), but a) their morale degraded rapidly (not sure why) and b) in the first defeats they lost a lot of equipment. The result was that henceforth their divisions could no longer compare to their German counterparts.

[Shri]

Russians lost at Stallupon to a single German Corps 'I' Corps, having nearly 4:1 superiority ('I' Corps on German Side vs 2 Corps + 1 Cavalry Division in Russian Side); this gave the Germans some over-confidence and they attacked again at Gumbinnen, stupidly as German Artillery nearly ended up destroying 'Mackensen's' Corps. At this point with a weak 8th army Chief (Von Prittwitz) each Corps commander thought to attack differently and hence the confusion.
[Russian lost some 18500 vs 14500 Germans at Gumbinnen - their only Victory] whereas when the Germans attacked in 3 major battles of Tannenberg + 2 Masurian Lakes, Russian losses were some 550,000 vs less than 50,000.

Similar problems occurred in the Western Theater too - KronPrinz Rupprecht Von Bayern counter-attacked the French as his Chief (Moltke Jr) was weak.
Once these command issues were sorted out- with Ludendorff in 8th Army and Falkenhyn in OHL, these problems did not occur.

Russians never again won a single victory against German Forces with even 2:1 Superiority again in the whole War, often with 3:1 Superiority they lost- Masurian Lakes, Lake Naroch etc their offensives faltered despite huge numerical superiority. Admittedly they destroyed the Austrian armies, but i did point out- Austria was a laggard.

Now, Belgians can of-course get their numbers, but if you assess their COMBAT PERFORMANCE it is of 'MILITIA Division' not Infantry. So maybe make the full complement of divisions but make them 'Militia'.
British Artillery is not too weak at 'start'. Also British had chronic munitions shortage right from August 1914, not till Lloyd George's reforms did these problems go and it was only by the time of 'Somme' that British had equivalent munitions of French and Germans. So maybe increase the Artillery a bit and see to it that British have no 'munitions' trains in the army. Balance achieved. First Fight your Artillery will fire and then keep quiet all the rest of the time.

[caranorn]

Russians lost at Stallupon to a single German Corps 'I' Corps, having nearly 4:1 superiority ('I' Corps on German Side vs 2 Corps + 1 Cavalry Division in Russian Side); this gave the Germans some over-confidence and they attacked again at Gumbinnen, stupidly as German Artillery nearly ended up destroying 'Mackensen's' Corps. At this point with a weak 8th army Chief (Von Prittwitz) each Corps commander thought to attack differently and hence the confusion.
[Russian lost some 18500 vs 14500 Germans at Gumbinnen - their only Victory] whereas when the Germans attacked in 3 major battles of Tannenberg + 2 Masurian Lakes, Russian losses were some 550,000 vs less than 50,000.

Similar problems occurred in the Western Theater too - KronPrinz Rupprecht Von Bayern counter-attacked the French as his Chief (Moltke Jr) was weak.
Once these command issues were sorted out- with Ludendorff in 8th Army and Falkenhyn in OHL, these problems did not occur.

Russians never again won a single victory against German Forces with even 2:1 Superiority again in the whole War, often with 3:1 Superiority they lost- Masurian Lakes, Lake Naroch etc their offensives faltered despite huge numerical superiority. Admittedly they destroyed the Austrian armies, but i did point out- Austria was a laggard.

Now, Belgians can of-course get their numbers, but if you assess their COMBAT PERFORMANCE it is of 'MILITIA Division' not Infantry. So maybe make the full complement of divisions but make them 'Militia'.
British Artillery is not too weak at 'start'. Also British had chronic munitions shortage right from August 1914, not till Lloyd George's reforms did these problems go and it was only by the time of 'Somme' that British had equivalent munitions of French and Germans. So maybe increase the Artillery a bit and see to it that British have no 'munitions' trains in the army. Balance achieved. First Fight your Artillery will fire and then keep quiet all the rest of the time.

Honestly I don't know enough about the east to discuss it anymore so will accept your information...

Yep, the British should have 4 artillery elements per corps in 1914 (72 per division) (if 100mm+ are considered medium artillery in game that would be 3 field (108x 18lb) and 1 medium (36x 4.5" how.)), plus one heavy artillery at BEF level. The equivalent added field artillery should also be available in Britain for the soon to ship 4th, 6th and 7th Divisions (the later only started forming in August, but 1/2 it's artillery and 1/3 of it's infantry were in Great Britain and the division first entered combat in September). Probably just one horse artillery element for the original two cavary divisions (essentially one battery per brigade). The Territorials currently are a mess, but as those only saw action starting in 1915 they are not on my priority list to look into (essentially the 1st Line Territorials should use a similar organisation to RA Divisions, just locked for a while etc. But so are all British units outside the August 1914 BEF...

[minipol]

First an answer to some of the questions of LoupVert

Edit:AAAARGGH sorry for the army composition, it killed the spaces
So much work to type all this info. grrrr
Edit 2: putting the text as code keeps the identation but not that easy to read, you need to scroll.
If you guys now another way to better display the text, shoot...
Edit 3: HTML code looks decent...

Can you please confirm that brigade also had engineers elements?

That's correct. The summary of the forces on page 35 says:

An armydivision consisted of 3 to 3 mixed brigades, each with 2 infantry regiments, 1 artillery group
(with 12 guns 7,5 cm tir rapide or rapidfire) and a engineers bataljon (engineers). An army division also
had divisional troops: a cavalryregiment of 500, artillery (with 12 or 24 7,5cm guns), engineer troops and services.
Per bataljon, this meant there were about 3 gun available.

Would you have a figure for each brigade so we draw a realistic average?

On page 527 I found a more detailed outlay of the Belgian forces in august 1914.
The summary was correct in regards to the fact that later on the army divisions had engineering troops in the mixed
brigades and at a divisional level. But not at the start of the war. It's nice to see this book making a distinction
between the start and how it evolved.
As for the numbers, we can deduce those from my first post.
It says on page 588, only the Belgians used the term army division. In the future they were supposed to be between
20.000 to 25.000 men. This wasn't the case in 1914.

[HTML]
1st army division (Gent)
2nd mixed brigade (Gent)
2nd linie regiment (Gent)
22st linie regiment (Gent)
2nd compagnie machineguns (Gent)
Artillerygroup
3nd mixed brigade (Ostend)
3rd linie regiment (Ostend, Ypres)
23rd linie regiment (Ostend, Ypres)
3rd compagnie machineguns (Ostend)
Artillerygroup
4th mixed brigade (Bruges)
4th linie regiment (Bruges)
24th linie regiment (Bruges)
4th compagnie machineguns (Bruges)
Artillerygroup
3rd regiment lancers (Bruges)
1st Artillery regiment (Gent, Bruges, Brasschaat)
1st Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Gent)
Section Telegraphie

2nd army division (Antwerp)
5th mixed brigade (Antwerp)
5th linie regiment (Antwerp)
25th linie regiment (Antwerp)
5th compagnie machineguns (Antwerp)
Artillerygroup
6th mixed brigade (Antwerp)
6th linie regiment (Antwerp)
26th linie regiment (Antwerp)
6th compagnie machineguns (Antwerp)
Artillerygroup
7th mixed brigade (Antwerp)
7th linie regiment (Antwerp)
27th linie regiment (Antwerp)
7th compagnie machineguns (Antwerp)
Artillerygroup
4th regiment "Jagers te paard" (cav) (Leuven)
2nd Artillery regiment (Antwerp, Lier, Leuven)
2nd Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Mechelen, Antwerp)
Section Telegraphie

3rd army division (Liege)
9th mixed brigade (Liege)
9th linie regiment (Bruxelles)
29th linie regiment (Bruxelles)
9th compagnie machineguns (Bruxelles)
Artillerygroup
11th mixed brigade (Hasselt)
11th linie regiment (Hasselt)
31th linie regiment (Hasselt)
11th compagnie machineguns (Hasselt)
Artillerygroup
12th mixed brigade (Liege)
12th linie regiment (Liege, Verviers)
32th linie regiment (Liege, Verviers)
12th compagnie machineguns (Liege)
Artillerygroup
14th mixed brigade (Liege)
14th linie regiment (Liege)
34th linie regiment (Liege)
14th compagnie machineguns (Liege)
Artillerygroup
2nd regiment Lancers (Liege)
3rd Artillery regiment (Liege, Laken, Beverlo)
3rd Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Liege)
Section Telegraphie

4rd army division (Namur)
8th mixed brigade (Vilvoorde)
8th linie regiment (Antwerpen, Vilvoorde)
28th linie regiment (Antwerpen, Vilvoorde)
8th compagnie machineguns (Antwerpen)
Artillerygroup
10th mixed brigade (Namur)
10th linie regiment (Arlon, Namur)
30th linie regiment (Arlon, Namur)
10th compagnie machineguns (Arlon)
Artillerygroup
13th mixed brigade (Namur)
13th linie regiment (Namur)
33rd linie regiment (Namur)
13th compagnie machineguns (Namur)
Artillerygroup
15th mixed brigade (Charleroi)
1th regiment "jagers te voet" (chasseurs) (Charleroi, Diest)
4th regiment "jagers te voet" (Charleroi, Diest)
15th compagnie machineguns (Charleroi)
Artillerygroup
1st regiment Lancers (Namur)
4th Artillery regiment (Namur, Tienen, Charleroi)
4th Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Namur)
Section Telegraphie

5th army division (Mons)
1th mixed brigade (Gent)
1th linie regiment (Gent, Dendermonde)
21th linie regiment (Gent, Dendermonde)
1th compagnie machineguns (Gent)
Artillerygroup
16th mixed brigade (Mons)
2nd regiment "jagers te voet" (Mons)
5th regiment "jagers te voet" (Mons)
16th compagnie machineguns (Mons)
Artillerygroup
17th mixed brigade (Tournai)
3th regiment "jagers te voet" (Tournai)
6th regiment "jagers te voet" (Tournai)
17th compagnie machineguns
Artillerygroup
2nd regiment "Jagers te paard" (cav) (Mons)
5th Artillery regiment (Leuven, Oudenaarde, Mons, Tournai)
5th Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Dendermonde, Antwerp, Mons)
Section Telegraphie

6th army division (Bruxelles)
18th mixed brigade (Bruxelles)
1th regiment grenadiers (Bruxelles)
2nd regiment grenadiers (Bruxelles)
18th compagnie machineguns (Bruxelles)
Artillerygroup
19th mixed brigade (Bruxelles)
1st regiment "karabiniers" (Bruxelles)
3rd regiment "karabiniers" (Bruxelles)
19th compagnie machineguns (Bruxelles)
Artillerygroup
20th mixed brigade (Bruxelles)
2nd regiment "karabiniers" (Bruxelles, Laken)
4th regiment "karabiniers" (Bruxelles, Laken)
20th compagnie machineguns (Bruxelles)
Artillerygroup
1st regiment "Jagers te paard" (cav) (Tournai)
6th Artillery regiment (Bruxelles, Mechelen)
6th Bataljon Genie (engineers) (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics) (Bruxelles)
Section Telegraphie

Cavalry division (Bruxelles)
1st brigade (Bruxelles)
1st Regiment Gidsen (Scout) (Bruxelles)
2nd Regiment Gidsen (Scout) (Bruxelles)
2nd brigade (Bruxelles)
4th regiment lancers (Gent)
5th regiment lancers (Mechelen)
Bataljon karbiniers-cyclists (Leuven)
Artillerygroup (moving artillery) (Tervuren)
Compagnie Pioneers-Pontooners-Cyclists (Antwerp)
Transportation corps (logistics)
[/HTML]

The composition of the army changed during the war.
- the name changed to infantry division instead of mixed brigade
- each infantry division contained 3 infantry regiment
- each infantry division contained it's own engineers and transportation
- A light group was added with cavalry, cyclists and cars with machine guns
To give an example, this is how the 1ste army division turned out:

[HTML]
1st army division
1st infantry division
2nd linie regiment
22st linie regiment
3rd linie regiment
1st artillery regiment
1st batalion engineers
1st transportation corps (logistics)
7th infantry division
4th linie regiment
24th linie regiment
23th linie regiment
7th artillery regiment
7th batalion engineers
7th transportation corps (logistics)
Light group
Batalion cavalry of the 3rd regiment lancers
Compagnie cyclists
3 auto machine guns (i suppose car with machine guns)
13th Artillery regiment
13th Bataljon Genie
Transportation corps (logistics)
[/HTML]

(interestingly, a "Balloon observation brigade" have six "planes" and 60 men in EAW), would you know how many there was in the whole army and where were they deployed?

I don't know, haven't found that info yet.

At the 1913 "Field Training eXercice" in NATO parlance, there also was two radio signal elements (wireless telegraphic, "T.S.F" in french)

See army layout, they had telegraphic sections in each army division.

Last but not least, how could be best simulated the reserve regiment each Belgian mixed brigades was made off while ingame the brigade are made of two regular regiments?

Match the numbers more closely, have correct field army and fortress army composition.
The regiments can be off, the numbers can't.
The divisions were meant to be max. 25.000 men. So you could start the troops with incomplete numbers and lower cohesion.

[minipol]

To answer some of questions of caranorn and Shri in regards to artillery:

The artillery can be roughly calculated.
1 artillery group per mixed brigade containing 12 guns of 7,5 cm.
This means 20 artillery groups for mixed brigades.
20 x 12 = 240 guns of 7,5 cm

On a divisional level, they each had an artillery group.
That's 6 artillery regiments for the 6 army divisions, and 1 artillery group.
The book says these were 12 or 24 guns of 7,5 cm.
This means a minimum of 7 x 12 = 84 or maximum 7 x 24 = 168 guns.

Also, as I said earlier, they bought 12 Howitzers of 150mm from the French at the end of august.

As for machine guns:
- start of the war: 120 machine guns (6 dog pulled Maxims for each of the 20 mixed brigades)
This meant 6 machine guns per mixed brigade, a mixed brigade being approximately 5.000 men.
- mid august: they bought additional machine guns and had taken guns from the fort Antwerp to provide
each mixed brigade with an additional 6 Hotchkiss machine guns, upping the total machine guns to 12 per mixed brigade.

In regards to game play, this means that the Belgian troops had double the machine guns by the end of august, and 12 howitzers by mid august.
This could be scripted by adding a medium artillery unit after the first turn.
As to machine guns, again, use the correct troop numbers but have the troops operate at a reduced strength.
They will fill up nicely and thus increase the firepower to simulate recruits and better machine guns.

[minipol]

@caranorn
I haven't found anything regarding the number of rifles, only the type that was used at the outbreak of the war: Mauser model 1889.

As for the troop numbers, I gave these earlier:

The field army had 117.000 men by the beginning of august.
The army consisted of 85.000 infantry troops.
The most important units were the 6 army divisions and the cavalry division.
These 6 divisions number 113.000 men, the cavalry division had 4.000 men.
The German and French cavalry both had approximately 17.000 men.

1ste Army division: 17.800 (HQ Ghent)
2nd Army division: 17.400 (HQ Antwerp)
3rd Army division: 24.000 (HQ Liège)
4rd Army division: 22.000 (HQ Namur)
5th Army division: 16.800 (HQ Mons)
6th Army division: 15.500 (HQ Bruxelles)


Total troops:
- 113.000 in 6 Infantry divisions (or Army divisions)
- 4.000 in cavalry division
- fort troops: 65.000

Total: 182.000
The total number according to the book was 190.000.

That's without the civil guard (46.000 troops), the gendarmes (patrolmen 3.500 men) or tiny airforce.

I hope this info by the leading military historian in Belgium helps to implement a more realistic troop number for the Belgians.
I'm tired now, gonna have a drink

[caranorn]

@caranorn
I haven't found anything regarding the number of rifles, only the type that was used at the outbreak of the war: Mauser model 1889.

As for the troop numbers, I gave these earlier:

The field army had 117.000 men by the beginning of august.
The army consisted of 85.000 infantry troops.
The most important units were the 6 army divisions and the cavalry division.
These 6 divisions number 113.000 men, the cavalry division had 4.000 men.
The German and French cavalry both had approximately 17.000 men.

1ste Army division: 17.800 (HQ Ghent)
2nd Army division: 17.400 (HQ Antwerp)
3rd Army division: 24.000 (HQ Liège)
4rd Army division: 22.000 (HQ Namur)
5th Army division: 16.800 (HQ Mons)
6th Army division: 15.500 (HQ Bruxelles)


Total troops:
- 113.000 in 6 Infantry divisions (or Army divisions)
- 4.000 in cavalry division
- fort troops: 65.000

Total: 182.000
The total number according to the book was 190.000.

That's without the civil guard (46.000 troops), the gendarmes (patrolmen 3.500 men) or tiny airforce.

I hope this info by the leading military historian in Belgium helps to implement a more realistic troop number for the Belgians.
I'm tired now, gonna have a drink

Saw that you'd posted those numbers earlier (I took the number of 85000 infantry from your post after all). If that number of only 93000 rifles I found is correct it would mean that not every infantryman, cavalryman and fortress trooper who would be supposed to have a rifle (note I'm not saying that everyone of those should carry a rifle, rather that there are not enough rifles for all of the theoretical rifle component of those contingents to be correctly armed) had one at the start of August. In other words, this is another argument to start the Belgian Army Divisions understrength as you suggested in your other posts tonight...

Note, I'd ignore the Gardes Civiques for game terms. Militia in game terms seems to be German Landwehr, French Territorials, British Territorials (note: I think British 1st Line Territorials should not be considered Militia as those were more akin to German Reserves than Landwehr), and the Gardes Civiques can't compare to those standards (at best they are raw manpower)...

In any case I appreciate your efforts, thanks :-) ...

[minipol]

In other words, this is another argument to start the Belgian Army Divisions understrength as you suggested in your other posts tonight...

Indeed, it think it would be nice way to deal with it.

Note, I'd ignore the Gardes Civiques for game terms. Militia in game terms seems to be German Landwehr, French Territorials, British Territorials (note: I think British 1st Line Territorials should not be considered Militia as those were more akin to German Reserves than Landwehr), and the Gardes Civiques can't compare to those standards (at best they are raw manpower)...

I wouldn ignore them also. I think there aren't too many instance of Gardes Civiques fighting the Germans. Only a couple of incidents if I recall correctly.
But even if they did, strengthwise they are nothing like infantry so as you suggest, it's better not to add them.

In any case I appreciate your efforts, thanks :-) ...

Not a problem, glad I could help

[minipol]

Just wondering, has anything changed in the game in regards to the state of the Belgian army at the start of the game.
Has the posted info in this thread been used in any way?

[elxaime]

Yeah some really great stuff in there, this shot is one of my favorites:

http://marksrussianmilitaryhistory.info/USPhotos/MaybeVANGparade.html

It’s remarkably clear for the year it was taken and there is so much going on in the shot. He isn’t sure if these are regular military or cadets, my vote falls on cadets. Several of them are talking in the ranks and they lack the military bearing of the captain leading them. That and the fact the two gentlemen in front of the captain appear far too old for military service, so they are probably the heads of the school the cadets come from.

I also think they may be carrying muskets of some kind. I don’t see a bolt action on their rifles and if you look at the tip of the barrel of the young man off the left shoulder of the corporal behind the captain, it looks like there is a ramrod showing (in the zoomed in shot), but the image is blurry and my old eyes can’t be sure.

I’m also wondering about the fact the colors are not leading the formation. I would think if this were regular military, the color guard would be out front.

I also think there may be some sailors near the corner drug store, going by the hats they are wearing. But across the street the hats look more like a graduation cap, so I’m not sure.

Can anyone make out what the sign says? Try a dose of our…? I can’t make out what they are selling, so needless to say it bugs me no end. Lol

Jim

I wonder how many of the spectators were grinding their teeth to see fellow Virginians wearing Yankee blue