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Ebbingford
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Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:51 pm

It's the "mad minute". I think I have read somewhere that the Germans thought they were being engaged by lots of machine guns when they first made contact. That and advancing en masse against dug in troops, the British did at least learn some valuable lessons from the Boer war.
I suppose it's the old AGE problem with how victories are decided, but how that battle was given as a defeat, and what were the criteria for it being a defeat I can't work out....
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.

"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.


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Metatron
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Location: Potsdam (Germany)

Sun Jul 19, 2015 12:04 am

I'm looking at your game from time to time out of curiosity

- very strange that the battle didn't stop when the belgians got mauled in the first round, usually they will retreat after that, so the british would have needed another engagement to trigger a battle. Lucky for BEF.
- germans suffered cohesion losses in Peronne meaning they lost a good part of their fighting power while getting in position
- in consequence the germans had much lower cohesion than the british during the last rounds of battle, during which the British inflicted the most damage on the germans.
- german troops MTSG effectively only on 2 or 3 rounds of combat leaving the leading german army to take most of the hits.
- german heavy arty (not very numerous) inflicted negligible damage in 4 out of 6 rounds.
- the battle report actually doesn't indicated that klucks army participated, which it did ! so in % of total engaged the BEF actually lost more than the germans, belgians+british lost 74% of engaged troops while germans lost only 54 %

The move through Péronne considerably weakened you and your already fatigued troops crashed into the BEF, meaning you weren't at any advantage. But despite horrendous losses (very bad luck on your part for damage rolls) you got the win because the belgians got trashed in the process and the BEF took heavy losses to lose a battle. The BEF is strong yes, had the a good situation to inflict damage on your forces here, but still could not take the win and make you flee. Once reinforcement come in the experience of BEF troops will go down to 2 or 1 stars. The BEF is strong but not OP in my opinion.
-There is safety in numbers.
-Well there is also death in numbers. It's called a massacre.

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Shri
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Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:34 am

@Ebbingford-
The Germans at mons did not use their full force, they thought they were facing a "screen" and not the entire BEF and hence, sent 2 corps on flanking duties and attacked with 2 corps only. Later at Le-Cateau etc they realised their mistake, Sixt von Arnim decided to use the superior German artillery to an advantage instead of the headlong infantry charge. The BEF was well trained, but the whole "old contemptible" thing was more English propaganda. The infantry rof (rate of fire) was certainly better than conscripted armies, but the proper use of machine guns and artillery negated this. In the first battle, the corps commanders did not use their advantages properly (similar to our battle where my HEAVY Artillery failed to fire properly- if it had, the casualties might have been much more for you).

@Metatron
I have a good deal of respect for the BEF of 1914 in game and in RL, that is why 2 turns ago i didn't assault Paris despite Ben telling me to do so.
The BEF is really strong in a defensive battle, coupled with the 2 weak French armies + considerable garrisons present, my 2 striking armies might have suffered immense losses in the assault so much so that even if i win one battle, i will lose too much in the second battle.
Although in our AMIENS battle i had bad-luck, the Belgians were thrashed and battle should have been over, instead it continued on and on and i lost a lot of men.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

tomtein
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Sun Jul 19, 2015 11:53 am

Russ orders
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Highlandcharge
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Sun Jul 19, 2015 5:43 pm

Austrian orders :)

[ATTACH]34184[/ATTACH]

Altaris
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Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:34 am

Turn 9 posted.

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Shri
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Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:53 am

German Ords.
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Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

tomtein
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Mon Jul 20, 2015 11:06 am

Russian orders
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Ebbingford
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Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:29 pm

British orders
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"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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Highlandcharge
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Mon Jul 20, 2015 10:31 pm

Austrian orders :)

[ATTACH]34200[/ATTACH]

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Lindi
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Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:50 am

French Order

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Altaris
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Tue Jul 21, 2015 2:45 am

Turn 10 posted

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Lindi
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Tue Jul 21, 2015 3:31 am

French Order

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Shri
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Tue Jul 21, 2015 8:03 am

German ords. The Russians and French are playing a railway destruction game.
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Ebbingford
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Tue Jul 21, 2015 9:00 am

British orders.

Again I didn't receive my artillery from my factory this turn. In fact I lost some which I already had. I did have 7, I now only have 4.........
I'm short enough of guns without somebody selling them on the black market.
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"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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Altaris
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:01 am

I just realized I had left automated replacements cut on in our game. That may be part of the problem. I've cut them off, let's see if it makes a difference

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Ebbingford
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:16 am

I haven't seen any artillery replacements in my pools though, and no messages to say any have been assigned to any corps.
I am also seeing this in my test game and auto replacements is off in that.......
This is a real handicap for the Brits.
Is anybody else seeing disappearing artillery for other factions?
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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tomtein
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:27 am

Russian orders:

Yes, the Russian forces employ large scale rail-lines sabotage tactics. To perephrase Stalin: "Rail-lines are a weapon, like a gun. We wouldn't like our enemies to have guns, so why should we let them have rai-lines?" :)
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Shri
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 10:48 am

@Ebbingford

As Russia in the 2nd PBEM i am also feeling the pinch, losing artillery and in 1/2 turns officers. I guess it is due to Auto Replacements + Historical Attrition being turned on, resulting in these losses. The Historical Attrition is too harsh for a WW1 game (it is good for a pre 1850 or even pre 1870 game).
Historically pre-Crimean War, the losses due to Attrition (diseases mainly) were always greater than combat losses, but by WW1 these had been controlled except in unusually strong epidemics - Spanish Flu.

Also i saw your post about more "Naval Transport", problem is granting this will make huge a-historical naval landings possible which were not possible in WW1, Gallipoli in the start was less than 2 corps and this was the largest landing till the Japanese invasion of China in late 1930s.


@Tomtein
Since it is a test game, i didn't mention house rules, usually PBEM is played - with every unit should have leader on the front and No charging 'behind enemy lines' which stops this a-historical railway cutting thing, Rail lines were never damaged on a Region level scale ever even in the whole of WW2, leave alone WW1, a corps level unit trying to do suicide was unheard of except in the case of 'Warsaw Ghetto' which cannot be called partisan unit.
the partisans have been praised sky high by some authors, but their overall impact was more of a nuisance value than anything else.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

tomtein
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:07 am

I see. I'll refrain from doing it then.

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Shri
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:18 pm

tomtein wrote:I see. I'll refrain from doing it then.


(1) See, there are 2 types of Rail destruction, one is when an army is retreating, say- Russia decides to abandon 'Congress Poland' and then decides to destroy all Railways in Poland, this is Historical.

(2) But sending a Cavalry Corps on a death ride behind enemy lines to destroy German railways near Posen, is a-Historical.

Case (1) is valid and you should try that to delay the German advance.
Case (2) is generally forbidden in PBEMs by House-rules.
Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

tomtein
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:41 pm

"(2) But sending a Cavalry Corps on a death ride behind enemy lines to destroy German railways near Posen, is a-Historical."

I'd like to point out that none of my sapper-teams actually got annihilated not that it can't happen so it's not so much a "suicide" mission than a daring raid.
But like I've said I agree with the rule and I'll refrain from this particular tactic since it is hardly historical and obviously there is a broad agreement on the matter.

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Ebbingford
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:51 pm

Shri wrote:@Ebbingford

As Russia in the 2nd PBEM i am also feeling the pinch, losing artillery and in 1/2 turns officers. I guess it is due to Auto Replacements + Historical Attrition being turned on, resulting in these losses.


As I said earlier, I am seeing it in a test game which has auto replacements off, so it can't be that......
"Umbrellas will not be opened in the presence of the enemy." Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo, 1815.



"Top hats will not be worn in the Eighth Army" Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein K.G.





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Highlandcharge
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Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:06 pm

Austrian orders :)

[ATTACH]34234[/ATTACH]

Altaris
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 12:25 am

Lindi, I need PBEM #1 orders, these are for #2.

Regarding ammo and cavalry raids, let's keep that in the main mod thread I'll respond there. Don't want to clutter this thread up too much.

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Lindi
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 1:34 am

[ATTACH]34237[/ATTACH]

big sorry
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Altaris
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 2:47 am

Turn 11 posted.

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Shri
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:05 am

My Ords.
German Army loses Big time in Antwerp why??
I had got 2 breeches and had heavy artillery, numerically 3:1 superiority!

Also in Nancy, major loss. Guess time to stop such offensive unless i have unmatched superiority.
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Rascals, would you live forever? - Frederick the Great.

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Lindi
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 10:30 am

not see, but I remember you not have big cohesion not? (your big army always see 300 or 500 power not 1000)

tomtein
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Thu Jul 23, 2015 10:48 am

Russian orders

Take that, Franz Joseph :) The Russians are coming.
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