Twilight in the East - more moves, more rubbish photos

Mildly long time between posts, all of which are to be blamed on 'real life' getting in the way of gaming and blogging.
AWB returned to Club Dave last Wednesday for another night of Twilight in the East. Again no Second Army player (curse you 'real life') and, due to distractions by the completely farcical circus of the current Australian government, only one turn was completed in the game.
So where are we again?
AWB, as the Germans, is still not completely convinced he isn't about to get his Blog handed to him on a gaming platter. Historically the Germans had disengaged from the Russian 1st Army and were mauling the 2nd Army by this stage. In the game, while it is felt that 1st Army has been more or less stopped and, in a perfect world, would be ripe for a counter offensive, the 2nd Army is gradually getting to a stage where the scattered German units available can't contain it. The Russians are also up a respectable amount of the VP count and the reinforcements from France are still several turns away. True the Germans are, unit for unit, rather better then the Russians and normally come out in front from most combats, but AWB is still not entirely convinced everything isn't about to go completely pear shaped.
So to the photos, again taken very cheap and nastily with the Samsung.

First up First Army. While the front hasn't moved all that much there is movement at the station. Behind the lines 17th Corps is about to be railed south to counter the right shoulder of Russian 2nd Army. This is the Corps that was mauled a few turns ago after being over extended and spent the best part of turn 5 recovering.
Also of note is the Russians trying to force the north and south flanks. While the German centre still contains the largely full strength and rather strong German 1st Corps, being outflanked is NOT a good thing. Expect a German reaction in the very near future.

Meanwhile, in the south some rather critical combats have been taking place. German 20th Corps, in their attempt to backhand the Russians the turn before, managed to rather foolishly pin the 41st Division with it's back to a lake. The Russians moved up the best part of 5 divisions and were unlucky not to force the Germans to have to retreat. What was more lucky for the Germans was being able to force march a brigade around the flank of the Russian 15th Corps to cut communication. Even then, the Russians nearly got away with it, surviving the combat a lot better then expected only to have their nerve break.
While visually we have only a single hex retreat, what we are not seeing is the three CE drops both divisions suffered which is much more significant. Combat Effectiveness (think of it as morale if you like), doesn't so much effect the ability to attack, but more the desire to stay in the line. If this rating drops too low then the division starts to break up.
So why has these combats been critical? Pretty much because had luck been favouring the Russians it may have been 20th Corps that had been smashed wide open. Instead, largely by bad luck, the Russian 15th Corps is very close to breaking.
German phase of turn 6 is next.

Twilight in the East - the slow advance continues

A few real world problems for our game of Twilight in the East these last few weeks. Second Army commander, while claiming repeatedly that he is NOT off scouting forest locations, has been otherwise out of the gaming shed at Club Dave, resulting in one night of non gaming and another of First Army commander bravely agreeing to control the entire Russian side for another.
Again with soddy pictures, let us recap where the game has progressed to at the mid point (Germans to move) of turn five.

First, the First Army front. Main thing to note is that the front has moved westward a respectable amount. As predicted, the Russians ganged up on the over extended German 17th Corps and in a mutually bloody combat, the 17th Corps was forced to withdraw. This made the question the rest of the German forces had been musing over, namely 'fall back or try and delay another turn?' a lot easier to answer and promptly moved off to the west. The Russians, bloodied themselves, have been cautiously following up and, after the massive multiple division combat in turn 4 mentioned earlier, this front has been bloodless for a while.

Experimenting with font colours for the best contrast, we move to the slightly more dynamic Second Army front. In the top right corner we can see the rail line the Russians are gradually trying to get into service to open a second line of supply. With this in mind the entire Russian 6th Corps has been attempting to work over the minor German units defending the land bridges between the lakes and finally got that entire sledge into walnut effect going.
To the left of the picture, on the other rail line of advance, 1st Corps has managed to advance to just off the image after the defending Germans decided to pull back. Also off view is the three German brigades facing off over a river line. Numbers favour the Russians but supply the Germans.
In the middle we see the heroes of earlier turns, German 20th, come down a peg or two. After swatting Russian 1st Division earlier and causing that to retire and regroup, the Germans decided to attempt the same thing against the Russian 2nd. While not a complete farce, sharp eyed readers may notice the white step loss marker with the German stack that wasn't there earlier.
Controlling the Germans in this game, AWB must confess to being slightly dissatisfied. The fallback was always on the cards across the front, so trading the ground has not been an issue. However the few combats made this last turn and a half have been disappointing. TitE, despite being a monster game, has a few bit of almost tactical feel. Putting in a good attack and coming out ahead in the step loss exchange 'feels' important to the overall result. AWB confesses this may not actually be the correct mind set and that maybe instead should be trying to butcher everyone, but the 'feel' is that the Germans did not do well this gaming night.
Germans to move in their part of turn five.
Real life may get in way of gaming again this coming Wednesday and next game night may not be for another week.

Twilight in the East - Now with pictures

After a week delay due to 'real life' getting in the way, Club Dave was able to continue playing 1914:Twilight in the East with the Tannenberg scenario. This time our brave AWB reporter managed to bring along the awesome might of the Pentax... and promptly screw up all the photos which will have to go down as, quote, 'Not my best work.'
Anyway, to recap, gaming had finished half way through turn 2 with the Germans to move. Let's have a brief look at the front before we begin.

Here on the Second Army front things are developing slowly. The Second Army has only just activated under the scenario rules and not really advanced to any great extent as yet. Of note is the large railway less areas on the Russian side of the boarder and rubbish looking terrain they are being forced to advance and trace supply through. On the German side the 20th Corps looks both powerful and lonely.
North of the army boundary we see the German 3rd Reserve division starting to get monstered. There is no way this unit can stand up to a Russian corps and is soon to withdraw, first to the NW and then onto the fortress under the dark brown objective marker in the lakes area.

A lot more fighting in this area as the Russian 1st Army engages the bulk of the German 8th. Mostly minor results so far with the exception of the Russian 27th division has just been roughly handled by the German 1st Corps and forced to retire.
The game is one of limited intel and stacks are not allowed to be examined. What this means is the white edges of the loss markers can't clearly be read in these picture nor can the 'players eyes only' off map tracks that show the divisions Combat Effectiveness ratings (morale if you like). If we could see the CE track we would note that Russian 27th was forced to drop two CE levels (drop four and you are really in big trouble) which is probably a much more significant lose then the steps or hex retreats.
The Russians at this stage were forced to advance before many of their divisions were fully mobilised, so many of the divisions have already started with a significant amount of hits. Also under scenario rules, the sub standard commander of the Russian Cav Corps has movement restrictions in play, meaning the massive mounted advantage is a lot harder to bring into play then would first appear.

Here we come to the end of the night, which means the Germans have had two full moves plus one reaction (half move) and the Russians one with two reactions as well as six rounds of combat being fought.
(Game turn is A moves, B react moves, A attacks if allowed, B attacks if allowed, swap sides. Attacking is voluntary but can result in what side A hoped was a local attack rapidly escalating.)
Russian 6th Corps has been making heavy weather of forcing the gap between the lakes in the top right of the picture. The Germans have managed to reinforce the original small blocking force but the Russians managed to, at 9:1 odds, to find the extremes of the bell curve during the first assault and are hence rather annoyed not to have cleared that rather useful rail line as yet.
Meanwhile in the middle the Russian 1st Division has just been roughly handled. It had mildly over extended it's advance during the Russian movement phase and the nearby German 20th Corps moved forward to engage it. The first German attack was relatively minor but the second prepared (as part of a players movement (not reaction) they may spend MPs to place 'prepared attack' markers which give column shifts and prevent the enemy from retiring during reaction movement) worked them over, caused significant step losses plus CE drops and a retreat. The Germans, slightly smugly, have taken no loses.
The problems for the Germans here is there are rather a lot of Russians. The Russians are next to move and the only real restriction is the rubbish rail/supply network. Reinforcements dragged from the France are not due for a long time so what the German player (AWB in this game) sees is what he has to play with.

Meanwhile, with the 1st Army we have red font to both hopefully provide better contrast and also reflect the massive mutual thumping that has been going on.
The southern German flank was found a bit hanging and is starting to fold back. Also of note is the formation of level 1 trenches in the German line. The game has four levels of trenches and at this stage of the war, armies are restricted to levels one and two. They are a mixed blessing as the games artillery factors allow for heavy and high angle weapons. Attack with both of them (which most first line divisions come with as standard) and you get to cancel out the column shifts the trenches normally offer. They do however offer some useful DRM for CE checks as well as a minor chance on the CRT to cancel a forced retreat.
There has been some mauling happening on this front. The Russian 20th Corps that at one stage was on the northern flank has come off worse and forced back with some painful combat loses to go with their non mobilised units. They are currently under that largish Russian stack.
The German 1st Corps (red corps marker, top division under the northern most trench with other division directly south) have been handling the combat reasonably well. The 17th Corps however has mildly over extended. Combat pushed back the Russian flank and, in order to put pressure on the Russian 25th division, advanced.
There the combined strength of three Russian divisions struck a counter and the advance now seems a 'bad idea.' Remember the next move is Russian so another assault against the exposed Germans is probably expected.
In the south the 3rd Res has fallen back onto the fortress and feels reasonably safe about being able to block the Russian corps facing it.
As the Germans it is difficult to decide if it time to smile or not. Strengths are 7 divisions to 9 with the German divisions typically being slightly stronger. The Russians have probably had 4 divisions here bloodied to the German 1 and if the Germans remain here then 1st Army are going to find it hard to continue to advance.
However, as mentioned before, until the reinforcements from France arrive, this is it for the Germans and Russian Second Army isn't just going to sit still and smile.
This is a rather good game and one that AWB is mildly annoyed has taken so long to play face to face. Combat and the positioning becomes surprisingly tactical. Withdrawing is worthwhile. Feinting forward is worthwhile. Pressuring a flank is worthwhile, and all are also risky. The combat system has a massive bell curve. A good looking attack can produce no satisfaction while a risky one can suddenly force enemy to retire with loses.
Most enjoyable.

Plan 1919 and J.F.C. Fuller

Considering AWB's mildly unhealthy obsession with armoured vehicles it comes as a mild surprise to discover AWB has never actually had a detailed look at the famous 'Plan 1919' for massed armoured offensives.
For those also not up on their background reading, a nice link can be found HERE
As can be seen, no level of epic epicness has been held back by Mr Fuller in this plan and, contrary to what AWB used to think, this is not a suggestion for new tactics, but a grand war winning masterstroke of a plan all in one go. For those not able to read the link here is a brief summary:
- Find about 5000 tanks
- Select a 90 mile section of front and 'by the inducement of visible preparations' invite four or five German armies to set up in this area.
- Without warning, unleash fleets of a tank type yet to be invented that will drive top speed some 20miles into the rear areas to disrupt the various German HQs whilst bombing anything that moves with the airforce.
- Then, once confusion has set in, have the rest of the Allied armies, with massive tank support, attack over a 50 mile front.
- Advance 20miles a day for seven days.
- Crush enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women
- Win war
- Receive Knighthood
Pretty straightforward really, why didn't people think of that in September 1914?
Ignoring for a fact just how a barbarian like Conan actually managed to get a word like lamentation into his casual day to day vocabulary, why have very few people ever sat back and considered that Fuller was ever so slightly barking mad?
Let's have a quick look at some of the more important points here shall we?
First up, this plan calls for some 5000 tanks. As these are just the numbers envisioned for combat, you can probably assume the staff doing the more detailed planning would probably request a tad more to allow for training as well as replacements to maintain the tempo of a seven day advance. Let us say an extra 10% for want of a number to give us 5500.
Now to give us a bit of an idea, British tank production during the entire war was roughly 150 MkIs, 50 MkIIs, 50 MkIIIs, 1220 MkIVs, 400 MkVs, 1 MkVII and 200 Medium A 'Whippets', or about 2100 or so. Now while Plan 1919 was considered to be an Allied offensive and some of the production was to be shared by the French and Americans, that is still a mildly large amount of tanks to be built in the 12 months between when Fuller wrote his first proposal to the time when one assumes the attacks were going to go in.
Okay, a production problem. No doubt the wheels of industry can provide so let us move on.
Next, a 90 mile section of front. To give a sense of scale the BEF sector of the front in 1918 before the August offensives was about 50 miles, so when one talks about a 90 mile section of the Western Front, they are effectively saying 'most of it'.
Not in itself that stupid a sense of scale, but needs to be taken in context with the claims that Fuller is the father of 'Blitzkrieg'. Now in Fuller's defence, 'Blitzkrieg' is such a vaguely defined concept that some historians dispute it even existed as a stand alone tactic, but in general (vague) terms it is accepted to involve punching deep into the enemies rear areas with mechanised forces on a narrow front using speed and firepower... not advancing with your entire army in a 90 mile wide mass.
Anyway, Fuller is aiming big as you don't get to hear lamentations by aiming small. What is interesting is the casual assumption that the Germans will politely agree to form up on their side of the field, an, one assumes, then do nothing while these 5000 medium and heavy tanks set up.
Now before we get too far ahead, we need to have a basic look at just what was a 'trench line' at this stage of the war.
This is a slightly tricky subject as each major nation had a different style of digging in that of course evolved as the war went on. In general terms in about 1916 the German lines were relatively shallow but densely held. The down side to this is this placed large amounts of troops on the front where they ran the realistic risk of being grown down and destroyed by massed artillery. German defensive tactics (again generalising) evolved to having less troops in the front and having more available to counter attack. As a result the positions started becoming very deep. As in 9 or so miles deep.
They weren't constant wall to wall pill boxes and endless barbed wire and during the 100 Days Allied troops discovered that once you were in the defensive belt, there was actually a reasonable amount of room to tactically move around and British cavalry, despite expectations, managed to use their mobility to get out of the way of anything that had too much firepower and were surprisingly successful.
Which brings us nicely to another point. If equipped with a fast reliable tank like the planned Medium D (the new design that was going to do the surprise breakthroughs) then an armoured force could possibly be rather effective rampaging round inside this defensive belt, IF such a tank existed.
Hard truth was it didn't in 1918. It didn't in 1919 despite the best hopes of designers and truth be told, probably didn't really exist in 1939 either. Fuller's plan envisioned these Mediums driving flat out for about 2 hours to cover the 20 miles or so to trash the German HQs and mechanically, even before we allow for the fact people might be shooting at them as well, tanks could not do that in this period.
Remember these Mediums in the HQ hunting parties were to do so without warning, which we assume involves no pre bombardment and only the airforces for support. One assumes that Fuller was working on the idea that their speed would just allow them to run straight over the front line and be deep into the rear before anyone noticed.
Maybe just SLIGHTLY optimistic.
Remember this is a plan put forward in 1918 for next years offensive. Also remember there would be fighting, probably with tanks, in the remainder of the year and both sides were going to learn from this. Also remember stage 2 of the master plan involves encouraging the Germans to commit to this area of the front.
Is it not logical to assume the Germans may start constructing anti tank defenses as part of their overall defensive belt? Fuller allows no infantry in these HQ Hunter groups so if the Germans started to evolve their tactics into creating mini 'tank proof' fortresses in the towns and villages (and fighting in November 1917 implies that is exactly what they would do) then Fuller's Mediums might be in trouble.
Another interesting logic point is that Fuller, in describing the destruction his HQ Hunters and air support are going to be doing, specifically requests communications are to be spared. Once the chaos starts he wants the reports to be transmitted freely up and down the front for morale reasons. However since his plan is to remove the HQs, one does mildly wonder just who is going to be actually passing on all these messages of panic.
Once this has happened and the brains of the German armies have been removed (Fuller allows 5 Mediums for each German Divisional HQ and 20 for Corps and Army level HQs), the rest of the Allied armies were to attack across the 90 mile front in four separate thrusts each about 10 to 12 mile wide with the aim of cutting out the 10 mile or so chucks of German front between these four thrusts that is now completely out of command, unable to react and ready to collapse. Fuller mentions pinning them if required with artillery, which is never a completely foolish tactic, assuming you have enough artillery to go around after making all these new tanks of course which is a point we will get back to in closing.
Arms other then tanks are not we regarded by Fuller. 'Infantry on their feet will be next to useless,' and will need their own mechanical transport, which although it is not mentioned, may mean armoured personal carriers. Just add them to the 5500 tanks we need then shall we? Their role is basically to make sure the rear and new captured areas stay rear and captured while the Mediums advance off into the east watching their enemies driven before them.
Cavalry is described as useful, but only for the first few days as after that all their mounts will be dead. Spoken like a true tank man really as the results during the 100 Days proved this wrong and in many cases the horses were delayed by being attached to the slower moving armour. However since having a friendly unit perform much better then expected is always a good thing we will skip over the further horse based discussion and go straight to aircraft.
Aircraft in Fuller's brave new battlefield are cast in the role of replacement cavalry. They, as well as maintaining air superiority one assumes although it is not mentioned, will zip between the armoured units, transferring messages and commanders, scouting around providing close tactical fire support for the armour and bring supplies. While supplying from the air was used during WW1, the scale of supplying entire armoured thrusts, as opposed to dropping fresh machine gun ammo to advanced infantry units, does start to excite the imagination. Given the relatively small useful payload of your average period biplane, it is probably safe to say that to provide useful fuel, ammo and water (those radiators aren't going to top up themselves) for a single tank would require 4 to 5 aircraft. Now since the total HQ Hunters group, which would be the units most likely needing air resupply, includes some 790 tanks, even allowing for flying multiple sorties a day you are going to be needing about 2000 aircraft JUST to supply these tanks. If we are expected to supply the other 880 heavy tanks in the first assault wave then does that mean another 2000 supply aircraft? Plus another 2000 to supply the 880 heavy tanks in the second assault wave? Fuller asks for 90 battalions of tanks but wants aircraft to run messages between the unit commanders. Even at one aircraft per battalion that is another 90 planes and that is before the pure fighters and tactical bombers and the ones that are doing the deep recon, the contact patrols and spotting for the guns. True, the RAF apparently according to Wikipedia had some 20,000 aircraft when is was formed from the RFC and the RNAS. However, as the RFC is listed as 150 squadrons and the RNAS 17 (21?) and each of these squadrons was not 100 aircraft strong, it is probably safe to say that 'aircraft owned' compared to 'aircraft in operational service' were two completely different things and the 170 or so squadron RAF was unlikely to have been big enough to support this 1919 in the way intended without a significant upgrade.
Which sort of brings us nicely to the main argument that Fuller was just a tad loopy in his grand dream. Just exactly HOW much resources are we needing here?
That is some 5000 plus tanks, enough artillery to achieve sufficient density over a 90 mile front and maybe 7500 aircraft. That is a lot of stuff. So either your plan is completely unrealistic as the Allied industries would never be able to support that sort of rapid growth, or, if they could, then effectively any remotely conservative attack plan with that sort of massive material support is going to be successful anyway. Even if one was to lose half the assaulting tank force each day from combat and breakdowns (a not unrealistic assumption given the vehicles of the day), on day 4 you are still attacking with more armour then Cambrai.
Fuller, in short, was a dreamer and a dreamer with broad generalisations. He assumed his 1919 tanks would be magnificent new machines of impressive performance. He claimed motorised supply could operate without roads or rail. He wrote off the other service arms and assumed defensive tactics and weapons would not develop to counter his babies. Unfortunately for him very little of that ended up being true.
History has been kind to him over his 1919 plans. Actually considering how chummy he was with the British Union of Fascists between the wars it might be said that history has been kind to him over a few other things as well. He is claimed to be a visionary who lead the stuffy horse and musket era oldies into the 20th century, yet the concept of raiding deep into the enemies rear areas and forcing them to retreat or otherwise react without actually bringing them to battle is nothing new. He compares his ideas for HQ Hunting (which, just to clarify, is a AWB's term, not his) are heavily compared to shooting a man in the head instead of slowly giving him cuts. An interesting visual if one ignores they fact that unlike a man, an army can continue to thrash around violently after a bullet between the eyes as well as, if given time, having the ability of growing a new head. Considering Fuller intended full RAF support for his Mediums it may have been a better metaphor to have the bombers throw sand in the eyes and kept the Mediums for the more useful task of throwing their arms around the man's legs and pulling him to the ground.
Fuller was also one of the prime supporters for the all tank army. Visionary yes and looking ahead from the available tech into what could be happening in the future.
Pity then he was actually wrong and pure anything formations end up being significantly weaker then a combined arms group.
He was wrong as well on how the other arms could continue to advance on the then current battlefield. Tanks were used during the August offensives that gave the 'Black Day' of the German Army, but those numbers soon plunged as mechanical support was unable to keep up with damage and breakdown. It was the older service arms that did the bulk of the advancing in the 100 Days and it was the 100 Days that ended up convincing the Germans there was no coming back. Plan 1919 was never tested because the largely non tank armies Fuller believed were unable to advance had forced victory in 1918. Had the Germans held on through the winter it is extremely unlikely production of the Allies could have filled Fuller's Christmas wish list and while the renewed spring offensives in 1919 would have involved tanks, the simply logistical realities involved would have probably meant the grand plan owed more to the lessons of Amiens then the dreams of Fuller.

Tannenberg - Finally playing Twilight in the East

After some false starts, the Wednesday night group down at Club Dave have finally managed to get some serious counter pushing and actually start the Battle of Tannenberg scen in the GMT Games monster, '1914: Twilight in the East'.
As hard core blog fans may recall, some weeks ago an attempt was made to play this game using the training type scenario to blood the newer players. Unfortunately, real life got in the way somewhat, and Scen 1 was canned, cleared and Tannenberg was setup and started. This scen, as the name suggests, is the Russian First and Second Armies advancing into Germany at the start of the war only to be seriously mauled by the German Eight. It is a one map scenario, uses about a third of the counters and runs for about a third of the total game turns. In short, it is probably about a ninth of the total experience of the Grand Campaign(tm).
To recap briefly, the Twilight in the East system uses a turn sequence of A Moves, B React Moves, A Attacks, B Attacks, Swap sides. Reaction moves are at half movement points and the other big advantage is that during the 'A Moves' phase that player can spend MPs for units in position to declare a 'Prepared Attack'.
These 'black attacks' (as the markers placed are black compared to the white 'normal' attack markers) have the three advantages of a column shift in combat, VP to the attack (as at this time in the war everyone loved a brave attacker and engaging the enemy was the standing order of the month) and perhaps more importantly, it locks the target units into the combat.
This last bit is more important then it sounds. Remember the sequence is A Moves, B Reacts, so if B isn't ready to fight they may shuffle back. Alternatively if they are ready to fight they may bring up their friends as after A declares and resolves all attacks, B gets to do the same thing with anything still adjacent.
What this means in the game is a surprisingly interesting shuffling and feinting as the opposing armies approach each other. Unit scale for the most part is the division and for both sides the Army was typically eight or so infantry divisions plus some cavalry divisions. The Russians were not fully ready to advance at this stage and so are faced with the trade off between getting their supply train in order and getting stuck into the Germans while they are still somewhat spread out.
The other interesting thing that may differ for most boardgamers is the style of the combat system. The units are divisions and under the time scale, did not normally get smashed within the period of a game turn. Hence each unit has several steps, with most divisions having about 10. They also each have an off map tracking chart for their 'Combat Effectiveness' (think 'morale'). What this means is most divisions can go head to head for several turns until the unlucky one collapses, and when they do finally collapse, it isn't pretty for the owner. Judging just when to pull back to recover before this collapse happens is clearly designed to be part of the game and show all indication as to being tricky to master.
The group managed to get one and a half turns completely during the gaming night which included a full set up and minor counter sorting, a 'are we ready yet? Right, what happens now?' last minute rule re-check and a partial reset and remove after it was suddenly realised the Russians could and should have moved their army level supply depots during their first move.
Based on this play speed AWB predicts about 4 weeks of solid gaming to finish this scenario.

Tank Basing - Pt 3

As the slow march of painting does actually roll on we reach a stage where AWB can show the status of some of the projects currently being (slowly) worked on.
As you will remember, a slow effort to base some 10mm armour has been moving along at a speed not dissimilar to the actual vehicles themselves, and here, again thanks to the magic of Samsung SII phones (not that AWB doesn't have access to some fine F1.4 prime lenses and a DSLR camera or anything... cough) we can see how some of these attempts have been coming along.

All figures from the Pendraken ranges. All breakfast spreads from Kraft.

In the front we have some Austro-Hungarian infantry. Maybe not the best angle as it give the impression some of the figures are totting SMGs rather then the rifles they are actually holding. Still experimenting with how the bases will end up. Currently that is building sand over a dark green base coat with that foam style green flock glued in clumps. AWB is currently musing on choosing a different basing decoration for the other nations currently being worked on in order to help identify the stands from a distance. Not quite sure what will come of that plan at this stage, but may end up involve painting the edges of the MDF bases in the parent nations base uniform colours.
In the back row we have our Whippet on it's brick paper road, the MkIV looming over the sandbagged trench wall and a French Schneider CA1 showing the work with green stuff required to fix the worse of the models flaws.
Again, maybe not the best angle for the MkIV but the effort in making the trench out of green stuff does seem to have paid off. With a better viewing angle the model does successfully rear up in a very menancing 3mph sort of way. Putting that basing project down as a success.
AWB must confess to being a slight bit disappointed with the CA1 model. French WW1 armour has not really been treated well in wargaming models and AWB has yet to find a model in any scale that successfully capture the shape of both the CA1 (as shown in the photo) and the larger St-Chamond (this vehicle with the massive fore and aft overhang that kept getting stuck in trenches and shell holes). Green stuff here has attempted to restore the squarer corners of the hull and add some height to the roof ridge but AWB is still not completely happy with the model. It is however extremely unlikely any of us are likely to get a newer design on the markets. WW1 is still a bit of a novelty period and west front 'trench' combat tending to be avoided for the more traditional meeting engagements found on other fronts. (The Butchers of the Bell Curve group AWB games with does WW1 almost completely in the Balkans or Near East for example.) French armies therefore seem to be less popular and the demand from gamers for massive amounts of French armour is probably just a little low compared to, well, just about everything else. For a manufacturer to feel it worth their while to remake their Schneiders and St-Chamonds (or even get really exciting and offer different production versions of these vehicles) seems very unlikely.
AWB can dream though.

Musing on Artillery

AWB has been doing some casual research into the multi model joy that is WW1 era artillery, and, as a result, has been musing on just what a significant development the French 75 actually was. The Matériel de 75mm Mle 1897, to give the weapon it's official name, can probably safely be called the first of the 'Modern Artillery' systems to go into service anywhere in the world, yet it's significance is probably mostly ignored by most casual students of history.
The evolution of tube artillery broadly went something like this;
- Muzzle loading smoothbore
- Muzzle loading rifled
- Breech loading
- 'Modern' weapons with recoil systems.
The progression wasn't smooth of course. Breech loading cannons of various forms date back to the beginning of gunpowder. Smoothbore cannons had some advantages over rifled cannons so both existed on the 19th Century battlefield for many years and even when breech loading had finally come up for consideration again, it was years before it managed to replace muzzle loading with some nations. The Royal Navy, having embraced the Armstrong breech loader in about 1860, decided the technology could go with a bit longer in the oven and went back to muzzle loading rifles. They stuck with such weapons probably a little longer then they needed to, eventually peaking with the RML 16 inch 80 ton weapons fitted to HMS Inflexible.
(Armstrong made an even bigger 17.7inch 100 ton weapon but even the RN decided enough was enough at that stage. The weapons were sold to Italy for some of her battleships or used on coast defence batteries in Malta and Gibraltar.)
The 75 however was a massive leap in weaponry. The key feature was of course the recoil system, a hydro-pneumatic system so advanced that it had taken designers nearly 15 years to get the idea to work successfully. This smooth and reliable system allowed the other advanced features of the gun; the automatic fuse setter and a rapid to operate breech system, to be used to their full effect. The gun could literally be fired at a rate of 30 shots per minute, a speed that was the physical upper limit based on the 2 second cycle time of the recoil system.
What is more, since unlike other guns of that period, the gun would not need to be significantly re-aimed after each shot and each of those 30 shots could be expected to go pretty much where they were intended.
Was this significant?
You better believe it.
Terence Zuber in his (cough) 'interesting' book* 'The Real Schlieffen Plan' goes as far as to claim that the German discovery of this weapon when they saw it in action during the Boxer Rebellion was enough to make them tear up their current strategic war plans and start again. Other nations, well aware of the massive rate of fire advantage this weapon had, rapidly developed or purchased their own equivalent weapons and, perhaps most significantly, the French effectively redesigned their entire battlefield tactics around it.
As we mentioned, the 75 had a very high rate of fire and a battery firing shrapnel shells was well equipped to place large areas of open ground under deadly barrages. A 1914 French Infantry division had no other artillery then this weapon and indeed a French Corps, unlike other nations which might be expected to have heavy field or howitzers, had more batteries of this gun.
However, while it was definitely a major milestone in artillery, it has also been argued that the French love affair with this weapon may have been a little unwise. Paul Strong and Sanders Marble in 'Artillery in the Great War' make the observation that in the opening battles of WW1 the superior French field artillery made a mess of the German infantry, right up to the time when the superior German HEAVY artillery suppressed and silenced the batteries.The go on to claim that a prime reason of the Allied success in the Battle of Marne was that the over extended Germans had finally advanced faster then their heavy artillery could follow and the French 75s were finally allowed to do what they were intended unopposed.
However, digressing as per usual, the point AWB really wants to muse over is how do we show these sort of technical advances on the wargames table. By the time we get to WW1 most armies, at least for their first line divisions, had quick firing field weapons. However, due to the rapid need to expand and find heavy artillery, a lot of obsolete guns were brought back into service or dragged out of distant fortresses for use on the front. The Germans were possibly an exception to this rule, but the British for example sent many 5inch Howitzers to France and used them all through 1915. These older weapons lacked recoil systems and had a practical max rate of fire of 2 shots per minute - slightly slower then the 15 or so shots most more modern guns can get off.
This brings us back to our gaming. How do our favourite rules show it, or more importantly, do we need to show it at all?
If we are modelling the slow grind of a bombardment, then probably not. While modern guns could fire faster, most work was conducted at a more sedate 1 or 2 shots per minute. There is also the very real consideration of the 'Shell Shortage' and the fact that many batteries simply didn't have enough shells to do rapid firing even if they needed to.
The really simple solution is to just ignore it totally and abstract indirect fire into an abstract where who or what fires it is not of importance. The slightly more detailed is to rationalise that shells fired x shell size = damage factor and roll against that. A simple enough concept but ignores the fact that the difference between a relatively small 'field' gun shell of say 5-6kg and the 23kg of the 5inch BL we mentioned earlier.
A field gun in many cases often completely lacked the ability to destroy entrenchments, where a heavy shell was going to collapse trenchwalls and smash firing positions. This was significant and part of the reason armies were willing to field and maintain so many different artillery types. Some guns were just better at some roles.
Each wargame system and indeed each wargamer has their own views on what makes a fun night pushing lead or counters, and each has their own view on what is worth including in a rule system. The point that AWB is trying to make is that a bigger gun/howitzer isn't just a stand with more firepower, it is a stand with DIFFERENT firepower. Field artillery can, will and did butcher troops in the open. It also can't, wont and didn't damage troops dug in. So, while your personally gaming experience is always your own, AWB would like to see games that note the difference between field and heavy shelling.
Of course AWB would also like to see game with a few less rubbish dice rolls so maybe we can't have everything...

* Interesting? Is AWB implying that they didn't really like 'The Real Schlieffen Plan'? Short answer? Yes. Zuber is an American who was posted for many years in Germany as part of his US Army service and does appear to have gone, as we say, 'native'**. While AWB has no doubt that Zuber has done a lot of research, reading his text did give the impression his book was one edit away from using the phrase 'gentle peaceloving Germans'. Zuber seems to have gone to great length to point out that Germany was forced into a defencive war against the overly aggressive Allied powers that tends to distract from his overall argument. The argument itself, namely that there was NOT actually a Schlieffen plan ends up becoming a bit moot. We all know and accept that Germany marched through Belgium so arguing if the plan existed or not unfortunately ends up a bit like claiming in your murder trial that you didn't stab the victim to death, you slashed his throat instead.

** Not that there is anything wrong with going native. AWB are big fans of Germany *** and German culture and happily pay credit to the success over the centuries of these people in both peace and war.

*** Except Hamburg

TV - The Boffin et al - 3

After a brief rumour that the much loved and teased ABC TV show 'The Boffin The Builder, The Bombardier only had four episodes (and hence was now over for the year), the programme happily continued to both amuse and provide cringe for the viewers here at AWB.
Ep 5 of this series, rapidly becoming much watch TV if only for the purpose of giving fuel for blog updates, remains in WW1 land but moves for the first time away from the 303 rifle. Instead we are given a brief history of the Leach Trench Catapult (also known as the Leach-Gamage Catapult) before being entertained with our three heroes flinging cricket balls across their firing range.
The Leach-Gamage, named after Mister Claude Pemberton Leach, who designed it, and Gamages, the company who made them, was a 1915 solution for the probably of bombing enemy trenches and had a brief in service period before being replaced with the types of trench mortars we are now familiar with. It was a largish Y shaped frame using rubber to fling grenades in the general direction of German and, depending on bomb and age of the rubber, was reported to have a range between 120 to 200 yards.
So, let's first talk about the show. Now it probably should be pointed out that AWB does actually enjoy watching this 10 minutes or so of three guys being man childs (and the phrase that AWB is refusing to use here is 'completely jealous'), however has an issue with the very casual conclusions that are then drawn at the end.
Our boys this week rather neatly summed up the difference between high and low angle fire to give the background of why this weapon was developed, so points to that. It may have been nice to actually mention at what range their target trench was placed as that would have given us kids at home an idea if the 120 to 200 yards claims were actually correct. Now AWB has always been a bit rubbish at judging distances and is also aware how different camera lenses can drastically foreshorten the distance, but at this stage is not fully convinced our heroes were firing at any great range.
This is a pity as to support the claim made on the show that 'it's a weapon' it would have been nice to know at what range they were capable of reaching, and perhaps more importantly, what sort of spread were they actually getting. The did (claim) to hit the target and filmed a nice little explosion to prove it (so nice it was then shown about 6 times... 'completely jealous'... cough...), but without knowing how many shots were fired (we only see about 4 cricket balls plus the final winning golf ball) we have no way of making any real conclusions.
The show also raises the chuckle, again, in their closing statements by making a comment that pretty much destroys their entire argument. It is mentioned as a bit of historical trivia that one unit in France used their catapults to send offensive messages to the Germans in clay pots. Not bombs. That does seem to AWB at least to sum up exactly how useful the troops in the trenches considered the weapon.
So what have we learnt that we can take into our wargaming?
Not a huge amount. The catapult is clearly a semi static weapon. While our TV heroes make the point it could be carried by one person, they forget that so can a 5m ladder, and just because you can carry one, doesn't mean you want to. The weapon doesn't appear to break down and moving it through a trench to a suitable firing position doesn't strike AWB as a fun task. Taking it with you during an assault also would seem to be rather pointless and of little real use.
The range of between 120 and 200 yards also gives a bit of a clue as to how it could or couldn't be useful. No Man's Land varied in depth and while there were many situations where trenches were that close apart, there were also many where they weren't. It must also be remembered that trench systems evolved to having a rather large amount of depth with forward saps and observation posts creeping out from the 'front'. It does seem that the weapon would be most used from forward saps to bomb the only targets also in range, which in many cases would be enemy forward saps. Does seem a lot of effort for little return.
In an advance, any firepower added by a catapult would have been drowned by other weapons and in defence the slow rate of fire and poor range suggests that picking up one's personal rifle may be a better idea for the crew.
Issue, as claimed in Wikipedia so it must be true, was 12 weapons per division. How this broke down or at what level they controlled at is anyone's guess.
AWB things that if squad or skirmish level WW1 is your thing, then painting and basing one of these up would be a great little extra for your games set in 1915 to early 1916 and also understands the weapon is available in 28mm. Once you start to go up in game scale the weapon would rapidly become a completely minor effect to the extent they could be completely ignored except as many figure variation in your basing.
In summary, TBCubed is still harmless largely non historical fun and it is good to see the props budget has moved on from SMLE rifles.
AWB looks forward to ep 6.

The Joys and Dangers of Historical Memoirs

While musing over the bookshelf of our good friends The Insouciant Wargamer, AWB had a change to flick through briefly a copy of Erich von Falkenhayn's 'General Headquarters 1914-1916 and It's Critical Decisions'. (English language translation)
Now Falkenhayen, as any good player of GMT Games' Paths of Glory will know, was the man behind the 'Place of Execution' attacks on Verdun. What they may then not realise, and AWB is guilty of this, is once he disappears from the game in PoG, he gets sent off to the Transylvania to command the Ninth Army, capture Bucharest and slay vampires (citation needed), before later commanding forces in Turkish Palestine.
However, we digress as we are here to talk about his book. Now, AWB only had a chance to skim a few pages as this was a gaming night and there were figures to move not books to read, but AWB is pretty sure that somewhere in those pages is the chapter where Erich rescues the kittens from a burning building. The few pages AWB managed to read were literally littered with the word 'brilliant' closely followed by the phrase 'German forces'. Yes, well, Herr Falkenhayn, one knows this is your book and you are entitled to write what you like, but you do remember that Verdun was the campaign that managed to get you sacked as Chief of the General Staff?
There were tit bits of interest in the few pages. Falkenhayen claims that the entry of Italy into the war was treated more or less with apathy by the German public which is an interesting insight, however like all memoirs, the reader needs to be careful to separate the analysis of the situation with the grandstanding of the author.
This is not to say that readers should avoid memoirs. AWB was recently reading James Hamilton-Paterson's 'Empire of the Clouds' (the abridged illustrated version with reduced text but bonus pictures). Here Hamilton-Paterson is describing the glory days of English aviation in the 1950s. He opens with the 1952 crash of the DH .110 at the Farnborough Airshow where the aircraft broke up mid air killing both aircraft and 27 spectators. AWB also had a copy of 'Test Pilot' by Neville Duke; the man who flew the Hawker Hunter on that day immediately after the fatal crash, and it was with interest AWB skipped ahead in that book to see what Mr Duke had to say.
To paraphrase, 'There was a horrible crash and then I got up and put the Hunter through it's paces'.
A best two pages from the entire memoir involved the crash and deaths of 29 people and some of that was covered by mentioning the wonderful flying weather. This is not to imply that Neville Duke was in anyway heartless, but reflects that his is a man who has just come through 6 years of hard warfare and was then currently involved in very risky bleeding edge development, and not a 21st Century Boy concerned about his twitter feed. It was the 1950s. You were a professional. You did what was expected. To cancel the rest of the day's flying was completely unthinkable for all involved. Keep Calm and Carry On wasn't an over flogged cliche poster, it was the public mindset.
And that is why we should never knock back a chance to read a memoir; not for what they might claim, but to understand how they were thinking and why they were claiming it.
(Another Wargame Blog will now go off and do some more brave and manly things to reflect just how brave, manly and fault free they are...)

TV - The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier - Post 2 plus Musing on Rifle Tactics

Another Sunday has been and gone on ABC free to air TV and another 15 minutes of historically slanted light entertainment has been viewed by the post Doctor Who masses.
The Boffin The Builder The Bombardier, or TBCubed for want of letter count, added to their World War One collection by 'investigating' The Mad Minute. That makes three out of four viewed programmes dedicated to WW1 and more interestingly, three out of four dedicated directly to some aspect of the .303 SMLE rifle. It this telling us something about the main period of interest for the head writer (who from speed reading the credits, AWB believes to be the 'Boffin' character. Seriously, the ABCs own website has been completely non helpful which does make one wonder where that extra $10million in funding is being wasted), or are we in reality seeing a reflection on the programmes props budget.
"Hey Davo, I've got these couple of 303s and some shoot range access. Wanna make a telly doco??"
Quite.
Anyway, back the programme. The myth of the week was the high rate of fire obtained by the highly trained career soldiers that made up the BEF during the first months of WW1 in France and how they cut down in waves the attacking Germans. The counter argument was that the musketry skills had little to do with it and the unimaginative German tactics had a lot to do with their own failure.
So, our TV heroes, to prove the claim of 15 or more aimed shots per minute set up a wall down range to represent a block of unimaginative Germans, and, stopwatch running, let fly for 60 seconds.
One minute later they had a large target filled with bullet holes and the conclusions were quickly made that the high level of training probably did have a lot to do with it, but only because of the poor German tactics.
Okay... what have we just actually proved? That three semi trained men can operate SMLE at a respectable speed? If you are ever a large plywood wall, then don't even think about going to war?
The problem here was that it is automatically assumed that the poor German tactics is an unquestionable fixed condition. True, actually proving the German tactics were poor is mildly tricky. To AWB's knowledge there are next to no photos of the Mons battles and even then, without context, they probably wouldn't be conclusive. To calculate it would probably require obtaining the (unreliable and incomplete) casualty returns, determine the axis of advance of the units involved, factor in the BEF casualties from German artillery, model using carefully calculated hit percentiles and... well.. take a wild arse guess. Point being is that you still have a whopping great variable and to draw a solid conclusion after shooting up a plywood wall is not history, it is shooting up a plywood wall.
Having solved the problems of the world in the first 5 minutes of their show, they then needed to fill in the rest of the ep and then attempted to match the record which was claimed at 32 some shots a minute. Now here our team not only didn't come close, but also didn't seem to investigate the historical situation. As AWB had it explained to them by an Australian Light Horse reinactor (so your mileage may vary, but remember we are comparing this to three guys who shoot walls), the pre-war 303 round was the round nosed MkVI. About 1916 this started to be replaced by the more powerful and pointed nose MkVII round. Now while AWB may have screwed up the mark numbers, the important thing was that the newer round had different powder and hence a far greater kick. The practical result of this was that the firer now had to hold the weapon a lot more firmly and could not get away with the previous trick of opening and closing the bolt with one's palm so that their finger tip could touch the trigger the moment the action was closed.
(try this at home with your Air 303. Imagine the bolt handle is in the centre of the palm and as you rock your hand forward your fingers are already reaching down towards the trigger in one smooth action. Bang. Repeat. Feel free to make the noises if it assists with the process.)
So, two conclusions. Either AWB was misinformed with an old wives shooting tale or TBCubed are really just three blocks shooting up plywood walls.
So, the conclusion that TBCubed is harmless non historical fun still stands.
Having successfully alienated the TBCubed crew with character assassinations, where does this leave us wargamers and what, if anything, can we learn from this?
AWB believes the prime thing to take away is that not many of us actually have a realistic grounding of what infantry firepower during the period could actually do. Your homework for this post (after you have finished playing with your air 303, air cleaned it and safely air locked it into the air weapons locker to prevent air accidents), is to dig out your current WW1 or 2 rules and find out how a machine gun is defined compared with a rifle. Most rules seem to give the tripod MG more/better firepower factors and range and leave it at that. After all, the ROF is higher, therefore more firepower. Right?
Well... maybe... and that brings us back to the idea that we do not really fully understand just how the weapons worked.
A typical Maxim style MG of the WW1 period comes in with a ROF of 600rpm cyclic. Now if you joined all the belts together and watched the cooling water you could probably keep that up for a long time. In reality most sources seem to list the practical and/or service rate of fire as more like 100-200 rpm. So if we take the middle of 150rpm and compare it to say 10 riflemen firing off 15 aimed shots per minute... Maybe apples to oranges but remember that a machine gun is a crew served weapon and depending on the army and the situation could easily have 10 men keeping it in operation so the comparison is not completely unfair.
We also need to look beyond the pure numbers of total bullets fired. Let us pretend that our team of 10 and our MG both encounter 20 enemy in the open. In this situation the 10 riflemen may prove to be more effective. They have the ability to volley fire and assuming a reasonable level of skill may only need to personally target 2 or 3 men each - easily a couple of seconds work even with bolt action rifles. Our MG in comparison, despite firing 10 rounds per second, would still to pan across the target area and, depending on the situation, may not successfully hit all the enemy before they disperse or take cover. In practical terms, the MG may actually be less 'deadly'.
However, having forced the enemy to cover, it is also probably a safe assumption that the MG would be a lot better at forcing them to stay there. If you can then act on the fact these enemy are pinned, either by moving infantry to flank or blowing them up with artillery, or both, then that is still a result and your work here is done, medals all round.
The commonly held assumption with WW1 is that the MG was the big killer, with scores of men being mown down by them. AWB feels this is at best a gross simplification and at worse just plain wrong. Accurate rifle fire could be very deadly and in fact many WW1 senior officers and trainers stressed the need for high levels of musketry training for effective assault troops, yet rifle units within WW1 gaming systems are often largely ignored. The machine gun by comparison is often a very deadly tabletop stand, where in real life it was probably not so much the killing weapon, as the denying weapon. MG fire could and did deny units the freedom to move. A more honest look at the cause of causalities in the battle will probably show that MGs killed relatively little, but instead pinned units in positions where they were unable to avoid the artillery fire that caused all the damage.
Which means what our TV heroes in TBCubed really need to do is throw away the SMLE rifles and drag out a Vickers and an 18 pounder.

Tank Basing - pt 2

As threatened early, AWB has, through the magic of the Android phone, managed to take some photos of the current basing project.
As you will recall, AWB has been experimenting with basing styles for some 10mm WW1 armour.
In this photo, together with models in various states of unpaint, we can see the brick paper road under the Whippet Medium. This seems to have come up simple, quick and effective although verges can probably do with some flock to give the entire base a little colour.
Other bases are for the MkIV and MkV* and are of course pre undercoat. Post undercoat they all just look like black rectangles so no photos of that stage. What we have is 'green stuff' with an over coat of PVA glued building sand to give texture. Major sins are to be hidden under the actual tank model which is why the centre of the bases is slightly more casual then the edges.
The trench parapit seems to have come out well, although in retrospect the effect may have been better if one had started the trench side on the edge of the base rather then leaving the step gap as has been done here.
All models Pendraken. Bases are 30x40mm.

Not completely finalised on the tank colours. Whippets seemed to have been painted straight green without significant markings, where as some sources seem to indicated the MkIV era tanks were brown. The MkV*, being an 1918 era vehicle should probably be a green, although from photos it is not immediately clear if the colour is a browny green or a greeny brown. The MkIV should probably also should have the white/red/white markings... or not. Black and white photos in the book 'Tank Action in the Great War - B Battalion's Experiences 1917' by Ian Verrinder don't seem to show the white/red/white but do show largish ID numbers (ie B 17) on the sides of the front horns in what seems to be white and a white square between the rear horns on the hull showing the ID number again in rather bold large black lettering.
The inner modeller within AWB also has been considering making the unditching rails out of light plastic card for this tank but will probably leave that idea to the next project.

Vehicle basing in 10mm

Here at AWB we are not normally in the habit of basing any of our vehicles. This we can probably put down to a few things. First would be the several years solid where the WW2 gaming scale of choice was 15mm and second would be laziness.
However, time and themes more on and the Butchers of the Bellcurve gaming group AWB games with have been recently been moving into a reasonable amount of WW1 gaming in the 10mm scale and so the question has re arisen.
In the good old days there still probably wouldn't have been a problem. As most will recall, back in distant past, figures were based on whatever old bits of rough cut cardboard and thrown on the table. These days of course we have access to laser cut MDF board, which at 3mm think means our foot heroes now tower above the puny landships that are meant to be supporting them.
So in order to regain that vital height advantage it seems that AWB will be forced to base the small but growing collection of MkV* and Whippets. In itself that seems an easy enough task but of course this is the 21st century and wargaming figures are not longer JUST based, they are made into highly detailed mini dioramas.
At this stage of the project we are still at the experimental stage to see what is actually going to both visually work and also not drastically drag out the already glacial painting time. Having found some brick paper (it is paper printed in colour with scale bricks. You make walls out of it, or... leave it half hidden in the painting room for 8 years. Your mileage may vary), one of the tanks is to go on a section of paved road.
The MkV* is hoped to get a section of ground broken by water filled shell craters. At this stage we only have thin lumps of Green Stuff on a base so not as yet ready to claim this one as a success. The MkIV base is currently the most adventurous, with an attempt to construct the sandbagged edge of a trench for the vehicle to loom up over. Again this is being done with Green Stuff, a product AWB does not normally have a lot to do with and may also, in all honesty, be slightly date expired.
Photos later maybe.