Tag: MtV (Page 3 of 10)

Note: Due to a significant error in rule interpretation, the Africa part of the game was reset in December 2015 and completely replayed. this turn report it therefor obsolete.

After the Entente made substantial progress despite occasional reversals during the previous half year, a feeling of decisiveness pervaded events in Africa during the period October 1915 thru March 1916. The French had already reduced the Berber to offensive impotence. Franco-British troops seemed about to put the Germans in Cameroon to the knife before turning against the fast, fragile Sanussi. Slightly growing Italian forces even seemed likely to contribute offensively. Without a Cameroon to run to, the wandering German force from Namibia seemed likely to either turn east to feed the flies their horseflesh or push north to try to cooperate – inevitably badly – with the Sanussi in the high Sahara. The Germans in East Africa would surely continue to feel increasing pressure from massing British and Portuguese forces.

Both sides remained largely idle in Libya until throughout the period, at least until March 1916. Italian forces continued to hold Tripoli and Sirte in discontinuous coastal enclaves, tied-in with French forces thrust down out of Tunisia. In that month, however, the Italians became positively offensive, replacing a colonial light rifle regiment, strengthening it with light artillery, and using it to assist an attack. Five regiments of French light rifles landed through Tripoli in May and immediately struck inland against two brigades of Sanussi infantry. The Italians and more French units hemmed the Sanussi into with patrols so that they could not run and the Foreign Legion and Colonial Rifle force, possessed of superior morale and training, ground the defender nearly to dust. If the French commitment to the sideshow of Libya continues, mid- and late-1916 seems likely to be spent bloodily fighting set-piece battles for dominance of the Sanussi heartland rather than chasing wildly across thousands of miles of scattered oases.

Events in French Northwest Africa remained even more static than in Libya throughout the six months thru March 1916. The Berber, divided by the French into enclaves centered in Spanish Morocco and on the Atlantic coast in Southern Morocco, enjoy just enough ammunition production to keep pace with routine expenditures (they produce no supply points because the French cut them to only eight Berber recruitment hexes, whereas production of supply points requires ten) and are therefore offensively impotent. If the Berber once attack with supply, they will thereafter lack supply with which to defend themselves and will be doomed to be driven out of French Morocco by even such weak forces as the French currently deploy to hem the Berbers away from civilization. Meanwhile, one each Italian light rifle and mounted rifle units assist a few French units in actively patrolling the huge southern edge of the French colonies, trading control of various oases with the overstretched Sanussi and tying each other down in what could have been an important, even newsworthy, sector.

In far away West Africa, the contest between the Sanussi and their would-be overlords swung wildly back and forth as miniscule forces tried to maintain garrison requirements, survive, and expand friendly territory in a vast land of wild contrasts. The sentence remains as unchanged in the game report as events do on the ground. The vast majority of European forces continue to be tied to the littoral districts, often outside the area in which the desert-proficient Sanussi can wage effective war and from which the few Sanussi in the theater cannot eject them. For a while, a few British battalions assisted the French on the fringes of Dahomey, and a net of a few battalions of French moved into garrisons in the area, but the chief “excitement” came from the French managing to find an unoccupied light rifle regiment to put-down a small native revolt that had smoldered for months but never quite grown a flame. French hopes of a quick offensive, to push the Sanussi from west to east away from Rio de Oro, failed to materialize in the face of a slight Sanussi buildup in huge geography and the continuous ebb of French units from Senegal to Europe. Eventually, beginning in February, the French managed to advance into the desert in the face of weakening Sanussi resistance (see events elsewhere), even retaking Timbuktu, but there is almost no chance of combat – what maneuver cannot do, will not be done in this sector.

On the northern edge of Central Africa, in late 1915 and early 1916, the Entente seized the initiative as the Sanussi never quite recovered from their self-immolation in March 1915 and their series of whack-a-mole expeditions in pursuit of British and French irregular units later in the year. By October 1915, the French and British assembled enough force to picket the southern Sahara from Chad through Nigeria. By December, French forces were growing fast so that the Sanussi both drew in units from elsewhere in their drifting empire and issued artillery wholesale to unsupported units to better face the threat. The French advanced for months, oasis to oasis, struggling all the while to haul combat supplies to the front in the face of the distantly threatening and highly mobile Sanussi, before finally giving up the effort as insufferably risky. Five French light rifle regiments quickly withdrew along British railroads to ports while foaming further light regiments into first layer of oases north of the civilized road and town network. Neither side much cared that in Chad, one of two rebellions grew slightly.

The German colony of Kameroon expired in November 1915 to broad Entente relief and a steady diet of German teeth gnashing and morale point loss. While the British and some French worked outward in October and on newly-dried roads in November, in November the core French force of Colonial light riflemen struck concentrically against the final force in the last German-held town in the colony. Terrain expertise countered rough ground and without weather impediments success was guaranteed; mercifully, for the first time in Africa in this war, Entente forces did not even get their noses bloodied by stubborn defenders. All that remained was to form the garrison, sucking in only two units, and to furlough three British Colonial light rifle regiments and a couple of divisions of local laborers. The remaining French forces flowed out northward to fight the Sanussi while the remaining British units flowed out westward to complete garrisons along the Atlantic coast, from which the West Indian construction regiment simultaneously withdrew for duty in Iraq.

In Belgian Congo, the column of German cavalry fleeing the loss of German Southwest Africa heard about the collapse in Cameroon but continued their move toward…anything at all. Offensively, the Germans hoped to use the number of their units to corner, isolate, and force the surrender of at least one Belgian garrison unit while en route to German East Africa by way of Uganda. In counterpoint, after the collapse in Cameroon, Entente forces quickly moved to isolate the Germans (isolated and U-2 units roll for surrender). In the event, both sides won and lost.

The German cavalry, but not their supplies, escaped into German East Africa. Suddenly isolated, the Germans converted their supply point for general use then used their faster movement to squirt free to the north shore of Lake Victoria. While the French, British, and Belgians massed to contain and exterminate them there, the Germans took a first advantage of their newly-won naval superiority on the Lake to haul two regiments into Tanzania. The third German regiment braved tsetse flies, survived its 50-50 roll to eliminate, and moved southeast along the shore to further temporary sanctuary before subsequently being boated across. British forces mopped-up Uganda and re-established naval dominance by retaking both northern ports on the Lake.

In Angola, the standoff between Portuguese rulers and African bandits continued unremarkably for most of the period October 1915 thru March 1916. Portuguese units in the colony only met the garrison requirement and could even move supply points forward for use in rebellion reduction by their solitary regiment in each district. The banditry likewise remained largely static, though one rebellion did increase by one level; no African units have taken the field and none are likely to do so because of the overwhelming South African presence (just across the southern border but close enough to several rebellions to inhibit their growth). Finally, in March, the South African government dispatched a mounted rifle brigade by road and rail across Namibia to help the Portuguese put down the revolts and pacify this particular little corner of the Dark Continent.

For all practical purposes, South Africa by October 1915 was simply the preeminent rear area of the African continent and its bulk overwhelmed administrative and logistical contributions made by other African colonies on the continent to the worldwide war effort. The Capetown factory provided most of the heavy weapons that allowed unit upgrades of Belgians in Rwanda, Indians and later more Indians in Kenya, British Colonials in Uganda, South African riflemen in Natal, and even Italian Colonials in Libya. South African manpower and horses replaced four more brigades of Boer mounted riflemen, which finally re-completed the garrisons of southern Africa, and enlarged a static regiment into a brigade on the coast of Tanzania. Fresh recruits, largely from West Africa, meanwhile replaced a British Colonial rifle regiment in Kenya, a French Colonial light rifle battalion in Senegal, and enlarged one each British and French Colonial static regiments into brigades in order to complete garrisons. French training bases in Madagascar and Senegal likewise continued their slow churning, sending a couple of regiments of colonials to more active sectors.

From a smoldering spark in mid-1915, by early 1916 events in German East Africa flickered to growing light and heat. In October, from Mombassa, a British irregular cavalry brigade seized Tanga before being eaten by flies; British ZOCs would keep the city in British hands unless the Germans chanced a regular unit against the voracious bugs. Meanwhile, further south along the coast the British amphibiously landed north of Kilwa and then expanded their beachhead to two brigades and a regiment with naval gunfire support. The Germans responded by issuing artillery, gradually built-up in the colony by blockade runners, merchant raiders, and the sunken light cruiser Konigsberg, to two light rifle battalions in October and a whole regiment in November. The British spent the next few months bringing units into Kenya by sea and Uganda by land, parrying German cavalry in the latter colony, strengthening their beachhead and following the Germans out of the only fly-free port on Tanzania’s coastline, and pushing two more units through Nyasaland into Tanzania from the south and west. The Portuguese also did their part, both by strengthening their hold on Mozambique as much as possible while avoiding the flies and by marching one colonial rifle regiment into southern Tanzania. By February 1916, the Entente and tsetse flies held in strength the entire circle around the German defenders of Tanzania; reinforced German forces could not move out in any direction except south and could not even reasonably go that way because of flies, Entente zones of control on roads, and Entente units occupying key terrain. In February, the Germans retook Tanga to receive a blockade runner in March. The newly arrived German artillery unit and newly formed construction regiment combined to carry the supplies from the ship away from Tanga, leaving the Entente the pleasure of its capture again when they eventually want to risk another unit against the bugs, which meanwhile ate the German light battalion that had lingered there. The British considered the offer and instead finally unveiled strength that had taken a year and a half to build: they attacked on a broad front across the border from Kenya, sending the defenders of Moeshi retreating (12:2, net -2 could have been an AQ or EX) and compressing the German defenders further. The Germans shifted in response, still enjoying the general supply provided by the core road and town network of their colony but, like the defenders of Cameroon before them, also waiting for the next hammer to fall.

Note: Due to a significant error in rule interpretation, the Africa part of the game was reset in December 2015 and completely replayed. this turn report it therefor obsolete.

Despite a feeling of decision early in the year, 1915 ground bumpily along in the various theaters of war in Africa, with plenty of reverses bedeviling both sides. East Africa again hosted the least eventful theater of actual war during March through September of 1915, though the Entente made intermittent progress. Immobility and incredible mobility both led to a lack of combat in Namibia, Angola, and Congo. Cameroon was the place where the Entente expected to make serious progress early in 1915 and where the Entente suffered its most serious reverse. Not unexpectedly, the match of the Sanussi versus the Italians, French, and British in and around the Sahara Desert proved to be the most mobile struggle despite rubbing against the relatively static contest between French and Berbers in Morocco.

The Italian military did not remain idle in mid-1915, but also failed to garner any headlines. During March and April, as a result of their ongoing neutrality in the larger European war, Italian forces in Tripolitania continued merely to cling to their coastal strongholds of Tripoli and Sirte. The Italians continued the pattern of behavior in May, encouraged by the transfer of the only engineers in the colony back to the mother country. In June, however, French vessels moved the Italian light rifle and heavy cavalry regiments to picket duty in Algeria while slower units continued to hold the Italian cities.

In Morocco, French commanders and units began 1915 focusing on the Berber war but gradually shifted much of their attention. In March, Foreign Legion, Colonial, and Army of Africa units overwhelmed the Berber holdfast at 0478. This action climaxed anti-Berber operations by strategically crippling them; the Berbers will not generate any more supply points without a tenth Berber homeland hex. Nonetheless, the French struck the Berbers again in May, at 0475. The Berbers now hold two regions: three homeland hexes near and mostly inside Spanish Morocco and the five homeland hexes nearest Rio de Oro. While the French then began solidifying their front lines and transferring units to other sectors and theaters, the Berbers spent most of 1915 gradually replacing their offensively almost impotent units and grimly clinging to their remaining territory.

The inland flank of France’s empire in Northwest Africa hosted constant raids for much of mid-1915. In Morocco, an early Sanussi raid netted them a clutch of oases that the Berbers then carefully avoided. The French occasionally retook the watering holes, but the Sanussi sporadically drew a few recruits from them amidst a continuing back and forth that also strayed south into the high Sahara. The bloody moment of the conflict in this sector followed a French foray in June to surround a Sanussi force too near a French rail line; the Sanussi could not relieve the encircled force and it was not in an oasis, so the French easily liquidated the pocket in July. In August, the French swept through the oases west of northern Tripolitania and invaded that Italian province overland from Tunisia to pin the Sanussi in place and attract their forces from around the Sahara. The Sanussi strategic center of gravity is their collection of oases in Tripolitania and Fezzan; to lose them is to go extinct and the French and Italians combined have enough force and units to begin an oozing onslaught that the Sanussi must stop early or may not be able to stop at all. In response to the defeat in South Algeria and the threat in Tripolitania, Sanussi units began to flow away from Nigeria and Senegal toward Fezzan in August and September.

In West Africa, the contest between the Sanussi and their would-be overlords swung wildly back and forth as miniscule forces tried to maintain garrison requirements, survive, and expand friendly territory in a vast land of wild contrasts. The vast majority of European forces are tied to the littoral districts, often outside the area in which the desert-proficient Sanussi can wage effective war and from which the few Sanussi in the theater probably cannot eject them, though the liberation of several key oases did generate some units of camel cavalry to add mass to the thin Sanussi waves lapping this shore. In March, Spanish troops from Morocco moved by sea to Rio de Oro, pushing the Sanussi out of that colony for lack of anything able to stand against a lordly 4*-5-7 light brigade in defense of a couple of oases. The ongoing French cycle of forming and withdrawing units in Senegal allowed a brief offensive into the Sahara in May, destroying a Sanussi regiment, but the attempt cost the French a vastly more valuable colonial light rifle battalion when the Sanussi received a German blockade runner loaded with six equipment points in April then replaced and equipped several camel units to unexpectedly surrounded and destroy the suddenly isolated imperialists. French colonial replacements for all of 1915 will suffice to replace this loss, but Sanussi equipment production is just above zero and a series of meager losses, such as in this exchange, will wear down their supported combat units.In July, French irregulars stood the Sanussi off from Timbuktu and then, in August, evacuated the city by river from under their noses while the high command yanked a couple of battalions of over-extended regulars out of the Sahara from east of Rio de Oro. In September, some Sanussi departed the theater for more important activities to the east while the French began to mass enough forces to conduct an offensive operation in October.

On the northern edge of the Central Africa Theater, the Sanussi began 1915 with the operational initiative and tried to exploit it to worldwide effect. There, as nowhere else, the actions of irregular troops could help prevent Central Powers’ defeat by delaying the Entente conquest of Cameroon and thus minimizing the loss of German morale points resulting from it. After reaching North Nigeria in February, the Sanussi attacked south in March, hoping to distract the Entente into defending South Nigeria, where the presence of Sanussi would cost Britain morale points, or to stop supply flowing to Entente forces in Cameroon. The Sanussi lost the battle by declining to spend their only local supply point, after which the Entente fired prolifically, so that at 4:1 the Sanussi force quartered itself against a British irregular brigade and French light battalion. In April, the Entente did shuffle northward, allowing the victorious British irregulars to march into the Sahara wide around the Sanussi flank. The Sanussi invasion force, far too large to supply from just one or two oases, had no choice but to chase the imperial irregulars. While the Sanussi played whack-a-mole the French and British spent supply points to activate irregulars who distracted the Sanussi for a month or two during each repetition all summer. By October, at heavy cost in supply points, the Entente had amassed units in Chad and North Nigeria to begin offensive operations against the Sanussi garrison between Nigeria and Fezzan.

Against Entente expectation, the Germans continued to hold Cameroon throughout mid-1915. In March, the British copied history, amphibiously invading Cameroon to unhinge the defenders by seizing Kribi on the border of Spanish Guinea. The Entente player miscounted, Kribi was not the critical fifth connected town in German hands, and when a light rifle regiment came out of the forming box during March it held open the briefly vulnerable German road network. Hindered somewhat by the Sanussi, British forces gradually assumed control over the siege lines atop the northern half of the Cameroon town network while French forces massed on the coast and poked north from Gabon and west from Chad, just in time to be thwarted again in breaking the German road network by a newly formed construction regiment. In June, two regiments of Foreign Legionnaires disembarked in Kribi and in July the Entente finally made the decisive move, overrunning German forces between Oyem and Jaunde in the south center of Cameroon. German forces reacted by converting their supply points into general supply and oozing toward freedom. In August, the Entente encircled most of the defenders, one battalion of which surrendered, another battalion of which marched into Gabon, and the remainder of which began imitating a turtle in one last town in Cameroon. In September, the two regiments of Germans remaining in the pocket began consuming four general supply points per month out of 23 on hand. A distant but complete net of zones of control isolated the German battalion in Gabon, which promptly surrendered to a local chief and paid hard cash for food until a few white Frenchmen arrived to dispose of the situation. The British and French also spent September pushing all units not needed for a final assault out of Cameroon, to relieve more mobile units from garrison duty and to reinforce the offensive against the Sanussi before a large Entente force goes into garrison in Cameroon or demobilizes for rest.

In Belgian Congo, the column of German cavalry fleeing the loss of German Southwest Africa gradually recovered its fatigue hits and waded forward, ending September only a few hundred miles south of Stanleyville. The collapse in Cameroon apparently nullifies any great desire to press straight toward that potential source of refuge. It seems apparent that the Germans hope to use the number of their units to eventually corner, isolate, and force the surrender of at least one Belgian garrison unit while en route to German East Africa by way of southern Chad, with an option to turn northwest and assist the Sanussi in the Sahel if that seems prudent when Chad is reached, perhaps by mid-1916.

In Angola, the standoff between Portuguese and African bandits continues its uneventful path. Too few Portuguese units are present even to leave garrison to move supply points forward for use in rebellion reduction, so that the Portuguese can move in their districts but cannot actually go anywhere. The Africans, meanwhile, have not transformed banditry to rebellion, though an additional tribe did revolt shortly after the war began in Europe.

Events in Namibia, ex-German Southwest Africa, are all about the garrison. British Boers are massing on the northern border of Namibia to overawe the tribes there and in Angola. The white mounted riflemen are a huge garrison that South African manpower has been entirely devoted to replacing and emplacing in the new colony of the newish Dominion. British Boer units, eliminated by treachery during the rebellion, offer the lowest cost in South African manpower for the highest number of regiments, so that the Dominion spent all of 1915 replacing them and stuffing them into garrisons not only in the four colonies forming the Union of South Africa but also Namibia, Basutoland, and eventually points north. The Boers would be worse than useless in East Africa, in the face of endless tsetse flies that adore horseflesh, but are entirely capable of replacing leg-mobile units and, particularly, colonial units that will consume less naval transport to East Africa and operate there much more effectively.

The war in East Africa gradually came to be a war, rather than a simple standoff, as 1915 wandered forward. Early in the period, the Entente focused on South African and Indian railroad engineers directing a native labor division in constructing one hundred twenty-five miles of rail from South Africa to the southernmost Congolese river network. The activity was to allow the strategic rail and river movement of units from South Africa all the way into East Africa in one movement phase, subjecting units in transit to only one tsetse fly roll as well as speeding their arrival. The result of the activity was a tremendous pile of supply points expended, two sequential railroad engineer battalions eaten by flies on their last phase before completing the railroad, and a disheartened Entente command giving up on that invasion route as a major factor. Nonetheless, the Entente continued nibbling, first in April with the Belgian garrison of Rwanda-Burundi converting into two units and seizing Bukoba on Lake Victoria. In May, the Belgians seized Kigoma on Lake Tanganyiki before taking position in a fly-Belgian-lake-fly-Belgian-fly-lake defensive line that the Germans can only breach at significant risk for little reward. Also in May, British irregular levies seized Bismarkburg on the southern end of Lake Tanganyika while Portuguese in Mozambique slipped northward their steadily expanding force to deny any easy German sanctuary in their colony. In June, a British colonial battalion from Nyasaland seized Ssongea while the irregulars from Bismarkburg evicted the German mayor from Neu Langenburg. In July, while another British irregular worked its way forward, the Indian Army-led forces in Kenya began offensive operations from there by thrusting a battalion into the mountains west of Lake Natron and an irregular brigade into the mountains southwest of Nairobi to force apart the German frontier defense. [Because mountains force positional combat, fighting in them will virtually always cost the Germans an irreplaceable unit and the British a relatively much more affordable and common unit.] In August, the leading British irregular brigade in the south succumbed to flies in an attempt to take one of the German towns along the southern coast of the colony, which are shielded by a deep belt of woodland fly sanctuaries. Also in August, another two regiments landed in Mombassa and a battalion in Kismayu to reinforce the pressure in the north, which expanded as the British wormed further into the mountains. The Entente brought pressure from the East too, when an irregular cavalry brigade seized Kilwa on the Ruffifi River delta before succumbing to flies. The Germans chose not to risk a unit to immediately retake Kilwa, which green-lighted the planned October amphibious invasion on the north side of the delta.

Entente Turn

The second half of October 1915, surprisingly still under clear skies, passed like a nightmare through Entente ranks. Events began badly, moderated to become only the usual poor, and ended disastrously. In other words, “no news here.”

Various formations received replacements as the middle of the month passed away:
Prussian: 12-14-5 and 9-12-5 XX from cadre
Wurtemburger: 15-17-5 XX from cadre
British: 0-2-5 siege eng [III]
French: 13*-16-7 and 6*-9-5 XX from cadre; disband 2x 2-3-6 AoA, 2x 1-2-6 AoA, and 2x 1-2-6 Metro X’s

In hopes of taking advantage of the unusually long summer and the shrinking German ammunition stockpile, the Entente pushed as hard as it could during the fortnight. French forces massed for an attack against the usual sector 1120 battlefield, only to cancel when 2:1 odds met with failed aerial reconnaissance. French forces on the upper Rhine River, with their artillery recovered from movement-induced disruption, likewise attempted to attack across the water, but likewise non-conducted their event upon the failure of aerial reconnaissance.

On a new battlefield, grid 1518 in Luxembourg, the French again failed their aerial reconnaissance efforts, but the attack was in an unexpected direction and with unusual force, so that they pressed onward regardless. Woodlands and entrenchments countered national will and the elite French riflemen. Two engineering attempts succeeded, giving the French hope for a break-in to the German position. Falkenhayn failed to influence the battle, exactly countering the useless French gas engineers. Bombardment scored five hits, by far the best effort of the war to date, and significantly weakened a defense such that even with a pair of zeppelins flying defensive support (one returned by a patrolling French fighter, in another first), and with an engineer regiment reserve moving into the fight, the odds were exactly 3:1. Such an attack, 3:1 odds with a net +2 DRM, is practically unheard of in its power and potential, so that the French duly rolled a 3 and enjoyed another BX result.
German loss: RP and 1-2-5 eng III eliminated; 7*-10-4 and 7*-9-5 [XX] to cadre
French loss: 2x RP, 4-5 fld art [III], 1-5 eng III, and 2-5 fld art II eliminated; 13*-16-7 XX to cadre

The British too put forth their maximum effort in late October, successfully battering themselves down to a national will of three and their morale to the point where they cannot gain a bonus during the February morale check. On the border of The Netherlands, at the extreme north end of the front line, the British struck under the only successful aerial reconnaissance of the phase. Entrenchments countered national will and the British risked a single brigade of engineers with irrelevant success as odds of 2.2:1 rolled upward and another chance for a significant victory washed away in the blood of another combat roll of 3. The BX combat result left:
German: RP eliminated; 12-14-5, 10-13-5 and 9-12-5 XX’s to cadre
British: RP and 1-5 eng III eliminated; 10-13-5, 10*-13-5 IND, 9-12-6, and 9-12-5 XX’s to cadre

Meanwhile, the first French forces reached the front near Lake Garda as Italian forces continued to shift eastward away from the Germans in that critical sector.

In the air, the Italian Ca-2 bomber aborted the Austro-Hungarian LohL reconnaissance fighter but was returned in turn and therefore scored the guaranteed no damage against the Austro-Hungarian fleet in Trieste.

In response, three German zeppelin groups successfully bombed Milan, dragging the Italians ever further below their functionally impossible “historical” level.

Central Powers Turn

During the Germanic half of the turn, another variety of divisions received fresh riflemen for their cadres:
Prussian: 12-15-6, 7*-10-5, and 7*-9-5
Indian: 10*-13-5
French: 13*-16-7 and 8*-11-5

The very stressed German military shifted forces to cover its weak spots while the Austro-Hungarian Army stretched its line a bit further north of the Isonzo River.

In the air, three zeppelin groups missed Milan while two groups failed to find London and several fixed-wing aircraft missed ammunition dumps.

The Entente catastrophe really came smashing down during the reaction combat phase. The British, Belgians, and Italians failed to budge, probably irrelevantly in the latter two cases. The French did jump, and their efforts went horribly wrong.

On the usual battlefield, sector 1120 in the Ardennes Forest, woodlands and entrenchments countered national will and the single engineer attempt, which at least succeeded. Gas engineers failed, as usual, as did a trio of aerial reconnaissance groups. Odds of 2.1:1 rolled downward, but it did not matter as a combat roll of 1 resulted in yet another AX result.
German losses: RP, 7*-9-5 XX, and 0-1-4 BAV eng III eliminated; 2x 12-14-5 XX’s to cadre
French losses: RP and 0-1-4 eng [III] eliminated; 10*-13-5 COL, 10*-13-5, 10*-13-6 AoA, 5x 8*-11-5, and 12*-15-6 AoA XX’s to cadre

Essentially the same thing happened to a pair of French corps attacking into the city of Luxemburg. Aerial reconnaissance did not fail in this case, but entrenchments and resource centers protected against national will and the aeradales. Falkenhayn failed to contribute, but so did a brigade of engineers. The French had found a battlefield on which they enjoyed a straight-up 3:1 superiority, but a roll of 1 felt like the wrong kind of a light rushing down the tunnel at the Entente.
German losses: RP, 13-15-5 PR and 12-14-5 SAX XX’s, and 6*-7-5 cadre all eliminated
French losses: RP, 3-2-7 FFL III, and 3-4-7 mot art [III] eliminated; 12*-15-6 AoA, 13*-16-7, 5x 8*-11-5, and 3x 9*-12-5 XX’s to cadre

In the air, the Italian Ca-2 bomber was returned by the LohL over Trieste, maintaining the perfect Entente record of scoring no morale damage against the Austro-Hungarians in the past three months.

Entente Turn

The first half of October 1915 passed in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy with half-expected clear weather, a variety of rare events, and violence borne of hapless confusion.

The never ending process of pushing fresh meat into the grinder began the turn, as usual, but a “first time” event led the month nonetheless: the French navy expended one of its plentiful naval repair points to replace a destroyer flotilla, sunk by danger zone contact in September and the first real combat ships to be replaced in this version of World War One. The French air force followed that with an uncommon event becoming commonplace as flak defenses grow and air combat happens occasionally: repairing an aborted air group. A variety of ground force upgrades were more routine:
French: replace 10-4-2 siege III and 2x 1-5 engineer III’s
Prussian: rebuild 13-15-5 rifle XX from cadre
Italy: replace 5-7-5 field artillery [X] and 2-3-5 field artillery III
Britain: replace 1-5 engineer [III]; rebuild 2x 10-15-5* rifle XX and 11-14-5 rifle XX from cadre
Indian: rebuild 10-15-5* rifle XX from cadre

Surely the most interesting aspect of early October was naval as the Entente fleets attempted to use their weight on and near the battlefront more directly than in the past. The bulk of Entente naval transports and landing craft, carrying two unsupported British rifle divisions and their separate divisional artillery, washed up in the Adriatic Sea blockade box, essentially dropping anchor in Brindisi, Italy to wait a favorable opportunity that might develop somewhere nearby. The vast bulk of the French combat fleet, together with most British armored cruisers and some pre-dreadnaughts and destroyers, and some Italian cruisers and destroyers, put to sea from their putrid Venetian anchorage, avoided Austrian light forces repeatedly, laid a minefield near the mouth of the Isonzo River, silenced coastal batteries near the front, and began to pound the Austro-Hungarian Army with heavy guns. The Italian air arm naturally failed to coordinate adequately with French and British admirals too angry about their duty to employ translators (two failed reconnaissance rolls) and the bombardment failed to inspire Italian infantrymen to leave their rifle pits. In practice, after entrenchments modified the rolls and aerial spies failed the same, Entente accuracy displayed itself as usual in bombardments, with only four hits scored on 134 points of gunfire. The Italian ground assault would have been suicide and did not follow.

Elsewhere on the Italian Front, Italian forces continued to thin their lines around Trient in favor of massing toward the Isonzo. Entente leaders hope that the Italians can at least hold that one relatively inactive and forbidding sector of the Western Front, despite their reduced army, criminal equipment, and inept tactics. The British Army in Italy continued to hold the east side of the Trient salient, sixty-five miles of mountain passes extending into the impassable central Alps. A couple of British cavalry divisions continued to assist a crust of Italians to hold the sector between Switzerland and Trient. A few French units wandered toward Lake Garda apparently intent upon replacing Italians on that most important sector of the entire Italian Front.

On the main part of the Western Front, between Switzerland and the North Sea, French and British forces aggressively continued to try to achieve something, really anything, in the face of German resistance that continues to wear thinner yet never grows any weaker. Along the Netherlands border, British forces wistfully considered how much more powerful their attack could be had the Germans taken Oostende and been accessible to the Grand Fleet. Absent so many heavy guns to bombard the defense, the Army having only six regiments of heavy guns at the front and their use being effectively impossible of achieving notable effect (and the British siege and combat engineer arms being gutted), the usual straight-up charge into the machineguns inevitably followed. A German interception mission failed to drive away British reconnaissance aircraft, one of two groups of which achieved their mission, so that after national will and entrenchments the attack went forward with a +1 bonus. A risky 2.4:1 attack rolled downward but decent leadership at the battalion level (roll 5) kept the result a sadly welcome Both Exchange.
British losses: RP eliminated; 3x 10*-13-5 rifle (1 Indian, 2 British) and 9-12-5 rifle divisions to cadre
German losses: RP eliminated; 12-14-5 rifle, 10-13-5 rifle, and 9-12-5 rifle divisions to cadre

French forces, in the midst of redeploying their best forces from the sector east of Maubeuge to the sector west of Metz, cast about for any target they could plausibly hit and rested their gaze upon one of their usual fields: grid 1120. The defenders enjoyed the usual woodlands, entrenchments, and the protection of a river on one of their two hex sides. French forces brought successful aerial reconnaissance, two successful attempts of two brigades of engineers each, and national will to bring the balance to a net +2 modifier. French gas engineers failed their sixteen percent possibility to be a positive influence. Odds of 2.6:1 rolled upward but bad tactics at all levels (roll 2) yielded another sadly welcome BX result.
German losses: (not an RP, using the same one as in the earlier battle); 12-14-5 Prussian rifle and 16-18-5 Bavarian rifle divisions to cadre
French losses: RP and 1-5 eng III eliminated; 2x 10*-13-5 and 9*-12-5 rifle divisions to cadre

In reaction, the Central Powers actually moved to attack despite missing, as usual, the vast bulk of their army activation rolls. German forces massed against the stout Belgian force defending the tip of the Entente salient east of Maubeuge but decided not to actually pull the trigger in view of limited stockpiles of ammunition (the Germans are nearly out of resource points after a long summer of heavy combat) and the failure of their one aerial reconnaissance mission. Elsewhere in the air, three zeppelin groups missed Milan and one missed London, after a British fighter conducted the first patrol attack of the war, but another Zeppelin group successfully bombed the headquarters of The Times, causing a noticeable drop in British morale. In the south, one of two Germanic bombing missions against Italian ammunition stockpiles torched a resource point.

The only interesting aspect of Entente exploitation was a visit by three reconnaissance groups of the French air forces to the zeppelin base at Koln. Flak sent one group scurrying and the other two missed their chances, but it is noteworthy that the French now have enough air units to both support a ground attack and try bombing something significant on the ground. As if to point that out further, a couple of groups of French bombers missed German ammunition dumps in Belgium.

Central Powers Turn

The Central Powers turn of the first half of October 1915 passed with a bang and an attempted bang, both in reaction. First, however, replacements flowed in relative rivers for several countries.
Prussia rebuilt 9-12-5 rifle, 2x 12-14-5 rifle, and 10-13-5 rifle divisions from cadre
Bavaria rebuilt 16-18-5 rifle division from cadre
Italy rebuild 6*-9-5 rifle division from cadre and 2x 4*-5-7 mountain brigades from remnants
British generals dictated an Indian division be rebuilt to 10*-13-5 from cadre
French troops replentished 2x 10*-13-5 and 9*-12-5 rifle divisions from cadre
Austria-Hungary rebuilt 2x 0*-1-2 fort [III] and placed them on coast defense duty

On the main front, German forces adjusted to their continuing losses and tried to keep up with their endless conversions, but found time and assets to render the bulk of the Ardennes Forest almost unassailable, bumping defense values by something like 25-percent thanks to an array of reinforcements from elsewhere.

Austria-Hungary likewise strengthened its own position, moving units to protect the coast, but especially the seaward flank of the main line on the Isonzo River. Austrian units also began to move to threaten the inland flank of the Italian line extending from the Isonzo into the previously impassable Alps that Germanic high mountain units are suddenly rendering less protective.

In the air, the Central Powers did not enjoy early October. Three groups of zeppelins missed Milan and two missed London. Two reconnaissance groups attempting a counter-air mission against the French suffered 25-percent losses to flak while a French counter-air mission in reaction destroyed half a group of Alb C1’s on the ground (the Germans will enter the next air cycle without a maximum savings in ARPs, another first for this game). Various Italian, Austro-Hungarian, and German aircraft missed targets or were rendered harmless by flak.

On the ground, in reaction, three notable things happened. Italian forces shifted considerable force away from the Lake Garda sector, though still leaving what they expect to be enough to hold the ground briefly until the French come up or the Italians come rushing back. The French headquarters in Belfort activated and tried to put together an attack across the Rhine River near the Swiss border. The attack would have gone forward had both air groups not failed their spotting missions. In a bloodier event, the British again assailed the German front on the Dutch border. National will and air reconnaissance more than countered entrenchments and 2.3:1 odds rolled upward so that a competent combat roll resulted in the usual BX result.
British losses: RP eliminated; 3x 10*-13-5 rifle XX (1 Indian) and 9-12-5 rifle XX to cadre
German losses: RP eliminated; 12-14-5 rifle, 10-13-5 rifle, and 9-12-5 rifle XX’s to cadre

Entente Turn

Central Powers Turn

The bottom inning of September 1915 became an unexpectedly busy moment in the war, with everything rare happening again, another first, and an unjustifiably belligerent Entente military pressing for action. Part of the reason for the urgency was the weather, which threatened to turn muddy with the arrival October (it did not; the sun will shine). A larger part of the reason was that after suffering a range of results from abject failure to middling commonality earlier in the month, the Entente continued to quest urgently for some path to victory.

Even the initial phase of the turn witnessed considerable activity. While many German and Austro-Hungarian units changed organizational structures late in September, the news was that the backlog of planned changes is finally in the low single digits. Bavarian recruits fleshed out a 16-18-5 mtn rfl XX with which to threaten the Italians, whose manpower flowed to rejuvenate their lone 7-10-6 lt XX. On the main front, Prussian men and Rhineland guns repaired 13-16-5, 2x 13-15-5, and 8-11-5 rfl XX’s, besides replacing 2-4-7 mtn MG [III], and replacing a 7*-8-5 rfl cdr. Fresh pilots joined ground crews for an Alb C1, as the air replacement point system finally began to get a sustained workout. On the French side of the line, 2x 13*-16-7 and 3x 8*-11-5 divisions absorbed hordes of conscripts into their depleted infantry battalions.

In the far south, along the Adriatic Sea coast, a variety of Austo-Hungarian Army formations followed the combined Entente fleet’s move to bring all British landing craft, various naval transports, and plenty of gunfire vessels to bear against the Dual Monarchy. The French admiral in charge will find no easy targets across the sea of grief east of Italy. Austrian submarines, one captained by a future singing refugee, engaged that Entente fleet near Venice and sank several French destroyers by confusing them with gunfire and getting them rammed and shot-up by a squadron of confused British armored cruisers (danger zone hit against DD-1).

In the air, nothing good happened for the Central Powers. Three zeppelins missed Milan, one by navigation and two by bombing, while two zeppelins hit only the Thames River in London. Austro-Hungarian and German fixed-wing aircraft missed several Entente ammunition dumps. An MS-3 escort sent a bypassing group of Alb’s scurrying in a first for the war before two Cau bombers destroyed a German ammunition dump. Another group of MS-3’s demonstrated their superiority by killing, in another first for the war, an entire group of bypassing LVG’s while escorting recon aircraft attempting to bomb another German ammunition dump. In a rarity, flak smashed half a group of MF-11’s, the pilots of which were busily missing the zeppelin base in Koln. Only Italian pilots failed utterly, their Ca2 bomber group not regretting the absence of interceptors and dodging flak successfully only to miss the Austro-Hungarian fleet in Trieste.

On the ground in France and Belgium, German forces massively restructured their defenses after the long series of bloody battles throughout the month.

In response, while several French generals pulled units out of the front line, including an entirely overstacked corps of heavy guns, one British general sent a couple of divisions south toward the Mediterranean Sea and waiting transport vessels.

Another British general was more direct in his irritation about the failure of his ongoing offensive near the Netherlands border and he continued to push his units into the fire. After British pilots successfully spied out the reorganized defense, a brigade of siege engineers committed suicide by giving their friends a slightly better chance of success. British morale cancelled German trenches as 2.1:1 rolled downward and yet another Both Exchange poured names onto casualty lists.
British losses: 2x RP and 1-4-5 sg eng X eliminated; 11-14-5 and 3x 10-13-5 rfl XX’s to cadre (one Indian)
German losses: RP and 2-3-7 jgr III eliminated; 2x 13-15-5 rfl and 8-11-4 nvl XX’s to cadre

German forces exploited to cover the new weakness near the Dutch border.

Entente Turn

The production phase of September 1915 proved interesting to war watchers across the world. Entente production, 12 RP and 18 EqP, with the maximum tithe in South Africa and withdrawals to South, was immensely welcome and would be sufficient for waging the previous style of war with the current supply of personnel (the Entente will run out of people before ammunition), but will not last long once siege engineers start performing their art. Central Powers production, 8 RP and 13.5 EqP after withdrawals to East and South, could almost be small enough to allow a shortage to develop if clear weather remains in effect for two more months. Again, the United States retained strict neutrality; to roll 9+ on 2d6 is hardly impossible, but the US could also manage never to enter the war and the Entente player would bet no better than even that a tilted neutrality will be achieved before 1918 or active participation before 1919. Canadian artillery and mounted rifle formations achieved full effectiveness, the latter after some turns of delay, and the Canadians are almost strong enough to allow the Empire to make a single elite attack before spending a year accumulating Canadian replacements sufficient to compensate for such folly. At sea, small casualties inhibited the morale of Britain and Germany not at all. The railroads of Italy, France, and Germany all deteriorated; the Entente will be moving all of its rail engineers to Italy, where they will suffice to make a difference; the Austrian network is already too shambolic to deteriorate further.

Italian forces rejuvenated 6*-9-5 rfl XX from cadre; repaired their (constantly abused) Ca-2 bomber; replaced a 6-2-2 siege regiment, 2-7 mtn fld art III, and MW task force 1; upgraded 0-1-4 eng III and 2-3-7 mtn X to 1-3-4 and 3-4-7 respectively; and disbanded the country’s final two static artillery units.

French forces replaced 2x 1-5 eng III’s, 7-5-4 hvy art III, and 2-5 fld art II; rejuvenated 12*-15-6 AFR lt XX, 9*-12-5 COL rlf XX, and 2x 10*-13-5 rfl XX’s from cadre; and disbanded the 3-10-0 hvy art XX in Toul (the last easy choice to disband; the others are in/near the front line)

Belgian forces converted 0-1-4 eng III to 2x 1-5 eng III’s at the cost of a cycle worth of infantry replacements (.5!)

Imperial forces rejuvenated 10*-13-5IND rfl, 13-16-5CAN rfl, and 2x 10-13-5 rfl XX’s from cadre. The Royal Air Force also fielded a second reconnaissance group in France, doubling the chance that British arms might strike during any given fortnight.

To plan and execute the Entente movement of I September 1915 consumed considerable time, however much the front line always seems to look as it did for many turns before.

In Austria, British forces took full control over the fifty mile stretch of Alpine no-man’s land furthest into the mountains, northeast of the German-garrisoned Austro-Hungarian fortress of Trient. Italian forces meanwhile continued to shift out of that sector while optimizing their line along the Isonzo River and maximizing their critical frontage around Trient, where the Germans perpetually threaten to break free on both sides of Lake Garda and drive across the middle Po River in a war of movement the Italians could not possibly win.

Entente ground forces in Italy contented themselves with trading pasta for beer for the umpteenth turn in a row, but in the air events heated up from the already ‘wild’ norm. The Italian Ca-2 made its usual bombing run through Austro-Hungarian interceptors and flak, survived both unscathed for the first time, and missed the Austro-Hungarian fleet in Trieste, probably due to shock. Italian and British reconnaissance aircraft combined to hunt and hit a German Alb spotter squadron on the ground, thereby at least preventing its use in the reaction combat phase even though the Germans have plenty of unused air replacements every cycle (in late summer 1915, it is extremely difficult to achieve a flak shot that can inflict an abort and the intercept range is still zero hexes).

In France, Belgium, and Germany, Entente forces shifted considerably in a continuing process. The British Territorial Army is taking the field on steadily increasing strength and Imperial forces expanded their grip on the front to 100 miles in early September, en route to assuming control over at least another twenty or thirty miles before mud sets in. Despite this spreading and the previous month’s nasty AX, the Empire also massed forces and attacked sector 0521 in an effort to get the Germans that last bit of the way into National Will Three. Meanwhile, the Belgian Army continued to shift southward; it appears likely to come to rest in the area of the front inside southeastern Belgium when the British stop expanding for a while. French forces meanwhile, suffering even after their gush of replacements from a significant backlog of cadre divisions awaiting fleshing-out, contented themselves with shuffling forces. The never-ending flow of lower quality French units toward the Vosges Mountains continued, as did the balancing movement of higher quality forces toward the Ardennes Forest. The Germans naturally buffed their southernmost sector after the French coup de main attempt and high quality French units from near Switzerland therefore disengaged and began moving back toward the sea. If not for the steadily growing British, the French would be having trouble holding their sector in secure strength; as is, they have plenty of abysmal units that the Germans nonetheless cannot easily afford to attack given their relative poverty in ammunition.

Three French bombing missions against German resource points failed to connect, quickly draining any prospect of actually finding an advantage during this production cycle due to German ammunition shortages.

British forces, meanwhile, pounded away on the ground in Flanders. Aerial spotting, the precondition, succeeded, cancelling the effects of German entrenchments. A single attack by a pair of engineer regiments succeeded, giving the British a clean die roll advantage. Siege engineers spent prolifically, but failed to impact the battle despite having a 50-percent chance of some success and a 16% chance of a column shift. Odds of 2.7:1 rolled upward and the overconfident Germans apparently blundered somewhere as a roll of “6” yielded a DX!
British losses: 2x RP, 1-5 Eng [III], and 8-4-7 Armd Car [X] eliminated; 10*-13-5 Rfl XX to cadre
German losses: RP consumed; 13-15-5 Rfl and 16-18-5 WUR Rfl XX’s to cadre

Central Powers Turn

The Central Powers version of early September 1915 began with relief on the part of the Central Powers and ended with disgust on the part of the Entente. Precious little happened in between.

During the initial phase, replacement points flowed in rather stingy fashion, despite the relative abundance of a production-cycle-beginning moment. Austro-Hungarian quartermasters chased a 2*-6 Mtn Rfl III off the beaches of Croatia by finally issuing them boots and rifles. French sergeants in three 9*-12-5 Rfl XX’s received new meat to bring their generals entourages back to full strength. British volunteers flooded into a trio of 10-13-5 Rfl XX’s with the enthusiasm of the late August victory in their hearts and nothing at all in their brains. Prussian bureaucrats in spiked caps sent replacements to the cadres of 15-17-5 Rfl, 13-16-5 Rfl, and 9*-12-5 Rfl XX’s; refilled 3-4-7 Jgr and 2-3-7 Jgr III’s; and sent fresh pilots and machines to their aborted Alb C1.

On the ground, German and Austro-Hungarian forces continued reorganizing formations internally and shifting them on the battlefield both to allow that process and to compensate for continuing Entente aggression. Of singular note, Austro-Hungarian heavy flak moved from frontline ammunition dump guard duty to Trieste, to protect the fleet from continuing Entente air attack.

In the air, the Central Powers suffered apparently poor weather at the local scale as every bullet, flak shell, and bomb – and some entire zeppelins – missed their targeted cities and ammunition dumps; eight failures in all.

During reaction, Entente forces repaid the favor on smaller scale as the Italian Ca-2 bomber and a pair of British reconnaissance aircraft missed German ammunition dumps.

On the ground, in reaction, the generals fumed and some troops moved, but no significant combat added to any casualty lists. Italian 3rd Army continued to pull out of the mountains northeast of the alpine fortress of Trient, leaving behind British forces that should suffice to hold inviolate fifty miles of nothing leading nowhere. The Belgian Army sprang to life too, moving heavy artillery into a thirty mile front south and west of Maubeuge (the British hold everything from there to the sea). On the Swiss border, French units moving northward from their failed ‘surprise’ attack across the Rhine continued marching northward as if little had changed, because little had changed. One of many French armies facing the Ardennes Forest, headquarters at Charleville-Mezieres, was likewise active, moving units quickly and competently before discovering that the best French effort against the targeted German sector 1219 would resolve at 2.1:1 with a guaranteed net -1 and probably one or two more bonuses from engineering. To the disgust of the air force, successful reconnaissance is what got the French that far and the goggle-wearers would have been better employed bombing German ammunition dumps. British generals “rested on their August laurel,” an intended slight by a disgusted editor in London, rather than possibly hitting the Germans the first of a set of double blows during this last bit of clear weather.

If that double failure on the battlefront was not enough, perusal of the French replacement chart indicates a devastating and immediate problem: the French are out of men. From late 1915, the French metropolitan manpower replacement rate goes ever further into the toilette, joining the ever abysmal rate of colonials and the vanishingly small rate of foreign enlistees. French heavy artillery, already not as good as their field due to lousy tactics besides being tactically immobile, looks good on paper and will continue to look gradually better, but it is unimaginable that bombarding Germans in fortified woodlands from normal stacking will ever produce enough effect to make it worth the time. French armor is beginning to show up in the forming pool; by late 1918 the French will have something like a hundred attack points of it that will be functionally irreplaceable while providing their only non-artillery offensive power. Entente aircraft remain a feeble shadow compared to their opponents, but neither side is remotely close to having anything like a battle where air power contributes even 5-percent of power. With the French rifle forces now on the road to being entirely cadre, one might be forgiven for wondering how historical France made it through 1916. Meanwhile, the Italians are on the road to extinction in the face of what can be an overwhelming German buildup – our Verdun will probably be a German breakthrough of the Italians that might drive them out of the war – the Belgians are never going to get any larger, the Portuguese will arrive in another year with almost a corps, and the British lack almost any combat support to go with their increasingly powerful rifle armies. This will be a new experience: playing a long, large war where one major force consists almost entirely of equipment rather than manpower. The French are not there yet, but being able to rejuvenate only half a dozen cadres per cycle in 1916 is going to be excruciating, and then things will get much, much worse.

The Entente needs more than one new plan and is already forming several. After they fail, Plan M is to beg the Americans to finally roll 9+ on 2d6 to get on the road to war.

Entente Turn

The latest session of the DJ05 grand campaign of Over There began and ended with consecutive Entente combat phases on both sides of the September 1915 production cycle. The session happened in a slightly different tone because in a free moment months before we had actually calculated the effects of many turns worth of steadily trickling morale point losses from dozens of battles and cyclical events – and the sums of the losses in question astounded us in their magnitude and timing. With the most recent battle results included, national will had finally shifted for the French and was just about to for the Germans, while long-term trends continued to become clearer. French Will had just dropped to four, leaving their armies on the field without an accustomed advantage for the moment but meaning that during the annual February check France shall almost certainly rebound permanently to a Will of probably five and certainly perpetual superiority. British Will, meanwhile, still stood solidly within the four band and, after just a few more battles, would surely stand in superiority to that of any Central Power for the remainder of the war. On the debit side, for the Entente, Italian Will stands at such a low level that the annual February checks will surely not help the country and that a steady German pressure can be expected to force surrender, probably before American entry into the war. On the other side of the line, Austria-Hungary is suffering almost its only losses – and they have been huge – in the South and East (out of play) and can expect not to surrender during the war unless the British, French, or Americans conduct serious operations against them or the Austro-Hungarians contribute dramatically to fighting the Italians, through extremely vexing terrain and a temporary morale inferiority. Most dramatically, however, German Will dropped in August to three and after a few more battles both the British and the French should enjoy permanent battlefield moral superiority while even the Italians will for a while enjoy morale equality with their northern opponents.

During the beginning of late August, replacement depots busied themselves on both sides of the front. Italian factories sent a couple of dozen new machines to the ill-starred Caproni-2 bomber group (which immediately took the skies and was again halved, cut to pieces by Austrian Loh L’s over the Pola naval base in our first air-to-air hit). More mundanely, a variety of divisions were refreshed with manpower: 10*-13-5 Colonial, 10*-13-5 and 9*-12-5 metropolitan, 12-14-5 and 12-15-6 Prussian, 13-15-5 Bavarian and 6*-8-5 Saxon. The French also replaced a 4-5 field artillery regiment.

British excitement about a soon-to-drop German Will apparently led to overconfidence in tactical planning in late August as a rare British attack went horribly wrong. The Empire massed is forces in Flanders against grid 0621 and enjoyed the rare success of aerial reconnaissance that is a precondition for Entente attack decisions (effectively countering the entrenchments of the defenders). Thereafter, everything went sideways. High Command neglected to consume supplies using siege engineers and wasted space in the trenches with a gas battalion that could not possibly succeed in influencing the combat (-1 for battalion, -1 for Entente…the battalion then went back to London to stay out of the way until it is upgraded by OB to something big enough to possibly be useful). Less forgivably, the British engineer force did not move into the combat sector because it is small and rebuilding and being saved for more intensive efforts later. Odds of 2.6:1 rolled upward, nicely, but the combat roll resulted in an AX and would have done so even without the uptick. This was not an efficient method of reducing German morale!
British losses: RP consumed; 2x 10*-13-5IND XX to 4*-6-5 cadre (the last time the Indians can suffer losses without reducing the post-rebuild power of their two rifle divisions), 5x 14-17-5 rfl XX to 6*-7-5 cadre (the pre-war BEF finally being reduced to post-fragile state), 13-16-5CAN XX to 6*-7-5 cadre (the first Canadian losses)
German losses: RP consumed; 12-14-5WUR XX to 5*-6-5 cadre, 2x 10-13-5 rfl XX to 4*-6-5 cadre, 9-12-5 XX to 4*-5-5 cadre

French forces further south likewise flailed against the Germans, though with a distant hope of forcing a German withdrawal somewhere in order to strengthen the line in the face of massive and continuing casualties. This time, sector 1219 in the Ardennes Forest again played the battlefield. Shattered woodlands, entrenchments, and aerial reconnaissance influenced the combat, 2.6:1 odds rolled downward and gave the Entente a huge lump in its throat for a likely second AX for the turn, but the troops came through with a roll of 6 and the usual BX result.
French losses: RP and 3-4-4 fld art III eliminated; 10*-13-5, 9*-12-5, 2x 8*-11-5 rfl XX’s reduced to 4*-6, 4*-5, and 2x 3*-5 -5 cadres
German losses: RP, 5*-6-5 cadre, and 3-4-7 jgr III eliminated; 13-15-5 and 12-14-5SAX rfl XX’s reduced to 6*-7-5 and 5*-6-5 cadres

French forces also kicked off another feeble attempt at a surprise offensive just along the Swiss border. French railroad capacity is less of a limit to operational mobility than it has been in the recent past, but Entente heavy artillery disrupts when moving, which gives advance notice of everything, so that the Germans were hardly surprised. A French AX could have taken the position, a pyrrhic victory at best, and reconnaissance hardly came close to counterbalancing severe penalties from the defending fort and wooded rough terrain (net -3), so that a DL was virtually impossible to achieve. The severe weakness of the Germans was a reasonable result of the severity of the problem for the French attacking across the Rhine River into such terrain and 6.1:1 odds reflected the thin German force, but the odds rolled downward and another BX came to pass in what was effectively a small French victory.
French losses: RP consumed; 6*-9-5 rfl XX to 2*-4-5 cadre
German losses: RP and 3*-4-4 rfl X eliminated

The Germans had been bloodied, not quite to National Will Three, while the Entente offensive bolt was nearly shot at the end of probably the last fair weather production cycle of the year.

Facing the Italians, no Central Powers armies reacted in late August, while most army headquarters in Belgium and Germany did react, merely to pull a great many units out of the line for conversion during the upcoming initial phase.

Entente forces exploited a few specialist units out of the line, shifted to cover weaknesses revealed by casualties suffered, and to mass French ‘quality’ in the vicinity of and west of Luxembourg.

Central Powers Turn

Aside from the usual array of German conversions and reorganizations, neither side in the Central Powers initial phase of II August 1915 acted notably. None of the powers held much in the way of reserves of replacement points and neither side expected Germanic attacks, so both sides held tight and waited for developments to spur actions.

Germanic forces did move during their turn, but not so as to spur any particular action or even annotation. Three zeppelins flew against Italian cities, two reached their targets, and neither scored a hit.

The Entente reaction phase at the very end of August proved somewhat more interesting than did the movement and absence of combat during the Central Powers portion of the turn. Two of three Italian army headquarters activated, along with British 2nd Army in Italy, and the British expanded east and northeast of Trient to a front of 50 miles of mountains and the passes leading there through. Eight of nine French armies failed to activate; 3rd Army west of Jarny succeeded in withdrawing many specialist and high quality units from the line in its sector, to prepare for possible attacks along a wide front in September. 1st British and the Belgian Army failed to activate in the north, but British 2nd Army did activate and furiously shifted units across the British sector after their hideous AX. British and French aircraft attempted to bomb several German resource points and did destroy one, nicely but not sufficient to cause any near-term effect.

Note: Due to a significant error in rule interpretation, the Africa part of the game was reset in December 2015 and completely replayed. this turn report it therefor obsolete.

After a six year hiatus in real world play, during which our war in Western Europe progressed almost one year of game time and far surpassed in date the activities in Africa, the DJ group resumed its grand campaign of Over There with play in that dark theater in June 2011. Unfortunately, the hiatus left us woefully ignorant of the theater-specific rules while setup, eating, and child self-mutilation contributed to a relatively unproductive gaming session.

Few details of the dramatic events of December 1914 in Africa will make it to the world press – the raging Great War is orders of magnitude fiercer in Europe – but events dramatic there were regardless. In November, the Sanussi erupted into the broad Sahara Desert, flipping two of three units of French Touaregs to the Brotherhood’s side and one each raising and beginning to organize units of rebellious tribesman from particularly large oases in the deep desert. In December the French struck back feebly, a couple of battalions of camel riders threatening a lone battalion of Sanussi and encouraging them to retreat safely before combat. Italian forces, meanwhile, continued to hold strongly on to Tripoli and Sirte and to contest a couple of oases near those cities.

French forces continued to manhandle Berber tribesmen in Morocco in December. French attacks pushed the Berbers out of the coastal lowlands in August and from their easternmost stronghold in September before an elite force of Frenchmen swung south of the Berbers to trim the southern edges of their region in October and November. Now, in December, the same French struck against the Berber stronghold a hundred miles southeast of the High Atlas, where the well-paid Grand Caids continued to hold court – separating the rebel Berbers into two distinct regions. With the aid of a strong pincer from coastal Morocco, the inland force struck at grid 0479. All of the defenders attempted to flee, unwilling to lose the only stockpile of ammunition available in the southwestern pocket should events go as predicted, and half the Berbers did escape with all of the supplies. The remaining defending “unit,” without much ammunition, fell easy prey to the French, who thus subdivided the southwestern Berber pocket into one tiny and one large area.
French loss: supply point
Berber loss: 1-6 irr [X]

In West Africa, a lone and quite minor rebellion among tribesman in mid-nowhere did not even slow down the continued exodus of Entente units from the region for duty in Cameroon and France. Some residents of frontier towns throughout the region began to report distant dust clouds over the Sahara and to wonder who would protect them from the Sanussi horde with the European garrisons at minimum levels.

In East Africa, the struggle between low excitement and high trepidation – no combat but high fear of tsetse flies – continued apace. In November, British vessels withdrew a bit of force from Kenya and in December the strong remainder simply began to move to positions in which they could shield the colony from any serious aggression; both sides lack the ability to do much more. In the west and south of the area, British and Belgian forces sat passive in their garrison regions, too fearful of rebellion in their rear for their local political partners to allow the field forces to move either forward or back. Portuguese reinforcements continued to arrive in Mozambique, to prevent rebellions like those threatening the viability of Angola and its grossly insufficient garrison. The only real excitement in the theater came from insects, as South African railroad engineers and native laborers moved to build a railway from the south to connect to the Belgian river transportation network; the bugs sickened many but work would begin on schedule.

The struggle for Cameroon proceeded with as little adrenaline as did that for Tanzania, but events in the former pointed toward a much more imminent climax. French forces, just a couple of battalions, finally reached the southeastern border of the colony after collecting in and marching forward from French Congo and Gabon. British forces from Nigeria simultaneously collected on Cameroon’s northern border and well inside its northeastern corner. French units from West Africa, landed in Nigeria earlier, pushed forward into coastal Cameroon. Widely spread and grossly outnumbered German forces could only watch as their supply source – their network of friendly towns – was about to fall apart even as the weather was about to turn clear.

It was in the South Africa Theater that events in on that continent leapt forward with both Sanussi-like vigor and Cameroonian decisiveness. The Boers had revolted early in the war and been decisively crushed after the catastrophe of their attempted coup de main in Johannesburg; by the end of November, the last three Boer brigades had fled to Upington on the border of German Southwest Africa. While a small German force met the Boers at the border and the politics of the situation prevented good cooperation between them, the larger German force threatened Portuguese Angola and supported rebellious tribesmen there. British forces both followed the Boers from the south and invaded South Africa’s empty new colony (the name Namibia was kicked around) amphibiously. By the end of November, the German supply network collapsed, German forces near Angola fled eastward toward Tanzania, and the Boers and Germans in the south hunkered down to make the British pay in the media for having a city in South Africa being held by the Central Powers. In December, the British consolidated the situation, hemming the Upington pocket – virtually guaranteeing its quick surrender through lack of food if a more immediate destruction in combat was deemed unwise, the Germans enjoying one supply point for seven and a half regiments in the cauldron. Elsewhere across South Africa and its dependencies, the thin coverage of garrison units shifted in preparation for returning to civilian life and protecting themselves from Germans and natives in the meantime.

The German and native ripostes to Entente aggression proved broadly unexciting in December 1914. Berbers in Morocco and Germans in Cameroon and East Africa merely shifted their positions to meet as well as possible apparently overwhelming Entente threats. Some wager, however, that the Berbers will remain almost as strong for years to come and certainly East Africa is unlikely to be seriously threatened until late 1915.

The South Africans having seized every German town in Southwest Africa, the colony’s defenders fled. In the south, a cavalry regiment and artillery battalion consolidated with the Boers at Upington and broke their supply point down into 30 general supply points, exactly enough for four initial phases. In the northeast, the stronger German force, about three regiments and with further supplies, splashed further toward Tanzania on a trek that will be epic and, for the British rail construction effort along the way, may be unfortunate.

The Sanussi explosion seemed anti-climactic in December. The vastness of the Sahara and absence of opposition rendered only distantly interesting roving columns of camel-mounted irregulars imposing an anarchic will on oases along a two thousand mile arc. The only French-loyalist Touareg regiment in the region did not escape destruction in December as it had in November, but otherwise the Sanussi merely moved potentially useful forces to within distant striking range of British and French garrisons in Algeria, Mauretania, northern Niger, and northern Nigeria. Strong Sanussi units meanwhile pinned the solid Italian (even the phrase caused some laughter) defenders of Sirte and Tripoli against the strand, able to move a bit but not to join together, reach Tunisia, or really threaten their besiegers.
French losses: 1-0-7C irr [III] (one suspects that the foreign special replacements from this unit will end up in a Legion Etranger regiment somewhere)

Entente Turn

The Entente initial phase at the beginning of August 1915 passed with considerable note in press, but with less heat than light nonetheless. French replacements re-filled two metropolitan and an Army of Africa divisions from cadre and also rejuvenated a pair of engineer regiments besides putting a regimental-group of siege artillery into the field. British and Italian troops replaced engineer regiments too, a mixed duet in the latter case. The Central Powers’ replacement system merely idled through the phase.

As promised, the British expanded their hold on the front line to include not only their fifty miles nearest the English Channel from Oostende inland but also another fifteen miles on the far side of the Belgian sector. In the rear, while some divisions marched northeast from Caen toward the main front others took train from the vicinity of Lille all the way to the middle Po River to replace units marching away from there back toward France. A couple of British divisions, en route, paused to provide momentary flak protection to Genoa and Torino as the Italian population grew skittish under zeppelin bombing. Many of the New Army divisions, still lacking their artillery components, widened the British role in rear area protection in northwestern France, taking over from various Belgian and French units the protection of coastal gun positions, rail junctions and the like, as well as manning trenches deep behind the fighting front.

The Belgian Army loosened its grip on its fifteen mile sector behind the upper Scheldt River in early August, preparatory to shifting entirely. The light division backed away from the main front, sidestepped, and began to replace French troops in the front line facing German-occupied Maubeuge. Belgian units that had been on second-line or coastal duty, including an entire rifle division, joined the light division in forming a corps under French Army command in a transitional arrangement. The oddity would dry-up as further Belgians were replaced by the British nearer the coast and could then replace the French facing the fortress.

The French Army, amidst a mass restructuring of its third-line formations and always reeling from battering its head against the German wall, attempted to take advantage of being relieved of twenty-five miles of front line positions. The beginnings of a wave of heavy and siege artillery moved into positions near the Swiss border; more could follow with the prospect of a serious French attack either across the Rhine River into horrible terrain or down the River into the fortress that holds inviolable the shoulder of the German line on the French side of the river. Beyond this, the usual shuffling of units continued in endless procession as first-line formations and specialists edged toward the Ardennes Forest – the most active sector – and less prestigious units trudged toward the relative inactivity of the Vosges Mountains and the lesser rivers in Lorraine and Alsace.

Amidst the increased restructuring of Entente positions, French, Italian and British forces also massed for battle on some common and uncommon fields. The British, for example, re-attempted their assault against the northern extremity of the German line in Belgium, and again cancelled their attack when their lone air group failed to provide useful reconnaissance.

The Italians shifted their focus from the Alpine foothills on the east bank of the Isonzo River to the flat ground nearer its mouth for their continued Battle of the Isonzo. Unfortunately for the Entente, an appraisal of the odds – less than two-to-one after the lone Italian bomber group failed to destroy the only Austro-Hungarian munitions stockpile in the region – made such attacking madness and it did not go forward. In fact, given recent Austro-Hungarian reinforcement of the sector and the fact that the Italian corps in the region are already at very nearly maximum possible combat power, it seems unlikely that the Italians will be able to attack again anytime soon. The river and/or mountains, the additional halving of Italian heavy artillery for its lousy quality, and the German relief of their allies in the Trient salient, have left the defenders far too strong now that an entire army is in the field, for the Italians to seriously threaten. Until something external to this front changes, perhaps German units in quantity entering the fray, or the Italians get a lucky break with their supply bombing, the Isonzo River should be a simple and quiet backwater as the Austrians are likewise too weak to seriously attack the higher-morale, field-worked Italians in what would be mobile combat.

The French, with many more types and qualities of assets available, did not go so quietly into the darkness of inaction in early August. The old Ardennes Forest battlefield of most of June was revisited by an array of French tricks while the gradually weakened German garrison of the iron fields around Briey enjoyed an attack from around a half circle of frontage by the most of the elite, some of the first-line and a bit of the second-line of French rifle troops. In the Ardennes, at grid 1219, two cavalry corps unleashed four brigades of engineers in two successful attempts that cancelled woodlands and entrenchments, employed superior morale and aerial reconnaissance that could have turned the attack into a solid victory, simply forgot to employ gas engineers in the front line, rolled a 2.4:1 attack up to 3:1, and then procured the usual BX result after rolling a “1” in combat. Around Briey, three French rifle corps simply massed 259.5 points of combat power, using aerial reconnaissance and morale to cancel out Falkenhayn’s inspired grand tactics and the defenders’ entrenchments – clever schemes rendered the mining works irrelevant to the battle – before rolling 3.2:1 downward and then rolling “3” for the usual BX result.

Total French losses: 2x RP, 2-7FFL III, and 0-1-4eng [III] eliminated; 2x 10*-13-5, 9*-12-5, and 5x 8*-11-5 rifle XX’s to cadre
Total German losses: 2x RP, 3*-4-4 rifle X and 4*-5-4 rifle cadre eliminated; 14*-16-5, 13-15-5, and 8-11-5 Bavarian rifle divisions to cadre; 12-14-5 and 7-9-5 Prussian division and group to cadre.

If the Entente could conduct attacks of that magnitude every single turn, the Germans would probably run out of morale roughly on schedule. The Entente cannot now do so, but the Entente’s ability has been growing while that of the Germans to resist has been shrinking. As with history, the participants in this game have no idea how things will end up.

In reaction, the Central Powers enjoyed near universal success in army activation, excepting just one German army that would have been very useful, but conducted no attacks. The Austro-Hungarians looked at an attack across the Isonzo, but when not defending their mountains would be even less strong on the attack than are the Italians when attacking into Austrian mountains. The Germans really wanted to attack weak Italians along the Trient salient but decided that the necessary munitions would be a luxury expense when the Entente retains as many as four combat phases before more munitions arrive at the German fronts – the manpower expense of abusing the Italians is barely a consideration, relative to munitions. In the air, German zeppelins and Austrian bombers inflicted no damage to Italian cities or munitions stockpiles.

After an underwhelming, indeed uneventful Central Powers reaction phase, the Entente exploited in early August 1915 largely as a simple continuation of otherwise routing movements. The only notable activity was by the French, whose high command ordered various technical formations out of the line so that they would be more flexible in the near future.

Central Powers Turn

Administratively, during the Central Powers first half of August, various French and Germanic unit commanders received allocations of men and material. French metropolitan troops fleshed out a 10-13-5 rifle and French Colonial troops brought 10-13-5 and 9-12-5 rifle divisions back from cadre status to full strength. Austro-Hungarian volunteers similarly rejuvenated a 5-7-6 mountain rifle division, as Bavarian lads did with a lowly 8-11-5 rifle division. A trail load of pack howitzers fresh from the Ruhr met their Berliner crewmen in the northern Alps to revive a pair of 1-7 field mountain artillery battalions from the Prussian replacement depot. The flood of German divisional reorganizations also continued its interminable flow and the very strong Habsburg force along the Isonzo River continued to grow even more unnecessarily stronger.

The Central Powers conducted no particular moves of note in early August. Reorganized divisions moved into the line; units scheduled for reorganization moved out – the process seems endless and the backlog always lengthens (actually, this reminds me a lot of the US Army Reserve, which seems never to meet a situation for which reorganization isn’t the chosen answer). Austro-Hungarian reinforcements continued to buff their front line, further build their second line, and finally solidly closed the theoretical gap that had long existed in their line in the central Alps.

In the air, in the continuation of what may be a winning Central Powers’ strategy, zeppelins continued to pound Italian cities. This time Milano took a hit. Austrian reconnaissance aircraft also braved flak at Venice to burn half the Italian bomber group on the ground. Simple calculations indicate, it is worth noting, that the Austro-Hungarian Empire won’t be quitting the war due to anything the Italians can possibly do in the next three and a half years. By contrast, the Italians are eventually going to be receiving German attacks on an industrial scale and, combined with intensifying aerial bombing (making a terror hit per turn ever more likely), are the likeliest candidate among Entente powers to surrender, especially if the Germans can push out onto the plains and generate some mobile combats.

Entente reactions to Germanic moves in early August proved quite a bit more spectacular than is usual in our sedate little war. True, the Belgians failed to react, as the British forces in Italy, while the British in Belgium did react and did fail their lone reconnaissance roll and did decline to attack, all as usual in order to avoid consuming their tiny manpower pool in a weak effort. On the other hand, a couple of Italian armies reacted to conduct a serious rationalization of the Isonzo River line, pulling offensive artillery units and specialist formations of the line and rebalancing the defenders with a standard mix of infantry and field artillery: the Italians would be flexible of direction in late August for any good it might do them. The French, naturally, conducted the only Entente offensive activity of note as several armies from the western Ardennes Forest all the way down to the Swiss border reacted successfully.

A mass of French forces, without notable technical support but with several air groups observing, attempted a blatant attack on what had been the heavily garrisoned Luxembourg City. The German garrisoned had thinned in response to pressure elsewhere and in witness to the strength of local defenses and the French sensed a rare opportunity. A defense of 57 points, with entrenchments, making successful use of the resource centers and under the guiding hand of Falkenhayn, neatly stood up the French attack. French forces, enjoying national will and aerial reconnaissance superiority rolled a 3.5:1 up to 4:1 before botching their chance by rolling a “3” and achieving the usual BX result.
French losses: RP and 4-5-5 fld art III eliminated; 2x 8*-11-5 and 9-12-5 Colonial divisions to cadre
German losses: RP eliminated; 12-14-5 and 13-15-5 divisions to cadre

To the great surprise of the French, the next army in line also activated and could not help itself from attempting a make actual progress at weakening and eventually breaking through a sector of the German line. Despite lack of aerial support, facing woods and rough terrain, with Falkenhayn making his sick presence felt on this field too, the French attacked grid 1319 in the worst of the Ardennes. French engineers could have mattered, as six brigades and a flame battalion succeeded well in their tasks, and French morale helped the cause as usual, but the French practice – inevitable if they are to ever get anything done – of attacking at risky odds finally bit them back. Odds of 2.4:1 rolled downward and with a net -1DRM a “3” brought a calamitous AX result, which nonetheless at least played hell with the careful German lineup for receiving a common BX.
German losses: (No RP used, due to the previous battle)3*-4-5 Wurtembourg rifle X and 3-4-7 jager III eliminated; 12-14-5 and 15-17-5 rifle divisions reduced to cadre
French losses: RP, 2-4-7 mot mg III, 1-5 eng III and 8*-11-5 rifle XX all eliminated; 2x 8*-11-5, 2x metro and 1x Colonial 9*-12-5, and 1x each metro and Colonial 10*-13-5 rifle divisions reduced to cadre
At least the next French army in line also activated and shuffled some units to minimize the immediate calamity.

Central Powers exploitation during early August 1915 did its best to cover the extensive damage to the defending order of battle in the area of Luxembourg.

Entente Turn

Given the relative lack of combat during the preceding fortnight, the initial activities of Entente late-July 1915 seemed a trifle boring. No British, German or Austro-Hungarian formations received reinforcements. French men and guns rejuvenated three field artillery battalions into regiments, a continuous process in the face of frequent conversions that robs the pool of equipment that might pay for substantial heavy and siege artillery increases. Italian men and guns rejuvenated three rifle division cadres into full strength divisions besides augmenting an engineer regiment into a brigade and replacing a field artillery regiment.

The only really unusual movement of the Entente armies in late July was the French occupation of the southernmost sector of Belgium. As anyone could predict, the Italian military reinforced and backstopped its western sector, putting paid to any chance of a quick German breakthrough. Beyond those moves, Entente forces largely contented themselves on the ground by merely shifting their balance for their next attacks. The constant shuffle of French forces – quality northward, liability southward – continued at usual. Three British Territorial divisions met their newly fielded artillery components and moved into or toward Italy in the beginning of a move to rationalize what had been an ad hoc deployment in response to Italian desperation. The British seaplane torpedo bomber group also met the Royal Navy’s seaplane carrier for a ride to the Mediterranean Sea, from which it could attack the Austro-Hungarian fleet if only the ships would come out of port (the British would far rather have that second reconnaissance group, rather than a bomber unit that will never have a target it is capable of damaging – the bomber having a printed strength of “1” and thus not qualifying on the bombing chart).

Along the Isonzo, the Italians struck their routine blow, this time in the sector twenty-five miles from the sea. Austrian entrenchments and the rough terrain hindered the Italians, balancing reconnaissance aircraft and morale. Defending flak sent one of three Italian air groups scurrying for home in an odd twist after the Italian bomber group missed the defenders’ ammunition stockpile. Odds of 2.6:1 fell by a tenth as defensive air support played its minor role but then rolled upward, after which the usual both exchange came to pass for the reasonably pleased Italians. Italian losses: RP eliminated; 6*-9-5 rifle and 7*-10-6 mtn rifle XX’s to cadre (love those elite X’s!) Austro-Hungarian losses: 8-11-6 and 5*-7-6 mtn rifle XX’s to cadre; RP eliminated In the long run, the mountain-capable Austrians may develop problems with replacing their losses in the face of the limit of six regiments of the type per month. This problem will not arise very soon, as these losses will be replaced in July.

As British forces again flinched from combat, their lone reconnaissance air group having failed in its duty, the French continued their Ardennes Forest offensive in sector 1219. Shattered woodlands and entrenchments assisted the German defenders to withstand the blow. Morale, reconnaissance aircraft, and two multi-brigade engineer escalades provided the French a potentially decisive edge in their efforts. In a “first” for the war, aerial combat at a noticeable scale raged over the battlefield when a group of French MS-3 fighters intercepted – harmlessly – a handful of LZ-39 airships providing defensive air support. The French also enjoyed their greatest amount of long-range artillery support of the war – enough to increase the odds by a twentieth (in this case irrelevantly). Odds of 2.8:1 rolled upward and a significant French victory lay within reach when the attackers proved only modestly skillful at the tactical level, achieving the routine both-exchange result. This would be a French loss if their morale weren’t so far above the historical. French losses: RP, 4-5 fld art [III] and 1-5 eng III eliminated; 3x 9*-12-5 rfl XX to 4*-5-5 cadre German losses: RP eliminated; 16-18-5 BAV rfl and 12-14-5 PR rfl XX’s to 7*-8-5 and 5*-6-5 cadres

Germanic reaction to Entente aggression in late July proved limited. Two Austro-Hungarian armies along the middle and lower Isonzo River failed to stir; Eugene sent a few reinforcements south from his sector on the headwaters of the river. The German army in the high Alps activated and massed for another attack toward Switzerland but paused at the last moment, realizing that the exact mixture of forces would make absorbing the probable losses highly problematic.

Given the relative lack of combat during the preceding fortnight, the initial activities of Entente late-July 1915 seemed a trifle boring. No British, German or Austro-Hungarian formations received reinforcements. French men and guns rejuvenated three field artillery battalions into regiments, a continuous process in the face of frequent conversions that robs the pool of equipment that might pay for substantial heavy and siege artillery increases. Italian men and guns rejuvenated three rifle division cadres into full strength divisions besides augmenting an engineer regiment into a brigade and replacing a field artillery regiment.

The only really unusual movement of the Entente armies in late July was the French occupation of the southernmost sector of Belgium. As anyone could predict, the Italian military reinforced and backstopped its western sector, putting paid to any chance of a quick German breakthrough. Beyond those moves, Entente forces largely contented themselves on the ground by merely shifting their balance for their next attacks. The constant shuffle of French forces – quality northward, liability southward – continued at usual. Three British Territorial divisions met their newly fielded artillery components and moved into or toward Italy in the beginning of a move to rationalize what had been an ad hoc deployment in response to Italian desperation. The British seaplane torpedo bomber group also met the Royal Navy’s seaplane carrier for a ride to the Mediterranean Sea, from which it could attack the Austro-Hungarian fleet if only the ships would come out of port (the British would far rather have that second reconnaissance group, rather than a bomber unit that will never have a target it is capable of damaging – the bomber having a printed strength of “1” and thus not qualifying on the bombing chart).

Along the Isonzo, the Italians struck their routine blow, this time in the sector twenty-five miles from the sea. Austrian entrenchments and the rough terrain hindered the Italians, balancing reconnaissance aircraft and morale. Defending flak sent one of three Italian air groups scurrying for home in an odd twist after the Italian bomber group missed the defenders’ ammunition stockpile. Odds of 2.6:1 fell by a tenth as defensive air support played its minor role but then rolled upward, after which the usual both exchange came to pass for the reasonably pleased Italians. Italian losses: RP eliminated; 6*-9-5 rifle and 7*-10-6 mtn rifle XX’s to cadre (love those elite X’s!) Austro-Hungarian losses: 8-11-6 and 5*-7-6 mtn rifle XX’s to cadre; RP eliminated In the long run, the mountain-capable Austrians may develop problems with replacing their losses in the face of the limit of six regiments of the type per month. This problem will not arise very soon, as these losses will be replaced in July.

As British forces again flinched from combat, their lone reconnaissance air group having failed in its duty, the French continued their Ardennes Forest offensive in sector 1219. Shattered woodlands and entrenchments assisted the German defenders to withstand the blow. Morale, reconnaissance aircraft, and two multi-brigade engineer escalades provided the French a potentially decisive edge in their efforts. In a “first” for the war, aerial combat at a noticeable scale raged over the battlefield when a group of French MS-3 fighters intercepted – harmlessly – a handful of LZ-39 airships providing defensive air support. The French also enjoyed their greatest amount of long-range artillery support of the war – enough to increase the odds by a twentieth (in this case irrelevantly). Odds of 2.8:1 rolled upward and a significant French victory lay within reach when the attackers proved only modestly skillful at the tactical level, achieving the routine both-exchange result. This would be a French loss if their morale weren’t so far above the historical. French losses: RP, 4-5 fld art [III] and 1-5 eng III eliminated; 3x 9*-12-5 rfl XX to 4*-5-5 cadre German losses: RP eliminated; 16-18-5 BAV rfl and 12-14-5 PR rfl XX’s to 7*-8-5 and 5*-6-5 cadres

Germanic reaction to Entente aggression in late July proved limited. Two Austro-Hungarian armies along the middle and lower Isonzo River failed to stir; Eugene sent a few reinforcements south from his sector on the headwaters of the river. The German army in the high Alps activated and massed for another attack toward Switzerland but paused at the last moment, realizing that the exact mixture of forces would make absorbing the probable losses highly problematic.

Central Powers Turn

Having not played our campaign in nearly three months, and not having notes handy, we began our latest session by accidentally re-conducting the Germanic reaction to Entente activities in late July 1915. The results proved eerily similar.

First, what happened the first time around:
Germanic reaction to Entente aggression in late July proved limited. Two Austro-Hungarian armies along the middle and lower Isonzo River failed to stir; Eugene sent a few reinforcements south from his sector on the headwaters of the river. The German army in the high Alps activated and massed for another attack toward Switzerland but paused at the last moment, realizing that the exact mixture of forces would make absorbing the probable losses highly problematic.

Now, what happened this time around:
Of all the Germanic armies, only two reacted in late July, both along the main front and both merely shuffled a few units out of the main line for conversion.

Entente exploitation during late July 1915 proved similarly unexciting. A few French specialist formations pulled out of the line to make moving to different sectors easier in August. Two Italian cadres pulled out of the line in hopes of receiving drafts of replacements.

The Germanic initial phase of late July 1915 passed with significant activities on all fronts. Italian volunteers re-filled the lone Italian mountain division with fodder and two French rifle divisions likewise received drafts of replacements to hang around their solid cores. Austro-Hungarian draftees plugged the holes in the structure of the lone cadre from that army while one Bavarian and two Prussian 16-18-5 divisions replaced their infantry losses and a 12-14-5 Prussian division did the same. Each Germanic power also upgraded a flak battalion to a regiment to protect the Ruhr zeppelin base and the Trieste fleet base, respectively. In the cases of the Austrians and Bavarians, these actions emptied the depots, while for the French and Prussians the actions drained a majority of the sparse remaining personnel from the system.

Along the main front, German replacements offset the removal of considerable forces from the main line as the German high command continued its effort to catch up with the staggering conversion schedule that is following hard on the heels of the previous wave of conversions that followed the previous plethora of reorganizations and upgrades. Of particular difficulty are Saxon conversions, as the Saxons have suffered disproportionately heavy casualties during the summer of battles in the Ardennes Forest. These problems again point out that when organizations face challenges they tend to reorganize in an effort to appear active, rather than to actually spend effort in attempting to actually solve their problems. The French ground forces are undergoing a similar trauma, except in that they are largely reorganizing trash formations into something every nearly as trashy rather than quality formations into something about as good.

Along the Italian front, the last Austrian unit departed the fortress of Trient while the great majority of Austro-Hungarian forces leaned further southward as another wave of units arrived along the Isonzo River to render the whole position effectively invulnerable to Italian attacks.

The primary offensive activity that the Central Powers took in late July was in the air. Three zeppelins arrived over Firenze, unprotected by anything in the meager Italian arsenal, and achieved one terror bombing hit. A solitary zeppelin squadron over outer London achieved no success.

Entente reaction to the Central Powers air actions should have been useful, or at least interesting, but the usual run of reaction dice “luck” prevented any such thing. The British in Belgium would have attacked, having moved forces appropriately and also preparatory to increasing the British sector and exchanging some forces with the British army in Italy, but once again the lone British air group failed to find useful targets. The British replacement rate is anemic and their ground forces lack a morale advantage, so that as usual when the airmen failed their mission the ground forces aborted their efforts too.

By lack of contrast, the Belgians and every French army in a position to conduct any attacks all failed to react. French armies near Switzerland and in the Vosges Mountains both reacted and conducted a few slight shifts of units, but could not hope to attack into heavy fortifications and terrain with what are, even by French standards, strictly third-line forces. Italian forces along the Isonzo thought (wrongly, in retrospect) that they might attack again across the water, but both armies failed to react, as did General Cadorna’s headquarters in the mountains north of the river.

The Italian army on the east shore of Lake Garda did react, preparing its units for an expansion of the British sector to their east and to firm-up the situation in the mountain passes south of Switzerland.

The British army in Switzerland also reacted, removing some forces from the line for shipment to France in what was the most useful of the pathetic Entente actions of the phase.

The Entente currently expects the German hammer to fall next upon the Italians along the Isonzo River and Entente forces are acting accordingly. A wave of self-supported British formations is taking up the defense of Italy to the east of Lake Garda, which will leave one Italian army to focus exclusively between the Lake and Switzerland while four armies can concentrate force and attention between the British sector and Trieste. The Germans, facing munitions shortages across the West, seem to lack the ability to pound the Italians long and hard enough in the Alps to force a retreat or collapse and appear to be moving to the easier terrain further southeast – essentially pushing west through the Ljubljana Gap. For the Entente this reduces the chance of catastrophe but increases the chance of a slow death, but in either case the Italians need more help and the British are best able to provide it as their deployed forces undergo a steady increase. Specialist British units and fully-supported divisions, plus all the Canadians, Indians and other ‘allied’ forces will continue to deploy into Belgium and France, but the self-supported divisions are finding their way to Italy where each they can defend mountain passes alone or in small corps that the Germans and Austrians should have trouble cracking. Meanwhile, a second British army headquarters is set to arrive in France and will take command of half of what may be an almost doubled British sector adjacent to the North Sea.