1922 Rules Change Discussion

[Darman]

Last spring I read a book about England's struggle to arm its expanding army at the beginning of WW1.  Simple things like optical instruments for gunsights, binoculars, and any instrument with glass covering it.  The English didn't have a large domestic glass industry.  They had bought their military binoculars from the Germans.  Fertilizer production was severely curtailed because of the need to produce explosives, until a process for synthesizing nitrogen from electricity was discovered, I believe the waste products were allowed to be turned into fertilizer.  The Arsenal at Woolwich began running 3 shifts a day (the transition was made over time as more workers were trained).  Munitions production was increased above and beyond the capacity available at the beginning of the war. 

As I've thought about what people have written so far and recalling the (limited) literature I've read on the subject I have two questions:
1.  Why can't any BP set aside for ammunition production during a wartime economy count double only for ammunition?  Of course it wouldn't have to happen overnight, maybe the second half year of war economy BP is worth 50% extra and then the third half year its up to 100% extra.  The purpose would be to simulate the gearing up of the economy to produce munitions in addition to the other things an army needs.  Lets face it, a country at war cannot afford to invest money in additional BP, especially when that BP won't be available to several half-years to come. 
2.  I have no problem with requiring armies to expend massive amounts of ammunition when engaged in heavy fighting, however, why can't we make it per engagement?  Per large engagement, not skirmishing.  That way the commanders can "save" ammunition by creating stockpiles of ammunition behind the lines for use during a set period of time.  For example: The Green army commander has been given an army reserve of 5 units of ammunition for his three corps for the whole 6 month period.  His army receives 2 units of ammunition per corps for each month except June when an offensive is being launched.  Any corps (or army or army group) that overdraws its allotment for the month draws from a reserve.  That way one can wear out one's opponents' ammunition supplies.  and it also forces people to strategize (I chose June to launch the offensive because the next month when new ammunition supplies will be available.  I also believe that such a system would slow down the pace of campaigns, since they dont expend a set amount of ammunition during the entire 6 month period regardless of the number of attacks or defenses they make. 

Sorry for rambling a bit...

[Kaiser Kirk]

Rambling is good at times :)

1. I could actually see a better argument for more BP production during wartime as mills go from single or double shifts to triple and military use is prioritized over civilian. I'm guessing that would overall be bad for the SIM however, as being in a war economy has little perceptable downside to me.

Regardless, the metal required for a given amount of ammunition wouldn't change however.

One of the issues here is that the Navalism forces are small, and production is weak compared to OTL. The biggest power in the world- France- produces only 78,000 tons of Military grade steel per year, while OTL generic steel production in 1912 was 14,403,688 tons. So the balance needs be different if the demand ratios are to be similar.

2. well this isn't far off what I was suggesting about setting use rates. If orders stayed on a per month basis this might work, but on a 6 mo. basis it would be harder.  Perhaps have the orders include the number of units of fire available to that Corps?

[miketr]

These are some tables from Race to the Front: The Materiel Foundations of Coalition Strategy in the Great War by Kevin D. Stubbs

As you can see all aspects of production skyrocket once the war starts (click on the thumbnail to view the tables).

From what I have read in most countries things like steel production, coal, etc all drop.  What happens is war production takes more and more away from the civilian economy.  So in peace time a nation might spend say 5% of GDP on their military but after 4 years of war its around 40%.  So yes way more shells, guns, etc are built but its at the expense of all most a shut down of anything not related to war production, food and other essentials.  I can provide a couple of titles if people want some books to look in. If you want to read the poster child for defective war mobilization I suggest Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower and The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze.

Michael

[miketr]

One of the issues here is that the Navalism forces are small, and production is weak compared to OTL. The biggest power in the world- France- produces only 78,000 tons of Military grade steel per year, while OTL generic steel production in 1912 was 14,403,688 tons. So the balance needs be different if the demand ratios are to be similar.

Keep in mind that is 78,000 tons of finished military product.  For ever ton that goes into the finished product many more get used on tools, dies, machinery, etc.  For example the German navy in 1938 had a budget of something like 40,000 tons of steel a month.  I think we all know that the KM was not building 480,000 tons of warships in 1938.  The allotment might have been even higher I would have to check the book again.  The biggest user of steel in any economy, war time or not is going to be civilian needs.

Michael

[Nobody]

From what I have read in most countries things like steel production, coal, etc all drop.  What happens is war production takes more and more away from the civilian economy.  So in peace time a nation might spend say 5% of GDP on their military but after 4 years of war its around 40%.  So yes way more shells, guns, etc are built but its at the expense of all most a shut down of anything not related to war production, food and other essentials.

Does that mean you suggest that wartime production should rise by a factor of around 8 over four years of war?

[miketr]

Roughly what we were talking about in the N4 rules thread was this.  We move to tax based system.

Default tax rate is assumed to be in 3% range to support military, your growth is tied to your taxes.  Higher taxes less growth.

Peace time absolute max tax rate is 10%.

Max increase you could do was to in effect double it in any one year; please note massive hand waving going on here and much more details in the still untested Beta rules.

So nation X goes to war.  Nation X decides to double their tax rate; it goes from 3% - 6% (year 1).  Then it goes from 6% to 12% (year 2) and from 12% - 24% (year 3).  On year 4 they hit max tax rate for the rules set of 25% of GDP.  We were debating various bad things to happen as you push your economy harder and harder.  Results to be from nothing to upper end to be economic collapse and revolution.  

Using the current system I think I had suggested cumulative 50% increase in available cash and BP with an every higher increase in cost of IC and BP.  Said increases to occur every economic you are in total war, only mods can declare total war and its after at least 6 months of active warfare.  

So it would be like this.

Declare war, next economic you get the boost (I would suggest pain and death for people trying to declare war in month 5 of the 6 month economic.)  

6 months + 50%
12 months + 100%
18 months + 150%
24 months + 200%
30 months + 250%

I had posted stuff like this before in the Army threads some place.  People might want to look there.

Michael

[P3D]

I've never been a big fan of the

If a nation is engaged in trench warfare, units at the theater - units that are not engaging in combat, too - consume artillery ammunition, at a rate of 1000t per corps per Artillery rating. Ammunition can be stockpiled, the maximum amount is six months of reserve for the entire army - the total 'artillery' rating of one's armed forces.

bit. Why should units NOT IN COMBAT be using ammo? Is this saying that those units are forwarding their ammo to the units that are fighting? Then what do they use when they're rotated to the front in a combat role? If this is so, what's the point of "Reserves" if they won't have any ammo?

Because that's how I got the ammo consumption figure. Take how much the British Army used, then divided by the number of divisions and time. If you prefer further beancounting, just double/triple/quadruple the ammo consumption for active units.

[Sachmle]

I've never been a big fan of the

If a nation is engaged in trench warfare, units at the theater - units that are not engaging in combat, too - consume artillery ammunition, at a rate of 1000t per corps per Artillery rating. Ammunition can be stockpiled, the maximum amount is six months of reserve for the entire army - the total 'artillery' rating of one's armed forces.

bit. Why should units NOT IN COMBAT be using ammo? Is this saying that those units are forwarding their ammo to the units that are fighting? Then what do they use when they're rotated to the front in a combat role? If this is so, what's the point of "Reserves" if they won't have any ammo?

Because that's how I got the ammo consumption figure. Take how much the British Army used, then divided by the number of divisions and time. If you prefer further beancounting, just double/triple/quadruple the ammo consumption for active units.

So you took the total tonnage of ammo used by the British Army in, I'm guessing WWI, over a 6mo period, divided it by the number of Division involved in fighting over that 6mo period, and came up w/ a value per division per 6mo. Then you multiplied that by 2, since our Corps are 2 Divisions (per rules) and got the Ammo use per Corps for a 6mo period, correct? Or am I not following you?

[miketr]

I only suggest we move to a pure cash system for ammo, other than early 'shell' crises no one really ran out of ammo in WW1.  Yes there were problems in Russian and A-H but those were part of general economic collapses.

Michael

[ctwaterman]

Ok...

Interesting....

Charles

[Sachmle]

I only suggest we move to a pure cash system for ammo, other than early 'shell' crises no one really ran out of ammo in WW1.  Yes there were problems in Russian and A-H but those were part of general economic collapses.

Michael

What about $X and YBP to build enough ammo for 1 Corps for 1HY. This is only usable by the Corps level that it was built for (4/2, 5/3, etc). It would have an upkeep cost (checking primers, making sure no damage to the shells while in storage) and a shelf life. I'm no expert, but I'd guess that after sitting for a while ammo degrades especially the primer. If you upgrade your corps, you need new ammo, at least some of it. I'd guess that a 3" shell is a 3" shell whether it's 1895 or 1910, but as Corps increase I presumed they got bigger artillery. So maybe 50% is usable, but the rest is scrap and you still have to build another entire unit of ammo to add to the 50% that is usable to make the next levels ammo supply (more artillery = more ammo). This seems disconnected as I read it, maybe someone else can follow my idea and make it more clear.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Sachmle : I don't think I followed that. We already spend $x and Ybp to buy ammo for a tech-specific corp level with a cap of 6mo or 1HY supply. Which is what your intro seems to be suggesting.

You then add in a way to upgrade ammo dumps, which is interesting. Historically there were issues with Armys resisting changes in ammo due to loosing the dumps. In my case, I'm just going to keep the reserves as Advanced for now, and need to build up cutting edge supplies.

Overall- I'm thinking that while our armies are - say- 1/4 of the historic size during WWI,  our Steel production is a far lower ratio as we don't account for the 'civilian' or 'other products' production which in OTL wartime might be converted to shells.

So while P3D figured out appropriate ammo expenditure rates for a theater, probably based on shells/time/combatants - and that part scales to our armies, the steel portion isn't because we don't model that non-military steel production which could be converted.

So a lowering of the BP cost of ammo during wartime might just make sense.

[P3D]

So you took the total tonnage of ammo used by the British Army in, I'm guessing WWI, over a 6mo period, divided it by the number of Division involved in fighting over that 6mo period, and came up w/ a value per division per 6mo. Then you multiplied that by 2, since our Corps are 2 Divisions (per rules) and got the Ammo use per Corps for a 6mo period, correct? Or am I not following you?

Basically yes.

Mike: thanks for the references.

[miketr]

I only suggest we move to a pure cash system for ammo, other than early 'shell' crises no one really ran out of ammo in WW1.  Yes there were problems in Russian and A-H but those were part of general economic collapses.

Michael

What about $X and YBP to build enough ammo for 1 Corps for 1HY. This is only usable by the Corps level that it was built for (4/2, 5/3, etc). It would have an upkeep cost (checking primers, making sure no damage to the shells while in storage) and a shelf life. I'm no expert, but I'd guess that after sitting for a while ammo degrades especially the primer. If you upgrade your corps, you need new ammo, at least some of it. I'd guess that a 3" shell is a 3" shell whether it's 1895 or 1910, but as Corps increase I presumed they got bigger artillery. So maybe 50% is usable, but the rest is scrap and you still have to build another entire unit of ammo to add to the 50% that is usable to make the next levels ammo supply (more artillery = more ammo). This seems disconnected as I read it, maybe someone else can follow my idea and make it more clear.

Well every side had dated artillery pieces that they either had in storage at the start of the war or in forts.  Then once the war kicked off they snapped up anything that could shoot.  Most of Frances heavy artillery park in the first year or so of the war came from French fortresses.  German and Austria when they overran Poland in 1915 captured like a 1,000 guns and over 2 million rounds of ammo from the Russian forts.  That was enough guns to equip over 20 of the new triangle divisions with artillery.  So old, captured or whatever guns are used.  Unless they are really outdated like, black powder muzzle loaders they got used.

Michael

[Darman]

During the Franco-Prussian war blackpowder muzzleloading cannon were used ineffectually by the French in static positions.  Especially after Paris was invested by the Prussians.  I realize that it was prior to the period we are discussing but its another example of using obsolete equipment, after all weapons are never completely obsolete, an arrow from a bow will kill you just as dead as a rifle bullet.