Army First Glance

[Carthaginian]

Yes, Korpen, I speak largely of what I know- the US system.

I do agree that conscription like you suggest only works in a situation with certain circumstances- a nation with a tenuous situation, a devoted populace, a strong moral identity, and an overriding sense of duty.
Not many nations get this right.
ATM, the only one I can think if is Israel.

[Korpen]

Yes, Korpen, I speak largely of what I know- the US system.

I do agree that conscription like you suggest only works in a situation with certain circumstances- a nation with a tenuous situation, a devoted populace, a strong moral identity, and an overriding sense of duty.
Not many nations get this right.
ATM, the only one I can think if is Israel.

You know, after reading up on the US system, I would hesitate to even call that a conscription system in the European sense at all. The system the US used in fact reminds me of the system used by Sweden in the early day of the thirty years war (1618-1648) in that it was selection for service into an otherwise full-time force and only applied to a minority of the population.

Most conscription systems have worked very well as long as two conditions were fulfilled:
-That the state was seen a legitimate.
-That it was universal (or near so).
After that it is all about other factor, which has little to do with volunteer of compulsory service.

[Carthaginian]

You know, after reading up on the US system, I would hesitate to even call that a conscription system in the European sense at all. The system the US used in fact reminds me of the system used by Sweden in the early day of the thirty years war (1618-1648) in that it was selection for service into an otherwise full-time force and only applied to a minority of the population.

Excepting the 'applied to only a small portion of the population' part, you're starting to understand it now, Korpen. During major wars like WWI/WWII, only a very small segment of the population was exempted; during more limited ones and during peacetime, the only real 'qualifications' for being conscripted was that you were 1.) over 18 but under a variable upper age limit  2.) unmarried, 3.) not in university and 4.) reasonably healthy- and the married and university exemptions occasionally went away.

So it was really a fairly large pool for general draftees... other, more specialized fields (doctors, nurses, pilots, etc) had their own special rules for conscription due to the nature of their fields.

[Korpen]

1.) over 18 but under a variable upper age limit  2.) unmarried, 3.) not in university and 4.) reasonably healthy- and the married and university exemptions occasionally went away.

Those are among the reason why I would be disinclined to call the US draft a conscription system, the large number of people disqualified and the fact that the soldier did no longer belong to a unit after completing the initial training/service period.

In a conscription system the unit you train with continues to stand in the reserve, so at mobilisation you go back to serve with the very same people in the same platoon you did your basic training with.

I also suspect that the fact in true conscription system everyone expect and calculates with doing their year or so of service in the year they become 18 or 19, so there is much less of feeling that it takes them away from something else.

[Nobody]

I think we should remove the year from the name/level of the unit and instead assign a level number to them (only the description should say something like "similar to 1880 units"). Also we should add weaker units (level 0?) "primitive blunt and sharp weapons", not for the players but we could encounter natives who have them.

Reason: Our time an technology might (should) go different ways. Always being told to have e.g. a 1860 army in say 1890 would be counterproductive if no reason to change that occurred in the meantime. Furthermore it might be a good idea to keep the descriptions of the army levels a secret until they have been developed.

[Guinness]

The years are meant to illustrate real world capabilities. The year in which advances of army capability are introduced would be subject to in-game circumstances.

[Nobody]

The years are meant to illustrate real world capabilities. The year in which advances of army capability are introduced would be subject to in-game circumstances.

I know that, and I thought I said that as well. Anyway wouldn't it be much better to relate that to certain developments (weapons & tactics) rather than years?


Unrelated to that, is it possible that the chosen years relate some American developments? Especially the 1860 & 80s comparison? For Europe (or rather Prussian) dates like 1840-50 (needle ignition rifles), 1872 (metal cartridges), 1884 (multi-shot) and 1888 (smokeless powder) might be the important cornerstones.

[miketr]

The years are meant to illustrate real world capabilities. The year in which advances of army capability are introduced would be subject to in-game circumstances.

I know that, and I thought I said that as well. Anyway wouldn't it be much better to relate that to certain developments (weapons & tactics) rather than years?


Unrelated to that, is it possible that the chosen years relate some American developments? Especially the 1860 & 80s comparison? For Europe (or rather Prussian) dates like 1840-50 (needle ignition rifles), 1872 (metal cartridges), 1884 (multi-shot) and 1888 (smokeless powder) might be the important cornerstones.

What you are talking about here is what is known as FLAVOR TEXT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_text

We are not going to get bogged down in terms people having X gun, rifle, etc.  The tech level trumps.

Michael

[Korpen]

What you are talking about here is what is known as FLAVOR TEXT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_text

We are not going to get bogged down in terms people having X gun, rifle, etc.  The tech level trumps.

I do not see Nobodys question like that; but rather a question about why some of those years were selected.
For example: Together with smokeless gunpowder, the introduction of quick firing artillery in 1897 was probably the most revolutionary thing in land warfare since gunpowder.   However in seems a bit early to call it a 1895 tech, and a bit late to call it 1905.
So would it not make sense to basically pack the increments a bit tighter in the early part of the table with 1880-1890-1900 as the tech level years to better match the truly game-changing techs?
The fairly tight increases would also reflect that the period 1880-1900 is probably the period of the most radical changes to land warfare ever.

[ctwaterman]

*laughs*

Ok Korpen does have a point but man that is going to be a seriously painful amount of work.... :P :'(

[Nobody]

I have a rather simple idea against the "decimal point problem":
Instead of using multiplicative factors (1.1 for Regulars, 0.8 for Reserve, 0.9 for Divisions and 0.75 for Brigades) lets use additive modifiers (+10% for Regulars, -20% for Reserve, -10% for Divisions and -25% for Brigades).
The result looks like this (I also added an additional lower level):

	Army Corp			Division			Brigade
level	Regular	Conscript	Reserve	Regular	Conscript	Reserve	Regular	Conscript	Reserve
0	110	100	80	50	45	35	8,5	7,5	5,5
I	220	200	160	100	90	70	17	15	11
II	330	300	240	150	135	105	25,5	22,5	16,5
III	440	400	320	200	180	140	34	30	22
IV	550	500	400	250	225	175	42,5	37,5	27,5
V	660	600	480	300	270	210	51	45	33
VI	770	700	560	350	315	245	59,5	52,5	38,5
VII	880	800	640	400	360	280	68	60	44

	Cavalry Corp			Division			Brigade
level	Regular	Conscript	Reserve	Regular	Conscript	Reserve	Regular	Conscript	Reserve
0	90	80	60	40	45	25	6,5	7,5	3,5
I	180	160	120	80	90	50	13	15	7
II	270	240	180	120	135	75	19,5	22,5	10,5
III	360	320	240	160	180	100	26	30	14
IV	450	400	300	200	225	125	32,5	37,5	17,5
V	540	480	360	240	270	150	39	45	21
VI	630	560	420	280	315	175	45,5	52,5	24,5
VII	720	640	480	320	360	200	52	60	28

And if we reduce the malus for Brigades to 20% we can eliminate the decimal points altogether:

	Brigade
level	Regular	Conscript	Reserve
0	9	8	6
I	18	16	12
II	27	24	18
III	36	32	24
IV	45	40	30
V	54	48	36
VI	63	56	42
VII	72	64	48

Cavalry	Brigade
level	Regular	Conscript	Reserve
0	7	8	4
I	14	16	8
II	21	24	12
III	28	32	16
IV	35	40	20
V	42	48	24
VI	49	56	28
VII	56	64	32

@Korpen
I actually meant both.

@Mike
That might be, but so are your years. Only that it makes much more sense to use technology and tactics instead of arbitrarily chosen years which don't really seem to fit to any sort of "milestone" at all.

@ctwaterman
Really? I mean, "how hard can it be?"
I already mentioned some, and if all name few more we should be done in no time, shouldn't we?

[Carthaginian]

Years... Tech Levels... WHO CARES- BOTH ARE ARBITRARY!

The years are there so people will have a general idea of when a given tech becomes available. Your tech levels do not offer anything for people just to 'grab hold of' and know about where they stand in comparison to OTL forces.
Even though my nation will have pinfire rifles initially, then single-shot bolt--action rifles, etc- following the European model rather than the American one- I have absolutely no problem with years being used rather than random numbers without any frame of reference. Even if I had an American based army in a system where the years are based on more on the European development chain, I would prefer years as a benchmark than levels.

One guy's 'milestones' might mean nothing to anyone else... but a milestone is better than an abstract.

[ctwaterman]

Actually....

The charts nobody posted could be useful thats up to debate.

But the Research for what historical levels are needed and where was the difficult part.

The Years between the US Civil War and say 1905 are chock full of military advances especially in the Army Era...

The Years before were picked for Basically everyone has breach loading Weapons and some artillary
to Everyone has a smokeless powder Mauser Knock Off more artillary and a few machine guns, gatling guns or such.

Charles