Ersatz Division question

[FM WarB]

Ed,
I notice the German Ersatz divisions have no machineguns. Cron and Nash state that the Brigade Ersatz battalions that comprised thes divisions had mg sections. Cron's english language version even allocates machine gun sections per Ersatz division, pp. 328-329.

Why did you decide to leave these out?

[Mr Grumpy]

No doubt Ed will give you a full reply, but in his notes he says...

"The equipping of the German Army with machine guns was done just prior to the start of the conflict and many reserve formations suffered from a shortage. Some reserve infantry brigades and reserve jäger battalions went to war without their machine gun companies."

I would assume that Ersatz divisions would come under the banner of "reserve formations "?? :chin:

[Volcano Man]

Ed,
I notice the German Ersatz divisions have no machineguns. Cron and Nash state that the Brigade Ersatz battalions that comprised thes divisions had mg sections. Cron's english language version even allocates machine gun sections per Ersatz division, pp. 328-329.

Why did you decide to leave these out?

What, are you scouring every source you can find to locate a error? Don't worry, you will find an OOB problem eventually, I am not perfect. ;) At some point though, a work is a work, and it is there until someone can make something better (ie. a book, a boardgame, a movie). But I can't imagine why you would be reading Cron - its not a good read, and BTW, Cron's English language version is full of errors, and I mean terrible errors. My copy is so full of pencil marks from correcting stuff from the German version, that it is hardly any use without them.

To answer the question though: All I saw was that the Ersatz divisions had "6 machine gun sections" in the whole division, not companies, sections. So, when you factor in the known MG shortage (mentioned in the notes I think), and the fact that the Germans were constantly pushing MGs "down" the chain to the front line units (nearly the entire 1st line reserve divisions were lacking their full compliment of MGs, which was a huge problem), and factor in that the Germans had to replace MG losses, and also factor in that the Germans were constantly trying to expand their MG forces, then it didn't seem to make sense to me to create a new MG section component for the German ersatz.

What I mean is, if there are "6 machine gun sections" in a German ersatz division, and knowing that a section is 2 MGs, it would mean that each Ersatz *brigade*, not battalion, would have a 2 MG (30 men) unit assigned to it. This is hardly worth modeling IMO, so I left them out, again in light of the fact that there was an MG shortage and the low concentration of the unit. This is a similar case to why I left out pioneer sections and such, and I probably should have left out some of those Landwehr artillery batteries as well, but it is hard to draw the line, so to speak, "the line" just kind of forms. For the latter (artillery batteries), I tried to draw the line at a full battery.

You might have heard that a designer needs to make the judgment call to "leave some guns behind", well, I suppose the short answer is that I chose to leave these behind because unlike allied MG units of 30 men for each infantry battalion, this would be 30 men for each ersatz infantry brigade -- hardly something worth throwing in, given the circumstances mentioned above. In other words, even though allied MGs were in 2 gun sections (30 men units), this was a doctrinal thing they did, but it still meant that there were 6-8 MGs per brigade, which was nearly identical to the Germans, they were just concentrated differently. But when you start talking about 2 MGs per an entire brigade, then I felt it was good place to stop.

[FM WarB]

I am not campaigning for these machinegun sections. Thanks for explaining your logic, Ed.

[JohanIV]

It might be that this is a design decision that you may want to reconsider. On page 121 it's stated that the sections are actually detachments, who later on the page are TOE'd as having 6 MGs just like companies.

It would seem that the difference between detachments and companies is that detachments had more personnel (115) and more horses, thus being more mobiile.

Ed,
I notice the German Ersatz divisions have no machineguns. Cron and Nash state that the Brigade Ersatz battalions that comprised thes divisions had mg sections. Cron's english language version even allocates machine gun sections per Ersatz division, pp. 328-329.

Why did you decide to leave these out?

To answer the question though: All I saw was that the Ersatz divisions had "6 machine gun sections" in the whole division, not companies, sections.

<snip>

What I mean is, if there are "6 machine gun sections" in a German ersatz division, and knowing that a section is 2 MGs, it would mean that each Ersatz *brigade*, not battalion, would have a 2 MG (30 men) unit assigned to it.

[Volcano Man]

Well, actually, I guess I forgot to follow this old thread up. In the next F14 update I did actually add MG detachments to each Ersatz brigade in the "late" OOB. Initially in post #3 I didn't think it was proper to do it to keep MG sections out of the OOB, but instead I looked more into it an it is justified to have a 4 MG detachment sized unit per Ersatz brigade and they come in handy during the Race to the Sea campaign. So thanks to FM War B for calling my attention to it; it just took some time to look more into it. However, given the historical MG shortage in the "early" campaign, these MG detachments will intentionally not be present in those early scenarios.

As for the increased mobility, I think that at this scale the difference in mobility is negligible so I try to keep the line drawn between foot and cavalry MG sections there.

[jonnymacbrown]

"What, are you scouring every source you can find to locate a error?"

:rolleyes:
There is no need to get so defensive Ed. We all LOVE the game. If FMB is reading a book on German Army OOB in 1914 it is because of your work. Nobody is looking for errors. We just want to know more about the campaign. jonny :smoke:

[Volcano Man]

"What, are you scouring every source you can find to locate a error?"

:rolleyes:
There is no need to get so defensive Ed. We all LOVE the game. If FMB is reading a book on German Army OOB in 1914 it is because of your work. Nobody is looking for errors. We just want to know more about the campaign. jonny :smoke:

This discussion was from a year ago jonnymacbrown. At that time I was getting simultaneously bombarded with a lot of what I perceived as minor nit picks. However, the more I looked into this particular one the more I felt it was justified (I just didn't follow up with a reply). Appologies to FM War B for that. :whis:

I know that, in hindsight, all the issues were coming in at the time because everyone was so excited with it and in each case where something was brought up, I did (and do) seriously consider it. So past frustration aside at a time that I was moving forward to start on the next FWWC title, I am thankful for the feedback. :)

[FM WarB]

I wish I had the German version of the Cron work as I read German. I wonder if any confusion occurs due to the use of the German word "Abteilung" which can mean either battalion or detachment.

I appreciate how bombarded you felt, Ed and took no offense at your initial explanation.

[alaric99x]

"Abteilung" could also mean "department."