EP '14 mechanics/balance

[Volcano Man]

Well, the places where they dug in, they sat in those places for days. Case in point: Usdau, and the entire line along the 1st Masurian Lakes positions. In both cases the Russians occupied the area and worked on their positions well before the Germans were anywhere in the area. The Russians suspected that the Germans would attack, or thought it was an exposed flank (ie. Usdau) and then they stopped and dug in.

This again is another difference between reading into a passing comment in historical text or something stated in a book, and taking what makes sense at a wargame level. If it is so easy to dig in, then the defender would be digging and creating improved positions just about every two turns, making it IMPOSSIBLE for any ground to be gained against a vastly numerically superior Russian force. So, as it stands right now, the Russians have to spend a day of digging - but it can be much less if they use their engineers to assist (which is what they were mainly for) as they greatly increase the probability.

And also, every army in 1914 had a similar situation - it was not like the soldiers didn't know how to dig a hole in the ground, or were discouraged from doing so by doctrine, or that today's modern infantry are smarter at digging holes. The fact is that every soldier didn't carry a shovel back then - they didn't have a compact fold up E-tool like today's infantry.

If you look at the BEF during France 1914, you will see the comment come up repeatedly that the infantry had a woefully inadequate number of entrenching/pioneer type tools, and this was true for just about everyone. The engineers and pioneers of all armies had the tools, but the infantry did not. There were various reasons for this, such as the shortsightedness that it would just be a quick offensive war in a few months, to logically, there not being enough shovels to go around, nor enough transport to move them (we are literally talking about millions of soldiers here). But I do also think that, logistics wise, no army prepared to go into a war with the idea that every soldier would be digging in to defend. Of course by 1915 more and better entrenching tools suddenly became a priority, and it wasn't a problem to pile up huge amounts of such tools along a static front.

So again, I think the 1% digging in is about as good as it can get in 1914. If it were 2%, which seems like a small change, then there is just too much digging in going on to be historical. The current level encourages the Russians to do what they historically did - plan to go on the defensive somewhere, then spend some time actually setting up defenses for a day or two. If it worked any other way, then the Russians would simply walk up to the Germans and THEN start digging in immediately with results. It didn't work like that and it would break the mobility of the campaign. ;)