EP '14 mechanics/balance

[Volcano Man]

ComradeP

Volcano Man, would it be an option to rate the 1st Army heavy artillery train as siege artillery based on their relative strength against the forts in the area, which as you discovered were not modern?

It is a good question, and I actually looked into that but the problem is really how siege artillery is translated into the game.

The "Siege Gun" flag is really intended for modern guns that appeared just before the war began, which essentially threw everything out the window and made forts obsolete overnight.  Some could argue that this was simply because of the size of the guns were so massive, but it did have to do with other things, like high angle fire and extremely heavy concrete piecing shells.

These de Bange guns are from 1877, and although are siege guns in name, they just didn't have the principles going on with the weight of the shells and high angle, for one thing. The 152mm gun had some heavy shells to be sure (~40kg), and they were concrete piercing type, but it shouldn't be considered a siege gun any more than the 21cm Moerser 10 should be, the latter being more of a candidate though, I think.

The design decision here is that these guns are what I call these "pseudo siege guns". I don't give them the siege gun flag per se, but they get the siege gun hard attack calculation because of their concrete piecing shells. So, in other words, they get the hard attack of siege gun (for the AP shell) but not the modern siege gun type devastating effects.  I think this puts them in a nice middle ground between normal artillery and the modern siege guns.

Not to mention, when I tried the 152mm de Bange guns out with the siege gun flag then they were obliterating these weak forts in single turns. With out the flag but with their correct (higher) hard attack now they are fully capable of disrupting defenders without laying waste to the forts. The latter seems well beyond their capability - the de Bange guns were conduct sustained bombardments of forts over a day or more. I suppose it is still just a design mentality we are talking about here -- the guns could be made to have the siege gun flag very quickly, but from what I see this inflates their performance well beyond what could be expected of them. That said, their new hard attack with the weaker forts gets results (when they have ammunition). In the first barrage I got about 4 disruptions on the forts. The idea here is that you will still have to bombard the forts for a long while, and even (repeatedly) assault before all defenders are disrupted. This would be in line with 1870s fortress warfare.

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As for the entrenching tool issue: well, it is unknown if they are referring to the 1915 situation in that book I would guess, or I could be thinking about sapper shovels which were transported by carts instead of a personal miniature shovel. If I was remembering it wrong then I eat my words. :)

But really it doesn't matter, the issue here is not whether a guy could dig a hole in the ground or not - the previous description is just to justify the design decision. Even if remembered incorrectly at the moment, it could be rationalized any number of ways.

Even if he had just his hands available, you figure he could dig an improved position in soft dirt in two hours time, sure. I too was in the infantry. The main issue is how long it takes, ***in game terms***, to dig a TRENCH.  With a digging in value higher than what we have, we just don't end up with 1914 style warfare, plain and simple. You get "trenches" being thrown up in a matter of turns, and the front line constantly bogging down into stagnation. So, regardless of if they had shovels on their person in 1914, or whether off the top of my head I was remembering the sapper full sized shovel rather than a portable miniature shovel, it always comes down to gameplay. The fact that we cannot allow Improved Positions to appear at one rate, and Trenches at a longer rate is the issue. So no, no change will be made there. Of course 1915 and 1916 would have a higher dig in rate however as this would be more reflective of the period and doctrine, if we ever get that far...

Also consider that Improved Positions provide a fairly reasonable protection level of -20% IIRC. What Improved Positions actually represent we don't really know, but lets put the highest considerations on them, that it is modeling BOTH cover and concealment for the entire hex of often 1000 men or more. So yes, it would take longer than two hours to accomplish this in my mind. As I said, you can justify it in any direction, and given that I feel the current behavior better simulates the 1914 campaigns, it will remain as is. Feel free to try your own scenarios with higher digging in rates though.