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ORIGINAL: The Land

complicated question! Of course it varied a lot over time... Britain for instance started off very high, slumped after the original BEF was beaten up, but managed to sustain the quality of its infantry fairly well into the late war.

And are we looking at an average across formations? Or only the better formations? By late war, the best German units were better than ever, the weaker formations were a shambles.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

Historically in WW1. What do you think?

Here's my take on what I have read so far . . .

Germany 10
France 8
UK 7
Serbia 7
Russia 6
USA 6
Austria-Hungary 5
Greece 5
Italy 5
Ottoman Turkey 5
Belguim 4
Bulgaria 4
Romania 4

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

Interesting about the BEF - most of them had never fought before. The last war that the British fought was the Boer War, which ended in 1902. So while the BEF consisted substantially of professional soldiers whose training was excellent, they still had a lot to learn on the battlefield.

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ORIGINAL: The Land

while the last war that France or Germany had fought was....? ;)

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

For example, the "German" and Hungarian parts of the Austro-Hungarian army were far better than some of the regiments raised from the nationalities who didn't want to be in that empire any more.

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ORIGINAL: mdsmall

Good point. This raises the idea of interesting idea of distinguishing between different corps in the A-H army, depending on where they were raised in the Empire. Ideally, corps from regions that became new nations after the war (e.g, Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia) would start with a lower morale rating than corps from German or Hungarian parts of the Empire. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way of building those kinds of distinctions between corps belonging to the same major, apart from changing their starting strength and experience. An alternative would be to introduce some new decision events later in the war (after AH national morale drops below a certain threshold) for defections from corps raised from these regions - similar to the defections that strike the Russian Army close to the end.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete

Historically in WW1. What do you think?

Here's my take on what I have read so far . . .

Germany 10
France 8
UK 7
Serbia 7
Russia 6
USA 6
Austria-Hungary 5
Greece 5
Italy 5
Ottoman Turkey 5
Belguim 4
Bulgaria 4
Romania 4

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ORIGINAL: shri

I would swap UK and France, esp. the Guards, Canadians, Anzacs were pure elite corps. French had no large breakthrough corps equivalent of the Stormtroopers or the ones mentioned. Also i would give Bulgaria a 5, Russia a 5, Italy a 4 and Romania a 3. Serbia can be 7 or even 8.

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In addition, minor Russian nationalities like Finns, Baltics, Ukrainians, Turkish Muslims, Caucasian Muslims were given some units which would rebel if Russian morale fell below a certain point. (Caucasian Muslims would rebel if Kars fell, Turkish if Muslim conscription ordered etc.)
Similarly for Austria, Czech, Slav, units would rebel below a certain morale point causing a cascade effect. (Czech units would rebel after Kaiser Franz died, Slav would rebel anytime against Russia/Romania/Serbia but not against Italy)

For Ottomans, Arab units would rebel. (Arab units after Lawrence captures 1/2 towns)
For British the Indians would (but with a very low % of rebellion, say others were at 90% the Indians at 20% or something).

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete
Ah yes, but you were saying the BEF "started off high". I have a book by Peter Hart called "Fire and Movement", which I have not read yet, about the BEF and on the dust jacket it says, " . . . for too long the British part in the 1914 campaign has been veiled in layers of self-congratulatory myth; a tale of unprepared Britain, reliant on the superior class of her regular soldiers to bolster the rabble of the unreliable French army and defeat the teeming hordes of German troops." Peter Hart is a senior historian at the Imperial War Museum in London.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete


I am not convinced that British infantry were better than the French. The BEF did have Guards regiments in 1914, but they suffered terrible casualties in the early months of the war so the "Guards effect" would have been largely dissipated by the end of that year. They were replaced by Kitchener's army, who only had received basic training and were not risked much in action in 1915, or in 1916 until the Somme where they suffered terrible casualties. The Anzac units I give an extra 0.5 to for their attacking stats. Basically, at the moment I have 3 bands of infantry - Germany - France/UK/Serbia - Austria-Hungary/Russia and the rest. I am experimenting with the A-H army by adding "Colonial Corps" with weaker stats to represent disgruntled national minorities.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete
Austria-Hungary 5
Italy 5
Bulgaria 4

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ORIGINAL: Chernobyl

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete
Austria-Hungary 5
Italy 5
Bulgaria 4

How do you figure this? I would rate Italy lower. Perhaps the Italians had access to more artillery than Bulgarian troops?

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ORIGINAL: lwarmonger

I would say it is hard to argue the Germans overall were better infantry than the British or the French. The Germans did in WWI what they did in WWII, which was put a lot of effort into their elite formations while shorting everyone else. This worked better in WWI because the nature of trench warfare allowed them to make up for deficiencies in infantry with fortifications and made it harder to identify where their high quality formations were located, but once their elite infantry had finally been expended their army fell apart (just as it started to in WWII when that initial core Panzerwaffe force was attritted in Barbarossa and then destroyed at Stalingrad). The British and French had much more even quality overall by 1916 then the Germans did, and once the German elite formations had been broken it wasn't simply "Ludendorff losing his nerve" that caused the German collapse. The way you represent this isn't by making German units better then everyone else, but by giving them some "shock" or "guards" corps the same way the British get Anzacs. Make them pricey.

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ORIGINAL: stockwellpete


In it he talks about a very interesting difference between the German army and their opponents concerning their military culture. Paradoxically, it seems to have been more democratic and self-critical than either the British or French. This might seem strange given that German society was less democratic than either country, the Reichstag having about as much impact on the war as the ludicrous Russian Duma. But German military officers at all levels were required to submit reports on their actions and be self-critical about the army’s performance as well. This helped them to develop new tactics as the war progressed. It is also one of the reasons, according to Barton, that there were far less executions for “cowardice” in the German army. The soldiers felt that they had some input, whereas the French and British army were relatively more authoritarian in their culture.

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The MG centered platoons, combined with defense in depth from 1916 and bruchmuller and stormtrooper tactics in 1917 gave birth to modern infantry tactics which weren't incorporated by other armies in ww1 (except the British with respect to artillery).