Hello everyone,
I have, of late, being heavily involved in repairing the World War One mod, and at last we've reached the point of being able to play it as a multiplayer game. To my knowledge, no other WW1 AAR has been done for HoI3, let alone a Multiplayer one.
CHAPTER LIST
United Kingdom Chapters
Session One: The British Empire (this post)
Session Two: The Gears of War
Session Three: So it begins... < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Britain at War
Session Five: Crusaders
Session Six: The Big Push < War ends in this session.
Russian Empire Chapters
Session One: Imperial Russia
Session Two: Trepidation and Preperation
Session Three: Bayonets and Horses < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Bloodied Bear
Session Five: Collapse and Retreat
Session Six: Blood for Time < War ends in this session.
France Chapters
No report for Session One.
Session Two: Examiner La République
Session Three: Les Opérations Ordinaires < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Allez! Allez! Marchez, les grenouilles!
Session Five: All or Nothing
Session Six: The Rainbow Offensive < War ends in this session.
German Empire Chapters
No report for Session One.
Session Two: A Place in the Sun
Session Three: Clash of Giants < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Swiss Cheese
Kingdom of Spain Chapters
No report for Sessions One or Two.
Session Three: The Anglo-French Spanish Campaign < War starts on this one.
Player List (Player list is in TWC usernames, with Paradox usernames, where different, in brackets next to their TWC name)
Triple Entente
UK - Poach
French Republic - Lord Romanus III (Posting as Lord Romanus II on Paradox forums)
Russian Empire - I WUB PUGS
Italy - Sebastianus Somerus
Central Powers
German Empire - Abbews (Posting as Abbs on Paradox forums)
Austria-Hungary - 10greenbottles
Ottoman Empire - a tw player (Posting as ADEE1 on Paradox forums)
Unaligned Powers
ForteS - Spain (not a regular player, leaves early and sometimes misses sessions)
House Rules
Declaring and Entering Wars
- No wars can be declared before the Great War has started. Wars such as Italy claiming Libya and the Balkans wars should start and finish by event. Italian and Ottoman Empire players are required to finish these wars as they historically happened: The Ottoman Empire must lost the Italo-Turkish and First Balkan Wars, and win the Second Balkan War with historical wargoals.
- The Ottoman Empire is at liberty to invade Balkans nations when it joins the Great War: you must lose and win the wars historically because the event chain depends on it, but once the war starts you're under no obligations.
- The various forces of the Triple Entente and Central Powers should join the Great War by event when they historically did. Players may not influence or attack the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Japan or the USA early. Players on those factions should not declare war to join early: they should wait for their join event.
- The United States of America cannot join the war prior to 1 April 1917. The Central Powers must not influence, coup, or use espionage to prevent this. The save will be edited to force the US into the war if they are refusing to join at the appointed time.
Land Forces War Rules
- The United Kingdom may not move troops into France before the start of the Great War.
- You may not disband surrounded or out of supply units. You must either attempt to save them or watch them die.
- Building units as Reserves is banned: all built units must be built as full strength divisions.
- Players may not build Land Forts until the Great War has started.
[Note for Paradox readers: The mod is heavily event-driven, and as such stringent pre-war rules are needed for the Ottoman Empire's wars to ensure the Great War event chain doesn't get broken. It's something we may fix in future. The additional USA rule is because the USA has no join event, so we've set a hard date for them.]
* * *
Session One: The British Empire
The British Empire was powerful: it stretched from the Americas to China, the long way. Huge swathes of Africa, the subcontinent of India, Malaya, and the various Dominions all swear loyalty to the Monarch of the United Kingdom.
Times were changing, however. Europe was falling into armed camps. The French and Russians were allied against Germany. The German and Austro-Hungarian Empires were friendly. The Ottoman Empire was slowly dying. Rising powers in Italy and Japan looked to upset the old balance of power. The United States remained dormant, but their industrial power was ever increasing. The British Empire had a raft of potential allies and enemies.
Her closest friend turned out, ironically, to be the old enemy: France. Germany was amassing a fleet to challenge the Royal Navy, and was seeking an Empire of its own: a "place in the sun". While the Royal Navy was confident it could control the seas for years to come, Germany was racing to upset that. The Triple Entente was looking more and more like a wartime alliance in the making.
In 1910, the British Empire surveyed its assets, to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses.
The Royal Navy
The Royal Fleet Review, 1910
The mighty Royal Navy remained the ruler of the seas - just. The Navy's 18 mighty Battleships were challenged by 17 German ones. The Navy had the advantage in Battlecruisers and in a very large number of smaller vessels. The troubling concern is that Britain's large fleet was primarily built to maintain the Empire, not fight large battles against enemy Battleship fleets.
The Navy was reformed around the following new taskforces:
The Home Fleet
- 3 Battle Squadrons (I, II and III) formed from the powerful Battleships of the Fleet. 6 Battleships formed a Squadron, escorted by Destroyer groups.
- 1 Battlecruiser Squadron (II) to provide the Home Fleet with a fast reaction force that packed a punch. A Battlecruiser Squadron was formed of 5 Battlecruisers and 5 modern Light Cruisers.
- 1 Heavy Cruiser Group (VII) to provide a smaller task force to do miscellaneous tasks. To be based in the Channel, its primary purpose will be to throw itself into the Channel to prevent enemy forces passing through it until the Battle Squadrons, based along the length of Britain's North Sea Coast, could intervene.
The Mediterranean Fleet
- 1 Battlecruiser Squadron (I) to patrol those waters. The nearby potential powers in the region were Italy with 4 old Battleships, and Turkey with only 1 Battlecruiser. As such I Battlecruiser Squadron was easily the most powerful fleet operating in the Eastern Med. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet could threaten the region, and with 4 Battleships could likely defeat I BC Squadron: with Britain's Battleships needed in the Home Fleet, it would fall to the French Navy and their 4 Battleships to back up British power at sea in this theatre if the Austro-Hungarian Navy became hostile.
- 2 Heavy Cruiser Groups (I and II) to support the Battlecruiser Squadron. Their role was envisaged to be engaging weaker enemy fleets and providing scouting for the Battlecruiser force.
The Rest of the Empire
With no major enemies envisaged elsewhere, the other 5 Heavy Cruiser Groups were deployed around the Empire to protect India and Africa: any German, Belgian or Dutch fleets operating in the region could likely be dealt with by Heavy Cruisers: the Admiralty felt it extremely unlikely that the Kaiserlich Marine would deploy their Battleships in far-flung, unimportant colonies.
Naval Expansion
The Royal Navy had to expand. Germany was uncomfortably close in power, and the Mediterranean Sea was undermanned. Over the coming years the Royal Navy would expand to ensure it maintained a comfortable lead on any would-be opponents. This was Britain's paramount objective, for without control of the sea, the Empire would surely be lost.
The British Army
Home Forces, 1910
The British Army at home numbered some 146,000 men, with many Divisions understrength due to being reserve formations. This was organised under the overall command of the First Army, which was ordered to prepare the troops for anything up to Army-level operations. It had been a long time since the Empire deployed such a large force: the Army was used to operations at battalion and brigade level fighting lightly-armed colonial foes, serious training would be necessary to ensure it was ready to face an increasingly likely European War.
British Indian Army 1910
The British Indian Army was reformed along the same lines as the regular British Army: into battle-ready Corps and ordered into large scale training. No direct threat to India was evident: China was unstable, Japan was a friend to the Empire, the Ottoman Empire lacked the Navy to conduct an invasion of India, and the Persians lacked the Army to do the same.
Research was ordered into the possibility of mobilising the Indian Army for limited overseas service: the 12 Divisions would make a powerful force if deployed to any African frontiers or to the British Middle East.
Protecting the Empire
The British Empire had global possessions, and thus global defence needs. Fronts existed worldwide, with varying needs and importance.
Egypt, 1910
British Egypt was surrounded by Ottoman possessions: Libya to the East (coveted by Italy) and the Levant to the West. British supremacy at sea should ensure the Libyan front would not receive substantial troop increases in wartime, but the Western Front needed to be looked at. Guarded by only 2 Divisions, a determined Ottoman campaign could easily overwhelm the small British garrison.
Only two roads existed for such an advance: along both coasts. Any Ottoman advance would have to follow the Red or Mediterranean Sea, as infrastructure in the depths of the desert was nonexistant. This provided a bottleneck opportunity for British forces, meaning a smaller garrison could be considered for defensive purposes.
This area was designed as "In need of additional troops" by the War Planners.
Africa, 1910
The Continent of Africa: a patchwork of European Colonies, many of them German. British forces here were almost nonexistant: 2 regular Infantry brigades were supported by 4 Militia brigades in Abyssinia , and the rest of the Empire in Africa was controlled primarily through local police and adminstration, with no military forces present.
This could not be left as such. German Colonies would have to be shut down rapidly to prevent their use as Coaling Stations for German sea raiders, or as bases for attacks on British African possessions.
The Union of South Africa had an army of some 5 Infantry Divsions, covering the southern German colonies. Those in West Africa would need small forces to quickly take the undefended (currently) German ports.
The designation for West Africa was set at "Would benefit from additional troops", as these ports were regarded as secondary objectives: the Royal Navy could spare ships to these areas, who could combat German raiders in the area, if the Army could not spare the men to take the ports off them.
British China, 1910
The Port of Weihai held little strategic value to the British, whilst the port of Qingdao held minor material importance to the Germans. Depriving of them of it would help the war effort in a miniscule way. "Would benefit from additional troops" was the given designation.
Finally, to be considered, was the Home Isles. Not under any direct threat themselves, the fields of France were considered the likely battlefield here, and they were guarded by the mighty French Army. British contributions here would be not insubstantial, but it was envisaged Britain's main role would be to combat the Germans at sea and the Turks in the Middle East, rather than slug it out with the far larger Imperial German Army in France. Still, anywhere up to a few Armies may be needed by France here. "In need of additional troops" was settled upon by the War Planners.
The Army Committee for War Planning made their submission to Parliament in late 1910: the British Army is too small. Far too small. War is brewing, a war like no other, and the Empire needs troops to fight it. A massive expansion must be undertaken, to ensure Britain can man fronts from France to Egypt to China to Africa, fighting determined foes whose military might will be on par with or exceeding British power. Armies must fight and win in Egypt and in France. Taskforces must be mobile worldwide to capture key colonial objectives. Reserves must be ready to relieve or reinforce these forces.
* * *
Hey everyone, this is my first real HoI3 AAR, and I hope its unique enough to catch your interests. Most of our players have a reasonable amount of experience, and everyone is playing countries they wanted rather than ones they were forced into.
Pugs, Romanus and I have talked at length of various plans and ideas for the war, most of which I can't share in case any Central Powers players read this!
We play every sunday and I hope to try and get updates up ASAP after the sessions while they're fresh in my mind.
I have, of late, being heavily involved in repairing the World War One mod, and at last we've reached the point of being able to play it as a multiplayer game. To my knowledge, no other WW1 AAR has been done for HoI3, let alone a Multiplayer one.
CHAPTER LIST
United Kingdom Chapters
Session One: The British Empire (this post)
Session Two: The Gears of War
Session Three: So it begins... < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Britain at War
Session Five: Crusaders
Session Six: The Big Push < War ends in this session.
Russian Empire Chapters
Session One: Imperial Russia
Session Two: Trepidation and Preperation
Session Three: Bayonets and Horses < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Bloodied Bear
Session Five: Collapse and Retreat
Session Six: Blood for Time < War ends in this session.
France Chapters
No report for Session One.
Session Two: Examiner La République
Session Three: Les Opérations Ordinaires < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Allez! Allez! Marchez, les grenouilles!
Session Five: All or Nothing
Session Six: The Rainbow Offensive < War ends in this session.
German Empire Chapters
No report for Session One.
Session Two: A Place in the Sun
Session Three: Clash of Giants < War starts on this one.
Session Four: Swiss Cheese
Kingdom of Spain Chapters
No report for Sessions One or Two.
Session Three: The Anglo-French Spanish Campaign < War starts on this one.
Player List (Player list is in TWC usernames, with Paradox usernames, where different, in brackets next to their TWC name)
Triple Entente
UK - Poach
French Republic - Lord Romanus III (Posting as Lord Romanus II on Paradox forums)
Russian Empire - I WUB PUGS
Italy - Sebastianus Somerus
Central Powers
German Empire - Abbews (Posting as Abbs on Paradox forums)
Austria-Hungary - 10greenbottles
Ottoman Empire - a tw player (Posting as ADEE1 on Paradox forums)
Unaligned Powers
ForteS - Spain (not a regular player, leaves early and sometimes misses sessions)
House Rules
Declaring and Entering Wars
- No wars can be declared before the Great War has started. Wars such as Italy claiming Libya and the Balkans wars should start and finish by event. Italian and Ottoman Empire players are required to finish these wars as they historically happened: The Ottoman Empire must lost the Italo-Turkish and First Balkan Wars, and win the Second Balkan War with historical wargoals.
- The Ottoman Empire is at liberty to invade Balkans nations when it joins the Great War: you must lose and win the wars historically because the event chain depends on it, but once the war starts you're under no obligations.
- The various forces of the Triple Entente and Central Powers should join the Great War by event when they historically did. Players may not influence or attack the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Japan or the USA early. Players on those factions should not declare war to join early: they should wait for their join event.
- The United States of America cannot join the war prior to 1 April 1917. The Central Powers must not influence, coup, or use espionage to prevent this. The save will be edited to force the US into the war if they are refusing to join at the appointed time.
Land Forces War Rules
- The United Kingdom may not move troops into France before the start of the Great War.
- You may not disband surrounded or out of supply units. You must either attempt to save them or watch them die.
- Building units as Reserves is banned: all built units must be built as full strength divisions.
- Players may not build Land Forts until the Great War has started.
[Note for Paradox readers: The mod is heavily event-driven, and as such stringent pre-war rules are needed for the Ottoman Empire's wars to ensure the Great War event chain doesn't get broken. It's something we may fix in future. The additional USA rule is because the USA has no join event, so we've set a hard date for them.]
* * *
Session One: The British Empire
The British Empire was powerful: it stretched from the Americas to China, the long way. Huge swathes of Africa, the subcontinent of India, Malaya, and the various Dominions all swear loyalty to the Monarch of the United Kingdom.
Times were changing, however. Europe was falling into armed camps. The French and Russians were allied against Germany. The German and Austro-Hungarian Empires were friendly. The Ottoman Empire was slowly dying. Rising powers in Italy and Japan looked to upset the old balance of power. The United States remained dormant, but their industrial power was ever increasing. The British Empire had a raft of potential allies and enemies.
Her closest friend turned out, ironically, to be the old enemy: France. Germany was amassing a fleet to challenge the Royal Navy, and was seeking an Empire of its own: a "place in the sun". While the Royal Navy was confident it could control the seas for years to come, Germany was racing to upset that. The Triple Entente was looking more and more like a wartime alliance in the making.
In 1910, the British Empire surveyed its assets, to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses.
The Royal Navy
The Royal Fleet Review, 1910
The mighty Royal Navy remained the ruler of the seas - just. The Navy's 18 mighty Battleships were challenged by 17 German ones. The Navy had the advantage in Battlecruisers and in a very large number of smaller vessels. The troubling concern is that Britain's large fleet was primarily built to maintain the Empire, not fight large battles against enemy Battleship fleets.
The Navy was reformed around the following new taskforces:
The Home Fleet
- 3 Battle Squadrons (I, II and III) formed from the powerful Battleships of the Fleet. 6 Battleships formed a Squadron, escorted by Destroyer groups.
- 1 Battlecruiser Squadron (II) to provide the Home Fleet with a fast reaction force that packed a punch. A Battlecruiser Squadron was formed of 5 Battlecruisers and 5 modern Light Cruisers.
- 1 Heavy Cruiser Group (VII) to provide a smaller task force to do miscellaneous tasks. To be based in the Channel, its primary purpose will be to throw itself into the Channel to prevent enemy forces passing through it until the Battle Squadrons, based along the length of Britain's North Sea Coast, could intervene.
The Mediterranean Fleet
- 1 Battlecruiser Squadron (I) to patrol those waters. The nearby potential powers in the region were Italy with 4 old Battleships, and Turkey with only 1 Battlecruiser. As such I Battlecruiser Squadron was easily the most powerful fleet operating in the Eastern Med. The Austro-Hungarian Fleet could threaten the region, and with 4 Battleships could likely defeat I BC Squadron: with Britain's Battleships needed in the Home Fleet, it would fall to the French Navy and their 4 Battleships to back up British power at sea in this theatre if the Austro-Hungarian Navy became hostile.
- 2 Heavy Cruiser Groups (I and II) to support the Battlecruiser Squadron. Their role was envisaged to be engaging weaker enemy fleets and providing scouting for the Battlecruiser force.
The Rest of the Empire
With no major enemies envisaged elsewhere, the other 5 Heavy Cruiser Groups were deployed around the Empire to protect India and Africa: any German, Belgian or Dutch fleets operating in the region could likely be dealt with by Heavy Cruisers: the Admiralty felt it extremely unlikely that the Kaiserlich Marine would deploy their Battleships in far-flung, unimportant colonies.
Naval Expansion
The Royal Navy had to expand. Germany was uncomfortably close in power, and the Mediterranean Sea was undermanned. Over the coming years the Royal Navy would expand to ensure it maintained a comfortable lead on any would-be opponents. This was Britain's paramount objective, for without control of the sea, the Empire would surely be lost.
The British Army
Home Forces, 1910
The British Army at home numbered some 146,000 men, with many Divisions understrength due to being reserve formations. This was organised under the overall command of the First Army, which was ordered to prepare the troops for anything up to Army-level operations. It had been a long time since the Empire deployed such a large force: the Army was used to operations at battalion and brigade level fighting lightly-armed colonial foes, serious training would be necessary to ensure it was ready to face an increasingly likely European War.
British Indian Army 1910
The British Indian Army was reformed along the same lines as the regular British Army: into battle-ready Corps and ordered into large scale training. No direct threat to India was evident: China was unstable, Japan was a friend to the Empire, the Ottoman Empire lacked the Navy to conduct an invasion of India, and the Persians lacked the Army to do the same.
Research was ordered into the possibility of mobilising the Indian Army for limited overseas service: the 12 Divisions would make a powerful force if deployed to any African frontiers or to the British Middle East.
Protecting the Empire
The British Empire had global possessions, and thus global defence needs. Fronts existed worldwide, with varying needs and importance.
Egypt, 1910
British Egypt was surrounded by Ottoman possessions: Libya to the East (coveted by Italy) and the Levant to the West. British supremacy at sea should ensure the Libyan front would not receive substantial troop increases in wartime, but the Western Front needed to be looked at. Guarded by only 2 Divisions, a determined Ottoman campaign could easily overwhelm the small British garrison.
Only two roads existed for such an advance: along both coasts. Any Ottoman advance would have to follow the Red or Mediterranean Sea, as infrastructure in the depths of the desert was nonexistant. This provided a bottleneck opportunity for British forces, meaning a smaller garrison could be considered for defensive purposes.
This area was designed as "In need of additional troops" by the War Planners.
Africa, 1910
The Continent of Africa: a patchwork of European Colonies, many of them German. British forces here were almost nonexistant: 2 regular Infantry brigades were supported by 4 Militia brigades in Abyssinia , and the rest of the Empire in Africa was controlled primarily through local police and adminstration, with no military forces present.
This could not be left as such. German Colonies would have to be shut down rapidly to prevent their use as Coaling Stations for German sea raiders, or as bases for attacks on British African possessions.
The Union of South Africa had an army of some 5 Infantry Divsions, covering the southern German colonies. Those in West Africa would need small forces to quickly take the undefended (currently) German ports.
The designation for West Africa was set at "Would benefit from additional troops", as these ports were regarded as secondary objectives: the Royal Navy could spare ships to these areas, who could combat German raiders in the area, if the Army could not spare the men to take the ports off them.
British China, 1910
The Port of Weihai held little strategic value to the British, whilst the port of Qingdao held minor material importance to the Germans. Depriving of them of it would help the war effort in a miniscule way. "Would benefit from additional troops" was the given designation.
Finally, to be considered, was the Home Isles. Not under any direct threat themselves, the fields of France were considered the likely battlefield here, and they were guarded by the mighty French Army. British contributions here would be not insubstantial, but it was envisaged Britain's main role would be to combat the Germans at sea and the Turks in the Middle East, rather than slug it out with the far larger Imperial German Army in France. Still, anywhere up to a few Armies may be needed by France here. "In need of additional troops" was settled upon by the War Planners.
The Army Committee for War Planning made their submission to Parliament in late 1910: the British Army is too small. Far too small. War is brewing, a war like no other, and the Empire needs troops to fight it. A massive expansion must be undertaken, to ensure Britain can man fronts from France to Egypt to China to Africa, fighting determined foes whose military might will be on par with or exceeding British power. Armies must fight and win in Egypt and in France. Taskforces must be mobile worldwide to capture key colonial objectives. Reserves must be ready to relieve or reinforce these forces.
* * *
Hey everyone, this is my first real HoI3 AAR, and I hope its unique enough to catch your interests. Most of our players have a reasonable amount of experience, and everyone is playing countries they wanted rather than ones they were forced into.
Pugs, Romanus and I have talked at length of various plans and ideas for the war, most of which I can't share in case any Central Powers players read this!
We play every sunday and I hope to try and get updates up ASAP after the sessions while they're fresh in my mind.
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