TF means Territorial Force... more generals/personalities/naval stuff...
Thanks for the kind words fellows. I'm just glad to be of service.
What is the prospective scale? Like should I provide the names/numbers of the various battalions involved?
TF means Territorial Force, the British version of the militia though, I would expect from its performance during the war, more than a few were of even better quality than 'normal militia'. It was part of Kitchener's snobbery that these divisions were sort of 'looked down upon' and received numbers of lower seniority than Kitchener's 'New Armys' of volunteers, but many later rendered good service including the 51st Highlanders and 54th Lancashires. It was the same case for the Yeomanry cavalry, many regiments having gained invaluable experience in the Boer war. British militia should, I suspect have a naturally higher value than militia of other nations (though perhaps the US National Guard would be comparable to it) and some, like the Russian Opolenchie were of miserable quality. I suppose it would be more 'realistic' in game terms to make the militia/TF of equal quality but have certain upgrades available to make them of better fighting quality. The TF contingents SHOULD be included as militia divisions as many later were upgraded to fighting divisions. Many districts actually had more than one... perhaps we could actually arrange it with the District as the Corps size unit and the cadre of divisions as the subunits. Would that be better? I'll use this listing here as Corps basis and fill you in on the subunits. I would petition, however, for the Guards Brigade to be included as a separate Corps size unit as later the regiments (all regiments were) expanded and the whole Brigade became divisional sized (the famous Guards and during WW2 Guards Armoured Division).
The TF would be present only in the British Isles and Ireland. Elsewhere there would be locally raised defense forces, local Corps and the like. The first few divisions (Cavalry, 1-8th Regular) were part of the BEF. I could provide a corps organization if you would want but I'll need to know the scale we're going for. Likewise the Indian Army would be subdivided into various territorially based brigades (I have the info somewhere but I'll have to look for it).
I hope the naval tech tree wasn't too 'heavy' but the ship developments particularly the 'generations' of dreadnoughts were really, I believe, accurate to the development of the ships. There were tiny appreciable differences - early dreadnoughts guns were not all along the centerline and as such broadside weights would not be as heavy as lets say later guns. Upgrades would not have been an option (any way to disable this) and it was easier to scrap ships or send them off to far away stations to 'show the flag'. If you could show me how to (as if I was a 3 year old in the words of Denzel Washington) I could do your naval tech tree for you. I don't mind doing those many divisions in warships and I think that each little development reflected a relevant concern of naval thought. I only included the tech tree as going back to the 19th century to reflect either the minor navies or the 'primitive' navies. Again, please let me know just which countries will be finally involved. But for our purposes we should start with The Steel Navy on the tech tree (the others are for that hypothetical pre-1914 scenario or earlier). By the way, the prerequisite for all 'The New Navy' developments should be 'MAHAN, Influence of Seapower on History' w/c influenced just about all naval thinking, even national thinking, of the period. Simply stated it postulates that a Nation's power was equivalent to her naval power and the way to victory was through control of the seas, specifically by the destruction of the enemy's battle fleet. It went against the ideas of the Jeune Ecole (Young School) - perhaps the two can be conflicting ideas or different options (you can go with one but not the other) because one (Mahan) focuses on building powerful battle fleets with the objective of destroying the battle fleet of the enemy (offensive doctrine) without dissipating strength for raiding cruisers and lighter ships and the other (Jeune Ecole) focuses on a more defensive strategy with coastal defense warships, raiding cruisers to harass sealanes and torpedo boats for local defense.
As to Carriers and Subs, thanks for filling that in DrBolo - first level should be plain experimentation and the various components such as seaplanes, cranes, flight decks, steam and steam catapults should be researched, the next level should be converted small warships/merchant ships, next should be converted big warships w/c became the first true carriers (Furious, Courageous, Glorious, Eagle) - any chance that we could send certain ships back to the force pool for repairs (and conversion)? Then and only then did navys start building from the keel up dedicated carriers but these were tiny little things (Argus, Hermes and Hosho). Metal decks did not become the vogue till WW2 neither were hurricane bows (ala Ark Royal or Illustrious w/c were so called because they closed up the bow area against heavy seas w/c protected crew and aircraft, unlike the earlier open bowed carriers such as Yorktown or Akagi class.) so ships would be pretty much similar designs to the Furious (first design - the second design was the all flat deck with a small island) or Courageous. I seriously doubt any aircraft carrier at that time would be able to carry 2 air divisions. All aircraft carried were strike aircraft vs ground targets. Midway-esque combat was probably not even thought of at that time. Perhaps you could have a 'Billy Mitchell' event or something that would spur research into this but realistically it would not be a viable option.
Submarines - there should not be a 'long range' submarine as such - subs weren't that developed yet. There should be, however, many interesting experiments particularly for the French and British in the area of 'submarine cruisers' - submarines with heavy armament that would act like raiding cruisers (this was done, I suspect, to fulfill the Cruiser rules requirements that submarines should surface, order their victim to abandon ship and then sink it - when Britain began disguising ASW 'Q-ships' as harmless merchant ships or creating AMCs 'Armed Merchant Cruisers' the Germans replied with Unrestricted Submarine Warfare). Ships like the Surcouf were a distinct possibility. This was, however, a totally different path than the one taken by Germany w/c postulated TRUE submarine warfare.
As for transports - another neglected topic, so sorry - there should be normal bulk/merchant transports - Q ships (good only vs subs) or AMC (Armed Merchant Cruisers) as defense against raiding cruisers and also Ocean Liners. These should be very expensive to raise/maintain but much faster than normal transports and armed with very minimal or no defensive armament.
I've been reading a book on theories and theoreticians of war and theres another name that I should include in the tech tree - Giulio Douhet. He was the proponent of the bomber that influenced Goering and Harris' strategies during WW2. His concept was the heavily armed bomber would always get through and war must be made on the cities and civilian population to break the civilian morale w/c he postulated was the weak link in the military chain.
I think we should consider things like this. Moral and morale considerations. Civilian morale and dissent should be important factors particularly late war with Communism and revolution and mutiny being valid concerns. Like Vietnam in WW1 - the civilian support for a war can never be underestimated. Contrasted with this is the 'gentlemanly' conduct as typefied by the Hague Convention of 1898(?) that forbade many ungentlemanly war conducts and weapons. Subscription to the Hague Convention would mean a huge reduction in dissent as the people would be happy that their men were fighting an honorable, 'civilized' war. These would, naturally be transgressed later in the war, but at cost perhaps in civilian dissent.
Interestingly enough these 'theoreticians' (so many generals in this war should be considered 'theoreticians' or 'armchair strategists') had very little practical experience at war and when war came many of their theories died with the men who were forced to test them out. Perhaps only Mahan had any real practical experience (in the ACW and Spanish American Wars). Douhet never really flew and spent the war discharged after insulting/contradicting a superior officer and one critic said that "Douhet's pilots always found their targets and Douhet's weather was always clear" so men like him should be of the lowest rank (MajGen) with maybe a value of 1 but with the quality SUPERIOR TACTICIAN.
Some leaders I can think of, just off the cuff:
Col. Ernest Swinton - proponent of the tank, though his version of tank warfare
was tank support of the infantry.
Col. Billy Mitchell - proponent of airpower. Actual combat service over France.
Should have a (3) perhaps.
Capt.Alfred Mahan - proponent of naval power. Served on naval staff during
the war. Maybe a (2).
Col. Giulio Douhet - proponent of airpower. Idealistic big-mouth, proponent of
the bomber vs civilian population as a morale breaker.
Capt. Alfred Dudley Pound - captain of a BB during Jutland later became
First Sea Lord during the first years of WW2.
Capt. Miklos Horthy - Austro-Hungarian captain renowned for his daring attack
on the Otranto Barrage. Later dictator of Hungary. (4)
Gen. Hugh "Boom" Trenchard - first commander of the newly formed RAF.
Commanded during the last year of war. (3)
Col. Ferdinand Foch - aggressive, obnoxious, supposedly the victor of the
Marne. Another theoretician at war. (3)
Gen.Paul Strasser - Germany's airship commander during the war.
Germany's second aircraft carrier was named after him.(2 or 3)
FM Voivode Putnik - Serbia's Commanding General. Conducted a valiant but
hopeless campaign against the Austrians in the opening days of
the war. Tough and aggressive. (3)
Gen.Robert Baden-Powell - founder of the boy scouts and master of irregular
warfare. Not employed during the war. (2) TRICKSTER/SUP.TACT.
Gen. Douglas Haig - tough British commander in chief during the war.
Started as a Corps commander. Not above using deceptive or
underhanded political methods to get his way. Held responsible
by many (up to this day) for the slaughter of British manhood on
the Western Front. (4) OLD SCHOOL, Intriguer (?)
Gen. Edmund Allenby - big, tough British cavalry leader who found immortal
glory in Palestine. (4) BLITZ COMMANDER.
Gen. Alexei Brusilov - the most brilliant Russian commander of the war,
he was overtaken by the fateful events of 1917. (5) SUP.TACT.
Grand Duke Nicholas - brother of the Czar, he was every Russian's idea how
a Czar was supposed to look - and act! Kicked upstairs by his
jealous brother. (3)
Gen Luigi Cadorna - CoS of the Italian Army in 1914 and commander of the
Armies who was soundly defeated at Caporetto. (4)
Gen. Erich von Falkenhayen - CoS in 1914 after Von Moltke's failure at the
Marne. Failed to take Verdun 1916-17. (3) SUP.TACT.
Gen.John French - Commander of the BEF, replaced by his rival Haig
who was, ironically, a Francophobe. Cavalry commander during
the Boer war. Dismissed after failure of the Battle of Loos. (3)
Col.Ian Hamilton - CoS to Kitchener during the Boer War. Commander of the
Gallipoli landings. Felt by many to be indecisive and unwilling to
press the correct course toward victory. (3)
Gen. Paul von Hindenburg - first member of the triumvirate of successful
German generals of the war. Built up his soldier's morale and
confidence and was rewarded by Presidency of the Weimar Republic
post war (5)
Gen. Erich Ludendorff - the second member of the triumvirate he was the
brains of the operation planning the destruction of the Russian armies
and later formulating the plans that brought Germany to the
brink of victory in 1918. (5) SUPERIOR TACTICIAN
Gen.Max Hoffmann - the third member of the triumvirate he was their efficient
CoS who received the Eastern Front command after von H and L
were assigned to the western front. (4) SUPERIOR TACTICIAN
FM Conrad v.Hoetzendorff - AH's premier field commander who built up the
Austrian mountain divisions into formidable fighting forces through
merciless training. (4) SUPERIOR TACTICIAN.
Col. Alfred Krauss - later became CoS to Archduke Eugene at Caporetto.
A brilliant commander on offense and defense. (4)
Col. Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck - wily commander of German SW African forces
undefeated by Allied forces to the end of the war (5) TRICKSTER.
Col.John Monash - Australian Commander known for his capture of the
Villers Brettoneux ridge by combined air-land attacks. (4)
Col. Baron Manfred von Richthoven - Red Baron, nuff said (4)
Col.Hermann Goering - Red Baron's successor, Fat Hermann Meyer (3)
Col. Georg von Trapp - the legendary head of the famous Von Trapp's
Austrias foremost sub commander of the war (4) SEAWOLF.
* Most generals unless specifically stated should be of the OLD SCHOOL.
* When marked Col. they should actually probably be Major General.
* Personally, if they are graduates of the German General Staff and not
political appointees, most German Generals should have the quality
of SUPERIOR TACTICIAN.
Perhaps we could make oil sources terribly limited so that coal would be converted for use instead of oil. Most ships except for 4th Generation Dreadnoughts and Battlecruisers were coal burners (I think I included Oil Fired Turbines in my list of tech advancements).
Actually a lot would really depend on what you'd want. I personally would want to include the minutae of ship developments to give it period 'flavor' - one of the reasons for the war was the naval arms race between the great powers where each development would be countered by another and ships improved and improved till their reached their epitome (for that war) with the Hood/Queen Elizabeth classes. It is a testament to the durability of the class that ships like Warspite were very nearly 'unsinkable' fighting in this war and all throughout WW2.
Regards,
Richmond