Mobilisation, Corps & Military District Systems

[filmaty98]

I'd like to ask, if there's a possibility to implement some sort of setable Military Districts System. I mean, in Victoria II, it was really painful to manage mobilisation in your country, if you wanted to created at least decent army structure with your pops-conscripts you had to set a few rally points for your troops, and it was quite irritating, that almost every single time there was a different number of conscripts raised via mobilisation, and the fact, that mobilized troops always were marching to the nearest rally point. Could You replace this, with Military Districts System? I mean, player would set territorial coverage for such military districts, from where conscripts would be marched into a district's rally point (even, if other district's rally point would be closer). Moreover, Player would order for each military district to raise certain number of corps (dependent on available population number of course) of certain, setable for him composition, out of newly mobilized troops, and existing regular troops in case of mobilisation and war (some sort of Ordre of Bataille, for each military district, better known in your games as "templates", which would include existing, and possible to mobilize regiments. Morevoer, military district would not have to raise the whole available manpower, but only ordered amount).

 

[Guedes]

Victoria's 2 mobilization was an abstraction to take people outside of the military, give them a gun and send them to the fronts as cannon fodders.

There wasnt any sort of military organization in them because they werent in the military in the first place. They were all farmer pops. So they were raised in the provinces that those farmer pops were.

Its different from your standing military units that are made of soldier pops.

Correct me if i'm wrong but the map you posted is about austrian military districts for the regular standing professional army. Being most of them unsurprisingly assigned to border regions.

 

[Amallric]

You are wrong. The military organisation that developped throughout the Victorian age was one that turned the mass of the population into part-time soldiers. "Soldier pops" are not a good way to depict Victorian age militaries. There were no, or a handful, of real "soldier pops" who would join the army willingly and then serve for life(unlike officers), the overwhelming majority of the soldiers were drafted from the population for a few years, received training, then were placed into the "reserve" i.e. they were living their ordinary civilian lives except for some "follow-up" military drills from time to time, but would be called up at short notice if mobilisation was declared. Mobilisation wasn't about throwing completely untrained men into the meatgrinder, the French tried that in 1871 with very limited succes

Military districts were part of this reserve/mobilisation system and were used for tracking the reserve personnel, maintaining local depots, etc -- making sure the mobilisation of the reserves would go smoothly the day it was declared.

 

[filmaty98]

Victoria's 2 mobilization was an abstraction to take people outside of the military, give them a gun and send them to the fronts as cannon fodders.

There wasnt any sort of military organization in them because they werent in the military in the first place. They were all farmer pops. So they were raised in the provinces that those farmer pops were.

Its different from your standing military units that are made of soldier pops.

Correct me if i'm wrong but the map you posted is about austrian military districts for the regular standing professional army. Being most of them unsurprisingly assigned to border regions.

I'm proposing military districts system, purely because of gameplay issue. It would just be much easier to manage mobilisation with them, instead of manually composing armies from newly raised conscripts (out of labourers-pops, farmers-pops, etc. and in general poor-pops ) after every single mobilisation for war. It was just irritating asf.

And about historical realities, I don't know exactly since when, but at some point in the second half of the XIX century, in European Armies something like mandatory service and training for every adult male happened. Men were classified according to their physical abilities into different classes A, B, C etc. which were describing their useness for Army. Those with better body class were conscripted into army for certain time, dependent on army, mostly for 1 up to 4. After completion of mandatory service, they were put into reserve, and were back into their ordinary lifes. These were farmers, craftsmen, artisans, noblemen, doctors, engineers, just civils. And in case of war, they were calling up via mobilisation to fulfill their duty to defend the fatherland and fight. Some people of coure were proffesional soldiers, who had tied their whole lifestyle and careers with armed forces. These are represented in late game in Victoria II as soldier-pops.

I think you have just confused the old conscription system with this oneI've described above. The old conscription systems had worked the way, some people (mostly too poor to pay their way out of service) were conscripted (forced) into military via bueruecracy-warrant, or even via simple brutal force just for their lifetime. This way it worked for example in Russian Empire I think up to Crimean War, or maybe even a bit longer, but also in France. These poor devils were dragged into military for 20 or even more years. Concept of Territorial Defence/Landwehr I've described in the second paragraph was revolutionary in comparation to taking some poor-stata (of unknown capabilities to fight) lad into army for his lifetime, where he was getting older and older and less suitable to fight. In this case you had two groups of people - completely untrained civilians, and men with lifetime sentence in army. It was represented in Vic2 by soldier-pops (lifetime conscripted poor devils) and small amount of regiments possible to raise via mobilisation at the beggining of the game (these regiments probably were representing rather volunteers, not the mobilised troops). In case of territorial army you always have fresh body-able men at arms, and huuuuuuuge reserve of trained reservists, because most of your male-population had recieved military training during these 1-4 years, when they were conscripted, and you are able to call them all in case of thread and deploy huge conscripted and the most importat - trained army.

And in connection with map - I just posted it to drag attention, and to illustrate the whole concept.

 

[PK_AZ]

Concept of Territorial Defence/Landwehr I've described in the second paragraph was revolutionary in comparation

Actually that's not what Landwehr was.
German-style system is quite complicated, but I will try to keep it simple (also, I am in no way specialist, so read my words more as general concept that concrete description of any mobilization system). Every able-bodied man between age of 17 and 45 was obliged to serve in army. At age twenty, they were called up, taken before medical commision, and if found able-bodied, they were sent to serve in Active regiment for two years. After that time, they were sent to Reserve for seven years. After that, they were sent to Landwehr regiment for ten years. After that, they can be still called for landsturm/general levy.

Now, when general mobilization is ordered, reservists are expected to go to their regiment depot. Some of them (two youngest years, I think?) are put into Active regiment ranks (while regiment exist in time of peace, it is understrength by wide margin). Other reservists with chosen officers of Active regiment create Reserve regiment. In WW1 practice that units were formed into their own Reserve divisions. At the same time, Landwehr/Territorial deployed their own regiments, which in ww1 practice also formed their own Landwehr/Territorial divisions. So basically there were five levels:
1. Active soldiers in Active regiments
2. "Young" reservists, expected to fill Active regiment to full strength
3. "Old" reservists, expected to create Reserve regiment
4. Territorial soldiers, expected to fill Territorial regiments
5. People too young, too old etc to serve in army, but who can still be called in dire need.
At the same time, landwehr regiments have their active cadre, which job is to direct regiment mobilization. Similarly, Active regiments had some personnel expected to direct mobilization of its Reserve regiment (rule of thumb: every three-battalioned Active regiment was expected to mobilize single two-battalioned Reserve regiment). Both of them also have their own non-active officers, who will be mobilised with ranks and put into command positions of newly-created subunits.

Important thing to note is that both Active and Territorial regiments were organized on territorial basis - they had to collect their "furloughed soldiers" as fast as possible after all - but they were two different organizations.

Now, what I wrote is only general concept behind system. I didn't wrote about one-year volunteers, guards, cavalry mobilization (infantry during mobilization multiply itself few times, while cavalry keep more-or-less peacetime establishment; on the other hand, reservists of cavalry are mobilized to transportation units), Ersatz divisions (made of soldeirs who never served in Active regiment, because there were more conscripts that army wanted) etc. to keep it simple. I also am in no way specialist in topic, so it is very probable that I make some mistakes (f.e. I do not really get the role of territorial soldiers).

based on:

http://zbrojownia.cbw.wp.mil.pl:8080/dlibra/docmetadata?id=1899&from=&dirids=50&ver_id=&lp=2&QI=

Organization of the Imperial Japanese Army - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mobilisation française de 1914 — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

Mobilisation allemande de 1914 — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

 

[filmaty98]

Actually that's not what Landwehr was.
German-style system is quite complicated, but I will try to keep it simple (also, I am in no way specialist, so read my words more as general concept that concrete description of any mobilization system). Every able-bodied man between age of 17 and 45 was obliged to serve in army. At age twenty, they were called up, taken before medical commision, and if found able-bodied, they were sent to serve in Active regiment for two years. After that time, they were sent to Reserve for seven years. After that, they were sent to Landwehr regiment for ten years. After that, they can be still called for landsturm/general levy.

Now, when general mobilization is ordered, reservists are expected to go to their regiment depot. Some of them (two youngest years, I think?) are put into Active regiment ranks (while regiment exist in time of peace, it is understrength by wide margin). Other reservists with chosen officers of Active regiment create Reserve regiment. In WW1 practice that units were formed into their own Reserve divisions. At the same time, Landwehr/Territorial deployed their own regiments, which in ww1 practice also formed their own Landwehr/Territorial divisions. So basically there were five levels:
1. Active soldiers in Active regiments
2. "Young" reservists, expected to fill Active regiment to full strength
3. "Old" reservists, expected to create Reserve regiment
4. Territorial soldiers, expected to fill Territorial regiments
5. People too young, too old etc to serve in army, but who can still be called in dire need.
At the same time, landwehr regiments have their active cadre, which job is to direct regiment mobilization. Similarly, Active regiments had some personnel expected to direct mobilization of its Reserve regiment (rule of thumb: every three-battalioned Active regiment was expected to mobilize single two-battalioned Reserve regiment). Both of them also have their own non-active officers, who will be mobilised with ranks and put into command positions of newly-created subunits.

Important thing to note is that both Active and Territorial regiments were organized on territorial basis - they had to collect their "furloughed soldiers" as fast as possible after all - but they were two different organizations.

Now, what I wrote is only general concept behind system. I didn't wrote about one-year volunteers, guards, cavalry mobilization (infantry during mobilization multiply itself few times, while cavalry keep more-or-less peacetime establishment; on the other hand, reservists of cavalry are mobilized to transportation units), Ersatz divisions (made of soldeirs who never served in Active regiment, because there were more conscripts that army wanted) etc. to keep it simple. I also am in no way specialist in topic, so it is very probable that I make some mistakes (f.e. I do not really get the role of territorial soldiers).

based on:

http://zbrojownia.cbw.wp.mil.pl:8080/dlibra/docmetadata?id=1899&from=&dirids=50&ver_id=&lp=2&QI=

Organization of the Imperial Japanese Army - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mobilisation française de 1914 — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

Mobilisation allemande de 1914 — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org

Well, you've described with greater detail attention what I mentioned. I simply didn't wanted to go into such details, cause you see how much longer my post would be.

 

[DanielPrates]

Isn't this discussion going too far? The OP is merely sugesting that mobilized divisions could be activated separately on a state level, basically, besides the old method of mobilizing the entire pool in one push of a button and have them all appear all over the place. A good idea if I understood correctly. I would like the option of mobilizing, say, only the reservists of states "a b and c" which are closer to a not-so-mortal threat that not requires a full mobilization, and have those divisions spawn inside their own states, for sanity's sake.

So you would have a "mobilize all" button somewhere on the main military interface but also a "mobilize this state's troops" within the state gizmo. Not a bad idea.

Of course, that requires thinking about many indirectly related issues. How will a neighbour react to a partial mobilization? Etc.

 

[filmaty98]

Isn't this discussion going too far? The OP is merely sugesting that mobilized divisions could be activated separately on a state level, basically, besides the old method of mobilizing the entire pool in one push of a button and have them all appear all over the place. A good idea if I understood correctly. I would like the option of mobilizing, say, only the reservists of states "a b and c" which are closer to a not-so-mortal threat that not requires a full mobilization, and have those divisions spawn inside their own states, for sanity's sake.

So you would have a "mobilize all" button somewhere on the main military interface but also a "mobilize this state's troops" within the state gizmo. Not a bad idea.

Of course, that requires thinking about many indirectly related issues. How will a neighbour react to a partial mobilization? Etc.

The whole sense of my post can be shortened to: I meant, that in Victoria 3 it would be welcome if you would have ability to "plan your mobilisation", and merge raised troops with support units automaticly, instead of getting one huge doomstack of poor-stata infantry (and potentially only then manually merging them into reliable corps with artillery, engineers, cavalry etc.)

Of course if paradox would implement mechanics of partial mobilisation I would greet it more than cheerful.

 

[DanielPrates]

The whole sense of my post can be shortened to: I meant, that in Victoria 3 it would be welcome if you would have ability to "plan your mobilisation", and merge raised troops with support units automaticly, instead of getting one huge doomstack of poor-stata infantry (and potentially only then manually merging them into reliable corps with artillery, engineers, cavalry etc.)

Of course if paradox would implement mechanics of partial mobilisation I would greet it more than cheerful.

Yes I doubt they will create a super detailed mobilization mechanic but a per-state option, alongside a full mobilization as usual, would be almost as good.

Mobilized divisions are supposed to represent your standard, "green", non-elite units. I am glad with how they work. What always made me mad about the game is that they spawn certainly in a non-mobilized manner. Mobilization tables were supposed to allow citizens to go pick up their gear and, show up on train stations etc., and more importantny, DEPLOY to a place where they are useful. Having them spawn all over the place is the opposite of what the system existed for.

I would love it if we had a couple of options for mobilization tables. Say, slots for two or three different plans. Different plans will have different spanw provinces. So depending on who you go to war with, you use plan A or B. But honestly I don't see that happening, feels like too much man hours on a mechanic few people are going to care for.