I explicitly spoke about supply train (300 carts) that were used to sustain a siege. When the carts were captured by the enemy, the Prussians were forced to lift the siege. I never even mentioned a continuous "supply line" in the modern sense of the term.
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Napoleon lost his war in the Russian winter. . I would need an awful lot of evidence to say that Napoleon of all people was NOT ignorant of logistical realities.
Supply train is supply line. What do you guys think a supply line is? An uninterrupted line of people passing food from one to another for 5000 kms? An uninterrupted line of vehicles doing the same? An uninterrupted line of some items for 300 kms???
Napoleon lost because he needed to do or die it quick, pushing rapidly his troops into Russian land. It was not an option to organize a total siege over several years because Russia were not his only enemies. And the Russians did the smart thing given the circumstances. They refused to face him and withdrew.
EDIT: ANd by the way, Napoleon won the battles, but it was not enough, because he lost too many people. Not to the winter, but because of a fight. September 1812. He expected to win and return, because there was a disinformation campaign run against him that told him that the Russians are ready to give up. Instead, he ended up with little ratios for his soldiers, and with the Russians not giving up, although they retreated in a second battle.
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I'm not fluent in the military terminology, certainly not in English. But for me a "supply line" would hold up constant supply to a moving target. A supply train, at least in the sense of the EUIV period, would be a one-off concerted effort to bring supplies to a fixed target. At least that would be my understanding of the matter.
"Instead, he ended up with little ratios for his soldiers" - how is this any different from what I said?
Supply lines typically refer to routes of continuous supply; modern warfare has relied on this since rails because the rocketry equation for fuel (e.g. coal, oil, uranium) is vastly less drastic than for grain. Supply lines typically move material from the rear to the front. There were no such supply lines in EUIV or earlier warfare.
Supply train typically was an organic element of the army that moved bulky items. Most commonly this was the siege train that moved artillery and powder. Napoleon, for instance, had a supply train that travelled with the army that had a few days worth of rations. This was to ensure that on days when battles were fought the men would be well fed that morning. Supply trains typically moved along the front.
Supply conveys were relatively rare affairs where supplies were gathered at a depot, loaded onto wagons, and then moved overland to a besieging army. This were brutally expensive to use; the going rate for cartage being about $1/pound/100 miles. These often originated in "hostile" or neutral territory and they routinely required detaching up to a third of the army to protect. These travelled at half or lower the speed of a typical army. Also, once you scrounged up the draft animals for one, you rarely could manage to do another.
The majority of EUIV supply was from the front. It was maxim of the generals at the time that whenever possible you should live off the enemy. It was routine for all your needs - lead, powder, clothing, food, and even men to come from the front.
Where supply routes actually existed typically where naval and riverine routes. The Ottomans, for instance, had the best logistics in Europe because they had the Danube to run masses of supplies on easily. They had vastly harder times moving men and material on the Persian front as there simply was no equivalent river. In general in this era, anything more than 50 miles from water was logistically more distant than any port in the world. You could literally ship things more easily from London to New York than you could from New York City to Buffalo.
Regardless of all of the above, supply by forage and pillage was routine. Heck, we even had armies paid by pillage. You should be able to follow the same strategy as Marlborough in this game.
If you look at the modern logistical system it is a direct descendent of the reforms instituted by Napoleon.
Supply train typically was an organic element of the army that moved bulky items. Most commonly this was the siege train that moved artillery and powder. Napoleon, for instance, had a supply train that travelled with the army that had a few days worth of rations. This was to ensure that on days when battles were fought the men would be well fed that morning. Supply trains typically moved along the front.
Supply conveys were relatively rare affairs where supplies were gathered at a depot, loaded onto wagons, and then moved overland to a besieging army. This were brutally expensive to use; the going rate for cartage being about $1/pound/100 miles. These often originated in "hostile" or neutral territory and they routinely required detaching up to a third of the army to protect. These travelled at half or lower the speed of a typical army. Also, once you scrounged up the draft animals for one, you rarely could manage to do another.
The majority of EUIV supply was from the front. It was maxim of the generals at the time that whenever possible you should live off the enemy. It was routine for all your needs - lead, powder, clothing, food, and even men to come from the front.
Where supply routes actually existed typically where naval and riverine routes. The Ottomans, for instance, had the best logistics in Europe because they had the Danube to run masses of supplies on easily. They had vastly harder times moving men and material on the Persian front as there simply was no equivalent river. In general in this era, anything more than 50 miles from water was logistically more distant than any port in the world. You could literally ship things more easily from London to New York than you could from New York City to Buffalo.
Regardless of all of the above, supply by forage and pillage was routine. Heck, we even had armies paid by pillage. You should be able to follow the same strategy as Marlborough in this game.
Napoleon was the best logistician of the age. He knew how bad Russia would be and the effects of the winter were discussed by the general staff. Napoleon elected to gamble that the Russian Army would not be able to sustain fighting spirit if Moscow fell with the possible need to take St. Petersburg to demoralize the enemy. What Napoleon truly underestimated was the sacrifices that Russian soldiers would endure for the Motherland.
If you look at the modern logistical system it is a direct descendent of the reforms instituted by Napoleon.
In his military campaigns in central europe Napoleon could rely on forage/pillage and move quickly. In his russian campaign, he knew this wouldn't be possible. Therefore he took with the army a huge supply train. Unfortunately, the army moved much faster than the train and the masses of cattle and horses, they brought with them, already died on their way to Russia for they were not given enough time to graze (brillant, mon generale). So what was intended to be a "supply train" in your terminology effectively became a "supply convoy". Once in Moscow, Napoleon had to return home in October, because it was clear, they couldn't sustain winter (and the zar refused to offer peace to the mouse sitting in the trap). His army partly went through provinces they had already passed and pillaged when they came there, so there was nothing to forage/pillage anymore (brilliant, again). There were supplies sitting along their way back, but these were destroyed or captured by the enemy. So I would say, even if he was not ignorant of the russian winter, he just wasn't able to set up a functioning supply. Thus to say that "Napoleon was the best logistician of the age" is ridiculous. He may have been the best tactitian, but he achieved his military successes in middle europe where supply logistics were not really needed, but foraging/pillaging and moving quickly was sufficient. The moment he truly faced a logistical task, he failed. He failed to feed his soldiers or even bring tents for them to sleep when night temperatures went to -20 degrees and more.
It's different because he went unprepared for a long war expecting a quick total victory that would force the Russians to give up, not because he did not have the means to set up supply lines for his troops for a long war. A long war he could not afford because he had other enemies in Europe too, so he couldn't keep his troops in Russia for 5 years as we sometimes do in EU
EDIT: That's what EU doesn't do right. If you are blobbing too much and waging wars with your troops far away from your home land, during such wars the other GPs should mischievously attack you to put you down when you are becoming a too big threat for the world order.
You're misenterpreting historical facts to come to the wrong conclusion, especially when comparing it to how "well" EU4 models it. I've not read the books you and other people read, but logic dictates this:
Yes, in neutral and relatively fertile and rich territories an army that was granted (or simply took) a right to pass through had probably an easy time to buy supplies. This was, I assure you, not the case in regions plagued by famine, war or simply really inhospitable terrain like deserts or high mountains.
If your army was routed, though, there was a high chance that your treasure train was taken as well. Suddenly, no more money to buy supplies. So soldiers have to resort to plunder. Numerous descriptions of battles mention this, numerous cases document the anger and fury of local rulers and population about soldiers plundering lands they were granted free passage in.
Then you talk reinforcements. Sure, in many cases, local people, local lords, sometimes foreign lords, joined the ranks of an advancing army. Either for personal glory, money, to escape ciminal prosecution, hatred for the enemy forces and nobles. Just as many people joined these armies as non-combatants, to provide services (scouting, translating, prositution, repairs, cooking etc.). Yet after humiliating defeats, most of these deserted.
You can't put forward what you describe as rationale for EU4 if EU4 doesn't model this.
- non-belligerent provinces that you pass through don't profit from your purchases nor suffer devastation from your looting.
- provinces you pass through don't lose the manpower that you gained.
- you don't lose professionalism when recruiting foreign fighters (which should be, realistically, treated as mercenaries)
- if you lose a battle, the exact opposite of historical fact happens: while you retreat, you gain *more* manpower, you *gain* morale, money is readily available, no looting happens.
- in hostile terrain, you gain manpower from thin air. Sure, you could claim (validly) that this manpower coming from people and nobles in the foreign empire willing to join your cause. Yet this manpower is not substracted from the enemy's manpower pool. You could argue that this taps into a special part of the enemy's manpower that isn't available to him. But neither does it model that these people are perhaps fighting for something they want from this war. For example higher autonomy or independence for their provinces. And why would anyone join a penyless retreating army is beyond my understanding.
Historical fact tells us that in big international wars at least, big battles were critical. If you lost a critical battle, the war was basically over. In many cases, it also involved controlling critical forts (sieges), sure.
It's different because he went unprepared for a long war expecting a quick total victory that would force the Russians to give up, not because he did not have the means to set up supply lines for his troops for a long war. A long war he could not afford because he had other enemies in Europe too, so he couldn't keep his troops in Russia for 5 years as we sometimes do in EU
EDIT: That's what EU doesn't do right. If you are blobbing too much and waging wars with your troops far away from your home land, during such wars the other GPs should mischievously attack you to put you down when you are becoming a too big threat for the world order.
Well AI already accounts for wars while calculating whether to attack you or not.
But don't account if all my 100k troops are in a tour in Australia while the mainland is undefended.
This used to be my day job, they make you read the books for a masters of military science because so many things are more complicated than common sense would dictate.
For instance, you are ignoring the third option for supply requisition which was commonly used when the baggage train was captured: promissory notes and vows. The locals did not like them, but getting a piece of paper promising to repay at a later time was something - particularly as speculators would buy them up at fractional prices. This allowed armies to thread the needle between raw plunder and sutlery.
Regions with plague, inhospitable desert, or high mountains were places armies went to die. You might pass a small force, e.g. <5,000, through a moderately passable desert, but only with an obnoxious draft burden and low artillery (e.g. Judar Pasha had to use around 3:1 camels & horses to manpower going down a highly established trade route with good oases and could only manage eight small cannon); going through a bad desert meant porting water and that is a horrid weight burden. High mountains were only passable if there was farming at altitude (e.g. Switzerland), this is why the Scandinavians did not go over the mountains and Norway was quite defensible against Sweden even though far higher passes were routinely used in the Alps. Likewise, the storied passes throughout the world were key strategic points precisely because they were the only routes through that did not require moving too far from supply areas. As far as plagues, well the books are full of references where plagues leave areas with insufficient forage so commanders explicitly avoid fighting in those areas.
There are virtually no battles in this era that occurred more than 10 miles from some farmer's field or herd. There is a reason for that.
As far as how the peasantry would react, well that was highly variable. By the end of the era nationalism had taken over and they had relatives in the defending army. Earlier in the era they often cared nothing about anyone more than a three days walk away (a rough estimate of kin network size). Wars were not within their purview( and they would not care terribly much if you plundered a few towns over, after all that meant you were flush with things to trade for food. Religion, of course, was a dominant thing for peasantry, Catholic peasants would be brutal to Protestants, but in few places were there no minority religious adherents so you may well find the local (crypto) Catholics willing to join up with a defeated army. The peasants were highly fickle; you basically cannot generalize about them.
As far as the EUIV model, look I have already said that manpower itself is an ahistorical kludge. For most of the early game "manpower" was whomever you hired. Local levies could swell armies to massive size (e.g. so that Wallachia and the Ottoman Empire faced off with comparable forces in Wallachia), but would not fight far from home. When you conquered new territory you began exploiting its manpower basically immediately (e.g. the Mughal conquest, the Manchu conquest, and the Ottoman conquest of Egypt all began bolstering their forces with enemy manpower during the conquest). The game would be more historical without manpower until the 18th century because manpower was not a typical concern before then. The fact the numbers don't work for a value that is generated ahistorically matters not at all to me.
What we know, rock solid, is that Cortez and Pizarro managed to have their effective fighting forces grow thousands of miles from home. What know is that Judar Pasha managed to grow his effective fighting force in Timbuktu. This happened with Napoleon's army in Egypt and his armies in Eastern Europe. This happened regularly. It should happen in game. What we do no is that there was no relation between the reinforcement rate and the distance from home territory or the state of home territory. No general of the era records hoping that the home territory is not occupied so he can receive reinforcements. No general of the era sought to blanket the countryside to deny reinforcements to his adversaries.
This sort of silliness about supply lines and reinforcements would make historical conquests impossible, it would further warp warfare incentives away from their historical base, and it would take a bunch of resources to hack up (with an AI that literally cannot manage a dirt simple range limitation naval logistics system).
Cortez didn't receive reinforcements, he made native allies. That's quite a different thing indeed.
Napoleon didn't receive reinforcements, he picked up allied troops (from "satellite states") and forced civilians with horses and carriages to join the track and transport supplies/men. That's quite a different thing, again.
I agree that manpower should be adjusted according with the provinces you control instead of the provinces you nominally own. Sure. But the mechanics is correct.