ww1 saw prominence of small unit tactics

[cinco]

the huge blob armies need to go. standard units needs to be about 20 men. find a way to break the 20 unit rule, then have specialized "advancement" troops consisting of 50-100 men.

[King Sama]

Read the first 5.0 preview, a link is in the progress/updates thread.

[Aanker]

There will be the tiny scale, on top of which we will include a guide on how to increase the unit number in the campaign.

[Iljitsch]

There will be the tiny scale, on top of which we will include a guide on how to increase the unit number in the campaign.

Unit number in the campaign? you mean allowing people to have more than 20 units in an army?

[Aanker]

Yes. For units 4-20 men in size I think 100 units per army should be a pretty good setting, though it is harder to micromanage that kind of conglomeration of troop entities.

If you ask me, in the end, I'm going to play on the tiny scale since it is closest to the tactics used. For the campaign though, the normal scale will be less cumbersome and still mostly work in terms of battlemap gameplay, but tiny is the way to go to get the most of that real feeling of World War I.

[Iljitsch]

yep, i'll be going tiny scale too (as soon as you'll release it^^)

[Dan113112]

Didn't the Canadian Corps invent a lot of the modern platoon tactics?

[Whukid]

Didn't the Canadian Corps invent a lot of the modern platoon tactics?

Oh god. please don't start with the "ANZAC>ALL" nonsense. It's safe to say that all sides advanced their tactics lightyears ahead of where they were at the start, though I would say the French and Germans were more proactive in finding new and creative ways of offing the next generation.

[don_Durandal]

I didn’t think I’d ever say that, but Whukid has a point here. You can’t automatically go and credit everything to the Canadians and Australians (and please not this "everyone is forgetting about us" tripe, that couldn’t be further from the truth). They have enough real accomplishments of their own to not need embellishments.


Every belligerent gradually introduced small unit tactics over the course of 1915 due to the conditions of trench warfare and the need to have specialized grenade throwers; the company as the smallest tactical unit was no longer practical. The French were the first to switch to the “squads – half platoon – platoon” model on a wide scale though, due to the introduction of the Chauchat to the infantry in 1915 and the need to coordinate firepower and movement between riflemen, grenadiers, rifle grenadiers and automatic riflemen within the same platoon.

When Currie heard about the successful French offensives at Verdun in late 1916 he sent a number of his officers to the French army to study their tactics. The infantry and artillery tactics used by the Canadian corps at Vimy were pretty much learned and adapted from there. So no, Currie was not an innovative genius, he was a practical man who could think outside the box (and outside British manuals) and recognise what works.

[LotsofxXandzZ]

I didn’t think I’d ever say that, but Whukid has a point here. You can’t automatically go and credit everything to the Canadians and Australians (and please not this "everyone is forgetting about us" tripe, that couldn’t be further from the truth). They have enough real accomplishments of their own to not need embellishments.

Humans invented small unit tactics, why can't anyone say that? Sure everyone likes claiming glory for their country but why not claim glory for us humans instead, we are all the same after all.

[King Sama]

Humans invented small unit tactics, why can't anyone say that? Sure everyone likes claiming glory for their country but why not claim glory for us humans instead, we are all the same after all.

[RNV]

Humans invented small unit tactics, why can't anyone say that? Sure everyone likes claiming glory for their country but why not claim glory for us humans instead, we are all the same after all.

I'm not a human, I'm an Uebermensh.

[Whukid]

Humans invented small unit tactics, why can't anyone say that? Sure everyone likes claiming glory for their country but why not claim glory for us humans instead, we are all the same after all.

"Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan." - John F. Kennedy

[Dan113112]

I didn’t think I’d ever say that, but Whukid has a point here. You can’t automatically go and credit everything to the Canadians and Australians (and please not this "everyone is forgetting about us" tripe, that couldn’t be further from the truth). They have enough real accomplishments of their own to not need embellishments.


Every belligerent gradually introduced small unit tactics over the course of 1915 due to the conditions of trench warfare and the need to have specialized grenade throwers; the company as the smallest tactical unit was no longer practical. The French were the first to switch to the “squads – half platoon – platoon” model on a wide scale though, due to the introduction of the Chauchat to the infantry in 1915 and the need to coordinate firepower and movement between riflemen, grenadiers, rifle grenadiers and automatic riflemen within the same platoon.

When Currie heard about the successful French offensives at Verdun in late 1916 he sent a number of his officers to the French army to study their tactics. The infantry and artillery tactics used by the Canadian corps at Vimy were pretty much learned and adapted from there. So no, Currie was not an innovative genius, he was a practical man who could think outside the box (and outside British manuals) and recognise what works.

I never said that we invented everything relating to small unit tactics. I said we invented a lot of new tactics which we did. I am well aware that both sides learned that you couldn't fight in a Nepoleonic or Victorian style anymore. Was Currie the only guy around with a brain? No. Was he innovative? In my opinion I'd have to agree that he was. Even if he initially learned from the French. I've read some books and articles on the Battle of Verdun about the germans using stormtroopers equiped with pouches of grenades and probably SMGs. They were very effective.

The book I read could be wrong but it stated something along the lines of Currie was getting pretty close to being appointed commander of the British and Empire forces before the war's end. In my opinion, they woud have suffered fewer casualties if they did. Generals like Hauge got a lot of Canadians killed (him and the Ross rifle).

[don_Durandal]

The claim about Currie becoming commander of the British Expeditionary Force was made by Lloyd George in his biography, and historians have a number of good reasons not to take it seriously. Currie was a very effective corps commander, with four crack divisions under his command; Haig however had a whole expeditionary force to manage, with no less than 62 divisions of variable quality. Currie was never tested at any level of command even remotely close to the one required to command the whole BEF.
There is only one intellectually honest answer here: we don’t know how well he would have done; anything else is just baseless speculation.

Besides there were plenty of other generals in the British (and dominions) armies with both good records of service and experience at a higher level of command: Plumer, Byng, Allenby, Rawlinson, Horne, etc.., all of which commanded armies to good effect (i.e. army = 2-3 corps). That one of them would have been chosen to replace Haig instead is far more likely, and much less speculative.

I’m not quite sure why you brought the subject of German stormtroopers up, besides to point out that you did hear about the Battle of Verdun. That is indeed where they were first used (although not with submachineguns, as those would not become available until two years later), and successfully in the initial phase of the campaign (the first German offensive, from February to April 1916).
What I was referring to was the French counterattacks in October and December 1916, in which the French retook the whole terrain they had lost to the Germans earlier that year, but with only a fraction of the time and casualties it had cost them. Some of the elements which allowed this success (besides German demoralisation and lack of reserves):
- creeping barrage to shield the advancing infantry
- rehearsal of the attack by all units which were to take part (Mangin had a mock battlefield prepared behind the lines to simulate the attack sector and train his assault divisions)
- counterbattery plans to eliminate the German artillery
- platoons arrayed in assault formation by “section columns” of half-platoons (what the British later adopted as “artillery formation”) to allow for fast movement, supporting fire between squads and minimal casualties from enemy artillery.
- grenade training for all infantrymen
If you have read some in-depth study about Vimy Ridge you should already be familiar about those points; hint: it’s not a coincidence.


I think we’d all benefit here if you could write something about the lots of new tactics the Canadians invented back then. There's a couple I could think about.

[Dan113112]

Sorry for any ignorance on my part. Thanks for the insight.