Tested Casualty Count

[SJS063]

A few weeks ago, I was brainstorming ideas of how to add a new historical influence into 1914. I have seen topics in forums for G40 of what each infantry unit represents. For G40 with many units on the board, I guessed with a number at 20,000 for each infantry unit or one chip. For each year of the war I kept track of the amount of units I took off the board infantry wise. I got up to the year 1919 before my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel decided to walk across the board. But I thou I’d share the statistics I got up to that point to hear what you guys have to say. By the end of 1919, the Allies had lost approximately 3,400,000 men, while the Central only 1,940,000. If you’re rea interested in how a country did individually, just ask and I’ll let you know, but please comment on how you feel about this and any adjustments I’m all ears.

Thanks,
                    SJS063

[amanntai]

@SJS063:

A few weeks ago, I was brainstorming ideas of how to add a new historical influence into 1914. I have seen topics in forums for G40 of what each infantry unit represents. For G40 with many units on the board, I guessed with a number at 20,000 for each infantry unit or one chip. For each year of the war I kept track of the amount of units I took off the board infantry wise. I got up to the year 1919 before my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel decided to walk across the board. But I thou I’d share the statistics I got up to that point to hear what you guys have to say. By the end of 1919, the Allies had lost approximately 3,400,000 men, while the Central only 1,940,000. If you’re rea interested in how a country did individually, just ask and I’ll let you know, but please comment on how you feel about this and any adjustments I’m all ears.

Thanks,
                    SJS063

Only 3,400,000? Seems pretty low compared to real life.

What country had the highest casualties?

[SJS063]

Austria Hungary lost 1,000,000 men exactly, while Germany and Russia both lost 980,000. France was not far back with 620,000.

[Flashman]

I’ve always said casualties should be a factor in pushing a country towards collapse; certainly the high rate in the Russian army was a factor in their revolution.

But you’d have to include other units in casualty figures, otherwise people will just buy less infantry.

[CWO Marc]

The very rough rule of thumb that I use when thinking about military formations is that an infantry division equals approximately 10,000 men.  There’s a lot of variation, of course, but 10,000 is approximately right and it has the advantage of being a round number that’s easy to work with.  The 20,000 man figure you quote would therefore represent a corps-sized formation, consisting of two divisions.  A&A 1914 is a strategic-level game, and it’s appropriate for military forces to be highly abstracted in a game at that scale.  It sounds right for the units in the A&A WWI game, and the WWII global-scale ones, to depict very large formations – army groups, armies, and corps – with divisions being about as small as is practical to represent (let’s say, by having a tank depict a WWII armoured division used to support an infantry corps).

The casualty figures you quote might not be the right criterion to use to estimate what the A&A WWI infantry units represent, since game casualty rates depend a lot on random factors.  (In your example, for instance, the Allies lost nearly twice as many men as the Central Powers, whereas in real life the ratio wasn’t nearly that lopsided.)  A better criterion might be to look at the game’s starting figures: count how many infantry units each side has at the beginning of the game, compare these figures with the historical starting numbers for each country, and see if there seems to be a consistent proportion between the two sets of figures.  If there is a consistent proportion, then it should be easy to compute that 1 infantry equals x number of troops, a number which, in turn, usually equates to a formation called a [whatever].  If there isn’t a consistent proportion, then there wouldn’t be much point in doing such a computation because the answer would vary from country to country.

[CWO Marc]

Oh, and by the way – I like the story about the dog walking across the game board.  Usually it’s cats who do that sort of thing.  :-D

[SJS063]

@Flashman:

I’ve always said casualties should be a factor in pushing a country towards collapse; certainly the high rate in the Russian army was a factor in their revolution.

But you’d have to include other units in casualty figures, otherwise people will just buy less infantry.

I’ve always been thinking of this as well, and this was just sort of a first step in designing what I will call revolution points. Types I have been thinking about are blockades, death toll, regions lost, and other various things contributing to a countries revolution, and in the context of the game, the withdrawal of a country from play. I’ll be doing some more research and I’ll let you know what I come up with.

@CWO:

The very rough rule of thumb that I use when thinking about military formations is that an infantry division equals approximately 10,000 men.  There’s a lot of variation, of course, but 10,000 is approximately right and it has the advantage of being a round number that’s easy to work with.  The 20,000 man figure you quote would therefore represent a corps-sized formation, consisting of two divisions.  A&A 1914 is a strategic-level game, and it’s appropriate for military forces to be highly abstracted in a game at that scale.  It sounds right for the units in the A&A WWI game, and the WWII global-scale ones, to depict very large formations – army groups, armies, and corps – with divisions being about as small as is practical to represent (let’s say, by having a tank depict a WWII armoured division used to support an infantry corps).

The casualty figures you quote might not be the right criterion to use to estimate what the A&A WWI infantry units represent, since game casualty rates depend a lot on random factors.  (In your example, for instance, the Allies lost nearly twice as many men as the Central Powers, whereas in real life the ratio wasn’t nearly that lopsided.)  A better criterion might be to look at the game’s starting figures: count how many infantry units each side has at the beginning of the game, compare these figures with the historical starting numbers for each country, and see if there seems to be a consistent proportion between the two sets of figures.  If there is a consistent proportion, then it should be easy to compute that 1 infantry equals x number of troops, a number which, in turn, usually equates to a formation called a [whatever].  If there isn’t a consistent proportion, then there wouldn’t be much point in doing such a computation because the answer would vary from country to country.

Very true. What I plan on doing is taking the number of units starting on the board and the actual estimated number of men at the start of the war, and dividing the 2 to get my estimated value of 1 unit. This number will be averaged amongst the 8 nations, or Country Specific

@CWO:

Oh, and by the way – I like the story about the dog walking across the game board.  Usually it’s cats who do that sort of thing.  :-D

I love my dog but man can he be a pain.

[CWO Marc]

@SJS063:

@CWO:

Oh, and by the way – I like the story about the dog walking across the game board.  Usually it’s cats who do that sort of thing.   :-D
I love my dog but man can he be a pain.

On this topic, here’s a picture that may amuse you.  I’m not sure whose pet this is, but it has good taste in napping places.

[Flashman]

This was also the main purpose of the suggested bomber unit; they do very little material damage, but the effect on morale of bombs falling on the capital was huge. It also forces powers to station fighters to defend the capital, drawing them away from the main fronts.