Thursday 17 April 2014

Great War - Imperial Russian Army - III Corps

I have decided to base my Russian forces around the elements engaged at Stalluponen and Gumbinnen in 1914.

3rd Army Corps

  • 25th Infantry Division
    • 1st Brigade
      • 97th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
      • 98th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
    • 2nd Brigade
      • 99th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
      • 100th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
    • 25th Artillery Brigade (2 divisions each of 3 eight gun batteries)
  • 27th Infantry Division
    • 1st Brigade
      • 105th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
      • 106th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
    • 2nd Brigade
      • 107th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
      • 108th Infantry Regiment (4 Battalions)
    • 27th Artillery Brigade (2 divisions each of 3 eight gun batteries)
  • 3rd Cavalry Division
    • 1st Brigade
      • 3rd Dragoons (6 Squadrons)
      • 3rd Lancers (6 Squadrons)
    • 2nd Brigade
      • 3rd Hussars (6 Squadrons)
      • 3rd Don Cossacks (6 Squadrons)
    • 3rd Horse Artillery Battalion (2 six gun batteries)
  • 5th Rifle Brigade
    • 17th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
    • 18th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
    • 19th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
    • 20th Rifle Regiment (2 Battalions)
    • 5th Rifle Artillery Battalion (24 Guns in 3 eight gun batteries)
  • 3rd Howitzer Artillery Battalion (1 division of 2 six gun batteries)
  • Corps Troops
    • 3rd Sapper Battalion
    • 4th Pontoon Battalion
    • 2nd Telegraph Company
    • 9th Aeronautical Company 

Monday 14 April 2014

Great-War-Eastern Front updates

The very nice people over at Pendraken have been cracking out additions to their WW1 range at a prodigious rate. So I asked Pete to pick up a largish package from Salute.  This will enable me to crack on and update both the Russian and Imperial German units to Roughly Corps sized formations.  As usual now I have read what I ordered I have no idea of the rationale behind some of the numbers so was probably suffering from word blindness at the time :)

Germans

  • 1st Corps
    • 150 Infantry - Rough equivalent of 50 bases (3 figs to a base) which should give me the Infantry component for 1st Infantry Division of Francois's 1st Corps.
    • 6 Field Guns - Divisional Artillery for the 1st Infantry. 
    • 3 Howitzers - Howitzer Battalion for the 1st Infantry

    • 1st Cavalry Division
      • 30 Kuirassiers - Two regiments for the 1st and 4th Cavalry Brigades.
      • 30 Dragoons - One regiment the for 1st Cavalry Brigade, the other to use as Jager Zu Pferde for the 2nd Cavalry Brigade.
      • 90 Dismounts - Roughly 30 bases which is hopefully more than I will every need
    Russians

    • Imperial Russian Army
      • 120 Infantry - Rough equivalent of 40 bases which is no where near enough for the 16 battalions needed for a second Russian division.  Get these painted up and then add the missing units.
      • 3 MGs - Enough for very early games where the MG Coy is at Regimental level
      • 15 Cavalry - Two per base in my armies so 7 bases or just over one Regiment (6 sotnia per regiment)
      • 15 Cossacks
      • 3 Field Guns - Again only half of what I need so will need more and I haven't accounted for the horse artillery for the cavalry formations yet either.
    What is still to do...
    So forgot the horse artillery and the third Field artillery Abteilung for the Germans.
    The old Uhlans will get moved into Divisional Cavalry.
    I haven't added any MG units for the Germans, For very early 1914 games that isn't a problem but will need to add more as I go forward.
    Russian Cavalry organisation needs about 24 bases per Division which is the same as the Germans. But the Germans only have 1 division in the East so will need a a few more for the Russians.
    Russian Infantry need 16 battalions per division so I will need about two more packs pretty soon.  Will see how the new marching poses fit in.

    Tuesday 1 April 2014

    Downtown - Play Aids

    I thought I would post up the play aids that I use for playing Downtown.  These are derived from the Living Rules book and the Solo Rules and only include a small amount of info from any of the play charts.

    First up is my Play Sequence.  There are plenty narrative based ones out there but I like pictures


    This is supported by the following


    I have made the Flight Logs into editable format as well. But only because I want to use them to illustrate the game.

    Next up isn't a play aid per se, but is my planning map to support some on line tutorials



    Updated Chart to Version 5.0


    Log Sheet Version 5



    Re-read of the SAM Shooting options table