Great War

1914-1918

BARRAGE - Early 20th Century Warfare
BARRAGE can be used to refight any World War One battle. From the trenches of the Western Front, to the Italian Alps, to the Russian frontier, to the jungles of Africa,  to the deserts of the Mid-East. Germans, French, British, Belgium, United States, Russian, Serbians, Australians, New Zealanders, Austro-Hungarian, Indian, Bulgarian, Rumanian, and Ottoman Empire armies are covered in BARRAGE. Each nation has their own TO&E, Sequence Deck, Army Ratings, and difficulty ratings. Armies and Leaders are rated through-out the war and these values can vary from front to front. Each front also has a listing of all the major battles and offensives to give you ideas for scenarios.

BARRAGE covers all the major innovations of the Great War: tanks, armored cars, armored trains, gas, flame-throwers, smoke, flares, trenches, barbed wire, and extensive artillery rules to add unique flavor to this period where artillery dominated the battlefield.

 German_Landwehr_02.jpg (38234 bytes)
German Landwehr advancing in Depth Formation

 

JAEGER_MG01.jpg (29293 bytes)
German Jaeger Machine Gun Section - Converted Minifig figures. Painted by Eric Burgess

BARRAGE has many stratagems which can be used to spice up your scenarios. These stratagems can be drawn randomly through the Army Characterization deck or scenario designers can use specific stratagems to make a scenario more interesting. Each war, and sometimes front, has different stratagems. In total there are 17 different stratagem tables.

Some of the stratagems contained in BARRAGE are Big Push!, Advanced Unnoticed, Enemy Exhausted, Fast Carts, Marshy Ground, Air Support, Balloon Observation, Flying Circus, Machine Gun support, Machine Gun Barrage, Purged, Lines-of-Communication severed, Tanks!, Desertion, Sailors Arrive, Mine, Cheka, Ice March, and Trostky Arrives. These are just a few of the exciting stratagems that can be used in your battles.

Sample TO&E of the Bulgarian Army

Military Organization

Attached Assets

Composition
Army 1 Field Howitzer Regiment4
1 Heavy Howitzer Regiment5		 3 divisions
Division 2 Cavalry squadrons
1 New Field Artillery Regiment1
1 Old Field Artillery Regiment2
2 or 3 Mountain gun batteries6
Two to Four MG companies per division
Two Engineer companies		 3 Brigades3
Brigade 4 Regiments
Regiment One MG section8 2 - 4 battalions
Battalion 4 companies (250 men each)
Cav. Division 2 Horse Artillery Batteries7 2 Brigades
Brigade 2 Regiments
Regiment One MG Section 4 squadrons (130 men each)

NOTES:

  1. Six 75mm Schneider-Creusot field gun batteries (4 guns per battery)
  2. Six batteries of old 75mm and 87mm Krupp guns( 4 guns per battery)
  3. Two regular brigades and one reserve brigade. All have the same organization.
  4. Three howitzer batteries (Army Asset) (105mm Schneider-Creusot FH)
  5. Three Heavy Howitzer batteries (Army Asset) (150mm Krupp Heavy Howitzers)
  6. Not all divisions had mountain gun batteries. If they do each battery had four 75mm Schneider Mountain Guns.
  7. Each battery is composed of four 75mm Light Field Guns.
    8.
  8. As the war progressed the number of Machine Gun sections increased. By the end of the war each Battalion should have at least one machine gun company of three sections.

Austrian MG (gunner) - NC119.jpg (63039 bytes)

  Austrian early war machine gun platoon. From the collection of Eric Burgess. 15mm figures from Irregular Miniatures

SOURCES:


Bruce, Anthony; An Illustrated Companion to the First World War
Penguin Group, London, 1989.

Clark, Alan, The Eastern Front 1914-1918: Suicide of the Empires,
The Windrush Press, Gloucestershire, 1971

Coombs, Rose E. B., Before Endeavours Fade,
After the Battle Publications, London, 1994

Cooper, Bryan, The Battle of Cambrai,
Stein and Day Publishers, New York, N.Y., 1968

Coppard, George, With a Machine Gun to Cambrai,
Cassell & Company, London, 1980

Farwell, Byron; The Great War in Africa (1914-1918),
W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1986

Griffith, Paddy, Battle Tactics of the Western Front,
Yale University Press, Newhaven and London, 1994.

Gudmundsson, Bruce I., Stormtroop Tactics – Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918,
Praeger, New York, New York, 1989

Haythornthwaite, Philip J., A Photohistory of World War One
Arms and Armour Press, London, 1995

Haythornthwaite, Philip J., Gallipoli 1915
Osprey, London, 1991

Haythornthwaite, Philip J., The World War One Source Book,
Arms and Armour Press, London, 1994.

Hogg, Ian V., Allied Artillery of World War I,
The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire, 1998

Horne, Alistair, The Price of Glory – Verdun 1916,
Penguin Books, New York, New York,1964

Livesey, Anthony; The Historical Atlas of World War I,
Henry Holt and Company, Inc, New York, 1994

Lomas, David, Mons 1914 – The BEF’s Tactical Triumph,
Osprey, London, 1997

Macdonald, Lyn, Somme,
Michael Joseph Ltd., London, 1983

Moore, William, See How They Ran – The British Retreat of 1918,
Sphere Books Limited, London, 1975

Powell, E. Alexander; Fighting in Flanders,
William Heinemann, London, 1915

Stone, Norman; The Eastern Front 1914 – 1917
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1975

Sulzbach, Herbert, With the German Guns,
Leo Cooper, London, 1998

Terraine, John, Mons,
The Macmillian Company, New York, 1960

Toland, John, No Man’s Land – 1918 – The Last Year of the Great War,
Ballantine Books, New York, 1982

GermanCross01.jpg (18433 bytes)

German 1914 Iron Cross,
from the collection of Brian Connolly

FrenchMedal01.jpg (22741 bytes)

French Cross of War WWI medal,
from the collection of Brian Connolly

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