Army units, fortifications, clarifications...

[Kaiser Kirk]

Seeking clarification here.

In Miketrs 1913 discussion of the Ottomans he talks of converting fortress troops to line or various specialist types. 

Since troops are only listed as infantry and cavalry/specialist, I have been proceeding as if the troops purchased with a fortress are simply infantry assigned that fortress, not a 3rd type that would need conversion to one or the other.

This has both led to my moving fortress troops elsewhere when the fortress was discontinued (Ulm) and using existing baseline troops to serve as garrison, thus lowering the cost of building fortified lines. 

More recently, since I'd rather have 5,000 mobilized elite troops garrison fortifications against surprise attack vs. the 5,000 skeleton staff of a reserve corps, I built independent brigades to 'hold the line' while the Corps were mobilized and came up, the actual corps could then be put in some city in the rear where there is more population. Maintenance wise it's the same, just a better use of troops. 

All of this made sense at the time, and it all has been disclosed what I was doing as I was doing it, but now I seriously wonder if I blundered by failing to pay conversion costs?

[miketr]

Your answer is in two parts...

http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=2869.msg36068#msg36068

http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=87.0

Lets say you build an advanced tech level fortified line 40 km in length or a 6 citadel fortress.  Either would cost $20 and 1.5 BP.   Now for some reason you abandon the fortified line... you get a bunch of light infantry 2 steps down on the chart. 

Advanced -> Baseline -> Dated... Which has a rating of 3/0.5 and costs $6 and 0.75 BP.  You could build a new fortified line else where and subtract that from its construction costs reducing it to...  $14 and 0.75 BP.  BUT your old fortress is now EMPTY and you would have to spend $6 and 0.75 BP to return it to action OR shove an infantry unit in there worth atleast that much; also it would take several months for the troops to fight at full effectivess in the old fort.

What the Ottomans are going to do is make the best of a bad situation; they had all the troops tossed out from the fortified lines and figured to make some use of them.

I hope this makes sense.

Michael

[Kaiser Kirk]

Congratulations, you have spawned more questions 8p

Actually neither of those two links seem applicable.

On the first link, my understanding is those are proposed, but not yet in effect. However, they should not effect actions taking while updating Bavaria 1908-14, or 1915.
That does bring up the question of how my already existing fortifications will get classed...

On the second link, it describes infantry, and specialist. Never mentions fortifications.

However, while searching for the answer under fortifications : http://www.navalism.org/index.php?topic=135.0
I found :
"A Garrison Corps can leave the Fortress or Fortification line, but as most of its artillery are fixed, it counts as a Dated light infantry (Rating 3 Artillery 0.5)."

So..well.. I messed up badly then, I was thinking the garrison troops were standard line infantry of the same tech level as the fortification.... Not dated light infantry.

I had been looking at "Where two costs are quoted, the first is Baseline, the Second is Advanced. This also refers to the level of infantry technology needed for the construction."  Figuring infantry in, infantry out.

I'm going to have to backtrack and fix reports, swap out those 4 brigades for something else- probably 2 more Cav divisions.... Oh well, better now than another 4 sim years down the line.

Hmm further question – in 1908 Bazhell made a Treaty with France, among which was the decommissioning of the baseline fortress at Ulm. When I updated Bavaria, I acted on that, and I used that corps to save money constructing the fortified line at Treviso.
a)   Was that ok? Just transfer the men and guns.  I got no value from the Ulm fortress otherwise.
b)   I also paid to upgrade it from baseline to advanced, which really isn't applicable I guess.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
As I'm the author of the convulted line:
"A Garrison Corps can leave the Fortress or Fortification line, but as most of its artillery are fixed, it counts as a Dated light infantry (Rating 3 Artillery 0.5)."
I will explain my intentions and thinking.

Namely, that artillery (principally) and other hardware are fixed, immobile, integral to the fortifications. Also, the garrison units do not have much in way of train - after all, they are not supposed to wander about the countryside causing mischief.

Thus, upon leaving their fortifications, Garrison troops are a bunch of men with rifles. With a sprinkling of a few MGs or moat-clearing artillery pieces on improvised mount.
Whether the Fortifications were Baseline or Advanced does not matter - these are blokes with rifles and not anything else - a pool of already trained and unfiormed manpower, true, but lacking all the equipment which makes police different from an army.

The way I see it, the Ottomans are making a good choice by agregating the survivors and turning them into Light Infantry.
Borys

[miketr]

The reason why the chart I made moved up with tech level is that the quality of arms the displaced infantry would have would also go up. For example 1916 tech fort would have light and heavy machineguns, hand grenades, etc.  This would make them far more effective than a 1880 tech fort which would have none of them.

Michael

[Borys]

I still think they should be Dated. Taking part of their MGs along does not make them "real" infantry. But that's IMO FWIW.
Borys

[Korpen]

I still think they should be Dated. Taking part of their MGs along does not make them "real" infantry. But that's IMO FWIW.
Borys

Considering the sheer size of the formation, I would say that treating it as light infantry of the same level would be fairly correct I think.. After all; going by how the fortress of Boden was organised in the 20s the number of guns in mobile batteries was about the same as the fixed ones.
A corp. is I would say always a combined arms formation, so even "fixed" corps should have fully mobile field elements integrated as reserves or for counterattacks.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Well, at this point my question is <drumroll please >
- Was it acceptable for me to take the troops garrisoning the baseline fortification of Ulm and move them to the fortified line at Treviso, thus reducing the costs of building that line ?

I would think that would be acceptable, as I got nothing from scrapping Ulm, which would mean any guns needed could have been transported to the fortified line.

Looking over things, it's not as much of a mess as I feared. I can simply return the two formations moved to their locations and reconsider if I want those 4 brigades.

Lastly, since I upgraded 1 of the 2 baseline corps to advanced...which doesn't work that way, I will downgrade it and stick that $2 into the port being built at Udine.