Quote:
Originally Posted by Tak
Then, look at what Max got as personnel? Pretty much a group of outcasts. You have a general hated by most of his colleagues, a minority not trusted by his colleagues, and someone nobody has any idea of. Not exactly a successful assembly, if you ask me.
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Even with crap troops, Maximillian still has superior numbers to Gallia at full deployment. If he only received replacements equal to his losses, then he would have started out with some 100,000 troops. Such a force would have faced off against some 40,000 Gallian troops at most, with 30,000 (7% mobilization) being a more realistic figure.
Given that the Gallian campaign had two effectively separate fronts, the Gallia-Eastern Empire border has to be at least 100km long. Even with 40,000 troops, there wouldn't have been anywhere near enough soldiers to cover the frontage, and the forward elements should have been easily overwhelmed. Gallia's policy of evacuating civilians from the front would only play into Maximillian's hands as it would constrict the movement of their reserves while giving the Imperial forces free reign to attack wherever they please. With minimum of strategic depth, Gallia should have popped like a balloon under the Imperial invasion.
Now, I know about Finland and the Winter War, but the Red Army's initial performance there was the very model of incompetence, with the field commanders (and Stalin) ignored the advice of the General Staff. If we were to extend that analogy to Gallia, then it'd only mean that Maximillian was as incompetent as Voroshilov. While he might have had a reason to delay his advance, failing to crush such a small country would only lead to his dismissal; and that would only serve to end whatever dreams he might have had.
This was bad enough when I thought that Gallia was a Belgium-equivalent with some 8 million people and 650,000 under arms. With Gallia as a Luxembourg-equivalent, it gets downright embarassing.
Oh, and Tak, watch those spoilers. There are people reading this thread who haven't played the game (myself inclusive).