Wednesday 1 August 2012

PBEM Campaign Command Vacancy


I have a new command vacancy in my PBEM Gera campaign.  It is to command the 4th Russian corps, which until now has been the army reserve.   I have not appointed a player for this command until now, because this corps was too far from the enemy to have any chance of combat.  I felt it would be boring for a player to have to write orders when there was no chance of any contact with the enemy.

The campaign has now reached a critical phase.   The French have suffered two major defeats, and have had to abandon their objective of crossing the river Saale and taking the city of Gera.  

They have been forced to withdraw to the west bank of the river, and have the difficult task of holding the river line with just three corps against the Russian four corps.

The campaign objective is now for the Russians to cross the river and establish themselves on the west bank.   1st, 2nd and 3rd Russian corps have the task of crossing the river.   4th corps is moving up in reserve to support whichever one is successful.  

It is likely to be three or four campaign moves before 4th corps actually makes contact with the French, so this is a good time for me, as joint umpire and Russian CinC, to relinquish command.   It will give the new player plenty of time to get used to the campaign before he has to make the difficult decisions.

The campaign has been PBEM for about two years, and is now very user friendly.  There is no need for any extensive knowledge of Napoleonic tactics or history.   The CinC (me) provides the corps commanders with a general objective, and they only have to decide how they will achieve that.  They also have to ensure that they keep an eye on their supplies.

The only requirement for a campaign player is that they have the time, and are prepared, to reply to emails within 48 hours.  If unable to do so they must let me know within the same 48 hours.

I expect that this campaign will continue for about two to three months.  Although it is driven by the players, so it is quite difficult to be definite about how long it will take to reach a conclusion.

Orders are written about once a week, and a report to the CinC about every two or three weeks.   Players are allowed one message each move to another corps commander in order to keep in touch and try to coordinate their operations.

You will find everything about the campaign in the Campaign Diary Blog here:

The campaign rules are here:

There is also a campaign forum here:

If you would like to have a go, or would like more information, send me an email, leave a message here or contact me on the forum

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