WW1 daily life

germans had mp18 gun, gewehr rifles

The standard issue for the German was a Mauser Gewehr 98, they usually had a few stick grenades (Stielhandgranate) and after 1916 a steel helmet (Stahlhelm). The German Army made extensive use (more than any other army in the beginning) of the MG08 heavy machine gun and flame throwers. Unlike Battlefield 1 or what the other user posted things like the MP18 were very rare.
cont.

Mustard gas was used fairly late, but than quite extensively, in the beginning the most common, lethal gas used, was Chlorine gas (Cl2), very cheap and fairly effective, before gas mask technology was advanced. This was replaced by the far, far more lethal phosgene gas.
In German terminology these are classified as green cross, agents that attack the respiratory system.
Mustard Gas is a blistering agent and would've been a yellow cross agent.
There are more types of chemical agents used, if you really wnat I can go into more detail.
Another thing of note would be the German use of "Maskenbrecher" or "mask breakers", they would first use things like Tear gas (white cross) or certain Arsenic compounds (blue cross), that are non-lethal, but so aggressive, that the enemy had to take off his mask, and than they would fire lethal mustard or phosgene gas to seal the deal. Fun times all around

What would be some ways to avoid dying from those gaz ? If I'm gonna make my players go to the front I want them to have a chance to get out of here alive BUT also use weapons that are realistic, which includes gas.

Mauser 1898, Lee Enfield, Lebel, Mannlicher 1895, Carcano, Mosin-Nagant

All in all, gas was fairly ineffective for the amount that was used (IIRC about 100000 fatalities). Mustard gas and chlorine gas are heavier than air, they would be mostly prevalent in the shell craters, so stick to high grounds. Pissing in your handkerchief is already a halfway decent protection against chlorine. You could use mustard gas as temporary blindness or painful injury or so. Also wind played a major factor in where the gas went, so with a little luck your players might experience the full horrors of the great war and still survive (maybe just leave out phosgene and Maskenbrecher, you can always keep tear gas like stuff, but i don't know, since I'm not into those kind of games)

Alright that sounds good. What about bombing ? Was that frequent ? Did they bomb during the night ?

Bombing as in airplanes? No. Very infrequent and mostly high value targets.

If you mean shelling (shooting out of artillery pieces), that really depended (I presume you're not so familiar with history and equate all of WWI to the western front, common mistake, don't worry, so I'll just talk about that). Sometimes they would intensely shell a position for a few days and nights without a break, but this would've fairly rare and only before a battle. Sometimes, like during the battle of Verdun, the shelling from both sides was extremely intense for weeks, both day and night.
So if you aren't somewhere, where there is going to be a big battle, you'll probably be bored and be able to sleep most the night. The concept of "terror shelling" (a low cadence of shells for a long period, to keep the enemy on edge) was very rare. It really depends on what scenario you want to set up, take the options above to what suits you best.

Interesting ! Thank you very much for this

Yeah sure, if you have any more questions, just ask and don't get disturbed by shitposters (Veeky Forums is always welcome).
I'm a bit restricted, since I mainly know the German side, and I'm not a true historian, but a chemfag with history fetish. Still I'll answer all questions to the best of knowledge.

Actually there were bombing raids on Britain from 1915 through to the end of the war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_strategic_bombing_during_World_War_I

Daily life?
Try the following:
Constant smell of excrement (human and animal) and rotting corpses stuck in or under the surface of No Mans land.
'Gun-derstorms' at night.
Intense boredom.
Rats.
Cold.
Suicide.
Unreliable food resources.
Wet clothing.

But enemy related tropes were actually more limited to night times and planned attacks, in daily life there was often an unofficial 'live-and-let-live' policy and open communication between warring trenches including sharing a meal at dinner time, you can read more about that in "Poilut".

OP here
I know the French side a bit better (and I've seen Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles which is pretty accurate in terms of what happenned in daily life) but I lacked technical informations since I mainly know fictional stories from this era and they're often not really precise.

Also do you know a bit about how life was outside the front in Germany ? Cause I know that in France it was hard and bombings were feared by cities even far from the frontline, also that women had to do most of the job from making ammunitions to some of them taking the role of 'Marraines de Guerre' (War godmothers) who had to send letters to a soldier who had no family/no wife to send news to and needed support.

I was more talking about the front but any info is welcome so thank you !

Yeah actually I'm French so I've read it as part of my highchool program, it was interesting but pretty dull in terms of narration. Also I've forgotten most of it.

Was this the 1st war that weaponised the actual AIR? The first few times must have terrorizing, realizing that the smoke heading towards you was inescapable death.....

Actually first few Gas Attacks, no one knew what it was and assumed it was a smoke screen for an incoming charge so troops rushed to the front trench in defence.. it didn't end well for them.

From what I understand the home front in Germany was probably worse than in allied countries except for being mostly spared from actual fighting. The allied naval blockade was extremely effective at cutting off imports which at first mainly effected war material manufacturing but eventually caused shortages of everything from medicine to food to clothing. Shortages of manpower, fertilizer, and machinery caused domestic food production to fall further each year, until the winter of 1917-18 became know as the "turnip winter" because people were being forced to eat turnips (typically used as pig feed) to survive.

Yeah I heard that the deadliest factor in the war was that no one was used to the new technology and they tried to make war the way they did in 1850, rushing towards the ennemy thinking they had to reload for long periods of time, ignoring machine guns.

That's great ! (for my game I mean)
The goal was to make my players oppressed by things that aren't immediately deadly so hunger, cold and sickness will be occasions to have them roleplay their way out. (and also put some Cthulhu stuff in there to make it worse)

Haven't really been on Veeky Forums, but I might want to join your game.

Anyways, what's the basic idea behind your game? How will it be played out

Well I'm afraid I may trigger a wave of /pol/ shitposters but let's go

The 369th Infantry Regiment is an american regiment that was sent to France in the end of the First World War to help them at the front. The reason why they sent this one and not another is because it was basically a containment regiment where all the african american soldiers who wanted to enlist were sent.

This regiment at the time was never given anything important to do because of the obvious racism : they thought these men would not be able to do anything, were lazy and would rape women if they were deployed in cities. So when it was time to send troops, basically to their deaths, they chose this one.

the thing is, most of this unit was convinced they could win over the hearts of Americans and reduce racism by fighting in the war so they were delighted to be sent there. That is, before they understood what it meant. In the historical war they did really great, never lost a foot of ground and never gave any prisoners. They were heroic and stuff. Even gained the nickname Harlem Hellfighters from the germans.

In my scenario, the players will be members of this Infantry Regiment, lost in a continent they've never seen, fighting along people who don't speak their language in a war that is nothing like they've seen before and surprised that the French don't even care what color their skins are (the French allegedly treated them just like white soldiers because the racism at the time was more towards muslims). They will have to make difficult dedcisions : the germans drop propaganda aimed at them, asking them to come to the other side, promisiing to treat them better thant the Americans ever will, one of their members from Louisiana practices strange rituals in secret, sacrificing white people for the Hellfighters gain power and survive in battle...

cont.

The end game will begin when they discover that the French have been here so long and are so depressed by it all that they don't even see the things that lurk in shadows, making them sicker and hungrier, sparking conflicts among the soldiers in the trenches. Being the only ones that can see the shadows for what they are, they'll be the only ones who can prevent them from eventually destroying the troops on both sides.

>mp18
kek

It was the first time they used lethal chemical agents, I don't have any sources for actual use, but since in the den Hague convention of 1899 they forbade asphyxiating and poisonous gases, they must have been aware of them
(although I don't know what you mean with AIR, it's a gas that isn't usually present in air)

I'm aware of that (there some pretty metal propaganda posters from the Brits out there), but as I said it was very rare, compared to the scale of the conflict.

is correct, most of the food was allocated to the troops and the (poor/common) civilians would try to steal/forage/use any means to get something to eat. There are horrific pics of starving children (although most are shortly after the war) and thousands starved to death, while others succumbed to various diseases, due to malnutrition.
What should be mentioned, is the rampant war profiteering by some farmers/gangsters, people would sell off family silver, jewelery etc for a sack of potatoes (if you were rich you of course wouldn't go hungry)
Another huge problem was the shortage of horses. Horses that had been used for transportation and agriculture were taken by the military which alleviated the problem.

Interesting setting!

Standard armament was a bolt-action, Enfields have a faster action than Mausers if that means anything to you

>Interesting setting!

Thanks ! I'll try to run it as faithfully as possible.

>1/6 chance of weapons failing at any time
including gas which can turn back against the player in the wind.

>Seasonal weather conditions
Summer brings disease, Winter brings famine, Either left unresolved brings insanity.

>Two weeks in the front
Tackling the supernatural horrors.
>Two weeks in the support trench
Resisting the mental trauma of the trenches.
>Two weeks R&R
Trading/buying resources with civilians.

>Open communication between warring trenches
Please add a spoopy twist with this.

>Roll of dice for chance of artillery barrage
Which would pin any players in the front or support trenches for ??? turns.

>Bolt actions (most common)
Low close range damage.
>Machine guns (fairly common)
High close range damage, can only fire in straight line/one direction.
>Gas (fairly common)
Medium-Low damage moves gradually over 3-5 turns.
>Flamethrower (Rare, endgame)
High close-medium range damage.

That's great thank you ! I'll definetely use that.

storm of steel is a good book. read that

Veeky Forums bro, have you ever played the card game "Grizzled"? It's a fun game that's specifically about WW1, with less emphasis on combat and more about overcoming personal hurdles like ,marching through the snow during a gas attack, or being frightened by enemy machinegun fire and struggling not to retreat too early.

No I have not, since I'm french I don't have much access to american games (in physical form anyway) but thanks for the suggestion

On an unrelated note, if you're OP, I've posted a bunch of stuff itt. How do modern Frenchies view us Germans? Is there still animosity on your side, or do you think we could become bros?

Haha yeah of course. People don't care about what happened during both WW. My generation at least

> be a frenchman
> have shit equipment and a horse
> charge
> * bert bert bert bert bert*
> Fuckin dead frog

> be kraut
> be in a trench for 3 years and 364 days
> veteran
> Get killed by a drunk american by accident

> Be brit
> royal navy
> drink tea while capturing kraut ships
> army
> Get killed by an american in purpose for drinking too much tea

> be american
> kill both the brit and the kraut
> fight for five days and the war is over
> go home and fuck your ginger babe in Massachusetts
> have kids
> go to britian when your old to say sorry for killing that brit
> v2 rocket makes you no more
>"at least you fucked that qt redhead and had kids"
> meet jesus
> wait for wife
> fuck

rats
millions of very fat rats

>> be a frenchman
>> have shit equipment and a horse
>> charge
>> * bert bert bert bert bert*
>> Fuckin dead frog
>
>
>> be kraut
>> be in a trench for 3 years and 364 days
>> veteran
>> Get killed by a drunk american by accident
>
>
>> Be brit
>> royal navy
>> drink tea while capturing kraut ships
>> army
>> Get killed by an american in purpose for drinking too much tea
>
>> be american
>> kill both the brit and the kraut
>> fight for five days and the war is over
>> go home and fuck your ginger babe in Massachusetts
>> have kids
>> go to britian when your old to say sorry for killing that brit
>> v2 rocket makes you no more
>>"at least you fucked that qt redhead and had kids"
>> meet jesus
>> wait for wife
>> fuck
*Britain* bad grammar

Same here, disregarding banter, the only time I kinda hate Frenchies, is when the school classes come over on excursions or whatever (I live close to the border)

Read: The Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger.

>What did they eat, how did they sleep ? How often would permissions be given and for how long ? How often would letters be sent ? How often would new troops arrive to replace the dead ?

Been reading about this lately.

>food

They ate everywhere from 3,4-4,5k calories a day, depending on country and where they were. Usually canned meat, 5-10 day old bread/cookies that were really hard, tea and alcohol (around 10ml per day). Varies a lot depending on where you they were, the very front (especially when attacking) could go without food and water for days, and very often everywhere only one meal per day was allowed.

>sleep

Very little sleep, going 48-72 hours with a few hours here and there of sleep was normal.

>permissions

Most armies rotated, they had a system where you'd be at the very front for say 7 days, then reserve (2nd front) 14 days then permission 10 days and so on, this also varied a lot. Germany had the best permissions for soldiers but all in all everyone had it bad. Some spent weeks on end at the front whereas some only spent a few days before getting to the 2nd line, 2nd line weren't safe and sound or very relaxing as you'd get bombarded and could get called to the front at any time.

>letters

Every 2-3 days, letters took that long time to arrive and the soldiers would get their mail with their food, one of the few consistent things they had, even at the front this was the norm.

>new troops

Varies, as with the other things. Some had a very thing front line with a strong 2nd line and vice versa.