<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Richard</i>
<br />Eventually we might perhaps have the following represented:
1. Gun crew
2. Horses
3. Artillery ammo wagons, ideally per calibre type.
An unlimbered battery would allow the horses to retreat to the rear, ie. into another hex.
Losing the horses will make the battery unable to limber up, so it'll only be possible to move by prolong. Alternatively fresh horses could be brought up. Maybe cavalry losses could distinguish between men and horses lost - certainly dismounted cavalry won't be losing horses - which might result in some spare horses.
Losing crew will reduce the capacity of the battery. So a 5 gun battery losing 20% of the crew will fire as a 4 gun battery, while if it's lost 40% of the crew it'll count as a 3 gun battery, etc.
Guns themselves will only be lost due to enemy artillery fire.
I believe the Squad battles engine has some of the above features.
But how much micromanagement do we actually want? Personally, I'd welcome it, but would prefer it to be optional.
Brig. Gen. Rich White
3 Brig. Phantom Cav Div
III Corps ANV
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
General White,
As long as we're considering micro-management, how about a separate unit representing cavalry horse-holders? It would show as mounted cavalry, with 0 melee strength, and the horses could be captured -- even by infantry or dismounted cavalry.
The unit would be 'created' whenever mounted cavalry dismounted, and would be in the same hex as the cav unit. It could then move independently. The two units would have to be in the same hex, however, before mounting could occur. If the horses were captured, the cav unit would be permanently dismounted -- unless they could capture some other horse unit!
Horses could be counted much the same way as ammo -- you would have to have as many horses as men, or you could not perform the mount.
In this manner, the original cav unit could actually have its number decreased by 25%, rather than the game engine just keeping track of this.
What we're really talking about is tracking individual men and individual horses, with the ability to break down units on the fly. This would easily lead to abuses by sending out individual 'scouts' to locate enemy forces. (On second thought, maybe this WOULD work: Scout patrols of less than a certain size would not report anything back at all if they ran into enemy units. The engine would report nothing -- except the patrol disappeared! To make it even better, the minimum size of a patrol would be dynamic: Rather than just saying 'cav patrols of less than x men' would be treated this way, say 'cav patrols of less than 50% of the unit they run into'. A 400-man cav unit would simply disappear if it came up against an 800-man infantry unit, etc. Now THAT might players a bit more cautious with their cavalry.)
As you say, however, all this is probably way too detailed for the scale of these games. I think it might be nice at Wilson's Creek, but I really don't even want to think about what it would do to a Gettysburg battle. Still, if Talonsoft was the first generation and the current HPS engine is the second, these might be interesting ideas for the third.
Your humble servant,
Gen 'Dee Dubya' Mallory
David W. Mallory
ACW - General, 3/2/I/AotM (Club President & Cabinet Member)
CCC - Lieutenant, Georgia Volunteers, Southern Regional Department, Colonial American Army
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