American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

1) Destroyed unit returns with a value of one to the original owner

2) Spiked arty that is left abandoned will return at full strength to original owner

3) Captured/occupied artillery will return with a value of one to the original owner

4) Uncrewed/abandoned arty will return as normal to original owner

5) Spiked arty that is enemy occupied will return with a value of one to the original owner

6) Individual loses will carry over. For example: A 6 gun battery that lost 3 guns will return with a value of 3.

7) Mapping errors in the org file will alter these results.


Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

So what to do in a campaign?

1) If points won in the current battle will favorably end the campaign prior to it's ultimate end, be sure to occupy all captured/spiked artillery.

2) If the game is destined to carryover to the next battle of the campaign, occupy or destroy the enemy arty by any means available. Points earned will be less important unless your tracking individual battles. If the latter, occupy all captured/spiked artillery that may increase your level of victory.

3) If it is the last battle of a campaign, be sure to occupy all captured/spiked artillery.



Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

" 1) Destroyed unit returns with a value of one to the original owner"

Another benefit of using two gun sections in the OOB. With battery representation a Union army can find itself quickly losing it's artillery advantage after a couple of hard fought games.

MajGen Al 'Ambushed' Amos

The Union Forever! Huzzah!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />So what to do in a campaign?

1) If points won in the current battle will favorably end the campaign prior to it's ultimate end, be sure to occupy all captured/spiked artillery.

2) If the game is destined to carryover to the next battle of the campaign, occupy or destroy the enemy arty by any means available. Points earned will be less important unless your tracking individual battles. If the latter, occupy all captured/spiked artillery that may increase your level of victory.

3) If it is the last battle of a campaign, be sure to occupy all captured/spiked artillery.



Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Right now in a campaign game series the only choice is to not use the "Capture" rule. While VP can be obtained by occupying the hex the guns will reappear as if by magic in the next scenario using those formations. The choice of trying to reduce them by shooting them with adjacent guns is rarely an option. Neither side has so many batteries that they can afford to dedicate half a dozen to fighting overrun cannons. The CSA side has a particular problem in they rarely have the ammo to waste firing at captured guns.

The correct solution is to fix the bug causing the guns not to be treated like regular losses and only a percentage returned to the original player.

And even nicer solution would be that not only would the guns be totally lost to the loser but that they would be used to replace guns lost by the player capturing. People would be a lot more careful of where they placed guns if that occurred.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />1) Destroyed unit returns with a value of one to the original owner

2) Spiked arty that is left abandoned will return at full strength to original owner

3) Captured/occupied artillery will return with a value of one to the original owner

4) Uncrewed/abandoned arty will return as normal to original owner

5) Spiked arty that is enemy occupied will return with a value of one to the original owner

6) Individual loses will carry over. For example: A 6 gun battery that lost 3 guns will return with a value of 3.

7) Mapping errors in the org file will alter these results.


Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

As long as we are looking at the casualty problems with artillery we should include the problem of trying to return a percentage on something that doesn't divide well. For example using the rules above CSA one gun batteries can't be destroyed. One gun always comes back.

The other assumption that an abandoned gun returns at full strength to the owner. That would be true if they won the battle and could claim the field for recovery of arms.

I dislike the occupation requirement for artillery unless you are going to give us the ability to detach company size units for such work.

My suggestions are:

Guns are only loss or recovered if that side recrews the gun. It would be nice to have limited movement by the capturing side but that would probably be a major game change.

The number of guns, if any, that are returned to a battery between scenarios of a campaign would be a random odds result based on whether they won or lost the battle. For example, if you lost the battle there would be a 10% chance of recovering a gun. You would get a roll for each gun lost so a two section battery would get two rolls for each of its guns. A six gun battery would get six rolls. If they won the battle they would get something like a 80% chance. Draws would be 50%, etc.

If they recaptured and recrewed the guns then they would get them all back. If the enemy recrewed the guns and still held them at the end of the battle they would lose all those guns permanently.

If the guns were spiked by either side the odds for recovering them would be dropped some amount like 10%.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

My understanding of what happened to captured artillery is that the ornance folks of the winning side collected the guns after the battle. This probably included damaged guns that could be repaired. On the Confederate side, the captured guns were issued to batteries that were missing guns. Seems that how they matched up was a secondary consideration when you look at the mixed composition of many of the Confederate batteries, at least in the first half of the war. I read that the Washington Artillery was unhappy the guns they lost at Fredricksburg II weren't replaced by guns captured at Winchester because Lee's priorities placed units that had lost guns through capture last on the replacement list.

But at Shiloh what happened was the Rebs replaced inferior guns with superior captured ordnance and left the inferior guns behind when they retreated, as they didn't have transport for both. Also, I believe they took some guns they captured at Gettysburg with them when they left.

Spiked guns could usually be unspiked given time and the proper tools, and "spiking" itself took many forms, including removing the equipment needed to work the gun when the crew retreated, as happened with Smith's Battery at Devil's Den.

Don't know if the Yanks used captured Confederate ordnance to the same degree. I guess it depended on how far you were from replacement guns and the quality of the gun captured. Many of the guns captured on Missionary Ridge were the same ones lost at Chickamauga. But the Confederates had stored the guns they replaced at Dalton, so they were able to reissue those guns. By that time factories were turning out guns, mostly napoleons, for the Confederates as well.

In one case, Loring said he "destroyed" his guns after Champion's Hill before leading his division through enemy lines to join Johnston. I'm not sure what he meant by that, but it might be a compromise solution. If you spike spiked guns, they are destroyed. That's not usually what happened, but at least if you could do that in the game you wouldn't have to worry about occupying them.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

If the captured guns were in decent condition they were kept. Older ones may have been melted down for scrap. Losing side that had guns captured certainly didn't get any back.

I can understand getting back guns for subsequent battles on the premise that most gun "kills" via counter-battery fire were actually no more than gun "disables" via the smashing of a wheel or the carriage - very rare that the actual tubes were damaged severely (more likely by accidental explosion during firing than by a direct hit from an enemy shot). Those wheels and carriages could be replaced - sometimes during the battle (mostly for wheels - all caisons carried a spare wheel for each gun). Getting back a gun to start the next battle could reflect this fact and I therefore have no problem with it.

Captured guns in enemy hands are another story if they were not lost to counter-battery fire. Those should become property of the captors, IMHO. My understanding, however, is that the current game engine cannot handle transfering units between sides between games due to the nature of the OOB.

Regards,

Lt. Gen. Alan Lynn
CSA Chief of Staff
3rd Bgde, 3rd Cav Div, II Corps, AoA

God Bless <><

Smoothbore cannon were fired by bringing a light to the touch hole, which was the opening of a hole drilled through to the barrel, and filled with powder to act as a fuse. To spike a cannon, a tapered steel pin was driven into the touch hole with a hammer until it was flush with the surface, or cut off flush. This pin could not be easily drawn out again (there was nothing to hold on to), and had to be laboriously drilled out before the cannon could be used again.

Spiking was also done by the field expedient of forcing a knife into the touch hole and breaking it off.

A source: http://books.google.com/books?id=q2j9vF ... &ct=result

"All the artillery got out safely—besides, we brought away three fine pieces of the enemy’s. (The other captured guns were spiked and the woodwork burned.) " http://www.pddoc.com/cw-chronicles/?p=6230




<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
General, Commanding, Army of Ohio

ACWGC Cabinet Member
ACWGC Records Site Administrator
</b></font id="gold">

Bill,

Perhaps this thread is misunderstood. These are not proposed rules. The first post is simply an explanation of how artillery is treated in a campaign.



Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Rich Walker</i>
<br />Bill,

Perhaps this thread is misunderstood. These are not proposed rules. The first post is simply an explanation of how artillery is treated in a campaign.



Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Are you certain about #3. I ran a test a long time back so I am not sure of the status of the guns that returned full strength but I think they were captured and occupied.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)

Yes, I am certain.

If an arty unit is captured (is occupied at games end) it will return to the original owner with a value of one.

However, if there is an error in the mapping org file, this result may not happen.

Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Question: when batteries did lose all of their guns was the original battery designation reused or did another battery take its place in the OB? Were the crew members incorporated into other batteries?</i><hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Normally batteries that lost their guns had them replaced, but the battery designation remained the same. Even batteries captured intact were reconsituted when the members were exchanged. On occasion, batteries were combined or disbanded, but that was the exception. Most of the batteries served under their original designation throughout the war or, in the case of Union batteries, until their enlistments expired. Note that heavy artillery units were often employed as infantry by both sides.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

I believe the reason captured/destroyed units return to original owner with a value of one is because the program cannot eliminate units already placed in a future scenario. As a result, they are represented with the lowest possible number.

So if the 1st New York Battery L is captured/destroyed in the first battle of a campaign, and the same battery is deployed in the second battle, the program cannot totally eliminate the unit, and so it returns with the lowest possible value.

In a next day battle, this may seem unrealististic, but can't be helped. Perhaps one day, John will be able to fix this, but programming time is always an issue.

I doubt any solution would be perfect. As has been mentioned, many destroyed/captured units did eventually return with new guns for old designations.

Lt. Col. Richard Walker
I Corps
Army of the Mississippi
2nd Brigade, 3rd Division
"Defenders of Tennessee"

<font color="yellow">If Gen Lynn's comment is true... </font id="yellow">

<i>"I can understand getting back guns for subsequent battles on the premise that most gun "kills" via counter-battery fire were actually no more than gun "disables" via the smashing of a wheel or the carriage - very rare that the actual tubes were damaged severely (more likely by accidental explosion during firing than by a direct hit from an enemy shot). Those wheels and carriages could be replaced - sometimes during the battle (mostly for wheels - all caisons carried a spare wheel for each gun). Getting back a gun to start the next battle could reflect this fact and I therefore have no problem with it."</i>

<font color="yellow">..then #6 could/should be modified to give the battery the chance that more than 3 guns will return at the next battle due to repairs between battles.</font id="yellow">

<i>6) Individual loses will carry over. For example: A 6 gun battery that lost 3 guns will return with a value of 3.</i>


<font color="yellow">...right??</font id="yellow">



Lt. Gen. Boyd Denner
II Corps Commanding
ANV
"God Bless the Alabamians" Gen. Robert E. Lee - Wilderness 1864

At one point I thought I read somewhere that eliminated units are returned at 14% strength of the strength given it in the new scenarios oob level. So....

Unit A is wiped out in scenario one, and is supposed to show up in scenario two with 100 men. Since it was wiped out then it will only have 14 men in the second scenario.

Also, losses are only carried three scenarios forward. So...

Unit A is wiped out in scenario one but is not scheduled to reappear until a possible 5th battle, therefore the losses sustained in scenario one will not be carried forward.

Scenario designers can allow for replacements, or drafts into units over time by 'oversizing' the units in follow up scenarios which will reflect losses from a previous battle, and additions from replacements, or returning stragglers, etc. (Of course some players may benefit from a unit growing stronger with this method. [;)])

Hope this confuses everyone. [:D]

MajGen Al 'Ambushed' Amos

The Union Forever! Huzzah!