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 Post subject: Crew kills
PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:11 am 
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I would like the system changed so that it is not possible to achieve a crew kill on Artillery by using ranged Infantry fire.
A Battery of 4 Napoleons in my front line stacked with 750 friendly Infantry for a grand stack of 950 men total...and my enemy's automated defensive fire gets a crew kill at 4 hex range from rifled musket fire, the firing unit having less than 200 men. [:(!]
In all the history of warfare this kind of result is just not feasible.
I think they should make it so that either:
1. Infantry cannot fire at limbered and/or unlimbered Artillery at more than 1 hex range.
2. Infantry cannot fire at unlimbered Artillery that is stacked in a hex with undisrupted friendly Infantry.

To spend 5 or 6 turns getting a gun Battery up into position only to see the 200 man crew cut down by a lucky shot from a small Infantry Regiment, before they've even got off a shot, is just too much to stomach. If my opponent now manages to dislodge my Infantry stack and take the guns I will lose the game.

It's got to a point where I'm no longer enjoying playing these games 'cos of so many infuriating quirks in the system, that I feel I might cease playing them altogether.

Melee enemy guns...Yes
Infantry fire at enemy gun Battery's from adjacent hex...Yes

What say you gentlmen?

Colonel Jim Wilkes.
2nd Brigade, Cavalry Division, XX Corps.
AoC. U.S.A.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 4:19 am 
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I hope that's my regiment you are slandering Jim! If it is they can have an extra shot of whiskey after the battle.

I like the sound of your second option. But an alternative would be to change artillery units from number of guns to number of cannoneers - that way their effective fire would be reduced through gradual attriton in the same way as other units - while at the same time care must be taken not to get them too close to the front line where they can pulverised by massed rifle fire.

Would that not also make it easy to treat artillery as infantry for the purposes of low/no ammo and resupply?

Brig. General P. Kenney
3rd Division
Cavalry Corps
Army of the Mississippi, CSA


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:25 am 
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A nice touch would be an organic crew to the gun that could take hits, retreat, etc. just like infantry. As they decreased in strength their ability to operate their battery at full fire would decrease. This would also allow the game to simulate the kind of fight that occurred over the artillery at First Manassas on Henry Hill.

An alternative would be to change crew kills into gun kills. It would really represent a gun kill but the loss of the crew for that gun reducing the ability of the battery to fire all there guns at full effect. This might be doable without major changes to the game engine.

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


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:05 am 
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
<br />A nice touch would be an organic crew to the gun that could take hits, retreat, etc. just like infantry. As they decreased in strength their ability to operate their battery at full fire would decrease. This would also allow the game to simulate the kind of fight that occurred over the artillery at First Manassas on Henry Hill.

<font color="red">An alternative would be to change crew kills into gun kills. It would really represent a gun kill but the loss of the crew for that gun reducing the ability of the battery to fire all there guns at full effect. This might be doable without major changes to the game engine.</font id="red">
LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

It's been a while, but isn't that the way the TS system handles it?

Lt. Gen. Ed Blackburn
I/I/VI/AoS
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:26 am 
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">
An alternative would be to change crew kills into gun kills. It would really represent a gun kill but the loss of the crew for that gun reducing the ability of the battery to fire all there guns at full effect. This might be doable without major changes to the game engine.
LG. Kennon Whitehead

<i>Originally posted by zinkyusa</i>
It's been a while, but isn't that the way the TS system handles it?

Lt. Gen. Ed Blackburn
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

No, only artillery fire resulted in gun kills in the TS system, that system had crew kills too, they just didn't happen as often as they do in the recent HPS titles, and seldom from long range. The TS system produced mostly fatigue hits when infantry fired on guns. With a max of 9 FA and allowing 2 FA hits per turn a battery could quickly build up FA and since that system doubled the effects of FA on guns, once they reached 4-5 FA a battery's effectiveness was greatly reduced. I would usually pull guns out of the line if it hit 5 or more FA in that system.

The HPS fatigue system has little effect on guns, I've seldom had guns go to medium fatigue level and rarely reach high unless they are meleed. But it does produce a lot more crew kills especially at longer ranges.

As to limiting infantry's ability to fire at guns, this is not the answer as historically the advent of the rifled musket caused guns to deploy at longer ranges from infantry unlike the Napoleonic and Mexican Wars where artillery was rolled up to within 150 yards of the infantry. Any time rifle armed infantry got to within 200 yards of a battery it often took heavy crew and horse casualties sometimes resulting in guns being left behind and captured. Thus Gen Whitehead's idea has some merit.

This problem has been discussed before and I believe it is being looked at so we may see something in the next game as most changes have come when a new game is released.

Gen. Ken Miller
1/2/VI
AoS
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:55 am 
Infantry fire effective range is much too long in our games anyway, regardless of target. At 125 yards per hex it is not unreasonable to say that rifle fire should be virtually impossible past two hexes and not available at all past four. Allowing our rifles to fire at 5 hexes gives them an effective range of roughly 625 yards, which is about 400 yards too many. [:D]

Regards,

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

God Bless <><


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:31 am 
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Hi, Colonel,

The problem I have with the system is the opposite of yours; firing on an artillery unit over and over with no appreciable effect. I have fought one battle where the enemy seemed to pick off my crews at four hex range with regularity. Every other battle the batteries draw ADF that is essentially wasted with no appreciable effect except a few fatigue points. Even if you manage to kill a crew, you get 0 points for it; zip, zero, nada! And if you melee the guns and don't capture them, it shows casualties for the artillery, but no casualties and no victory points.

I set up a test example in the Shiloh game where 611 Union infantry meleed 427 Reb infantry and five limbered guns. The result showed 55 Union and 25 Reb casualties, but the Reb infantry showed no loss and the victory chart showed no Reb casualty points. What is wrong with this picture?

As General Miller says, the problems have been discussed before, and hopefully solutions may be forthcoming some day. Ideally, this would include organic crews, as General Whitehead recommends.

In response to General Lynn, I believe most regiments probably had a few sharpshooters who could hit a man-size target at 600m yds. In fact, the Army of Tennessee had a sharpshooter unit armed with Whitworth sniper rifles who sometimes made life difficult for the union cannoneers. At Gettysburg, both General Weed of V Corps and Capt Hazlett of D Battery, 5th US were picked off from Devil's Den. On the map, that is a distance of four hexes. I am not arguing that a crew ought to be wiped out at four hexes; only that casualties could be inflicted in the battery from 500 yds and longer.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:00 am 
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by mihalik</i>
<br />Hi, Colonel,

The problem I have with the system is the opposite of yours; firing on an artillery unit over and over with no appreciable effect...

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

My whole philosophy for the use of Artillery in these games follows a broadly historical doctrine in that my primary aim is to cause my enemies Infantry casualties and to command ground to disrupt and curtail enemy movement.
Far too often in games my Artillery gets drawn into counter Battery fire where the results are way beyond what was seen in historical encounters. As a Union officer with the benefit of excellent Artillery assets, sometimes I've inflicted over 50 gun kills on my enemy...representing a huge score in victory points and to be honest it is no way to win a victory. In single scenarios losses like this may be viewed as acceptable as representing crew casualties as well as guns actually destroyed...but in campaigns, Artillery losses can seriously hamper one sides fortunes.
Without separate gun crews being represented, gun kills are just too easy to achieve and too costly to sustain. Games can be won or lost on Artillery duels. Find an example of when this was actually the case during the ACW?

Perhaps tweaking the engine to make gun 'kills' virtually impossible might be the way to go? but make it so artillery fire can cause gun Batterys to become disrupted much more easily and so reduce their effectiveness that way.

I admit the present state of affairs may not be perfect and any changes may only cause new problems rather than solve everything.

Colonel Jim Wilkes.
2nd Brigade, Cavalry Division, XX Corps.
AoC. U.S.A.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:30 am 
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This is neither here nor there, but I enjoyed the old SSI titles: Gettysburg, Shiloh, Antietam and Chickamagua. With the exception of Antietam, which was the first release, the batteries had several hundred men assigned to the battery. When infantry fired at the guns, they took man losses. If I remember correctly it was noted in the manual that each gun in the battery needed at least 8 men to fire effectively. So if you whittled down a battery their effectiveness decreased when they fired their guns. In addition, you had ammo levels in the game and so you could ajust your fire if you started to run low. Although, the only battle in which I ever came close to running out was Gettysburg. Anyhow, I find some aspects of the old games that ran on my Commodore 64 back in the 80's superior to what we see sometimes today. Granted they may be minor things, but they are there. It is like they did more with less. I am by no means a game designer or have any inkling as to what goes into making a computer game, but sometimes it seems to me that games have more potential than what the final product turns out to be.

Brig. Gen. Jerry Butley
AOS-XIX Corps, 2nd Div., 2nd Brig.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:04 pm 
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Can you state which game you are playing as the results vary upon the games in question. I have just experienced the Antietam game with Union batteries 4 to 6 times more effective than CSA units. Losses in guns are horrific, as they move, deploy and fire. Large Union regiment fire are also a problem. Depending on the game played the results are very different fro artillery fire. The HPS systems are not at fault as the various designs are. Why such such differences between the titles. The Historical military situation did not change that much.

General Pierre D.
Army of Georgia

ACWGC President
May 1997-Oct. 2006


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:51 pm 
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by jbutley</i>
<br />This is neither here nor there, but I enjoyed the old SSI titles: Gettysburg, Shiloh, Antietam and Chickamagua. With the exception of Antietam, which was the first release, the batteries had several hundred men assigned to the battery. When infantry fired at the guns, they took man losses. If I remember correctly it was noted in the manual that each gun in the battery needed at least 8 men to fire effectively. So if you whittled down a battery their effectiveness decreased when they fired their guns. In addition, you had ammo levels in the game and so you could ajust your fire if you started to run low. Although, the only battle in which I ever came close to running out was Gettysburg. Anyhow, I find some aspects of the old games that ran on my Commodore 64 back in the 80's superior to what we see sometimes today. Granted they may be minor things, but they are there. It is like they did more with less. I am by no means a game designer or have any inkling as to what goes into making a computer game, but sometimes it seems to me that games have more potential than what the final product turns out to be.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Amen, General!

I agree that many of the concepts in the old SSI games are superior to what we have now, including fatigue, leadership, entrenchment, and operation points. They were lacking in graphics and PBEM capability, and they were on the demi-brigade and artillery battalion level, while I much prefer the regiment/battery (or section) level of the HPS games, as well as the hex scale. Nevertheless, I agree with everything you have written, except I think these are major things, not minor.

I remember when Napoleon's Battles came out 23 years ago. They had pre-plotted cavalry charges and countercharges, and I had high hopes of future games building on that solid foundation. Alas, my hopes were never realized; the design effort seems to have migrated to real-time and first person shooters and fantasy stuff in which I have little interest. I do enjoy the HPS games, especially PBEM, but that doesn't keep me from mourning for what might have been.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:56 pm 
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The next game in the series will make this adjustable in the pdt file

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


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:42 pm 
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<font face="Book Antiqua"><font size="4"><font color="beige">Pray tell Rich Walker what and when might that be? [:D]

Regards,</font id="beige"></font id="size4"></font id="Book Antiqua">

<font color="limegreen"><font size="4">Nick Kunz
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Commanding
3rd Georgia Raiders
4th Cavalry Division
II Corps, AoG</font id="limegreen"></font id="size4">


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 6:33 pm 
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Very soon (I hope)

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


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:56 pm 
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An alternative possiblity would be to reduce the points value of guns (and cavalry for that matter? - make them the same across the board?) Guns losses would still be high but would have less impact on the victory outcome.



Brig. General P. Kenney
3rd Division
Cavalry Corps
Army of the Mississippi, CSA


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