American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

In reading "Fighting for the Confederacy" by E.P. Alexander (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989) I found some of his observations on the limitations of close cooperation of infantry and artillery worth sharing, for I believe most of us are guilty of rather unhistorical tactics in this respect:

"[...] it must be borne in mind that <u>our Confederate artillery could only sparingly, & in great emergency, be allowed to fire over the heads of our infantry</u>. We were always liable to premature explosions of shell & shrapnel, & our infantry knew it by sad experience, & I have known of their threatening to fire back at our guns [:D] if we opened over their heads. Of course, solid shot could be safely so used, but that is the least effective ammunition, & the infantry would not know the difference & would be demoralized & angry all the same.
Of course, also, the infantry would not fire over the heads of the artillery. Hence it results that <u>each arm must have its own fighting front free</u>, & they do not mix well in a fighting charge. Again it must be remembered that <u>artillery on the march presents such an immense target to infantry, and to other artillery in position, that within their respective ranges it requires very few minutes to disable it</u>. For every horse in a battery team is fast to the limber or caisson, & brings the rest of the team to a stop, when crippled, until he can be cut out. This halts them under fire every time they are hit, & makes easy more hits." (p. 248; emphases are mine.)
Pp. 177-78 he has a graphic description how, if you dared to move a battery under fire on a field, every gun and sharpshooter within range would instantly open up on the teams, trying to immobilize the guns, so it was really best avoided.

How often do we move batteries well within range of the enemy almost with impunity? In the BG games, you at least ran the risk of a "crew killed" result from defensive fire (should probably better be "team killed"), but in HPS? Don't we as a rule fire over the infantry with our guns, even at short ranges? Not very historical, it would appear.

Other (minor) things I thought worth noting in the book:
- According to Alexander, the Federals had a great advantage when digging in (in 1864) in that they had professional pioneers to make the fortification, while the Reb infantry had to dig personally with whatever tools they had. (p. 370)
- Late in the war, the Federals would sometimes attack with clouds of skirmishers only, offering no target for artillery--we can't do that in the game, the way skirmishers are presently portrayed. (p. 426.)
- The nonchalant way in which Reb soldiers not only killed colored Union soldiers as a matter of course, but even scrambled to get a "chance to shoot a nigger". (p. 478) (OK, that's not really relevant to our gaming, thank God, but it surprised me still.)

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
3/2/VIII AoS
West Point Class of '01
[url="http://www.home.datacomm.ch/dierk.walter/2VIIIAoS/persrecord.htm"][/url]
"... and keep moving on."

Hi, General,

So many good books to read, so little time!

Here is an excerpt from Wise's "The Long Arm of Lee" published in 1915:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">As an artillery position, Hazel grove was ideal, and Alexander's battalion commanders made the best of it. Somewhat greater in elevation than Fairview, its bushy crest all but obscured the Confederate guns, well drawn back from the view of the enemy, whose shells bursting beyond the narrow ridge , or in the depression in front, were quite harmless. Few reached their difficult target, while the Federal position presented an extensive and easy target to the Confederate guns. It is remarkable how the Federal cannoneers managed to maintain their fire against such odds, yet they did so, and although severely punished by Alexander's artillery, their guns formed the the rallying point for Hooker's troops below them in the woods, and they inflicted terrible losses on Hill's attacking infantry. Had the Confederates been provided with good ammunition for their guns, it is doubtful if the Federal Artillery could have made the stand it did. An extraordinarily large percentage of the Confederate shells failed to burst, and many were even more inneffective by reason of premature explosions. With the very best ammunition the error of the fuse, and consequently the area of dispersion, is large, but the mean burst is easily ascertained and ranging becomes fairly simple and accurate. On the other hand, ranging with Confederate ammunition was extremely difficult. The writer has heard this point discussed by numerous Confederate artillery officers, who declared that ranging with them was ordinarily mere guess work, and that frequently a dozen bursts gave them no knowledge whatever of the true range. Indeed it was most discouraging to the gunners to fire and fire upon a perfectly visible target under the easiest conditions, and see not a sign of effect from their shells, and this is a fact which must be considered by the artillery student of the war.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

That excerpt was from the section on Chancellorsville.

In "Culp's Hill & Cemetery Hill" Pfanz writes,

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">At 1:00 PM ... the Confederate artillery on Seminary Ridge and the Peach Orchard opened the massive shelling to pave the way for Pickett's Charge. Although the troops on Culp's Hill were 1,000 yards away from the target areas on Cemetery Ridge, numerous rounds fired high fell in the Twelfth Corps position, providing its soldiers with a lasting memory.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I freely admit that the HPS games are the very best ACW games on the market today, but they are far from perfect. In the game a gun can hit an enemy unit surrounded by friendly units a mile away, without hitting anything in front, adjacent or behind that unit. in reality, shells would be falling all over the place, although range inaccuracy (long and short) would probably be a lot greater than deviation inaccuracy (right and left). In the case of the Pickett's Charge artillery preparation, we see that rounds were falling as far as 1,000 yds (8 hexes in game terms) from the target. It is not as if HPS doesn't have the means to model this, as indirect fire in the game works that way. The rounds that miss the target have to go somewhere!

Another anomaly is firing cannister over the heads of friendly troops 125 yds away into an enemy 250 yds away. I don't know if you could even do that with other ammunition, let alone cannister, except in rare circumstances.

Then there is the whole artillery pool concept. Wise writes that while there were probably 50 guns at Hazel Grove, no more than forty were firing at any time due to inactivity while replenishing ammunition. He mentions Pegram's guns getting off three rounds/minute, "which was an exceptionally rapid rate for the time."(-Wise).

Anyway, thanks for sharing some of what you gained from Alexander's book.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

Fredericksburg offers a number of examples of how the ACW games, and our tactics, cannot represent the true tactics of the time. Francis O'Reilly writes in his <i>Fredericksburg Campaign</i>: <blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Reynolds hovered near the batteries, alarmed to see several rounds explode prematurely over Meade's division. The corps commander halted all cover fire, afraid that it would cause more harm than good.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> He writes later that: <blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">[Captain James Hall's Maine Battery] complained that the Southerners hit him from his right front (Brockenbrough) and his left (Pelham) at the same time. Hall wanted to strike Pelham first, since he posed the greatest threat, but Reynolds refused to let him. The general still feared shooting over the intervening Union infantry.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> In this case, the artillery tactics at Fredericksburg were drastically affected by something the HPS engine can't recreate at the moment.

For that matter, Pelham's entire attack is virtually impossible to pull off in HPS. I just started The Battle of Fredericksburg, and the first three cannon shots by the Union saw the destruction of the Pelham's guns (for some reason, the game gives Pelham 3 guns rather than one). In real life, the gun was protected by a small swell in the ground that was also concealed by some trees and lingering fog. Meade's men couldn't see Pelham, and the suddeness of his attack was what made it so successful. In addition, the guns that were nearest him were Captain Gustavus DeRussy's 3 batteries of 20-pounder Parrotts that couldn't hit Pelham because he was too close. The guns on Stafford Heights also couldn't depress their guns enough to hit Pelham.

One final situation that HPS doesn't replicate: During the bombardment of Fredericksburg on December 11, <blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Hunt lost several guns...Kinzie's battery already had lost two guns to broken carriages and it soon lost a third. Trails cracked on five 12-pounder Napoleons in Tompkin's right center group. The cannon recoiled through mud and pounded in a frozen subsurface, which snapped their trails...Ammunition proved another problem. Rounds burst unpredictably, and fuses continuously failed.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I don't know about you, but I've never lost artillery to my own fire. I've also never lost men to my own fire. I typically try to make sure that my men, either infantry or artillery, aren't firing over the heads of allied troops to their front if they're within 3 or so hexes. However, this is a personal choice; there's nothing stopping me from firing anyway within the system except for LOS restrictions.

Lt. Dylan McCartney
IV Brigade/ I Division
XIV Corps
Army of the Cumberland
Union Army

Please keep posting information on how artillery was actually handled. I am researching the subject to see if it can be better modeled.

The HPS game problems with artillery stem from it's handling them like infantry with really big guns who move like cavalry. This forces a lot of simplifications. One being limbered artillery being treated like column rather than the large target it actually presented. Also, there are a lot of restrictions on where a gun could actually be deployed which would elliminate most of the terrain on our maps. They preferred to deploy them behind the top of a hill or rise in the ground so the lower part of the gun and crew would be protected from direct fire. They need an open area behind the guns so that the limber could deploy the gun and then withdraw. They need a protected area not far from the guns to the rear where the limbers and caissons could be placed while the battery was firing. Few areas met all these requirements which is why in most battles the artillery was in the rear.

I now have the 1864 Field Artillery Tactics manual so that is clarifying a lot of things regarding ammount of ammo and deployment problems.

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 KWhitehead</i>
The HPS game problems with artillery stem from it's handling them like infantry with really big guns who move like cavalry. This forces a lot of simplifications. One being limbered artillery being treated like column rather than the large target it actually presented. Also, there are a lot of restrictions on where a gun could actually be deployed which would elliminate most of the terrain on our maps. They preferred to deploy them behind the top of a hill or rise in the ground so the lower part of the gun and crew would be protected from direct fire. They need an open area behind the guns so that the limber could deploy the gun and then withdraw. They need a protected area not far from the guns to the rear where the limbers and caissons could be placed while the battery was firing. Few areas met all these requirement
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Yes. To give us any idea of how artillery worked in the real war, we'd need two separate units, guns and limbers, and the limbers should be really really vulnerable while the guns would be immobile without them. That btw would solve the gun capture problem. You lose your limbers (read your teams that move the limbers), you can't move your guns. Enemy captures them, but can't move them, unless he brings limbers!
Shouldn't be that difficult to implement ... but of course HPS would think that most end users will consider this needless and confusing micromanagement.

Gen. Walter, USA
<i>The Blue Blitz</i>
3/2/VIII AoS
West Point Class of '01
[url="http://www.home.datacomm.ch/dierk.walter/2VIIIAoS/persrecord.htm"][/url]
"... and keep moving on."

All game designs are comprimises between excessive detail and playability. I prefer detail but one can always make the case for whether adding such detail merely makes them game harder to play without changing the outcome.

However, since I am dabbling in writting my own game with much more focus on tactical detail, properly modeling the artillery is a critical element I want to address. Splitting the unit into guns and limbers is an interesting solution. It would create some difficult unit management problems especially since my game system is based around a plot and execute (WEGO) system. But it would certainly nicely simulate the different target vulnerabilities of the limbers and caissons versus guns and crew.

The question is would it add excessive detail for player management versus using the limbered/unlimbered status to simulate the problem. Limbered/unlimbered wouldn't simulate the vulnerability of the limbers while separated from the guns but in a WEGO system it can be used very effectively to simulate the increased vulnerability of the combined unit while moving or changing formation. The HPS system could also handle this just by considering limbered artillery a different target type for modifiers.

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