American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

The units that we consider "elite" were all well ordered and disciplined units. We need to keep in mind that every time we fire, we're representing 20 minutes of continuous action. Units didn't necesarily just stand still and bang away at one another; there would be all sorts of actions included in those twenty minutes that the game system doesn't represent. Officers ordering men to dress their lines as they fire, officers changing the angle of the lines as the situation develops, soldiers finding more ammo to fire, etc.

All of these actions would be occuring in the twenty minute span. Units that were better drilled, such as the Iron Brigade or the Stonewall Brigade, are more likely to complete these maneuvers while maintaining fire. For a specific example: the 20th Maine's defense of Little Round Top called for a refusal of the flank, an extremely difficult maneuver while under fire. Yet the 20th pulled it off, and was able to maintain enough fire to hold the Confederates off. The skill of the officers and the will of the men would generally be higher in those regiments and brigades that are considered elite, and as such they would be more likely to pull off maneuvers such as this. I agree that an A or B ranked unit would not necessarily be able to fire faster or more accuartly, but wouldn't such a unit be more likely to complete the maneuvers and actions not shown on the scale system currently used? This would allow them to maintain fire more consistently, as opposed to paniced troops who are stumbling through battlefield maneuvers or inadvertantly firing their ramrods out.

Most veteran units, unless they belong in the elite group, would fall into the C range, with perhaps some variation either way, depending on their perfomance at the individual battle. This represents average soldiers without giving them bonuses or penalties, and generally reserving the worst perfomances to those units that maybe hadn't seen action before or were ineptly lead.

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