American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

This is primarily for our game designers, but if it has been posted elsewhere, I have missed it.

From parameter data in HPS Gettysburg:

<b>Mixed Arms:
4.25 at 1 hex
1.25 at 2 hexes
0.4 at 3 hexes
0.25 at 4 hexes
0.1 at 5 hexes</b>

This obviously is only about combining different types of small arms and may lower effectiveness when different small arms fire in combination. Consider pistols and carbines together at one hex range.

Parameter data does not mention the effects of combining artillery types elsewhere.

Do you know if and how this principle applies to different types of artillery stacked together? This could be important.
For instance, are the lowest fire effect ratings used for stacks firing together, deliberately or response by the A.I.?

At present, I am trying to avoid stacking different artillery types, as a patch now, in turn based play, <u>response fires</u> artillery as a single stack.

How about small arms units with artillery units?
Are they fired as same or different stacks?

Inquiring minds want to know.

BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG

Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you." -- Benjamin Franklin

"There are sheep and there are wolves, and in the end the wolves always win."- Col John Ripley USMC

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. -Dean William Inge

There are two new rules in Gettysburg 1.04 that change how defensive fire is done. One is Firing by Stack and the other is the optional rule, "Proportional Opportunity Fire". I know artillery fires by stack now but I don't know if a combined stack of infantry and artillery will fire together. My opinion is that they probably don't but I haven't seen enough of it to know.

The other questions I can answer. You can always fire any units in a stack as a combined fire whether they are infantry or artillery. Each unit uses its own weapon multiplier to determine its fire strength and the final fire is the total for the stack.

For example: You have 200 men with rifles in a hex with two Napoleons plus 2 6 lb Rifle guns and you fire on an adjacent enemy with no other modifiers applied like terrain, quality, etc.

200 men w Rifels = 200 x 4 / 1000 = .8
2 Napoleons = 2 x 50 x 14 / 1000 = 1.4
2 6# Rifled = 2 x 50 x 6 /1000 = .6

Total Factor is: .8 + 1.4 + .6 = 2.8

Casualty Range is:
5 x 2.8 = 14
25 x 2.8 = 70

You can expect to see casualties between 14 and 70 due to this fire.


The "Mixed Arms" in the parameter table refers to the type "k" weapon assignment. You usually see a few of these in 1861 and 1862 scenarios. They represent infantry armed with a mix of smoothbores and rifles.

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

I was under the impression all fire in the HPS games is done by unit. You can fire all of your units at once to reduce the chances of opportunity fire from the non phasing player but I was under the impression the actual fire combat outcomes were determined seperately then added together to produce a result.

Gen. Ken Miller
3/VIII
AoS

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by krmiller</i>
<br />I was under the impression all fire in the HPS games is done by unit. You can fire all of your units at once to reduce the chances of opportunity fire from the non phasing player but I was under the impression the actual fire combat outcomes were determined seperately then added together to produce a result.

Gen. Ken Miller
3/VIII
AoS


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Before the lastest upgrades when a unit opportunity fired it did it individually. This created a problem since in Turn play the AI Defensive Opportunity Fire is halved. This combined with a particular unit being small size or in the case of artillery to long a distance resulted in fire that used up ammo with almost no chance of a hit. The update changed AI handled Defensive fire to by stacks. If you watch closely now you will see that all units in a hex now combine fire when fire is triggered.

The Player of course can always fire a stack as a combined stack just by selecting all the units. When they fire combined the total fire power is used in the casualty calculation. This is the best way to fire a stack of small units if the "Low" value would be less than one in the calculation after adjustments. People got into the habit of firing units individually because it helps smooth out the random results rather than risk the whole stack getting a low roll.

The "Proportional" optional rule I am not as sure about. It was added to correct something but I haven't read up on it.

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

Edited: - It looks like Mr Whitehead had already addressed this -so am just leaving the post as I missed that he'd done so.

____

The Mixed Arms entry in the Parameter Data Table that is being referred to here is about a specific weapon type called 'Mixed Arms' that can be assigned to an individual unit (e.g. regiment sized), as opposed to say an R or an M type weapon. I should add that it is an infantry class weapon as well, since arty was mentioned in the original posting.

I'd seen it used in Campaign Ozark (the Booneville scenario to be exact -and at a slightly less effective rating); it probably isn't used in the Gettysburg OOB's but is probably just a hold over from other titles. The only way to check though would be to go through unit by unit.




Mjr. Stephen Trauth
XVI Corps 1st Division 6th Brigade (divisional artillery)
AoT

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The "Proportional" optional rule I am not as sure about. It was added to correct something but I haven't read up on it.

LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I believe it was intended to fix units that targeted the 25-man company thing in front of them, while ignoring the 1000-man juggernaught marching beside them. Basically, defensive fire now concentrates on the larger target.

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

Here is the section in the rules on the proportional fire option:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Select Proportional Opportunity Fire to have the computer controlled opportunity fire modified so that small stacks have a lower probability of triggering opportunity fire when they fire while larger stacks have a higher probability of triggering opportunity fire.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I am playing a Gettysburg game now using phases. A stack containing both infantry and artillery fired in ADF at a stack of artillery in two consecutive DF phases. On one turn they uncrewed a section. In the next turn they killed a gun. The strange thing was that the artillery was set at minimum range and the target was five hexes away, while the infantry was set at max range. Apparently, the infantry max range superceded the artillery min range! Don't know what would have happened if the uncrew and gun results occurred in the same turn, but I am pretty sure it would have affected only the one section.

The problem I see with the stack ADF is that the stack only fires at one unit. I have had a stack of artillery fire at a 10-man unit in ADF and use up 16 rounds. Before stack ADF, each unit would fire individually in ADF and if a unit was destroyed, the remaining units wouldn't waste their ammo. Also, not all units would always fire at the same target, so disruption was possible for more than one attacking unit.

I think ADF stack fire ought to be an optional rule. It doesn't work well in phased play. The attacker could attack with a bunch of small units, knowing that one will probably be eliminated while the rest are unaffected. Don't know how it works in single turn though.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

I had not realized that the "Mixed Arms" data was for actual units because I have not seen any yet in my HPS games.
That makes sense when you consider that early in the war that units would often be unable to standardize weapons and ammunition and had to go with what they had, especially the rebels. I suspect that it was true for yanks in militia units.

With that, I suppose that it is similar to the artillery batteries that had a mixture of types of cannon and the game designers generally made the units generic to the greatest number of cannon.
The breaking batteries down into sections has addressed that.

With that, I believe that MG Kennon Whitehead's analysis of calculating the number of weapons and their types, then the effects at a specific distance and totaling the results determined by a die roll on a probability table will be the most accurate account, so far.

BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG, CSA

<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 />Here is the section in the rules on the proportional fire option:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Select Proportional Opportunity Fire to have the computer controlled opportunity fire modified so that small stacks have a lower probability of triggering opportunity fire when they fire while larger stacks have a higher probability of triggering opportunity fire.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I am playing a Gettysburg game now using phases. A stack containing both infantry and artillery fired in ADF at a stack of artillery in two consecutive DF phases. On one turn they uncrewed a section. In the next turn they killed a gun. The strange thing was that the artillery was set at minimum range and the target was five hexes away, while the infantry was set at max range. Apparently, the infantry max range superceded the artillery min range! Don't know what would have happened if the uncrew and gun results occurred in the same turn, but I am pretty sure it would have affected only the one section.

The problem I see with the stack ADF is that the stack only fires at one unit. I have had a stack of artillery fire at a 10-man unit in ADF and use up 16 rounds. Before stack ADF, each unit would fire individually in ADF and if a unit was destroyed, the remaining units wouldn't waste their ammo. Also, not all units would always fire at the same target, so disruption was possible for more than one attacking unit.

I think ADF stack fire ought to be an optional rule. It doesn't work well in phased play. The attacker could attack with a bunch of small units, knowing that one will probably be eliminated while the rest are unaffected. Don't know how it works in single turn though.

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

Interesting observation. I kind of wondered how the AI would resolve the conflicting range settings if a mixed stack fired opportunity fire.

The problem of not splitting fire is a side effect of combined fire will be a problem. Barring they don't add a much more "intelligent" AI that can evaluate situations based on threat and best way to fire we are probably stuck with it.

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