American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I find artillery to be of not much use in close combat. I don't recall ever getting A big hit on infantry about to melee also artillery crews seem to get killed often due to rifle fire from close units. In the old talonsoft games you were taking your life in your hands to try and melee artillery. What if anything am I doing wrong? I know you want to protect artillery and under normal conditions not have it in the front lines. Is it because of automatic defense fire or some other setting?

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Lieutenant General Ernie Fantini

I have gottn 100+ kills on close in assaults on artillery but you have to mass your batteries. 1 or 2 tubes is not enough to disrupt or even route a charge by 800 rebs. Mass your batteries with at least 2 sections or more, with infantry,of course. I always mass batteries sometimes up to 18 guns and if possible locate them behind and above your line of defense then there's no way they can charge you.

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Gen. Drex Ringbloom,
AotS ,Commanding

Artillery tactics depend on whether you are playing Turn or Phased play since the effectiveness of defensive fire is quite different between the too. But generally artillery depends on supporting infantry to keep it from being overrun. You can't count on defensive fire disrupting enough attackers to stop them from meleeing with a battery. So you either have to put enough infantry with the guns that a melee will probably fail or put the guns behind the infantry so they can't be meleed.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

Gameplay-wise, yes. Either have the guns behind your lines, or stack them with infantry. Artillery in the HPS games simply cannot defend itself effectively against infantry melee.

Historically speaking of course, the game got it wrong. Artillery was very capable of defending itself against infantry (think of the Reb gunner captured at Shiloh who was asked by a Union officer for the best way to attack a particularly unpleasant Reb battery and replied (quoting from memory) "there ain't no good way to attack a battery", meaning it was always slaughter even if it succeeded), so much so that artillery, not infantry, was habitually used as a rearguard on retreat (and of course because it could always quickly get out of there). Also, artillery as a rule did not fire over the heads of their own infantry--especially not Reb artillery. The authority here is E. P. Alexander, chief of artillery of First Corps ANV:

"[...] it must be borne in mind that our Confederate artillery could only sparingly, & in great emergency, be allowed to fire over the heads of our infantry. 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 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 each arm must have its own fighting front free, & they do not mix well in a fighting charge. ("Fighting for the Confederacy" (Chapel Hill, NC, 1989), p. 248, my emphasis.)

True, there were often individual infantry units detailed to support a battery, which meant tactically they would wait nearby to assist if the guns were actually overrun by infantry. You may consider stacking infantry with the guns as a crude representation of that habit. In any case it's more historical than the more convenient placement of guns behind the infantry line. But at the core artillery in the HPS games is simply too weak, and if the BG games may have erred on the side of making guns too strong, they came at least closer to representing that arm properly.

And before we get again into those old statistics that seem to prove that artillery was not a great killer of men in the ACW--true, but these are global figures representing above all the fact that much of the deadliest combat in the war was fought in terrain where artillery was hard to move and hence hard to bring into action (think Wilderness), and that, as a result of that fact, armies were extremely infantry-heavy and had comparatively few guns. These figures say little, however, about the fighting effectiveness of artillery when it was in fact present on the field in numbers. Read Confederate accounts of Malvern Hill and you'll get some idea of what well-served massed artillery could do. Admittedly part of the effect was psychological, and maybe this might better be represented in the game by additional morale checks with negative modifiers, by a higher chance for artillery hits to cause disruption, or by some sort of a "pinning" result for artillery fire than by actual casualties. But in the end it comes down to the fact that in the ACW you simply did not try to frontally charge a battery unless you wanted to have 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg by other means.

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Gen. Walter, USA
The Blue Blitz

3/2/VIII Army of the Shenandoah
"... and keep moving on."

General Walter has summed up very well the issues and it's a shame artillery can't effectively be used in a more historically accurate fashion. In game terms I almost never put artillery in the front line, instead firing through gaps in the line or overhead from a couple of hexes back. It's just now worth risking losing all those points in an overrun.

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General Antony Barlow
2/1/XX, Army of the Cumberland

I think you overestimate artillery's effectiveness. The tactics of the CW call for the guns not to be put in the front lines unless it was an improved position with protection for the gunners and paths cleared to the rear for their withdrawal. The one time in the East where both sides tried to place their artillery in front of the infantry was on Henry House Hill. The gunners were almost immediately driven off and infantry proceeded to contest who got to keep the guns. They for the most part contributed little to the fight. Eventually the Southern guns were withdrawn once Jackson's brigade gave it cover. After this battle it was rarely deployed intentionally far from infantry support. The game doesn't do a good job of simulating the type of support the infantry gave a battery. In combat they would usually be behind the guns and unable to fire. If the guns were threatened they moved up with or in front of the guns which usually meant the guns could no longer fire.

Massed guns could break an attack but rarely if unsupported. For example, Scales and Perrin's attack against Seminary Hill near the Pike was broken by concentrated artillery fire from 15 guns of Steart's and Cooper's batteries. But they also had 15 regiments of infantry in close support. Most of it on the forward side of the hill so the Rebels couldn't even approach the batteries. This was the ideal deployment of artillery or raised ground behind or on the flanks of infantry.

Artillery had a huge morale affect on those on the receiving in because it made a big noise but it wasn't that effective. More shock and awe than a real danger. Canister was the only ammo really effective against infantry. Sharpnel was more an irritation and could only be used at over 350 yards where aim reduced it to ineffectiveness. A single gun firing Canister would deliver up to 48 balls in a cone field extending up to 300 yards. Unless the ground was unusually hard and the angle just right most of the balls went over or under the attackers unless they were right in front of the gun. The reality is that the crew if armed with rifles could deliver more ammo on target than a cannon can.

A single section of guns was more a magnet for infantry than a threat. Massed guns with good overlapping fields of fire would definitely give an infantry brigade pause. If they were smart they would start looking for a way to outflank it since an artillery line is easily out flanked. But the same goes for an infantry line. A well placed infantry line with overlapping fields of fire can not be assaulted any easier than the artillery line for the same reason.

Fire is if anything the HPS game overestimated as to the damage the guns can do. Especially at longer ranges where more enemy would be injured by accidents than by artillery fire. Where the game doesn't simulate well is the morale effect of facing artillery fire. The game lacks a "Pin" or some equivalent result that wold cause an advancing line to lose its nerve and stop advancing under artillery fire. The disrupt doesn't do well because the game applies it only to units fired on not to formations.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

I think that, considering all the other adaptations HPS has made, artillery is pretty well represented in the games. Consider that a battery of six napoleons fires at one hex with the same effectiveness as 2100 riflemen. In addition, artillery can reach out and touch someone. I have seen my forces whittled away by Yank artillery without being able to reply, even in woods or entrenched. I have broken Yank formations at long range with artillery as well.

Historically, artillery by itself didn't defend itself well against infantry. Most times, it didn't try. It either limbered and pulled out before it was overrun or the crew abandoned the guns with the hope that the guns would be recovered by friendly infantry, as was often the case. Confederates captured a number of guns, at Gettysburg, including Smith's guns at Devil's Den, some of Bigelow's 9th Mass ( which was ordered to sacrifice itself to slow the Confederate advance) and other batteries on Cemetery Ridge. And while the gunners defended their guns when Early's men staged the night attack at Cemetery Hill on July 2, it was I Corps infantry that drove them off the hill.

At Chickamauga, 35 Union guns were abandoned when the right flank gave way. At Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle, 20 Reb Napoleons were captured when they had barely started to fire. At Fredricksburg in May 1863, a number of Reb guns were captured when the VI Corps overran Barksdale, and Hood's Brigade captured a battery when they broke the infantry at Gaines Mill.

Anyway, while I have been vocal in my criticisms of the HPS system, I think the strengths and weaknesses of artillery are, on the whole, pretty well represented. This is particularly true of phase play; less so in turn play, particularly without the separate melee phase.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA