American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Guys,

Drew Wagenhoffer has put together an interesting Case Study of artillery effectiveness at the real Battle of Iuka and in a Campaign Corinth Battle of Iuka scenario using the 11th Ohio Artillery. In the case study, he compares the effectiveness of the real battery with its wargame counterpart, and comes up with some very interesting solutions. This is posted at: http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/index.html, and is accessible directly from this link:
http://www.brettschulte.net/ACWCGDC/files/Arty%20Case%20Study_Iuka.doc

Brett,

What version of HPS did they use in the study? 1.01a had higher artillery effectiveness than version 1.03. I believe the Corinth artillery (1.03) is too weak while the Gettysburg artillery is more in line with what I expected. Have since learned early version of Corinth (1.01a) and Gettysburg have similar artillery effectiveness.

Col Joe Mishurda

Joe Mishurda, The Cast Iron Division
2nd Div. XXV Corp, AoJ

From an earlier post by Rich Walker

"I believe Corinth and Ozark uses the same values.

Campaign Franklin uses the following as in your example:

N (Napoleon)
Distance 1 2 3 4 6 8 10 13
Corinth 1.01A 14 11 7 5 3 2 1 0.5
Corinth 1.03 12 10 6 5 3 2 1 0.5
C. Gettysburg 14 11 7 5 3 2 1 0.5
C. Franklin 1.03 25 18 10 8 6 4 2 1

T (Parrott)
Distance 1 2 3 5 10 12 14 18 21
Corinth 1.01A 8 6 5 4 3.5 2 1 0.5
Corinth 1.03 8 6 4 3.5 3 2 1 0.75 0.5
C. Gettysburg 8 6 5 4 3.5 2 1 0.5
C. Franklin 1.03 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1



Joe Mishurda, The Cast Iron Division
2nd Div. XXV Corp, AoJ

Joe,

We always use the latest patch as a point of reference.

Regards,
Rich

LGen. Hamilton
II Corps
ANV, CSA

Rich Hamilton,

Would the real life batteries have been considered disrupted during any period of fighting? That would have reduce effectiveness and given a lower casualty rate. I assume the HPS batteries were not disrupted.

Col. Joe Mishurda

Joe Mishurda, The Cast Iron Division
2nd Div. XXV Corp, AoJ

The History Channel produced a show on Gettysburg some time ago "Unsolved History". I think it was. The point of this show was that if the casualties during Pickett's were as high as has been estimated how did so many make it to the "clopse of trees". According to HC they didn't. Using wooden cut outs of men side by side as if in line they fired canister from the positions held be the yankee gunners. Comparing these results with eyewitness accounts and casualty rates they determined that the fence Confederate troops had to climb over also became a natural stopping place for troops taking heavy fire from multiple directions and, more importantly to this topic, a perfect killing ground. The HC concluded the majority of Confederate casualties happened at the fence.

The point of that story was that troops in the open against massed artillery and canister were sitting ducks. You say that arty kills are overestimated but show no evidence for that at all. One could easily argue that given the nature of CW battlefield wounds and the subsequent medical care given at the time that arty casualties were underestimated. You can call the HPS engine correct if you want to, its a free country, but that doesn't make it any less whimsical. Time and time again you will see Union troops in say Corinth or Ozark march across several hexes of open field taking litle to no srty fire and even when they finally do they may take a whopping 2 or three man killed prior te meleeing the guns and winning. That is simply absurd no matter how you look at it and why so many people have issues with this game engine.

Maj.Gen. Mike Smith
I Corps, Commanding
Army of Georgia
[url="http://convolutedmuse.blogspot.com//"]Convoluted Muse[/url]

Hear, Hear Mike!

I totally agree! If say . . . 10 men stand 20 - 30 yards in front of <b><font color="red">1</font id="red"></b><b></b> cannon firing Cannister directly at 'em - then, by the very Nature of cannister, they ain't gonna be standing there for long! [:p]

Multiply the effects by 2, 4 or even 6 and compare the attrition rate against a body of a cuppla hundred men and Ye've gotta have Total Carnage as a result.

Add to that - a body of men transversing OPEN ground, across unrestricted Fields of Fire of defending Cannon and the low Rate of Fire/Casualty rates become absurd! [xx(]

What? The Cannoneers watch the Enemy's Infantry marching towards them and stand there, doing nuttin' and admiring the Shiny buttons on their Foes' Uniforms? [?]

Yeah! <b>That sounds about Right!</b> [:D]

Pat.

Colonel Patrick G.M.Carroll,
II Corps, Commanding.
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia,
C.S.A.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

Not quite sure I understand these calculations correctly ... does it take a regiment 1:40 hours (five turns) to charge a battery? The study says at least one regiment charged five times, alright, but the others did it "at least once", so at least one did it only once--how long did that charge take? Longer than 20 minutes? If not, then the casualties for this regiment occurred during a single turn (or even only a fraction of a turn), and not during five turns, and hence must have been five times higher than assumed here by dividing by five. Or do I get that wrong? In other words, it looks to me that by taking an average of the casualties inflicted over a full five turns--during which the battery can't have been firing continuously at all five regiments--the losses that a battery reportedly can inflict during a comparatively short time could have been watered down dramatically.

116 rounds fired by six guns over 100 minutes (less than one round per gun every five minutes) is not exactly continuous rapid fire I should say, so this seems to suggest that the battery had no target for most of these 100 minutes. Can a battery firing so few round over such a long time really be the measure of what well-handled massed artillery fire at short ranges can do?

Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Michael Smith</i>
<br />Time and time again you will see Union troops in say Corinth or Ozark march across several hexes of open field taking litle to no srty fire and even when they finally do they may take a whopping 2 or three man killed prior te meleeing the guns and winning. That is simply absurd no matter how you look at it and why so many people have issues with this game engine.

Maj.Gen. Mike Smith
I Corps, Commanding
Army of Georgia
[url="http://convolutedmuse.blogspot.com//"]Convoluted Muse[/url]

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


This is why I advocate a switch to a moral check before moving into a hex adjacent to enemy artillery. Any A or B rated units can move into a batteries ZOC with no check. A C or D rated unit must pass a moral check - if they pass they can move into the ZOC, if they fail, they cannot advance (they don't disrupt or route, they just cannot move into the battery's ZOC). The same rules would then apply before a unit could melee a battery.

The major effect of artillery, I think, was much more psychological than physiological. Certainly a group of guns firing canister could do great damage very quickly, but their biggest impact was in the minds of the attackers. A moral check system would better simulate this fear. There are certainly instances of infantry overrunning artillery, but there are also plenty of instances of infantry balking in the face of the guns and going to ground or retreating rather than advance into their close range field of fire.



Regards,
Captain Alan Lynn
3rd Battery "Jacksonville Greys"
4th Div, II Corps, AoA
God bless <><

Excellent study, Drew! I always prefer a mathematical approach to these questions when possible. It beats anecdotal evidence, even my own. This goes a long way towards answering the question as to whether the HPS artillery factors are correct (at least for 6-lb smoothbores). It does not at all resolve the problem of artillery in HPS, however. One could DOUBLE the factors and the same issues would remain.

The controversy over artillery in HPS has always raged around fire factors, sufficient/insufficient. After all, PDT factors are the only thing one can control. Unfortunately, this is a forest-for-the-trees comparison. The issue lies not with the factors "tree", but deep within the "forest" which is the GAME ENGINE. Unless the GAME ENGINE is modified, the issue will never be resolved. Whether factors are correct or not, artillery will remain INEFFECTIVE in HPS compared to its historical counterpart. Casualties may be "correct", but guns will continue to be easily meleed (a magnet in HPS because of the high VP value, rather than something to be avoided as was the case in the Civil War).

The whole issue, I believe, revolves around the manner in which the GAME ENGINE handles artillery in Melee situations. I accept the MELEE portion of the game system to represent close range fire and advance which causes one side or another to break. Yet the system allots a defensive value to artillery as though the gun crews carried pikes and MELEE represents the rare, if almost non-existent, hand-to-hand combat. Gun batteries contribute virtually nothing to the defense of a hex, where in REALITY this is when they would have been their most DANGEROUS. Double-shotted canister at 50 yards will cut all sorts of "swathes". As a line approaches it would be narrowing the angle of dispersal, increasing the fire effectiveness.

If I could change the GAME ENGINE this is what I would do:

When an attacker clicks on "Resolve Melee" the game engine would branch to the following logic if artillery is in the hex:

Randomly determine a number 1, 2, 3

If 1 then the battery limbers and moves one hex to rear. Movement hierarchy is 1)road hex, 2)clear terrain, 3)otherwise it remains limbered in the melee hex

If 2 then the battery limbers and remains in melee hex. It defends
with the same value as the current system attaches to it.

If 3 the battery stands and fights. Its defense value becomes
50 x the number of guns in the hex. A 4-gun battery defends as though it were 200 infantry. After all, each gun is attributed a value of 50 when firing, why not when defending?

The program would then resolve the melee.

The relative scenarios (1, 2, or 3) could be evaluated for their frequency. This is just an example.

Assuming that the game engine will not be modified, what can one do immediately to address the issue via parameters? Little, actually. I have suggested that the limber/unlimber factor = 3. Guns were more mobile than the system attributes. A major step might be the following:

Eliminate VPs for guns. Nada. Zero.

No army in the Civil War vacated the field or lost a battle because it suffered too many gun losses (VPs). In fact, many batteries were reclaimed after their original loss. So, let the value of guns be what they brought to the battlefield: firepower. Lose them, and you lose their killing power.





BG Robert Frost
Army of Cumberland

Generally all the historical data I have found favors HPS's interpretation of the effectiveness of artillery. If anything they are still on the high side. However, there is a definite morale side to troops charging artillery has reflected by the number of charges against the 11th OH without taking the battery. In Battleground the battery would have taken out 100-200 in one fire and then been immediately overrun. HPS makes the fire casualties more in line with historic but does nothing to prevent the immediate overrun by melee. This is more a flaw of the system than of the fire factors.

As to the historic data, the AoP's surgeon examined casualties for the army in 1864 assembling a report for each corps, location of wound as well as cause. The highest casualty rate for Shell was 10% for Petersburg. For the Wilderness it fell to almost 3% of total casualties. Those who died from cannon shot hits was almost insignificant indicating that round shot was pretty much useless against infantry at long ranges due to terrain and the lack of depth to Civil War formations.

Personal observations of fighting in the Civil War have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are always describing fights that are hand to hand, etc., but then you have the surgeon's report listing only 4 people killed by bayonet in the Wilderness. They probably tripped and fell on their own bayonet while running from the fight[:)]. The hand to hand was probably just a lot of slapping[:D].

Col. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

Gents!

I for one favour Genil Frost's suggestions as a realistic advance in this "problem".

As an addition to his suggestion of Nil Point values for Guns and " Lose them, and you lose their killing power" - would it not be a realistic interpretation to treat Arty under the same conditions as Supply Wagons?

If a Wagon is sucessfully meleed . . it belongs to the Victor. If the original Owner melees it again - he re-claims it.

If the same were true for Guns - Ye could capture a battery and turn it on the original owner and then he could attempt to re-gain the use of it - if he wanted to.

Just an idle thought - but I'm right aren't I - in saying this would be more realistic than the Present situation? [:D]

Pat.

Colonel Patrick G.M.Carroll,
II Corps, Commanding.
"Spartan Southrons"
Army of Georgia,
C.S.A.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

One thing I forgot in my previous post "If I could change the game engine...".

Casualties inflicted by guns count DOUBLE for purposes of Morale Checks. A 25-man loss counts as 50 when determining any Morale change.

BG Robert Frost
Army of Cumberland

I'd love to see the ability to use captured artillery, and also to have a feature where you have a percent chance to spike captured guns after capturing them.

-Capt. Brett Schulte 2nd Bde, 1st Div., III Corps, AotM, ACWGC
http://www.brettschulte.net/hps_acw.htm

gents,
since your on the subject of artillery, I in a game with General Bush in HPS Franklin - "hold the north Bank" and we're at turn 8 of 33 and some of my arty units are out of ammo. Is there anyway to resupply them. Since the supply wagons are only good for infantry and cavalry units.
Capt Gery Bastiani
4/2/II Amry of the Mississippi

USN Seabees Ret. - If you see a boiler technician runnig, YOU Better TRY and KEEP UP.