American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I decided to take a couple of battles and break them down into artillery rounds per turn to get a better idea of the ammo situation after running out of ammo or nearly running out of ammo in a couple of games already...

<b>Seven Pines (000a Historical): 82 turns </b>
<b>Union</b> - 440 rounds - 5.365 rounds per turn (<i>even if you assume 20 turns for full combat to begin, that still leaves just 7.096 rounds per turn</i>.)
<b>Confederate</b> - 675 rounds - 8.231 rounds per turn (<i>less 20 turns = 10.88 rpt</i>.)

<b>Oak Grove (00a Historical): 40 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 660 rounds - 16.5 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1028 - 25.7 rpt

<b>Beaver Dam Creek (02a Hist): 23 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 660 rounds - 28.69 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1129 rounds - 49.08 rpt

<b>Gaine's Mill (03a Hist): 32 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 990 rounds - 30.93 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1245 rounds - 38.90 rpt

<b>Golding's Farm (04a Hist): 40 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 660 rounds - 16.5 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1245 rounds - 31.125 rpt


<b>Savage Station (05a Hist): 39 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 660 rounds - 16.92 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1229 rounds - 31.51 rpt


<b>Glendale (06a Hist): 40 turns</b>
<b>Union </b>- 495 rounds - 12.375 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 1245 rounds - 31.125 rpt

<b>Malvern Hill (07a Hist): 43 turns</b>
<b>Union</b> - 660 rounds - 15.34 rpt
<b>Confederate</b> - 1221 rounds - 28.39 rpt

<b>Seven Days Campaign (08a Hist): 407 turns</b>
<b>Union</b> - 2622 rounds - 6.44 rpt
<b>Confederate</b> - 4149 rounds - 10.19 rpt

Seeing the drastic ups and downs between the various battles begs a question or few from me:

Is the available ammo only figured based upon the units that were histrocially engaged each day? If so, what if we decide to do something un-historical? Isn't that kind of the point of the campaign series? If not, then how can there be such drastic differences in available ammo between each battle? (And by that I don't mean between Rebs and Yanks, since we've already established that the Rebs were given more to compensate for the broken down sections.)

By contrast, the breakdown for the historic Gettysburg full battle is (!HISTORICAL 1): 156 turns
<b>Union</b> - 4728 rounds - 30.30 rpt
<b>Confederate </b>- 2648 rounds - 16.97 rpt

While I admittedly know little detail of the Seven Days campaign compared to my knowledge of Gettysburg, I can't imagine that either army had significantly more ammo on hand at one compared to the other, especially as anal retentive as McClellan was, I can only imagine he would have wanted an overabundance of supplies (just as he did with men...) and that with the Rebs being so close to their Capitol that getting a few extra rounds of artillery ammo would not be too terribly difficult, either (especially in early 1862).

So take the statistcis for what you like, I for one am inclined to think there isn't enough arty ammo. I'd love to hear from some of the testers (as well as the designer...) with their experience before release... I can't believe that there wasn't an ammo shortage problem in testing.

I'm not trying to play devil's advocate as much as I am trying to understand the supply situation better. If a convincing argument can be made for the current conditions, I'm more than happy to accept it. I'm just fishing for answers and providing some data to those who might be interested.


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

The first thign to take into account is that since the Union tends to have full 6 gun batteries, they aren't "short" so much as the Confederates have extra ammo to make up for the fact that they have to fire more "shots" to fire the same # of guns. Still, a place where having individual ammo level for guns would be better, but hey.

As a rule, I think that there should be limits on artillery. Not even union guns could fire shell after shell after shell after shell during this war, they also had to watch their ammo supplies.

I haven't gotten that far into the game, but I've not had any problems. Use the AI to limit the # of long range "wasted" shots, and be selective with your own fire in the early turns, and you'll be fine.

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

Not to throw a wrench in the works, but did you consider artillery reinforcements?[:p]

<b><font color="gold">Ernie Sands
LtGen, CO XXIII Corps, AoO

President, Colonial Campaigns Club
</b></font id="gold">

Wouldn't the relevant figure be rounds per gun, rather than rounds per turn? At least that's how it worked back then--you had so-and-so-many rounds in your caissons, and then some more to spare in the reserve.

Gen. Walter, USA
AoS / War College

Historically cannon carriages had 25-50 rounds each.

Meaning a 4 gun battery should have 100-200 rounds without resupply.

I seriously doubt any artillery crew showed up with an empty ammo rack.

When I design a game, I usually take this into account. Artillery should have ammo wagons as the rest, as they don't then I give more before I give less. Never read anything yet the cannons ran out of ammo, so they left the battle. And with 15 minute turns, a average cannon crew could fire 3 rounds per 2 minutes. Let's say 8 rounds in 15 minutes if they were slack.

One solution would be they go to low ammo, then no ammo when firing like troops, but when resupplied by ammo wagon. During a battle this would be more realistic as cannons away from supply might need to limber and move. Whereas it is now, we have so many rounds for any gun for any spot on the map. Because of this,I would prefer to see more ammo than less.

Minimum ammo given should be no less than 25 per gun per game. Campaigns should be almost unlimited. No commander of the day would engage with all his guns low on ammo unless in a Fort or cut off.

If cannons had their own supply count, that would even be better. It is very bad that either all cannons have ammo, or none once you run out.

Can you imagine a Civil War battle where your side runs out. You might as well pack up and go home. I guarantee cannons didn't wait till the last round in the middle of a battle and say, oops, we are all out!

We are missing the people handling the supplies (which aren't really needed), but as with Infantry, it should be a % in the pdt file, then low or out of ammo can be resupplied.

Having ammo for all is bad, because we never really have the problem in these games of cannons suddenly running out as they would, it is either all or nothing. If they had low and no ammo as infantry, the battles would be a little more realistic as it could portray a carriage getting hit instead of the cannon.

For now it is okay, but a little work and it could be great. A percent in the PDT would mak it random, and let the designer play with how bad ammo situation was.

Something maybe for the future...

<font color="gold"><b>Lt. Col. </b></font id="gold">Paul Wakeman, <font color="limegreen">Sharpshooter</font id="limegreen">
<font color="beige">3rd</font id="beige"> '<font color="red">Jayhawk</font id="red">' <font color="beige">Brigade
1st Light Inf. Div.</font id="beige">
<b>XIX Corps, AoS,<font color="gold"> USA</font id="gold"></b>



Cartographer

First a general observation, I find that Peninsula seems to be short on artillery ammo for both sides which would seem to be out of order for two stationary armies one near its capital and the other near major supply depots. The other is that Gettysburg seems to be short on infantry ammo wagons. I haven't played far enough into the Battle of Gettysburg scenarios but it looks like the wagon to division ratio is way to low. Regiments ran out of ammo often since they only carried 40-60 rounds but the army rarely ran out of rifle ammo. Actually, I don't know of a single case of an army running out of small arms ammo and having to leave the field. Regiments and sometimes brigades did and had to be taken out of the line while they were resupplied from the army trains.

Now for some numbers for artillery. Artillery could fire at the rate of 3 rounds per minute but usually didn't. In Nosworthy's book he reports that "During a general engagement many batteries were known to run out of ammunition after only a half hour, the batteries having fired on average one round per minute for each gun."

Now in our shorter scenarios one could justify giving each side lower numbers to simulate this. That is, the guns would exhaust their caisson supply fairly quickly and there wasn't time to withdraw the guns back to the rear supplies, draw more ammo and return. Unfortunately, this is a kluge since batteries don't run out of ammo the whole army does in HPS games but I guess they figure its your problem to do the math.

For Fair Oaks and Old Tavern the ammo limits reflecting only supplies immediately available to the batteries would make sense but in the longer scenarios like Gaines Mill (so far one 81 and another 101 turns) this wouldn't be true. With over night to bring up supplies there shouldn't be a significant limit on artillery. Yet for a 101 turn game the Union has only 1317 ammo. Considering in the campaign the Battle of Gaines Mill can extend to both sides of the river this number seems a bit low.

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

I agree we shouldn't be able to fire willy nilly at everything in range no matter what, but it can't go overboard the other direction, either.

If we assume the heavist cannonades of the war to be July 3 at Gettysburg, Anteitam, and 2nd Mannassas (?) I don't recall either army running out of ammo. There were individual units that ran low and had to be replaced in the line by a fresh unit until resupplied, but the firing did not stop. The Rebs had to halt their bombardment on July 3, but that was after two days of combat already, plus the largest bombardment in the history of the American continent, and they were not OUT of ammo, merely low on ammo and needed to stop to "support the infantry" or repulse any potential attack.

And if we're dreaming of ideal situations, why limit it to rounds per gun or unit? In reality, each gun had X number of shells, X number of round shot, and X number of canister. In my ideal world you would have at least two types of artillery ammo - shell and canister - and you would have two numbers on each battery icon to show you the supply for that battery of each type. You would use canister automatically at one and two hexes, and shell automatically at three hexes and beyond (or maybe up those by one hex each so canister goes out to three hexes?) Each shot would reduce only the amount of available ammo for the type fired based on the range. So if you had a unit get stuck in close combat and run out of canister, they would have to be pulled out of the line until resupplied. (Or would they still have the option of firing shell at reduced effect inside of 2-3 hexes?) You would also have the option of leaving them deployed but behind the lines where only shells would come into play anyway.

You could keep the general army ammo supply, but it would refer then only to your "reserve supply" instead of an army wide ready supply. Each unit would have a supply, and the reserve would dwindle as they needed to be resupplied. So each unit might have 20-30 rounds of each type of ammunition, and your army reserve might contain XXX number of rounds and it would go down as any battery out of ammo was resupplied, and that supply could go down based on the number of guns in the battery, so a 6 gun battery would take 6 rounds away from the army reserve, a 2 gun unit would take 2 rounds, etc. Resupply rules could be handled in exactly the same manner as infantry, and the same wagons could be used to keep the number of units the same, it would just be a more realistic supply situation.

And now I will wake myself back up and remind myself that technology and time resources are not unlimited and this probably will never happen because of it and I will continue to be thankful that we have anything at all. [:D] But it is still fun to dream! [|)]


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

FYI: While the immediate shortage was in arty ammo, the CSA forces at Pea Ridge were also pretty much out of small arms ammo. Short form, Van Dorn managed to go on a deep flank march, and left the Union army between himself and his supply train.

Ooops.

(Not Gettys or Peninsula, but you asked for one...

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
Actually, I don't know of a single case of an army running out of small arms ammo and having to leave the field. Regiments and sometimes brigades did and had to be taken out of the line while they were resupplied from the army trains.


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

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />FYI: While the immediate shortage was in arty ammo, the CSA forces at Pea Ridge were also pretty much out of small arms ammo. Short form, Van Dorn managed to go on a deep flank march, and left the Union army between himself and his supply train.

Ooops.

(Not Gettys or Peninsula, but you asked for one...

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>
Actually, I don't know of a single case of an army running out of small arms ammo and having to leave the field. Regiments and sometimes brigades did and had to be taken out of the line while they were resupplied from the army trains.


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

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

The Confederate infantry at the Battle of Olustee in Florida also ran out of small arms ammo halfway through the battle and had to pull back a bit until more rounds were brought up and distributed, then they resumed the attack and drove the Yanks from the field. But that was a small affiar compared to these larger battles where it wasn't a problem...

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

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />FYI: While the immediate shortage was in arty ammo, the CSA forces at Pea Ridge were also pretty much out of small arms ammo. Short form, Van Dorn managed to go on a deep flank march, and left the Union army between himself and his supply train.
Ooops.
(Not Gettys or Peninsula, but you asked for one...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually the HPS system simulates this very well. Anytime you go on a wide flank march on the larger maps like the full size Gettysburg map you will find you can't take your wagons with you. The army hasn't run out of small arms ammo but the flanking column has a real ammo problem as it should.

In Gettysburg the problem is less the number of wagons given the divisions then the lack of the Army trains which were only a few miles away. Some of the older board games simulated this by having a unit representing the Army trains. Supply wagons could move to the Army trains and refill themselves and return to their divisions. Small arms ammo was a logistics problem but not a shortage.

And for trivial knowledge, a 6 lb gun had 400 rounds in its limber and cassions.

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

In designing EAW games I assign 1 wagon per regiment of 50 points each, and I give every artillery piece 2 round per turn (one offensive and one defensive fire.) This is my base calculations which I adjust from there to reflect supply shortages/abundances.

For ACW infantry ammo, I would have 2 wagons per brigade of 100 points. 1 would be put with the brigade, the other back in the army train area. Makes for a great big target, especially if Victory Points for Supply Points exist.

For ACW artillery ammo, I would go with 2 rounds per battery per turn (one offensive/one defensive.) That would get players through the game, but they would need to be careful, not let batteries get overrun, set ADF for med/short range, and still they could find themselves getting a bit short near the end of a battle. A very good reason to keep batteries in reserve.

Oh yeah, most players don't understand they need to have reserves and not use everything every turn.

MajGen Al 'Ambushed' Amos
3rd "Amos' Ambushers" Bde, Cavalry Division, XX Corps, AoC
The Union Forever! Huzzah!

Well, Pea Ridge was, if anything a Strategic Flank March. Maybe a map the size of the monster Gettys map would have had all of Van Dorn's route, but not even the PR map (which is quite large itself) has it. Anyway, Van Dorn not only outmarched his small arms ammo, but the whole thing, even his arty ammo. So they woke up on Day 2, had enough arty ammo for about 15 minutes, and were in a spot of trouble *L*

Wierd battle, Van Dorn got onto Curtis' communications, but since he (Curtis) managed to shepherd his ammo train to safety on day one, Curtis had plenty of ammo for day 2, while Van Dorn was chipped beef on toast.


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by KWhitehead</i>


Actually the HPS system simulates this very well. Anytime you go on a wide flank march on the larger maps like the full size Gettysburg map you will find you can't take your wagons with you. The army hasn't run out of small arms ammo but the flanking column has a real ammo problem as it should.


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

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

Indications in "Plowshares into Swords" indicates that Gorgas tried to keep a level of 140 rds/infantryman in each army. The US ordnance manual stipulated a level of 200 rds/man. The trick then becomes how to figure how much ammo was expended per man in each fire phase. Probably more on defense than on offense. At Atlanta Hood's artillery averaged 125 rds/gun, while Union artillery averaged 400 rds/gun (Cannoneers in Gray). In Coddington's book, Alexander estimated 125 rds/gun with each battery plus about 75 more/gun in the trains for a total of 200. I
would guess the Yanks had twice that. Latimer's command of 20 guns expended 1147 rounds between 4pm and 6:30 pm in the duel with the batteries on Cemetery Hill on 2 July. Anyway, I'm sure there are plenty of numbers available to crunch, and I suspect the folks at HPS have crunched them. I also would prefer an ammo system similar to what they have for the infantry to what they have now, as I have stated in earlier posts.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA