American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Anyone else notice that artillery vs. artillery fire in HPS Shiloh seems to be abnormally effective?

Regards,

Col. Alan Lynn
2nd Div, II Corps, AoA

Signal Corps, Assistant Editor

"The only accurate news is well researched history."

God Bless <><

I have found it abnormally effective in all the HPS games. The probability of hitting a gun at medium and long range is way to high. Any game that has artillery exchanging fire over a long enough period of time will rack up 50 to 100 guns being knocked out by counter battery fire. This never occurred during the Civil War. And, standard doctrine for the time was to never engage in counter battery fire when not directly supporting an infantry attack since it was so ineffective.

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

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but having just finished reading "To the Gates of Richmond" by Sears, I recall that even at Malvern Hill where Confederate batteries went into action piecemeal and faced off with 4-8 Rebel guns at a time engaging up to 36 Union guns, the actual number of Confederate guns that were disabled or destroyed was low, though casualties among horses and blown up caissons were a little higher. Casualties among gun crews listed came to only a handful killed and dozen or so wounded among even the most heavily engaged batteries. In an HPS version simulating the same setup I'm sure the Rebs in the same situation would lose dozens of guns before all was said and done.

Even in the "Artillery Hell" at Anteitam, Confederate gun losses were nowhere near what we would see in an HPS recreation.

So, yes, it does seem that HPS counterbattery fire is quite a bit too effective.

I recently saw one HPS Shiloh scenario where 4 batteries of Union guns succeeded at medium to long range without the aid of higher elevation, to take out 5 Rebel guns in a single 3 turn stretch. And these were land batteries. Don't even get me started on the gunboats! Oh boy... not a pretty sight for us Rebs if Yankee gunboats are involved! [:(]

Regards,

Col. Alan Lynn
2nd Div, II Corps, AoA

Signal Corps, Assistant Editor

"The only accurate news is well researched history."

God Bless <><

I'm not sure how the engine figures artillery losses, but part of the problem is that stacking in the game and historical tactical deployment are two different things. Essentially, you can stack twenty guns in a hex that historically might have held eight. Also, I think a lot of factors that historically limited battery effectiveness are discounted. It would probably be more accurate to have fewer guns destroyed but a significantly higher rate of fatigue. Another factor is that in multiphase play, you can move guns up to cannister range without worrying about getting them overrun (conversely, if you play single phase, you might have your guns overrun with barely a shot in self-defense.) Also, I believe Rich Walker has a higher opinion of artillery effectiveness than some other designers. And if the density modifier works for gun stacks, and you have a max stack, that may make a difference as well. After playing a number of games, I think it would be more accurate to further limit the effectiveness of guns over three hexes. That would discourage long range fire as well as decreasing the number of guns lost to medium and long range fire. For an excellent description of an artillery duel, read Pfanz's description of the fight between Latimer's Battalion and the guns on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg on the second day in "Culp's Hill & Cemetery Hill."



MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

I would tend to agree with the effectiveness of counter-battery fire, particularly if you are using the quality fire modifiers and with some of the games, i.e. Rich Walker designed. I played Grand Battle (hypothetical Battle of Frankfort) and the Reb batteries had devastating effect at medium to long range, sometimes even with a Yank elevation advantage. Maybe its my Yank bias but i find all the Rich Walker scenarios/designs have the Rebs with way too high quality in general and in relation to the Yank infantry especially. I really much prefer Campaign Peninsula and CGettysburg with more of a balance between elite and conscript troops with the bulk in the middle.

Col Ed Lytwak
2/2/XV/AoT/USA

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by elytwak</i>
<br />Maybe its my Yank bias but i find all the Rich Walker scenarios/designs have the Rebs with way too high quality in general and in relation to the Yank infantry especially. I really much prefer Campaign Peninsula and CGettysburg with more of a balance between elite and conscript troops with the bulk in the middle.

Col Ed Lytwak
2/2/XV/AoT/USA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I disagree. Just because the Confederate men in the West were often poorly lead by incompetent commanders doesn't mean that the men themselves were not good soldiers or hard fighters. In fact, it is probably quite the opposite. Same rule should apply to the AoP in Eastern games - they suffered the same lack of leadership until late in the war, but quite often exhibited remarkable bravery in action.

Just because Bragg was an idiot doesn't mean that the men in the AoT were poor quality. Kudos to Rich for giving western confederates some credit.

Regards,

Col. Alan Lynn
2nd Div, II Corps, AoA

Signal Corps, Assistant Editor

"The only accurate news is well researched history."

God Bless <><