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PostPosted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 7:56 pm 
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Hi guys,

I've been doing some scenario creation and have an interesting question. How much artillery is assigned to each gun? I researched several sites on-line to determine how much ammo there was per chest, how much ammo there was in a limber and how much was in a caisson (depending on which type of gun it was). After applying those numbers to my scenario I realized that too much ammo was applied compared to the HPS/JTS versions. I did a calculation from a couple of the Antietam Campaign scenarios and it came out to 5.5 rounds per gun (scenario ratio is rounds x 4.5 = army's total ammo).

Example:
If I had 10 guns x 5.5 rounds that equals 55 in the scenario design. 55 x 4.5 shells = total ammo of 247 shots (using the Optional Rules Dialog setting: Artillery Ammo by Cannon). This is roughly the result I obtained by comparing some of the HPS scenario numbers.

If anyone knows, in more detail, how much ammo should be applied to each cannon I would greatly appreciate it.

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MG. Derek Hampel
Cmdr. Second Div., XV Corps
Army of the Tennessee


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 12:20 am 
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Hi, General,

According to Coddington in The Gettysburg Campaign, General Alexander estimated that the ANV had roughly 200 rds/gun on hand at Gettysburg. He also estimated that a gun could fire 30 carefully aimed shots/hour or 100 hurriedly aimed ones. He also said that the average gun carried 125 rds total in limber and caissons. (notes page 791). Hope that helps.

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Forrest's Cavalry Corps
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 10:21 am 
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Location: USA
The 1864 Field Artillery Tactics gives the following load outs for a 12 pound gun ammo chest:
20 shot, 8 Case, 4 Canister
During the war many of the artillery leaders found that using Shell instead of shot was a good trade off. If you didn't put a fuse on it you could use it as Shot. So the chest would be:
15 Shell, 20 Case, 4 Canister

This gives about 30 to 39 rounds to a chest.

A typical gun has three chest with it. One on the limber and two on the Caisson. That gives you 90 rounds with the gun in the field, 360 rounds for a Confederate battery of four guns, 540 rounds for a Union battery of six guns. In addition the Army trains would carry additional chest which depended on their current situation.

The HPS system has to represent ammo rather abstractly because the guns are firing multiple times during the 20 minute turn. A gun firing as fast as it can, can easily fire off all its ammo in one turn. Most extended fire fight the battery commanders kept the fire to a much lower pace so this wouldn't happen.

The HPS system also has one serious simplification. Note that the amount of Canister carried is very small, 12 shots per gun. The HPS system allows you to convert all ammo to whatever type you need. In reality, the guns quickly round out of Canister and could only fight an infantry assault for a few minutes.

I did a quick estimate on the ammo ratio for the Historical Antietam scenario and came up with 3195 ammo at start of scenario with about 220 guns for the Rebs. That comes to 14.5 ammo/gun (I am using optional ammor by gun rule). Even with this high number I have had to conserve ammo during games to be sure I would still have ammo at the end.

Somewhere I saw a post by one of the HPS/JT designers saying how they calculated it but I don't remember where or what the calculations was.

In designing scenarios I recommend being a little liberal with the artillery and infantry ammo because the game just doesn't give the player enough control over its use.

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


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 28, 2017 7:46 pm 
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Gen. Whitehead, Sir! <Salute>

Much appreciated. That was exactly the details I was looking for. I would agree with you that the HPS/JTS versions have gone a little light in the ammo supply numbers in the scenarios. When I've played some matches I realized that I had to closely watch my ammo supplies. When I applied the standard average number of 90 rounds per gun it seem to easily cover the ammo supply needed for a normal scenario (40 or less turns). As you mentioned, the turn simulation should be taken into consideration about how much would also be consumed during the 20 minute period. I will try to adjust it to incorporate but the 90 rounds and 20 minute time frame. I believe that will be a more accurate number.

Thanks again Ken!

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MG. Derek Hampel
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Army of the Tennessee


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 29, 2017 11:03 am 
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A couple things to remember when designing your scenario.

1. Base your ammo per UNIT. If the Ammo by Gun option is chosen the game engine will convert the ammo for the number of guns in each unit.
2. Most of the games I played that had good ammunition rules figured a battery could fire for @ 2 hours with it's limber supply.
For these games I use 10 ammo per unit, allowing you to fire both offensively and defensively for nearly 2 hours.
(Nearly all the accounts of the Gettysburg 3rd day I've read note this was about how long the bombardment lasted.)
3. The games I've noted also allowed for a resupply feature from a reserve, CSA figures normally about 1.25-1.35 additional supplies while USA were somewhere between 1.5-1.75.
4. Batteries that start on the map have only the ammo in the supply. Reinforcements add additional ammo to the supply, it used to be 4 ammo per gun unit but I recently checked this using Gettysburg 2.0 and Corinth 2.0 and it now appears to be 6 ammo per unit with that new version.

So you need to count the artillery units starting on the map and figure 10 ammo for each of these.
Keep track of reinforcing artillery units, remember they will add 4 (before 2.0) or 6 (after 2.0) ammo when they arrive on the map so add 4 to your supply for each reinforcement artillery unit. Now you have to decide how much of a reserve to have, using my figures total the number of artillery units, multiply by 10 to determine their ammo then multiply that by 1.3 to get the CSA reserve and 1.7 to get the USA reserve, add that to the original supply and you should be about right. For smaller actions you can reduce the reserve as these were normally carried at the corps/army level so for a corps or lower command level action just double your initial supply rather than using the multiplier above.

Just my 2 cents worth.

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