13h Battle of Gettysburg (Historic)

Posted by ken whitehead on Sunday, July 11, 2004 (CST)

A discussion of possible strategies.

I recommend that you wait until Rodes arrives before you get really aggressive against good yank players. Pender's arrival with 18 infantry units helps a lot, but you will be facing approximately equal to superior numbers for the early moves in the game. There is safety in numbers and they should support each other.
You will require supply wagon escort against an aggressive yank cav commander. That can be a minimum of as many as 4 dispersed units, if the whole cav division is in the vicinity. The turnpike allows wagons to move 10 hexes a turn, so that helps a lot. You must be vigilant as to where his cav units are. If you see that he is using them to fortify Cemetery Ridge, then of course that takes a lot of rear guard requirements off you. If the cav hovers in your rear, watch out! And you cannot prevent him from hitting you at advantage, especially when Doubleday's division arrives at the battle area. All you can do is make it expensive enough that he decides to conserve the cavalry as a threat because you are constantly guarding rear and flank approaches and "he cannot make enough off you". The yank commander needs to avoid depleting cavalry numbers and accumulating fatigue in cav units, unless the rebel gives him really juicy returns on the investment.
Heth arrives first. He will have 16 infantry to deploy. If the cavalry defends the 1st objective hex dismounted, by all means, push forward and melee them. Otherwise, side step south to avoid the cav arty unit field of fire, and keep pushing toward Seminary Ridge. That will also keep Doubleday from being able to use the road and reinforce Wadsworth and Robinson quickest. They should look like a cloud of units, if the yank keeps his cav mounted and threatening your flank and rear. Big regiments to the front because you want to melee his elite units, cav and Wadsworth division, every time that you can get sufficient advantage to kill them in large numbers with your regular (C quality) infantry. Trading volleys against A and B (elite and crack troops) will fatigue your guys quickly and you will lose troops faster than he does. I like to kill his good guys at 150 to 25, but even equal losses are to his disadvantage. We want those guys fatigued to the point that they also rout easily like his D and E quality units. (green and militia)
Keep the big regiments out of range or LOS as much as possible and use them to melee. A fatigue hit on Pettigrew's 850 man unit is much worse than a fatigue hit on Archer's 125 man unit. Four fatigues and your unit downgrades lowering its effectiveness on fire or melee. Two rounds of play and you will likely be at 4 fatigues because he will target your best and dangerous units.
Avoid making ranged rifle fire past 1 or 2 hexes distant. Heavily fatigued units should not fire. Supply wagons are critically important in longer scenarios and you can easily consume them at 4 or 5 units per turn, once A P Hill and Ewell Corps are both in action. Consider the casualty and fatigue differential to each side as to when you successfully melee as against trading volleys. I consider it a no brainer.
There is so much more, but that is why I have been pushing for the War College. You and others like you are exactly why the college is needed.
Col Ross McDaniel

I have usually found that the Rebel gains little by being overly aggressive until Ewell starts coming in. The forces are to equal against Heth and Pender and the Union position to strong. You really prefer not to drive them back early since later they will be out flanked and have to retreat under fire.
Try to spread out you line to the right as you get sufficient force to do so and use your artillery to clear McPherson’s Hill. Wait until you have eight or so batteries then deploy them watching that they are in proper range. Then make it to hot for the Yankees to stay. If they counter attack you may lose some batteries but artillery isn't that useful to the Rebel so in the long run this will make your gun affective.
I usually try to position a couple of Heth's brigades to hit the 3rd division if the opponent is foolish enough to march in column down Hagerstown road but a good enemy won't do this.
When Rhodes arrives you can start advancing and stretching their flanks. Keep shifting Heth right. Hopefully this will keep the cavalry covering their flanks and not running around in your rear. Use artillery and some of the smaller brigades to cover your right and rear.
Above all don't play my brother. He's a Lieutenant over there but like me he has played these games for 30+ years and is very aggressive but he has only played a few games in the club so his title doesn't match ability. But you will be happy to know I caught one of his brigades and some artillery in Gettysburg town and ZoCed them to hell . He surrendered at 6 PM.
Lt. Col. Kennon Whitehead

I wouldn't go so far as to say the Union can't be defeated since I have not run into flawless play by the Union player . I usually find the Union player will execute some kind of delaying action that will allow me to engage his forces in the open. There seems to be some kind of general view that the Union must delay the Rebels in the afternoon in front of Cemetery Hill or they will get there to quickly and attack before XII Corps arrives. But, I think if you look back over old games, you will find Rhodes arrives within a turn or two in front of Cemetery Hill regardless of whether he has to step over some dead Yankees or not .
Now the problem is how to take on the Yankee that uses long range artillery to keep Rhodes out of column and the threat of cavalry to slow Rebel advance. The Rebel will find this player well placed on the heights with lots of artillery support and cavalry on the flanks. I haven't run into this player so I can't be sure of the solution , but here is my opinion.
Wherever the XI Corps is there is an opportunity. Usually the Corps is on Culps Hill with maybe some I Corps support. An attack against Culps Hill has a number of advantages. First the woods give you cover from the Union artillery and second the right flank will probably be in the air at some point. The draw backs are it takes a long time to move through those woods and the XII Corps comes in nicely to support that flank.
My favorite is the other flank . The broken ground where Cemetery Ridge runs into Plum Run is an excellent place to attack with the intent of taking the Taneytown Road and turning the Cemetery Hill position. If you are moving fast enough you may have Pender into position for an actual attack up the ridge line before XII Corps can show. The one time I have been able to use this strategy I had Rhodes holding a long line across the front of Cemetery Ridge (two brigades on each side of Gettysburg) with Early pressing Culps Hill to attract some of the XII Corps. I attacked with Pender toward the Road then turned left toward Cemetery Hill. This rolled up their defenses and left most of their artillery pointing the wrong direction. Next I reinforced the attack on the left of Cemetery Ridge with Anderson who pushed across the ridge almost to the other side. By night I held all of Cemetery Ridge but Cemetery Hill. At that point my opponent surrendered .
I will have another interesting test of this strategy against Robert Frost but we are playing his modified Corinth system of Gettysburg which fights quite different. In this case we are in the night turns. I have reached the Taneytown road but have not turned the Cemetery Ridge position (except the lower broken ridge). I have Heth facing the III Corps across Emmetsburg Pike. Pender is actually occupying part of Devils Den, Wheatfield and Plum Run area. I have basically a large "V" with one side facing III Corps and the other side Cemetery Ridge. I am down though 2000 men mainly due to Frost's artillery system that is 5x more powerfull than Corinth and hurt me bad during the advance. But I have stuffed two fresh divisions, Anderson and Johnson, into the apex of the "V" for the morning assault. We will see what happens soon.
Col. Kennon Whitehead

My approach is to try to destroy or at least cripple the enemy army. If you accomplish this then the terrain objectives are easily picked up toward the end of the game . If you drive head on toward VP hexes you will usually find the enemies strongest defenses being thrown in your way. You may take the hex but at such cost that you can't hold it. Gettysburg is a good example of this situation. The Union doesn't need to hold the VP hexes on Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill; he needs to make the Rebel bleed his army to death taking them. The Rebel will find they are very poor defensive positions when out flanked my massive Union forces on the second and third day.
First Bull Run is another good example since the VP hexes don't even represent tactically good terrain. If either side gets obsessed with taking and holding these hexes during the first half of the game they will usually be defeated.
Col. Kennon Whitehead

Sounds like your initial opening is pretty much how I would do it with some small changes. I usually send Pettigrew and Brokenbough to the right with some supporting artillery. This covers against any cavalry raiding and, if Doubleday comes in and tries to make the run in column, a force to punish him severely. You should be able force Doubleday to have to fight or take the long way home.
I usually put a large concentration of artillery on Herr Ridge to punish the Union on McPherson with Davis supporting mostly on the right and Archer spread out on the left. I use Archer to push down into the valley to prevent Union advances and cover Rhodes eventually. You have to be careful of a Union counterattack during this time since you are so spread out.
Once Pender arrives though get aggressive. You want to draw the Union into a fire fight so he will be pinned in position when Rhodes comes on. How you deploy Pender depends on what the Union is doing. If Doubleday fights and is reinforced by cavalry, shift Davis that direction. If Union stays up front on McPherson’s Ridge, encourage it by holding back until you see him start to withdraw. Have Pender and Heth deployed for quick pursuit so that you can quickly engage his withdrawing troops. If the Union withdraws early, have Heth follow watching for traps. The objective here is to control the Chambersburg Pike so Pender can move in column as far as possible.
The Rebel objective after Pender is deployed in line and before about 3 PM is to try to engage the Union in the open and pin him in place with disorders. Once he withdraws onto the Cemetery Ridge line things change. Save that for another post.
The general objectives for the morning with Heth are to cover Pender and later Rhodes arrival so they can enter the maximum distances without deploying, cover the right and left against cavalry incursions, position artillery to get maximum effect (Rebel rarely gets to use artillery offensively so take advantage of the Herr Ridge vs. McPherson Ridge position), and watch for the Union to make mistakes.
Union mistakes I usually see that you can severely punish are Doubleday trying to move down the road without deploying, Doubleday deploying but still trying to advance on the Rebel right or move across the front to get to the I Corps, regiments being posted in front of McPherson's ridge (great artillery targets), and staying to long on McPherson's ridge usually trying to cover for Doubleday.
I usually press Doubleday because it tends to lead to more mistakes by the Union player trying to cover his arrival and movements.
Col. Kennon Whitehead

Throwing another opinion forth. For me the goal is the Federal army not the Objectives. It is extremely rare for a game to go till the 149th turn, thus objectives don't matter. Ammo, and cannon shells, and fatigue. I would rate as secondary, Objectives last. For that matter most of the hills are great defensive positions for the Union, not as great for the CSA. I access my progress by subtracting Objectives from Victory points--if at the end of Day 1 I have a Major Victory--I feel I have a good chance.
Brig. Gen. Laabs

Unless you are both newbie’s making wild and unscientific play, IMHO you need to take the 3 Cemetery Ridge HVP (high victory point) objectives and Culps Hill to have a chance of lasting 3 days. I prefer to play Battle of Gettysburg BGG 13a/or h. I have failed to take all of Cemetery Ridge only one time. Still I lost one game where I took Cemetery Hill, The Angle, and Culps Hill after I ran out of artillery ammo near the end of the 2nd day. With your best play against a competent yank, you will still run low on ammo for dozens of units and you may easily go dry on artillery ammo. On my 3 mirror matches, when I play as the yank, it has never been close. My strategy on this battle is to be careful and super aggressive on the 1st day and demoralize the opponent into surrender by piling up 4000+ points. That works best against an opponent who does not know about his ability to recuperate against a deteriorating rebel supply situation. I will e-mail snapshots of turn 68 on my game vs. Gen Kelly Ross posted on this forum (1120hrs 2nd day) for those who are interested and let me know.
On the shorter scenarios such as "Out of the Mist", of course there are different requirements and you won't run out of supply so badly.
Col Ross McDaniel

Hills are just big piles of virtual dirt . In terms of your real objective, destroying the Union army so it can't destroy you later, they only represent a bonus to the defender. If the Union player defends Cemetery and Culps in depth the Rebel can easily destroy his army taking them. If the Union player has conserved his forces and concentrated on defending the high ground rather than trying to delay the Rebel advance, I find the best tactic is to turn the position's left (from Wheatfield side).
As the Union player I have never lost the hills to head on assaults. But as the Rebel I have forced the Union to surrender without a single unit on Cemetery Hill.
Col. Kennon Whitehead

If you try to take the Hills the union will defend the hills and that hands the advantage to him. I take the town of Gettysburg and the hills to the north and ridges to the west of Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill leaving a defensive line out of LOS as much as possible then as fresh rebel units arrive attack the peach orchard and wheat field area by early-afternoon of day one disrupting his reinforcements before they can form a healthy defensive line. If your opponent doesn't surrender at the end of day one...an attack on C. Hill from the south is much harder for the union to defend and you will have him covered from three sides S-N-W so as he turns to defend from the south you can add pressure from the other two sides.
This will be harder to do with an overly aggressive Yankee, but if your opponent is happy to dig in on the hills facing north and west half your job is done.
Col. R.A.Weir

I must say I agree with Col. Ross...Take the hills and the ground around them, this will give you excellent reinforcement routs, as well as take away your opponents. This solves the Rebel problem of taking forever to move from one hot spot to another...plus those VP are nice to have.
Another good idea for the first day is to cut off Doubleday, this can be done with a relatively small force (I used a large one); and will force the Yank to take the long way home. I forget who mentioned doing this to me; his name is in one of my post. I enjoy denying my opponent more men.
But there is nothing more enjoyable then the freedom of movement felt after destroying his cavalry. I have only done this in one battle. And it was totally my opponents fault.
Fld Lt Andrew Vernier

I will be glad to take up the challenge but I think the disagreement is more over emphasis than strategy. I don't think the Rebel should get overly fixed on the VP hexes at the expense of damaging the Union army so it can't fight. When you have broken  the Union army the Hills will fall, he can't defend them. If I had to make a choice where my 3000 VP's come from I would rather it be from dead Yankees  than from Hill tops . But I think if you have 3000 VP's due to killing Yankees you are probably also on the Hills. The reverse isn't true. If you have 3000 VP due to taking the hills but you lost 3000 VP in casualties doing it, you aren't going to be there long.
Tactically the hills are important because they dominate the road net. The Union on them is able to limit movement of the Rebel army. The Rebel on them allows them to split the Union into its two reinforcement areas. However, taking the hills should fit into an overall strategy for defeating the Union army and not be the primary objective of your battle.
Col. Kennon Whitehead

I don't disagree with your latest post. I just believe that one cannot afford to relinquish those 2500 points when the rebel will run low on ammo and artillery fire during the 2nd day and the damn Yankee will still have ample supply into the 3rd day. The point differential is equivalent to having lost 6250 extra infantry. Holding those hills will also keep their yank garrison at a defensive advantage while he masses his already greater numbers attacking against starving rebels.
Col Ross McDaniel

In my very short career here, I have been or am currently involved in 19 games at Gettysburg. I think I would side with Kennon. The VP looks very enticing. But, I believe the destruction of the US Army should be considered paramount. Particularly the US I Corps and 1st Cav Div. Destruction of their ability to fight for the VP hexes will force them to yield them to the CSA.
Some hours of analysis show that at the CS Forces are basically outnumbered until Ewell arrives at 12:20 day 1. From then until 7:40 AM day two the CSA advantage in total manpower will crest at
11625 men at 1600 hours of day one. In the next hour Union reinforcements via the Baltimore Pike starting at 1620 will drive that advantage to just under 1000 over the next hour and a half.
Driving up the fatigue on his A & B quality troopers will negate to a large extent his ability to hold the standard positions on the hill. Worth noting also is that by start of day two CSA have twice the number of batteries of artillery as he has. Ammo for both Small Arms and Artillery are standard, way too little of each.
Total CSA Arty Ammo 1400 vs 1900 US
Small arms Ammo CSA 72 units on 9 wagons, USA 120 units on 20 wagons. This gives them twice the resupply sources as the CSA.
I have found that after Ewell arrives the Federals are forced to yield all the VP hexes North and West of THE HILL. (5 hexes worth 700 points.)
Having tried the unthinkable and futile Frontal Assault, any mediocre US player will be able to hold both Culps and Cemetery Hill's. There appears to be two paths that will negate his positional advantage. One swinging Ewell east around town towards Culps, and Hill south and east towards the round tops.
Culp's Hill is hard to gain due to the elevation, woods and entrenchments you are sure to find there. I have rarely seen the 1st Cav anywhere except on the Union right covering his flank and Culps Hill. His Black Hats are normally at the angle, or the North end of THE HILL. This is a vulnerable spot, but it is not as soft as the Round Tops. Typically defended by III and V Corps, and by mid-morning on day 2, lots of artillery. In fact, from 0600 to 0620 (two turns) he will bring on 19 more batteries. Most will be right in the Round Top Region.
If you are successful in pushing Hill into the Round Tops area by end of day one, you put a large burden on the Federalists to protect the vulnerable guns (High VP) with most of the units he needs to build his reserves behind his lines. Did I mention that this area contains 900 VP on just four hexes?
A small point I have noted, and would certainly be glad to hear any contradicting information on is the ability to inflict more than one casualty hit (from Small Arms) against any units. It seems that unless adjacent and without significant Fire Modifiers (Rear, Column) it seems that you only get One Shot to damage his troops. While Artillery seems to fare better, I have found that after the first Fatigue or Damage hit, it is more likely to run out of ammo then to get another hit in the same turn. Does anybody feel the same way? It seems that it is easier to keep looking for a single fatigue hit per turn against his exposed troops. At best in three hours his unit without Melee would already be at Fat Lvl 9, and basically useless for anything except CSA VP's. (ahem, the same goes for our troops.)
If CSA can hold the Round Tops in conjunction with the VP normally surrendered, we have reached 1500 VP (Major).
I totally agree with BG Laubs on the Tactical Advantage of ALL the normally defended Federal positions. There are of greater advantage to the Union, due to LOS restrictive terrain on the south and west sides of all the High VP positions. They are Very good for the North, and only fair to good for the South.
Colonel Whitehead is certainly correct that the greatest advantage to the south from gaining the HILLS is that the North then has Three Reinforcements Roads all separated by either significant CSA forces or distances. This is worth more than the Height/LOS advantages.
All in all, as General Levy once remarked, "Winning at Gettysburg is a bugbear to accomplish"!!!
But, it is not impossible, I Hope!!!
Col. Mark W. Zapp