Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

I would be interested in hearing some opinions on the "rifle effects" optional rule.

My question is from the perspective of being relatively new to this club, a desire to play the game as much as practical from an historical perspective, and as a member of the IA being an equal opportunity combatant.

I think the "rifle effects" rule makes the historical scenarios more balanced as a "game between commanders with 200+ years of replay experience". (Custom scenarios may be a different argument).

The argument is a bit involved but it essentially is that if you have a game with a lot of militia, they "cost" the same as regular troops in terms of points, but there value in the game is limited. Fire effects improves the value/cost equation.

Militia are not expected to be an offensive weapon in these games (or the period). So if you have a large portion (note this is a key point, if the miltia contingent is small, rifle effects would not have an impact) of the American force composed of militia and they fight the British to a Draw, at some point you would expect the British to give up and call it a day. In a historical sense I think this would be when the casualties got to around 12% of the original force. But I suspect in these games that if there is a large % of the American force composed of militia and they fight the British to a Draw that even with 25% casualties the British are still ready to carry the attack. In these games that means and ability to start achieving zoc kills or go for the victory hexes. I think "rifle effects" would change this.

What am I missing?

The questions that have come up on the Rifle issue are that:

1. Is the penalty to morale justified?

In other words was gunning down an officer in the group THAT likely to cause the men to run and why doesnt it happen to the Americans when one of their's is killed, wounded/hors de combat? I would say the especially in the early going of the war that American leaders meant just as much to them as the British leaders did to their convict/conscripted army. (ok - just joking here - dont toss potatos at me please). And did the home court advantage really help? I would state that a colonist from New Jersey would feel just as out of place in upstate New York as any British unit would. The home field advantage definitely lay with the men at King's Mountain. The Americans under Arnold suffered as much on the road from Canada as the Brits did in New York after Saratoga. The idea that every colonist was a wood's saavy individual is just not true. The difference lay in the way they chose to fight.

Answer: we need consistency here and if the small unit leaders meant that much to the British dont they also mean something to the Americans.

For those that dont like all of the hack and slash that can occur I would offer up the idea that a disruption due to a leader loss is not a BAD thing at all. Alot of folks are against the very idea of ADVANCING at all since alot of times both sides would just pull up and shoot it out.

2. Were the Americans armed with all of those rifles?

Answer: see Rich Hamilton's site. He has some files you can download that correct the OBs in certain places where units DIDNT have rifles.

3. Balance - give the British Lights a Rifle type ability whereby they can also hit American officers to make the damage more balanced. Perhaps the French as well in the FIW game.

Note: the Rifle rules really had more of an impact in 1776 which is the first game in the series. After that most of us dropped the option either because our opponents wouldnt play with it and we were being good souls or we felt it tipped the scenarios too much in favor of the Americans.

If you want to be accurate turn it on for King's Mountain. Just make sure you know that you will be playing as the American against the AI! [;)]

I would submit that in SOME cases the rifle fire effects rule could be justified. There must have been a certain number of sharpshooters out there picking off officers. There likely were some on both sides. The American longrifles did give an advantage, but would have been available the Loyalist units as well (i.e. Queen's American Rangers) I guess it would boil down to two things: 1) were riflemen trained as sharpshooters and taught to pick off officers? 2) would the loss of officers cause confusion, chaos and a breakdown in morale?

I know Hollywood loves to portray the American Riflemen doing just what we're talking about, but is there any documentary evidence? I also tend to believe that it would effect morale in the British Army more than that of the Americans. The Americans <i>(at least early in the War)</i> saw morale break down often due to a lack of discipline and training. When they were still at this state, the additional effect of losing an officer would probably be nil in comparison.

The British on the other hand were trained to follow orders, the were a well disciplined fighting machine that operated well due to that training. But take away the officers, take away the orders, and they were just a bunch of guys not knowing what to do next.

I think the rule is good in some cases only. The rifle already has the extended range benefit. If you throw in the rule on top of that it tends to send things out of whack.[:D]

<u>The following was an exchange on the training forum which I thought I'd throw into the conversation also:</u> <i><b>

<font color="red"><font face="Century Gothic">Sirs

I wonder how you feel about playing a Rebel with Rifle Fire Effects on to balance a particular Scenario, and could you all recomend some Scenarios that would work with that ?

Going through the Game Data List it seems that very few show about equal numbers of wins/draws for each sides which seems a bit odd. Is it an inherent Scenario design thing or simply a player issue ?

Thank You Gentleman
Rich Link

Rich,


Rifle Fire Effects is not an option most British players will allow, if they have a choice. It is too powerful in most games simply because too many units are armed with rifles in the original scenarios. There are some updates that have fewer rifle units which are more historically correct, and easier to stomach from a British point of view. There are only a few scns where it should be used for historical play. Cowpens and King's Mountain come to mind from the game disk. There are some in the Scenario Design Center that can use RE, without causing the battle to be too one sided for the Americans. There is a lot of discourse on the Message Board if you are interested.
Larry Davis

Rich,

Here's a direct quote from John Tiller, designer of the series. "Rifle effects should only be used for historical study only, and then only in the Cowpens scenario for which it was designed. I do not recommend it's use in competitive play". Yep, that about sums it up nicely.

Phil Natta</font id="Century Gothic"></font id="red"></b></i>

Interesting discussion, but it still comes down to the
fact that most, if not all, Brits won't play w RE in effect.
[:I]

I think it is a good rule and don't mind playing as the British.

I know of one instance, Long Island, where this rule is useless as all the Brits have the rifles and only 2 Colonial units have the Rifle.

But where the Colonials are the only one to carry the Rifle, I really think it adds to the value as we know Colonials did like sniping at officers.

This may be fiction, but in the Sharpe Series by Bernard Cornwell the 95th do this when in skirmish mode. During 1800-1815 time period. And even though the books are fiction, usually the author gets his info from real accounts.

Cheers,