Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

Gents,

Please ring in on this...what are your thoughts regarding militia in 1776 & 1812. Specifically their ability to go into extended line. Their staying power. Their effectiveness, etc.

Regards,

Rich

I should think - but feel free to correct me - that Militia in the ARW were marginally or not at all trained ad hoc outfits with low morale and a total lack of formal drill. They can be expected to have difficulties to maintain formation, which their low quality ratings will reflect when LMD is on. They can also be expected to break easily under strain, which their low quality will likewise reflect when RL is on. (In my opinion, both RL and LMD should always be on.)

Now to achieve those characteristics it's enough to give them low quality ratings. Since British regulars are usually rated "C" and Continentals likewise "C" (but should be "D" in my opinion to reflect their being far less trained than British regulars), militia - on either side - should never be rated better than "E", I would say.

However, I can see no reason to allow militia to go into <b>extended line</b>. It's a formation whose advantages are way too drastic anyway - even with the alternate PDT, it makes troops almost invulnerable to ranged fire - , but moreover one that, in my opinion, untrained troops can can under no circumstances be expected to execute. British lights, Hessian Jäger in extended line makes sense; militia doesn't.

A Colonial army with a strong militia segment, if handled smartly, is almost invincible. For a long time, I tended to think that the downside of the advantages of being in extended line was the lack of staying power in meeles. Accordingly, I chose always to melee militia in extended line in the hope of routing them. Meanwhile, however, Garry Cope has shown me very convincingly how militia in extended line swarming all over the place can effictively deny the Brits a target that would be worth charging - especially when armed with rifles. After this experience, I will only play battles with a strong militia segment if my opponent agrees to do without extended line.

We have discussed extended line before. The only justification for this formation that I can see is its ability to move over covered ground without disrupting. The negative modifiers for being fired upon could, in my opinion, be much better portrayed by a target hex <b>density modifier</b> on ranged fire. I can't believe it should be so difficult to do. It doesn't even have to be linear; it could be in three steps, like:
1-50 men in target hex - 50% fire effectiveness
51-100 men - normal effectiveness
100+ men - 200% effectiveness
I believe a modifier like that is used for skirmisher units in the Nappy BG games.

With that, you would need no somehow artificial formations. The effects of the decision to stack heavily, or conversely to spread out, would be immediately obvious. You stack to the limit to melee or withstand melee - that's fine, but the flip side is you suffer proportionally more from fire. You spread out to avoid casualties from fire - very well, but you will also not be able to withstand melee.

End of sermon.[8)]

Here is the extended line thread

http://www.wargame.ch/board/ccc/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2513

Its all relative...(what a brilliant statement..[:p]..)in our current status of militia that might be too powerful, British and American casualties are worth the same.(brits have quality advantages though) Think of Cornwallis in the south at Guilford or almost any other battle, the Brits might have held the field but at what cost. The Loyalists were not flocking to the banner , and British Regulars were in short supply, and it seemed that wherever the Britsih army decided to set-up shop, a swarm of American militia seemed to always be available. So not losing too many regulars was important to the British army So, if you dumb-down the militia, I say you raise the casualty point values of the British, so that when the the militia fires their intial volley to good effect they score more points, but then are likely not to stand too long in front of British Regulars.

Ditto what Dierk said.[^]

Militia attempted to fight 'formed up' during the American Wars (F&I, AWI, Wo1812.)

During the F&I War they were Provincials trained to fight as the regular army did. Many units by 1760 were quite good at it, too.
With the coming of the AWI, we find many veterans of the F&I War bringing thier experience to the effort.

Perhaps in 1775 you would find the mythical rebels hiding behind every rock and tree, but after GW got a hold of the army the army fought in the open, in closed order. The majority of the states attempted to follow the regular army's organization and training especially after von Steuben's Blue Book came out.

In the Southern Campaigns the Colonials used a more guerilla force style of warfare. But to simulate these units, just rate them as LIGHTS and give them whatever quality rating the specific battle requires.

Many Colonial soldiers were good marksmen, but most did not have rifles, they had muskets that they became very good with. A true rifle of the period would be too expensive for the average frontiersman (not the trapper guys, the guys trying to be farmers.) A true rifle would be too slow to reload in case of a conflict with the locals (Native Americans.)

The War of 1812 militia would be units trying to fight like the regulars just not very good at it.

For the two wars our games cover, I would not use the MILITIA unit type. I would use LINE and, as Dierk stated, give them very poor quality ratings, give them poor officer ratings, give them muskets without bayonets (1776) for the average. There may be exceptions to the above, and modeling those exceptions would give the game more flavor. As the AWI progressed quality for militia units could fluctuate a great deal, as could leadership and weapons.

I echo Dierk's call for target density.

The engine handles extended line as independant skirmishers (ala the Napoleonic French) in our two wars only trained light infantry (Hessian Jagers), rangers or Native Americans should have that capability. Britsh Light Infantry should be LINE troops as the style of extended order the British Army trained in was not the hide behind every rock and tree, but open the intervals a great bit so you can move smoothly through rugged terrain. With high quality (B) rating and modified LDM (2% for Brits) you can get this result. Then to reflect the three different densities the British infantry used (closed, open, extended) you merely increase or decrease the number of men in the hex, and then the density modifier kicks in for you.

Militia should be set up just like very poor regulars, with unit by unit exceptions where needed, and in the South as poor quality lights to allow them to fight a guerilla war.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Scott</i>
<br />Its all relative...(what a brilliant statement..[:p]..)in our current status of militia that might be too powerful, British and American casualties are worth the same.(brits have quality advantages though) Think of Cornwallis in the south at Guilford or almost any other battle, the Brits might have held the field but at what cost. The Loyalists were not flocking to the banner , and British Regulars were in short supply, and it seemed that wherever the Britsih army decided to set-up shop, a swarm of American militia seemed to always be available. So not losing too many regulars was important to the British army So, if you dumb-down the militia, I say you raise the casualty point values of the British, so that when the the militia fires their intial volley to good effect they score more points, but then are likely not to stand too long in front of British Regulars.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I all for making the VP dependent on unit quality. It's not convincing that E quality cavalry should still be twice the worth of A quality infantry.

If the standard VP value for infantry is 10, for cavalry 20, I would say that is for C quality troops. So I'd love to see the following implemented:

A = 15/30 (infantry/cavalry)
B = 13/25
C = 10/20
D = 8/16
E = 6/12
F = 4/8

That would really make low quality guys <b>cannon fodder</b>. [}:)]

Dierk,

Unfortunately splitting up VP per quality would require an engine change.

I would encourage game designers, however, to keep your table in mind when assembling a scenario. If they were to calculate each army's entire worth, per branch, using your numbers then they could assign an average, which may then make one army more expensive than the other.

I can see how this method would change my Bunker Hill scenarios.

That could be very interesting, since in those scenarios the Brits will take the ground (unless they are very, very unlucky) but this would enable the Brit to throw away his win by loosing too many troops.

Well put Al and Dierk. Can an algorythm be developed to reflect their ideas in an update? Phil also touched on a good point. Both historically and in these games, the most successful commanders are the ones who know how to use their troop's strengths and weaknesses. George Washington AND Garry Cope are good examples of that.[8D]

Well, this is pretty much what I was aiming at. I too think the militia is too powerful with the extended line capabilities. Thanks for the feedback guys.

Rich

I amy well be too late on this, but...

Is there a difference between "L" and "M" troops or are they just a rose by another name?

Al is 100% correct that militia should be armed with "K" muskets as well as most of the early continentals.

Militia should retain their ability to move in X order. As untrained and undisciplined troops they are likely to move in loose order. They would not be as concerned with maintaining appropriately dressed lines. (Represented by Disordered troops in the game - the file closers trying to dress ranks, etc.) X order allows the militia to move and fire while still maintaining good order.

Northern militia units also used guerrilla warfare. The Hessians in NJ complained all throughout the campaign that they were harrassed<b> by rifle fire</b> from units in the woods, beyond the range of their muskets.

No time to delve deeper.

Keep Militia, rethink oob's. Most units not militia. Reconsider weapons and strip the US units of bayonets and most rifles.

Mike,

Within our game engine you can't fire more than one hex in a woods, so it is hard to duplicate history there.

The one thing I think most people are misunderstanding about militia is they were only bad troops, not different. Every army has some sort of method to wage war, a doctrine, drill, etc. so when you are forced to raise militia you attempt to train them to fight within this doctirne so as to help the regular army, or for no other reason than that is how the officers raising them know how to fight.

There were ranger units raised and they did fight differently, but most militia, throughout history, was rasied to augment the regualr army. To do this most effectively they would attempt to do everything the regulars could do. Most of the time they would do it very poorly. Perhaps, had those individuals who rasied militia thought "outside the box" then they could have come up with a more effective manner in which to use them. The evidence points though that most militia, in our war, was raised to stand in a line of battle, so they should be considered a very poor (in most cases) type of regular infantry.

Okay, I'm going to show my ignorance.
Of course, the militia was the key to Hannah's Cowpens. Is there any indications of HOW they fought in their surprise charge?

Gary,

Here is a link to a description of the battle.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/RevWar ... -KM-FM.htm

I haven't read it yet so I don't know if it answers your question or not.

hmm.... well, it doesn't answer this question per se, but it does indicate I had rather misunderstood the battle.