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| Designing Better "Skirmish Units" -Campaign 1776 https://www.wargame.ch/board/cc/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5007 |
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| Author: | 927 [ Fri Dec 03, 2004 6:13 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Designing Better "Skirmish Units" -Campaign 1776 |
I have been pondering a way of capturing the "spirit" of skirmishing units.... in particular RIFLED skirmish units. There's a well known anecdote from the battle of Cowpens that a skirmish line of rifle men repelled a unit of cavalry from quite a distance by dropping approximately 15 moving riders. The cavalry unit retreated without accomplishing the task of clearing the skirmish line, and Tarleton was forced to send his infantry forward without a good idea of what was ahead of him. Morgan had sent out these skirmish units with a rather good plan. He had them move forward in groups of 3. After the first rifleman shot, the other 2 would be able to provide cover against attack while the first one re-loaded. In the Cowpens OOB file, these skirmish units are scored with rather low morale factor - - to reflect the skirmish unit's poor ability to repel bayonets. Unfortunately, by giving these rifle units a low morale factor they are almost as quick to "rout" simply because of musket fire. Historically, however, these units were quite resiliant to musket fire.... since they could hide behind trees or rocks, while they carefully took aim at their own pace. Hence, their ability to hit targets, while not part of disciplined volleys, was quite high - - and so was their ability to withstand return fire. Even if all they could do was hide behind shrubs, their general "invisibility" rendered them difficult to hit due to low "target acquisition" by the opponents - - even if their cover was not adequate to deflect shot. So how are all these dynamics to be reflected in a customized OOB and pdt file? I wanted to present my thoughts on the matter and see what the learned members of the club thought about these ideas. And then, having the benefit of views from more experienced members, I would try to test a modified OOB and pdt file. Factors to adjust and why: 1) In order to reduce the tendency to rout due to musket fire, I would increase skirmish units to "B", or probably "A". "A" units are almost invulnerable to fear, usually leave a battle only if their general *wants* them to. And with the Quality Fire parameter ON, it would reflect the high effectiveness of these rifle skirmish units. 2) However, rifle units are, as we know, terrible at handling melee. And so it may (I repeat, *may*) be necessary to keep the Quality Melee parameter OFF. Rifle units are already calibrated to melee poorly, but it will take testing to find out whether an "A" rifle unit is still able to stave off a melee from a well manned unit. 3) In connection with (2) above, one way of helping to make the skirmish units sufficiently vulnerable to melee is to make them rather small. They could be icons of 3, 5, or 6 men each. And they could be stacked into a single hex, or spread around. Again, testing will be required to find out if a 3 man skirmish unit has enough fire power to more or less get 1 kill per "volley/shot". This would represent a 33% hit rate, which is the bare minimum for a rifleman firing into a non-eXtended line. 4) At the same time, by keeping a high morale rifle unit in EXTENDED order, it helps reduce their vulnerability to musket fire and INCREASE their vulnerability to melee....which is exactly what we are looking for. But if a 30 man musket unit fires into a 3 man extended order unit... will it kill 1, 2 or all 3 men? If so, it may be necessary to increase the size of the skirmish unit from 3 to 4, 5 or 6. This is where I plan to begin my testing. But before I begin, does anyone have any thoughts about other aspects of a skirmish unit to consider? Regards, George Brooks Tampa, FL |
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