Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

probably the RFE results of a misunderstanding. The only officers that could be killed by an aimed shot in a 18th century battle were <b>mounted</b> ones, and these are officers from regimental commanders onward. So, individuals that are already represented as units in C1776.

Mounted commanders of infantry units, high above the ranks, marked a clear target and often enough were shot because the enemy soldiers tended to aim to high or were pushed back by the shot.

All other officers were on foot, placed on the flanks (flanking officers) or the rear (closeing officers) of the battalion when the shooting began. After some rounds both sides were enveloped in smoke and could only be seen shadowy as a blue, red etc. block. It is hard to imagine how Jäger or militia could have shot all officers of a specific unit under circumstances like these.

Gary Mc is right about the chance of company officers becoming casualties should be applied to both armies. I was not thinking of that aspect in my earlier comments. RF would increase that possibility for American rifle fire. Regarding Mike's comments about jager rifles, the jagers had rifles, not carbines which were smoothbore. They were shorter and heavier than American rifles with a larger caliber but they did have the same range. Ewald a Jager captain states in his journal, he was able to hit Americans at the siege of Charleston at 300 yards. Using the carbine designation from the 1812 pdt would give even less range muskets I think.

I thought RFE was not primarely meant to represent that the Rebels were delibaretely aiming at officers, but that the rigid discipline of the British line regiments could no longer be upheld when many company officers were casualties (a nice cliché here, but so what).

I think that disruption in the game does abstractly represent a cluster of negative influences on performance, including company officers becoming casualties. Only the Brits, however, can suffer from "lost leaders" status and never recover from disruption again.

Since I think that the image of the British soldier as fighting machine properly functioning only under brutal discipline is a bit disfigured, I would tend to agree that a permanent drop in morale as a result of "lost leaders" status, from which both sides should be able to suffer, would be a better solution.