TACTICS
III Corps The Swamp Legion
Army of Northern Virginia
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BATTLE TACTICS |
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| I take no credit for the tactics set out below, but I have found them sound and very useful. Some of them were sent to me by Major General Brad Young, Cmdr XX Corps, Army of the Cumberland, who told me that they were sent to him by another keen wargamer. Whoever he is, the credit goes to him. If you have any battle tactics that may be useful to others please submit them to me so I can include them below. | ||
| Major General Trev Bramley | ||
| 1st Grey Ghost
Division III Corps The Swamp Legion Army of Northern Virginia |
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Last Updated 23rd August 2001
| TACTICAL SUBJECTS |
| MOVEMENT FIRE MELEE TERRAIN ENTRY HEXES COMMAND INTELLIGENCE SUPPLY SKIRMISHERS CAVALRY ARTILLERY |
| ***** MOVEMENT ***** |
| Never expose a flank, either by fire or
melee, to the enemy. Deploy infantry units where they can utilize weapon factors effectiely. For example, muskets and carbines are deadly at point-blank range, while rifle units can deploy at 4 hexes and fire at these units without return fire. Use an "Alternate hex" defensive strategy when threatened with a large number of melee attacks. This prevents the attacking player from using melee to push one unit back and cut off the retreats of adjecent units. This is also a good technique when having to spread out and protect your army's flanks. Use a "Solid Line" defensive strategy when threatened primarily by ranged fire, and morale needs to be stiffened. (for flank morale modifier and smaller command and control radius). Never block your own unit's retreat (via melee), with a full stack of friendly units. When attacking skirmishing infantry, movement order is important. The first unit moving adjacent removes skirmish-movement penalties from being applied to the following units. |
| ***** FIRE ***** |
| Remember, a single enfilade shot, even if
it does not hit, greatly increases the target's potential to
rout. Fire units individually. There is no advantage in firing units together. Firing individually allows you to conserve ammo, get an early hit or potentially select different targets. During defensive fire, target the units that can potentially melee. During the offensive fire, target enemy units with the greatest chance of rout (i.e. units with exposed flanks, that are disrupted, not stacked with a leader or should be tired). During your fire phase, if there are not any "rout potential" or "melee-potential" targets, look for targets with lucrative hit modifiers such as mounted cavalry, infantry in column or units that will receive enfilade. Try to rout units with the largest number of surrounding units. Do not fire upon fixed units, because they will be released for movement. |
| ***** MELEE ***** |
| When attacking to melee, try and stack the
attacking forces to the maximum possible (1000 men with a
leader). When attacking, do not fire with all the forces that will melee (+1 if they do not fire). When attacking to melee, try and have a least one unit melee the target from the flank (+2). Try and surround a defender with zones of control, to prevent retreat. A victorious melee attack can then eliminate them. One can sometimes gain a quick breakthrough by attacking, to melee, with units in column. However, be careful because units in column are move vulnerable to fire attack/counterattack. If you do not think you can win a melee, DON'T, failure guarantees the defenders will pass their morale checks for melee combat results and gives your units fatigue points. (Disregard this rule if: 1. You have more troops than your opponent on that front and 2. If your attacking a hex with artillery in it. This guarantees a disrupted artillery unit and as you know, artillery takes forever to undisrupt.) You can ruin a potentially good melee attack by adding a single unit that is tired/exhausted, attacks across a wall or uphill. Choose melee attackers carefully. The following was taken from a captured Yankee document and contains some good advice. Although it doe not cover everything it is a good start to understanding the ACW melee system. I thought that the melee worked off of odds it does not. So 1,000 vs 500 is not two-to-one odds with modifiers added. Instead it is a 5 base differential with modifiers added. And that is a big difference… If you use the basic melee table and have a differential of 2, you have a 50-50 chance of winning. The base differential is Attacker's strength points minus defender's strength points divided by 4. So 1,000 men equals 40 strength points and 500 men equals 20. 40-20/4=5. Now if you don't fire before going in then your base value goes up 1. If you have a leader it goes up 1. So a 500-man unit not firing, with a leader attacking a 500-man unit in the open has a 50% chance of winning. If you use the unit quality option then A/B units get a plus one and E/F get a minus one. I thought this was one the die roll it is not. If you have 500 men rated A with a leader not firing attacking 500 men rated E in the open then the attacker gets a plus 4 differential. In essence the unit just gained 400 men! This is one big jump! Defenders are halved if disrupted, and only hex side modifiers are used. So sitting in a town means squat! Except you won't get shot up prior to melee. This goes a long way to answer why XI Corps cannot hold Gburg. I thought 475 men in town behind a breastwork was good because the Rebs could not get 2:1 odds and with a town modifier and breastworks…boy was I wrong. To insure yourself of a 75% chance of victory you only need a plus 5 Differential. So to attack a defender of 475 men you only need 600 more men or the equivalent modifiers. In the above the defender is usually an E unit. Now with the Rebs attacking with Early's division they have 11 rgts of B troops. So defending with E troops gives the Rebs +1, attacking with B gives them +1 (that's +2 so far), not firing going into the attack adds another +1 (+3 total), stack a leader with them and they get a +1 (+4), now attack across a breastworks gives a -1 (+3)…so they only need 3 more to get to 5 and that would only require 200 more men. So if they attack with 675 B rated troops, with a leader, not firing against E troops, behind breastworks they will have a 75% chance of winning. Not bad for a melee that is only 1.42:1 odds! I can see why people stack up to 1,000 men all the time, now. I just thought that having 525 would stop a 2:1 advantage and 475 would make it difficult. But what you need to do is keep your opponent from outnumbering you by more than 500 men (gives him 75% chance of winning). Here is the breakdown: Attacker has 0 more men he has 33% chance of winning. Attacker has 100 more men he has 42% chance of winning. Attacker has 200 more men he has 50% chance of winning. Attacker has 300 more men he has 58% chance of winning. Attacker has 400 more men he has 66% chance of winning. Attacker has 500 more men he has 75% chance of winning. Attacker has 600 more men he has 83% chance of winning. Attacker has 700 more men he has 92% chance of winning. Keep in mind: Not firing equals 100 men. A leader equals 100 men. If you use optional quality that equals 100 men. Hex sides equal 100 men x the modifier (breastworks 1, stonewalls 2, Up elevation 1 per level) Streams don't affect. Towns and woods don't effect. And remember Disrupted defender are halved to begin with. |
| ***** TERRAIN ***** |
| If a unit will be exposed to enemy
fire/melee, try and deploy it in protective terrain (behind wall/breastworks,
in forest) or upon a higher elevation. Use reverse slope to protect one's units from ranged fire. Marsh terrain disrupts, making good protection in front of weaker units or artillery. Town terrain disrupts line movement and blocks line of sight, making it good defensive terrain if your opponent is forced to move through it and can be engaged at point blank range. |
| ***** ENTRY HEXES ***** |
| Contributed by Maj.Gen. Ned
Simms 1. You can overstack on entry and dont have to move off of them. 2. You CANT fire from an overstacked hex. 3. You CAN melee from an overstacked hex. 4. You can hold your guys off board as long as you want. Hit the Cancel button when you end the phase and you will move along to the fire phases. The men remain in limbo til you call on them in the later turns. 5. You cant bring in SOME of the reinforcement group. It is all or nothing at all. Design note - split up the groups like some of the smaller scenarios do to allow the players the choice of just bringing in some units. This applies more in the smaller games than the big battles. 6. NEVER bring in a supply wagon or leader by themselves with no support nearby. You are looking for a captured unit! 7. Units can be removed from the board but never come back. This may seem cheap buy hey what if the Yank army had stopped at the board edge in the REAL First Bull Run battle? There would never have been another battle. The Rebs would have been in DC instead of eating the abandoned picnic baskets! |
| ***** COMMAND ***** |
| Fixed units can still dig breastworks,
change formation, deploy skirmishers and adjust facing. Rest tired and exhausted units, they fire and melee poorly, however they make very good routers. Stack front-line leaders with units to avoid their easy loss by enemy melee or movement. Brigade and division commanders are best utilized by keeping units in command and control and supporting melees and the front line units. Corps and above leaders should be used to chase down and rally rear area routed units. Dismounted leaders have a smaller chance of taking casualties than mounted. Since mounting/dismounting is free, dismount your leaders at the end of the movement phase. In a single turn you can order a unit to build fortifications then deploy skirmishers, but not vice-a-versa. You do not need to bring in a unit the turn it arrives. This may be necessary when ambush is likely and you need to protect weaker units with subsequent arrivals. Attacking at night is usually a disaster because of the morale and movement penalties. Use night turns to recover fatigue. |
| ***** INTELLIGENCE ***** |
| If you feel you can afford it (the north
can more often than the south) pick a beat-up brigade or a brigade with a lot
of small units or low morale (basically, an expendable brigade) and use them as
forward scouts. They run a high risk of getting ZOCed, but if used properly can
give you great intel. Put out skirmishers when you move them through woods and
move them to the edge of the woods that overlook a plateau or a hill that
overlooks a valley. The key is to not get them killed until they have
"observed" the greatest number of hexes. You can sometimes identify enemy units by their uniforms (The Iron Brigade is a good example) and you can identify dismounted cavalry by the horse symbol. Use skirmish formation to spot enemy units in dense terrain. If you move up to an unknown unit (?) and still have movement points, you have not entered its ZOC. You can observe objective flags changing, regardless of FOW. Look for high observation points for rear area units and leaders, so they can spot the enemy. Use enemy FOW to your advantage. Sometimes it is possible to make repeated (back and forth) moves with the same unit, from observed to unobserved hexes, making a single unit seem like a multitude. |
| ***** SUPPLY ***** |
| Keep one's supply wagons and high ranking
leaders safe from melee (primarily) and also fire. Both a 25-man unit and a 1000-man unit will expend one supply point. When faced with low supply, it may be better to keep the smaller unit out of range of the wagons. |
| ***** SKIRMISHERS ***** |
Contributed by Lt Ross McDaniel SKIRMISHERS 101- only infantry and dismounted cavalry are eligible for use. Generally you will want as few as possible units designated as skirmishers because the unit loses 100 manpower for combat. Use the skirmisher unit as reconnaissance troops for a larger body following their lead. Recommended are: 1. Weaker units- the minimum number is 125 men. They don't have much fire power anyway and larger units can move right over them to slam a detected enemy. 2. Cavalry- Their casualties cost you double in victory points, so if you are not needing them as horse soldiers, why not dismount them and keep an extra infantry unit at high mobility. Reconnaissance is one of their traditional functions anyway. 3. Low grade units- the D, E, and F quality units. Their tendency to rout when they take a hit makes them a liability to their better grade neighbours, as they too will be disrupted or routed. So I try to keep them out of harm's way. However, they tend to be larger sized which means that fewer of the large better grade units will pass over them when you want to attack. 4. High grade units- the A and B quality units. Why bump into cannon in the woods with elite soldiers if the regular troops are available? If they have rifles, they are significantly more effective at distance than regular C and lower troops. And remember, when they get 4 fatigues, they perform as C quality units. 5. Highly fatigued units- these 7, 8, and 9 fatigues units become available in greater numbers as the game progresses. If it is not practical to leave them on garrison duty to recuperate, then I put them on duty as skirmishers to help the fighting units. Their tendency to rout makes them a liability similar to the low grade units, so I try to keep them from being fired upon. Defensive use of skirmishers. 1. They are valuable for detection of approaching enemy troops who are moving two hexes away. 2. An enemy unit entering a hex in the extended skirmisher ZOC pays an additional movement point. In woods, that prevents an enemy unit that has already moved two hexes from closing to make or improve an attack. 3. Remember that skirmishers lose their two hex range when placed in an enemy ZOC as when an enemy unit has moved adjacent. Subsequent enemy units are no longer affected concerning Defensive use 1 and 2. |
| ***** CAVALRY ***** |
| Mounted cavalry can sometimes provide a
useful delaying force because it cannot be melee attacked by infantry. It is
vulnerable to fire however, and when isolated, it can be melee attacked by
dismounted troops. Plan cavalry two moves ahead, since dismounting cavalry cannot fire or melee during the next offensive fire phase. Cavalry's greatest advantage is its mobility and the threat of movement. Cavalry is at its greatest disadvantage when forced to hold a fixed position and its casualties are twice as costly. |
| ***** ARTILLERY ***** |
| If you have artillery on the frontline,
try to stack it with supporting units and in defensive terrain to prevent loss
via melee. Try to deploy artillery along roads, trails or in front of clear terrain where it can limber and move away on the same turn. Use horse artillery wisely. It is very valuable because it can limber, move, and unlimber in the same turn. The best deployment for artillery is a hex or two behind supporting infantry, where the infantry can protect it from melee, but the artillery can provide fire support. For long range artillery fire, remember the "8/9 rule" for N/T guns. Fire for "N" class is at least twice as effective if the target is at an 8 hex range or less, fire for "T" class, its 9 or less. To prevent artillery from firing while using auto-defensive fire, you can limber rear area guns. |
