River of death

[Cromagnonman]

Had a recent engagement when I sent Phil Kearney downriver to Little Rock. His ~8k man force met 5500 rebs coming upriver. Result?

A short, sharp fight, and the CSA force was totally annihilated. At range, even, with nothing surviving to melee (no assault hits). Even more, Kearney's force lost less than a hundred men. The battle eeport was odd, too, with all elements having a white color (neither blue nor grey).

I reran it a few times, goofing around with artillery and whatnot. Same result almost every time. Once the CSA horse artillery element slipped away upriver into the Ozarks, but more often it was captured mostly intact. Kearney never lost more than a couple hundred men.

Anyone else seen any lopsided, absolute riverine battles like this? I'll try to post a save or a screenie later.

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

I know exactly what happened: the land forces fought each other from the decks of their transport watercraft. Happened to me too.

[Cromagnonman]

Maybe all the rebs were on one or two steamboats Sultana-style, and my 20-pounder put a lucky case shot into the boiler or magazine. None of the rebs knew how to swim, I guess. Interestingly, the battle report said both sides were conducting a landing.

[dolphin]

Maybe the crews of the ships were included in the combat calculation and the Union Naval force was much larger?

I noticed when I besieged St. Louis that the Union had over 20 ships in port and during a battle screen when the CSA attacked the Union Admiral was the commanding General and it showed he had 10,000 men (they retreated) when the reality is he only had at most 150 attack power in his Unit stack.

It occured to me it had to be including men from the fleet. He had at most 6 to 8 elements of combat troops which means without the Navy he should have had at most 5,000 men.

I had 900 attack power with a little over 20,000 men.

[Cromagnonman]

Neither side had any actual ships involved; both sides were using river supply capacity to transport soldiers

[Cromagnonman]

As promised: annihilation

[GraniteStater]

IMHO, how the engine handles "mixed" dry & wet forces is, uh, "unique".

[Cromagnonman]

IMHO, how the engine handles "mixed" dry & wet forces is, uh, "unique".

Indeed. However, this fight involved no naval units.

[GraniteStater]

Yes - hence my use of the term 'wet'. In fairness to the codepushers, almost every wargame has some issues with mixed environments.

[dolphin]

As promised: annihilation

Looking at the picture of the battle screen the only obvious thing that stands out to explain the result is the Union Artillary.

I notice that you have the recomended Independent Division's x7 battary contingent that it has been suggested makes a single division strong enough to withstand an attack by a corp. I would be curious to know how many artillary elements were long range guns as opposed to short range?

Curious as to which stance you had your Union forces in. Attack, or Defend? (All out, Normal, or Probe?)

[Cromagnonman]

Well, it's actually a 1-division corps (this is Arkansas, after all). I initially got the result with (I think) 2 divisional Napoleons & 1 divisional 10lb, plus a corps 10lb & 20lb; the screen I sent was from a later test where I added more corps artillery. Rest assured, the result was the same either way.

Also, Union fired at range 7, CSA fired at range 4. Another thing you can't see w/o tooltip is that the CSA attempted to retreat 4 times. So, apparently something about this battle prevented them from retreating.

[dolphin]

So, apparently something about this battle prevented them from retreating.

You did say in your opening post that...

the battle report said both sides were conducting a landing.

That would obviously account for them not being able to retreat.

[Cromagnonman]

Yeah, I mean, neither one had landed yet, the battle was fought in the river. I feel, though, like I've lost battles before in which I was landing, and my force was able to retreat without crippling loss.

[Chaplain Lovejoy]

I had a thread on this topic many months ago. I think I called it "Infantry Battle on a River."

[Carrington]

Similar experience with a contested landing in a pbem against Cleburne. Wiped out my army of the Ohio.

Lesson: make sure you have a place to retreat when moving a large force.

[Ace]

The game gives large penalties when on amphibious landing and attacking. Seems to me he was attacking and you were not. That is the difference.