The PBEM game is too frustrating

[Clovis]

There is a territory that adjoins Ft Donelson to the south(Humphreys, TN). An entrenched force with artillery controls both the Tennessee and the Cumberland.

That was the whole purpose of gaining Fts Donelson and Henry, to control the access to these rivers.

If Humphreys will do that, having Donelson/Henry is really uneccessary for the CSA. By leaving token forces there and putting a stronger Corps there that adjoins Nashville, the CSA gets to create a strong position without having to be "bothered" with the necessity to hold Fts Donelson/Henry. And he does it with a single force doing three function.

Somewhat ahistroical and nonsensical IMO.

As for the "America's Cup" comment, if you don't like my arguements refute them rather than engage in patronizing commentary.

Interestingly, before being united with the CSA army, Tennessee militia under Pillow choosed mainly to protect the Tenessee river by posting here the greater part of the militias.

There weren't forts, but entrenchments. Of course, never an attack was made and after the first weeks, Tenessee forces now under CSA banner were directed elsewhere.

But it wasn't so unhistorical than that.

( Source: army of the Tennessee by GALLAGHER)

[denisonh]

Characterizing someone's arguements using an unflattering (and untue) analogy is hardly "humor" designed to lighten the conversation. I also find that your describing this discussion in which people still choose to disagree with your point of view as a "silly debate" a bit pompous.

I think that your "offered solutions" may be appropriate under some conditions and opponents, but hardly a "silver bullet" solution set. I agree that initiative into the area is important to prevent the fortification of the area, but also point out that CSA players can divert forces there, and more importantly, good leaders, to slow up the Union advance into northern TN. Come 1862, given a smart CSA opponent who has build forces up, it can turn into a real rock.

I do not beleive that all the artillery assigned to a corps in Humphrey should be able to engage riverine forces in both rivers in heavy fortifications, and defend an attack in the same turn.

The capability to do all of the above allows a force to be far more capable of defending that area than it should be IMO.

I'm sorry you chose to be offended by my comment. It was intended as humor to lighten up what is turning into a silly debate.

I also don't see the problem with that tile. You can either a) take Ft. Donelson/Henry and attack Humphreys or b) go around the forts and take Humphreys first, before moving up the peninsula, or even c) ignore the area, strike south into Alabama and draw the offending corps out of the area. Why you have to do this historically is beyond me. The forts still do what they are supposed to do if they are garrisoned, you just may find yourself with the additional task of removing enemy forces from Humphreys. It's not an insurmountable problem... as long as you aren't trying to rush boats up and down the river, or depend on the river for supply.

EDIT: Also, it's only a problem if you wait too long (past Aug. 1861) to take the area. There is absolutely no way a confederate player can field multiple corps (or even one) there unless you didn't seize the initiative early. You have Polk to deal with, and mostly militia.

[McNaughton]

Well this is the dilemma of all strategic wargames, where you have a 'unit' in a particular territory that can effectively be in two places at once given two different threats.

Back in my HoI2 days I was confronted with a dilemma regarding anti-aircraft battalions. Many players were demanding that we add a Hard Attack value to the unit, representing their use by some nations as anti-tank guns. My problem with this is during the battle the gun could effectively engage both aircraft and tanks at the same time (should an opponent attack with both). In this situation it was unacceptable (in my opinion) to have both factors represented, much to the dismay of some individuals.

Now, I believe that you can affect target type in the models section, currently Coastal Artillery should only fire against naval troops. I believe (it says in the Excel file you can do this) that you can limit units to attack specific targets only (attack only Land, Naval, Air, air attack I suppose is for future possible games). What could be done "if" this value works, is to limit all non-coastal artillery to just attack Land targets, meaning that if you stick a bunch of 6-lb guns on the Mississippi they won't interdict passing convoys.

Field artillery is just that, against field units. Naval artillery would have an effect against passing ships. However, I don't know what could be done about warships bombarding land forces (since we still want them to affect fort bombardment and to passively support land units).

[Sheytan]

regarding rails, a very simple method for insuring thier security is to simply have a number of cav and horse artillery stacks patrol along sections of rail that are critical for your operations. you can designate specific paths for your units to follow. I have used this to good effect to insure my rail security as union. yes, you will have to siphon off resources to do this, but what do you want? secure supplylines and use of interior lines via rail? or not.

[veji1]

I have to concurr with Denisoh here, I think the fort/riverine transport issue relates to the naval bombardment as well. It is slowly getting ironed out, but it is important that we manage to emulate the interactions between naval forces (be it ocean or riverine) and land forces, as this interaction was a central point in the whole Civil war, fought along rivers and coastlines.

If you take the entrenched army/fort issue, an entrenched army and naval forces should have minimal interactions : an entrenched force could hardly hurt a naval force passing by (if properly defended) and a naval force at that time had a very hard time hurting an entrenched land force in defensive posture. On the other hand naval forces could hurt, or at least render significanlty inefficient a force carrying offensive operations or manoeuvering, as happened during the Union retreat of the peninsular campaign.

On the other hand, forts should be able to hit hard at naval forces, at least riverine naval forces, that have very limited room for manouver while oceanic navy against forces is more balanced.

The result we would like to aim would be to encourage the CSA player to build forts to protec key ports or riverine chokepoints, while forcing him to protect these forts from land offensive. this means that you can't just hole up 2 divisions in the fort, because then you leave control of the area and ability to move through to the Union. A CSA player would have to leave a garrison made mainly of Arty and naval arty in the fort, and entrench his 2 divs corp outside the fort. This would emulate Fort Donelson pretty well.

Eventually all this will be sorted out, and these key dynamics of the ACW will be a great part of the game.

[richfed]

I have a question:

Is PBEM even feasible on a dial-up connection? Here in my part of western NC, we are still DSL-deficient!

[KillCalvalry]

This is a lively post on Riverine Supply posts, and my two cents, I agree with several of the comments, but I'm sort of half-way on entrenched units.

I beleive that Intrenched Infantry SHOULD interdict supply routes. A couple artillery batteries on the shore is enough to interdict unarmed transports. So, to the extent that action interrupts supply lines, I think it's accurate.

Gunboats and Armed Transports, on the other hand, should be invulnerable to Field Artillery, and troops on shore should be invulnerable. So, actual ships in this game manually transporting things, those should be able to sail right past. And NOT be able to bombard the guys on shore either.

In forts, it is way to easy to eliminate artillery units by Bombarding the Fort. There is NO instance during the war where a FLEET exchanged fire with a fort and came out on the winning end. NONE. Several times they successfully RAN the fort, but not exchanged fire. (MAYBE Ft. Henry, but that was a very poorly placed fort, and the Rebs were giving it up).

[Primasprit]

I have a question:

Is PBEM even feasible on a dial-up connection? Here in my part of western NC, we are still DSL-deficient!

I think the turn files are, compressed as zip, about 500kB in size.

[Mike]

[quote="von Beanie"]I believe that something needs to be done to rebalance the PBEM game.

It is way too early to make too much play balance, as I've only played about 70 email turns. It also may be a case that I just plain suck as a Yankee, but I think the game still needs some tweaking. Competent Reb play yields much better than historical results.

[Jabberwock]

This is a lively post on Riverine Supply posts, and my two cents, I agree with several of the comments, but I'm sort of half-way on entrenched units.

I beleive that Intrenched Infantry SHOULD interdict supply routes. A couple artillery batteries on the shore is enough to interdict unarmed transports. So, to the extent that action interrupts supply lines, I think it's accurate.

So far, we agree, if the land force is willing to put artillery where they risk interaction with river/naval units, and maneuverability is restricted. Of the three supply transports Grant & Porter sent past Vicksburg, two made the run successfully. The river was wide enough that night runs were possible.

Gunboats and Armed Transports, on the other hand, should be invulnerable to Field Artillery, and troops on shore should be invulnerable. So, actual ships in this game manually transporting things, those should be able to sail right past. And NOT be able to bombard the guys on shore either.

Gunboats weren't completely invulnerable. During the latter stages of the Red River campaign, because of the bluffs and restricted maneuverability, Taylor's forces were able to stage several successful artillery, dismounted cavalry, and sharpshooter ambushes of ironclad and "tin"clad gunboats. Sharpshooters also were used successfully in the Yazoo campaign and other locations to interdict river movement.

In the game, when running positions with loaded transports, troops absorb enough damage to make most runs successful. Just be careful trying to get the transports back empty. I think this situation works fairly well.

In forts, it is way to easy to eliminate artillery units by Bombarding the Fort. There is NO instance during the war where a FLEET exchanged fire with a fort and came out on the winning end. NONE. Several times they successfully RAN the fort, but not exchanged fire. (MAYBE Ft. Henry, but that was a very poorly placed fort, and the Rebs were giving it up).

Sigh. Why do I find this assertion on so many threads? I promised myself I wouldn't engage in any more debates on this - I am breaking that promise.

Ft Walker, SC
Ft Hindman, AR
Fts Hatteras & Clark, NC
Ft Fisher, NC (both before and during the famous land assault)
and of course, Ft Henry, TN

How many actual instances of sustained naval exchanges with forts took place during the civil war? How many different examples are being used to characterize all these exchanges as being won by the land forces, or only won because of amphibious assaults? How many forts could be characterized as poorly-sited or constructed or incomplete or with insufficient artillery? I'm willing to bet that is a significant percentage of naval wins. It is not NONE.

Naval Chronology of the Civil War

Naval Bombardment and 1.6
Shelling passing ships

The success of naval/land forces interaction came down to six variables:
1. terrain/elevation - high-sited vs. low-sited land position
2. maneuverability - coastal vs. restricted coastal vs. river vs. wide river, if river, moving upstream or downstream. Maybe counter-intuitive, but the advantage was when moving upstream.
3. proximity/posture - willingness of land forces to engage when not in a fixed position, range from water for a fixed position, willingness of naval forces to engage in unrestricted waters
4. firepower - number of mid-long range rifled naval weapons with an adequate supply of shells that could be brought to bear, number of mid-long range land weapons with an adequate supply of powder and ammunition that could be brought to bear
5. armor - ironclad, "tin"clad, wooden - mitigated by the condition that the greater the armor, the lower the maneuverability
6. entrenchment - Arguably the least significant variable, unless we are considering only indirect fire (mortars) or solid shot.

BTW - I like your AAR. It is well written and illustrated, and you are doing fine with the strategy.

[Jabberwock]

I have a question:

Is PBEM even feasible on a dial-up connection? Here in my part of western NC, we are still DSL-deficient!

If you can email (send and receive) a 150kb zip file, you can PBEM.

[LooksLikeRain]

If an army has time to sit for awhile, it can easily dig and build the positions to have artillery pointed both at the river and the land approaches. Since the game requires Level 5+ entrenchments to get the effect in the game, it seems likely this has been done.

If the emplacements exists, the guns aren't embedded in concrete there. The guns are still mobile. So, if an entrenched army was completely unthreatened by any land force, then all the artillery would move to the river. To move from one position to another might be done in a few hours, and thus invisible to the daily turns. If it took even a day or two, that's still pretty fast in the game engine. And with no land threat, you'd expect most of the guns to be blocking the river until the scouts started to report an approaching land force.

Given that the artillery pieces can move, it seems rather likely they'd be available to help shell river traffic. It would seem rather strange to think they would have to stay a few miles down the road inland facing a non-existent land enemy.