Breaking siege combat results

[minipol]

I'm entrenched with the Union in Richmond.
I have 2 big armies, about 55.000 troops vs Lee's 35.000
Lee tried to get out of the siege and lost big.

After I'm able to form corps, I split the armies into 2 corps, so I have 2 corps and 2 armies.
Yet when Lee tries to break the siege, suddenly only 1 army is committed.
I know about MTSOG but this is ridiculous.
If in a siege, all troops in the siege should engage the army trying to break the siege not just the army or corps that's attacked.
The way it works in this situation feels wrong.

Any comment?

[Jim-NC]

In terms of game mechanics, the attacker chooses 1 force to attack, then any forces that can MTSG will attempt to. In your case, the 2 armies will not support each other, and will only support corps attached to them. To change this would require a change of the game engine itself (allowing armies to MTSG and corps that are not attached to the same army to MTSG to each other's aid).

[minipol]

I hope they find a way to deal with this.
Another annoying problem with 2 armies in the same region: when creating a corps, it automatically belongs to the first army. You can't choose.
You can't move the tabs either to reorder them as it would have been a simple workaround.
Next turn I will try and disband the army so it picks the correct army.
These kind of hacks shouldn't be necessary.

[Mickey3D]

There is a trick to choose the army you want a corps to belong to :

- Temporarily disband the army you don't want your corps be part of
- Create your corps and assign it to the remaining army (automatic)
- Recreate the first army (and you won't get any penality)

[Captain_Orso]

- And don't put 2 armies in the same area

[Le Ricain]

I also disagree with your initial premise that Lee's army should have engaged both of the Union armies during its breakout attempt. If two armies are besieging Richmond and Lee decided to breakout, he would have selected the weakest army to try and punch through. Once the attack had started, the second army would not have abandoned its siege lines to rush to the defence of the other army.

[Captain_Orso]

IFAIK the moving/attacking stack has a chance at "finding" one (or more?) stack in the region and starts combat with that stack.

I have no idea if when in a besieged region the moving/attacking side has a preference for the weakest stack or any at all.

After at least the first round of battle, if the defending stack has less strength than the attacking stack, it will request another stack to help it (this is basically --but not exactly-- how MTSG works). I assume that sister corpse have an advantage at this, and the mother army stack an even greater. But I do not think that it is impossible for a corps or army stack from another army be called to help in the battle; just less likely than stacks of the same army.

[minipol]

I was besieging Richmond, and needed 2 armies to avoid the penalties. During the siege, the date to forms corps was reached.

@le ricain
I'm not saying Lee should engage both, I'm saying in case of a siege where more than 1 stack is present, the 2nd stack should help the 1st stack even if it doesn't belong to the same army or corps.
Now they sit and watch the others get slaughtered. Not very realistic.
As the troops are fairly close, after some time they should all engage as it should also take time for Lee to assemble and sortie with his troops.

[Gray Fox]

How it works in the real world:
The objective is divided between the two armies, sort of eastside/westside. Each army has a different chain of command and its units are positioned to accomplish only that army's mission. The unit's answer to one chain of command or you get chaos. Even today, attacking an objective where two different unit's meet gives the attacker an advantage because of the great difficulty of coordination between those two units. Pretend that the two armies spoke different languages and just don't communicate well. Remember that Civil War armies in 1862 weren't very professional.

How it works in the game:
When your units were laying seige, if the stacks were in defensive posture, then they would have a decreased chance to MTSG.
If you drop one army commander onto the other, you will have only one remain an army command and the other stacks can then be assigned Corps commanders under that army. I think that you get a NM penalty for just taking command away from a 3-star.

Of course, some players may consider this to be a cheesy, carousel of commanders, gamey sin (just kidding).

[minipol]

That's what I did, I put one army in the other.
As for how it works. I think siege really is a special case.
Yes one army will first receive the first attack, but the other will get called for, and then has an advantage too as the attackers troops are engaged, it's easier to attack in the flanks and overwhelm them.
Especially as in my case my troop total was over 51.000 men vs 35.000 men. Lee had some 70 guns, while I had over 360 guns.
As I said, I really can't see this ending well for a commander marching out under a rain of gun fire from entrenched troops.
It should almost always end in a big massacre.

[Gray Fox]

Wise commanders do a thing called a diversionary attack. The first army gets attacked with a partial force, your second army charges to the rescue as you describe. The rest of the surrounded army escapes through the second army's abondoned trenches. This is one reason why big armies get beat by small armies.

[Captain_Orso]

Okay, that makes sense, minipol, that you use 2 army commands to maximize the available CP's in this situation.

But since both army commands are in the same region MTSG does not come into play.

AFAIK the only thing in affect in your situation is the number of stacks you have in the region, which stack Lee's attacking stack found and the mechanics of another friendly stack joining a battle already underway.

I've never heard of a restriction under these circumstance of one army commands avoiding joining a battle because another army command is already involved. I'm not saying that that might not be the case, but that would mean that it was programmed to take this very rare and unlikely situation into account and I rather have my doubts about that.

That being said, it would not surprise me that corpse and army command of the same army have a greater chance at supporting each other in a battle already in progress, but barring MTSG I'm not certain that that is the case either.

As far as the siege itself, AFAIK all artillery you have in the region is taken into account, regardless of which army command or corps to which they belong.

[pgr]

I'm assuming this happened right when corps became available? Unity of command, that's the ticket. Just merge the two armies into one stack. The more senior commander should take command of the whole without loosing any NM or VP, then pop everyone out again and make your 4 corps (and if you are short a commander, the ex-army commander becomes a new corps commander. With 51,000 3-4 corps should get the job done without any command penalty.

I'm assuming you had both armies in a defensive posture? If both were as an attack, I imagine your inactive stack would have gotten involved. Perhaps with Lee fighting one stack and then being attacked by another in a separate battle. (but if you want the all to coordinate, then everyone should be part of the same army.)

Despite the problem, the Lee break-out didn't work? (As in he is still stuck in the region?)

[tripax]

I'm not a historian, but I like numbers a lot so I thought about this problem in that context.

The radius of Richmond's defenses looks like it is almost 2 miles, add on an extra mile to get out of artillery range (picket lines were often very close together, but I think artillery range is more appropriate here, and Columbiads had a nearly 2 mile range) the ring around Richmond would have to be at least pi*3^2=28.25 miles. Add in a river, lots of hills, and tons of geography and that could double. Let us say it was 40 miles. If we assume 55,000 troops could all man the ring (and they couldn't), that is 1375 men per mile or less than a man per yard. Defenses in DC were to be manned by 2 men per yard (although garrisons were usually smaller in practice) and Lee had 5 men per yard at Spotsylvania. 1 man per yard could probably hold a line, but a break-out force with some luck should definitely be able to escape - especially if the besieging army was undergoing a major reorganization. If anyone has a better estimate of the perimeter of the Richmond defenses, that could change the estimates a bit, but I'd be surprised if 55,000 could besiege the city with a garrison of 35,000 with more than 2 men per yard.

The attachment Richmond-Civil-War-001.jpg is no longer available

In the siege of Petersburg/Richmond which began in June of 1864, Grant had up to 125,000 men besieging about 50,000 men under Lee. Lee lost about half of his army during the siege and attempted breakouts. And in spite of the bad shape of the Confederate troops and the strength of the Union, in the end the Confederates escaped the city without losing the entire army. If Sheridan (and his 20,000 cavalry) hadn't returned in time from the Shenandoah and been available at Five Forks and Appomattox, Lee could have escaped to Tennessee or North Carolina (or wherever).

So my conclusion is that it seems like the engine is performing with a good deal of historical plausibility (remember, not a historian) in this case.

If I can ask a question, you had a sizable if not enormous advantage in numbers, why were you so concerned with the command penalty? At least with hindsight, it seems like besieging with a single army is better than with two.

[minipol]

@pgr
No, the Lee breakout didn't work, or more correct, it didn't work without giving me Richmond.
As I said earlier, I threw the armies together. Lee attacked and won despite his heavy losses, 7500 vs 3000 casualties.
My stack retreated to the nearby region. The previous turn, a corps was just next to Richmond and I had ordered it to Richmond.
So after that loss, there was again a stack in Richmond.
Lee didn't attack it, my army was there the next turn again, and the final battle was lost by Lee, who then withdrew South.

@tripax
Interesting analysis. I like that!

For my concern for the command penalty, I wanted to optimize my forces to have the greatest chance of capturing Richmond in a few turns.
I had expected the CSA to retreat all troops to defend Richmond, leaving me the valley and able to concentrate my troops South.
However PGT Beauregard threatened Strasburg and J. E. Johnston had his eyes on Harpersferry.

I knew if they joined the defence of Richmond, my attack would fail. Because 2 big stacks of them stayed behind, I took the initiative and attacked Richmond.
I had Butler commanding an army in Suffolk and Franklin leading a corps in Norfolk.

As for the numbers, I know the troops aren't enough to hold Lee inside, but a force of 35.000 leaving a besieged city
with that many guns pointed towards them, is going to suffer more casualties. There probably are only a couple of viable
routes where troops can quickly leave a besieged city. There might be other routes, but these might actually delay an exit and thus
increase the exposure to enemy fire and lead to more casualties.
I do think it's historical that Lee could storm out, leaving Richmond for the taking, but the number of casualties should
have been higher due to the massive gun buildup. Instead he first tried to attack the besieging troops.
It didn't go that way because the engine apparently picks 1 unit to attack to break the siege.

Now depending on how fast such an exit is (can't be super fast if using roads, and even slower if they exit in another way), and how many good escape routes there really are,
not all guns might be used to attack Lee's forces, as from your analysis, the scale is quite vast.

To conclude: escape possible vs 55.000 besieging troops? Yes.
Total casualties: not enough, should be a severe penalty due to the number of total guns and the speed of the exit. Remember he has to exit his 80 guns too.
Or make a quick march out possible but with more material captured or more guns destroyed in doing so as they would probably destroy their own guns.
Victory: first exit was marked as a victory yet Lee stayed in Richmond so he merely attacked and didn't try to exit. He almost lifted the siege but didn't so I wouldn't have called it a victory for Lee.
However, he should get credit as he drove off the stack he attacked, and in a way, that's a victory.

Here are some screenshots.
This one is where Lee exited Richmond instead of just trying to repel the attackers.
The army under McDowell retreated. The corps under Hooker moved back in after being driven of after Lee's first succesful attack and Milroy was also present.
Mind the setup of the armies/corps changed with the start of the siege.



After I took Richmond, the 2 big stacks near Harpersferry started moving South.
As Richmond was under siege, and I had 3 stacks to defend the area, I believe it was a mistake on part of Athena to leave the troops there.
In the end, both stacks got short of supply and they dwindled to a stacks of 250 power, in a big part due to lost cohesion.



Richmond area:



After I took Richmond, I layed siege to Nashville and took it the turn after. Game over by September 1862.
It had been a while since I played the Union but it's far easier compared to the South.
You can optimize armies, get gatlin guns, can afford all the special support units for your armies, get sharpshooters and marines in.
Wow, it's very fun playing as the Union compared to the South.

I didn't set Athena to play very aggressive, yet I felt she sent to many small units on their way to invade.
Once the Union steamroller gets going, you pick off all those small targets and quickly build up victories and morale.
If Athena detects to many troops, she should retreat to strong positions, which she doesn't do.

[tripax]

So you lost 3000 of your force of 55,000 (only half of which were engaged) and Athena lost 7500 of 35,000, is that right? Or did you lost 7500 and Athena only 3000? 7500 to 3000 is a bit lopsided, I expect losses to be proportional to units engaged, which were close-ish to equal. But in 1862 with a Virginia cavalry with fresh horses to guard a movement, Athena losing 7500 of 35,000 seems like a good result for you. There were very few battles where either side lost over 20% of their forces (not Cold Harbor, for instance, but Nashville, yes, and of course sieges like Donaldson and Vicksburg).

Nice summary though. Related question, do people ever look at their battle logs to better understand what happened in a battle?

[Gray Fox]

If Lee forced your stack to withdraw on the first day, then you wouldn't get any MTSG, since the battle ended. The battle report would show if that is what happened.