ACWGC Forums

I'm playing the 7-day Peninsula scenario and noticed that muskets now have the same effect as rifles at close range. Is there a rationale for this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_and_ball

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

Isn't the musket in the CW series usual depicting a rifled musket?
The buck & ball load seems to have been used by smoothbore muskets only and according to the article only "...into the early days of the American Civil War."

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

Support adding a AAR SUB-FORUM

Hi,
I'm pretty sure the musket in the PDT is the smoothbore musket due to the range of 2. I think the rifled musket is considered a rifle in the PDT.

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MG Mike Mihalik
Forrest's Cavalry Corps
AoWest/CSA

The "M" weapon is a smoothbore musket. Most games give it a higher factor for one hex range because of it could fire buck and ball. Essentially making it a shot gun. I don't know why it isn't higher in Peninsula since it was a 5 vs 4 in earlier versions. I haven't checked the most recent JT version.

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General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
AoT II/1/3 (CSA)

In his book, To the Gates Of Richmond, Steven Sears writes that at the Battle of Savage Station the 5th Vermont suffered particularly heavy casualties, nearly half of its men, after Smith's Vermont Brigade (commanded by William T. H. Brooks) charged the Confederate line in the woods south of the Williamsburg Road. Sears explains that "much of this loss was inflicted by Rebel soldiers equipped with old smoothbore muskets firing 'buck and ball' - a cartridge containing a ball and three buckshot - which proved deadly at the short ranges of so much of the fighting there."

A double-odd buck shot is nearly a .36 caliber piece of lead. Three of those plus a .69 caliber musket ball, based upon the Springfield Model 1842 Musket, would be a fearsome load.

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

That was a problem I feared, the different values for some games were there for a purpose, now with the attempt to bring everything to the latest Petersburg level we will have the same values over all games. But maybe this common base is good to adjust the values from there in future patches, and hopefully this time the differences will be explained so they do not get lost in the future.

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Lieutenant General Christian Hecht
Commander I Corps, Army of the Potomac

Support adding a AAR SUB-FORUM

Here's a decent study paper on Civil War muskets vs rifles for download as a pdf. (Sorry for the long winded link, but our forum won't accept straight pdf uploads.)

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjd-fv-kY_gAhW8HTQIHS6vC5YQFjAKegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholarworks.iu.edu%2Fjournals%2Findex.php%2Fiusburj%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F19841%2F25918%2F&usg=AOvVaw32LDrZaccjHVyqGh2zePCv

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General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC
Union Army Chief of Staff
Commander, Army of the Shenandoah
Commander, Army of the Tennessee
(2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)

Thanks, Joe! Great read and really interesting topic with the Buck&Ball review to the .pdt files.

I agree that a standard list of .pdt weapons should be established and that individual updates can be made for special scenarios/events but the changes should be noted in the description of the scenario.

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Union War Dog!
MG. Derek Hampel
Cmdr. Second Div., XV Corps
Army of the Tennessee