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PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:58 pm 
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1. When breastworks are 'built', it is obvious which side that they protect because a breastwork goes up on that particular hexside. However, when trenches are 'built', the trench appears down the middle of the hex. Does the trench protect against all sides of the hex?

2. You can have more than one unit in the same hex 'building' the trench and their trench building 'score' is combined. If there are more than one unit and each unit is facing a different direction, are all the units building the trench together (their attempts at building are combined) or is each one building a trench and the first one to finish wins.

3. Casualties appear to be a little bit higher when the firing unit is also in a trench beside the defending unit (e.g. trenches have been breached). The increase in casualties has never appeared to be that significant. That would indicate to me that (ref question 1 above) the trench does not protect all sides of the hex but the casualties are low enough to indicate that there is some level of protection. What is that level of protection?

4. Flank shots apparently still are applicable to units that are defending in a trench. The casualties that I see are a bit higher when the unit being shot at is accepting flank fire. What impact does flank fire have on units in a trench?

5. Artillery to the front of a unit in a trench appears to have almost no impact even in an adjoining hex. But flank fire from artillery on a unit in a trench can be deadly with far more casualties than infantry flank fire. Is there something special about artillery in general firing into the flank of a trench or is it just certain types of artillery can do massive damage?

6. Building trenches are great, but will we ever get the ability to build/destroy abatis?

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 10:21 am 
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nsimms wrote:
1. When breastworks are 'built', it is obvious which side that they protect because a breastwork goes up on that particular hexside. However, when trenches are 'built', the trench appears down the middle of the hex. Does the trench protect against all sides of the hex?

Yes, can verify this from test I've run.

2. You can have more than one unit in the same hex 'building' the trench and their trench building 'score' is combined. If there are more than one unit and each unit is facing a different direction, are all the units building the trench together (their attempts at building are combined) or is each one building a trench and the first one to finish wins.

For each hundred, or fraction of a hundred, men in a given hex Entrenching, 1 is added to the Trench Value in that hex per turn. When the Trench Value in the PDT is met a Trench is built. As I understand it each unit builds it's Trench Value until the value is met, Trenches have no facing.

3. Casualties appear to be a little bit higher when the firing unit is also in a trench beside the defending unit (e.g. trenches have been breached). The increase in casualties has never appeared to be that significant. That would indicate to me that (ref question 1 above) the trench does not protect all sides of the hex but the casualties are low enough to indicate that there is some level of protection. What is that level of protection?

Not sure about this one, haven't done a test firing from one Trench into another. Something I need to look at before the update to the manuals for the last game.

4. Flank shots apparently still are applicable to units that are defending in a trench. The casualties that I see are a bit higher when the unit being shot at is accepting flank fire. What impact does flank fire have on units in a trench?

Flank bonuses are effective against Trenches. In fact it is the one way you can cause Fire Casualties to a hex with a -100% modifier. I have tested this and the normal Flank modifier is applied to Fire and Melee. Trenches do not effect Melee at all.

5. Artillery to the front of a unit in a trench appears to have almost no impact even in an adjoining hex. But flank fire from artillery on a unit in a trench can be deadly with far more casualties than infantry flank fire. Is there something special about artillery in general firing into the flank of a trench or is it just certain types of artillery can do massive damage?

This depends on the other Terrain in the hex and the Trench Modifier in the PDT. If Trench is - 50% and Breastworks is - 50% a unit in Clear Terrain with both built is immune to fire unless you get a Flank Modifier. The number of casualties is simply the result of the normal Fire Results Calculation dependent on the values in the PDT. Say at 3 hexes a Napoleon has a Fire Factor of 7 while a Rifle is a 2 (Gettysburg). Each gun counts as 50 men for Fire so one Gun would have a Fire factor of 350 and it would take 175 men with Rifles to have the same Fire Factor, a 6 Gun Battery would have a FF of 2100 compared to an average regiment of 400 men with a FF of 800. To the best of my knowledge Artillery is not any more effective then Small Arms against trenches other than the increased Fire Value.

6. Building trenches are great, but will we ever get the ability to build/destroy abatis?

As we used to say in the Corps, "that is above my pay grade".

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2021 3:24 pm 
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Are different artillery types more or less effective against units in trenches? Mortars, for example, as opposed to Napoleons?

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2021 1:27 pm 
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Appreciate the answers, Ken, but I've been giving consideration to the answers for a while and some of them just don't appear (to me) to be copacetic. That's not a knock on your answers, at all, but pertains to stuff that is above our pay grades.

IF breastworks, forest, towns, elevations, etc impact melee, then why wouldn't entrenchments? I'm going to be real disappointed if you tell me that they don't impact melee either but it would explain some of the 'bad' dice rolls that I've seen during melee.

I am going strictly off impressions and not tests, but it sure does appear that a unit in entrenchments suffers just as many casualties from a flank shot as a unit not in entrenchments. That should not be correct. If a trench is supposed to protect against all sides of the hex, then it isn't doing its job. Casualties should be a little higher with a flank shot but not the amount of casualties that I'm seeing.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 5:10 pm 
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nsimms wrote:
IF breastworks, forest, towns, elevations, etc impact melee, then why wouldn't entrenchments? I'm going to be real disappointed if you tell me that they don't impact melee either but it would explain some of the 'bad' dice rolls that I've seen during melee.


Neither trenches nor hex terrain affect melee. IE forests and towns don't give a melee penalty to the attacker. Of terrain or entrenchments, only elevation, breastworks and hexside terrain (stone, fence, stream) penalize the melee attacker. And only if the terrain is given a non-zero combat modifier in the pdt file. For example, streams in Gettysburg do not affect melee or fire combat, whereas in Overland and Chickamauga they do. Hexside penalties can stack; some hexes have stream/fence hexsides, for example in Overland in the Wilderness.

Think of trenches as hex terrain and breastworks as hexside terrain.

Elevation affects combat by -20% (or whatever the pdt value is) per elevation change. Fire combat is only affected by up to a maximum of 2 elevation changes (ie only up to a maximum of -40%). Melee combat however has no upper limit on the amount of elevation changes. An elevation change of 5 gives a -100% malus to the attacker (ie the attacker can inflict no casualties on the defender unless they have some other additive bonuses to affect them). High ground is very good for melee defense and for defense in general since it works for both fire combat and melee combat.

In a melee with 1:1 odds, the attacker has only an 18.7% chance of succeeding. If the defender is one elevation higher than at least one attacker (all attacking units share the same bonuses and penalties in melee), the attacker has only a 10.6% chance of winning. For an elevation change of 2, the attacker has a 3.6% chance of winning. As of 3 or more elevation changes, the attacker has no chance of winning.

To return to the topic of fortifications, in a 1:1 melee across a breastwork, the attacker has only a 6.9% chance of winning in Gettysburg (-30% for breastworks) and a 1.1% chance in Overland (-50% for breastworks).

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 6:30 pm 
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nsimms wrote:
I am going strictly off impressions and not tests, but it sure does appear that a unit in entrenchments suffers just as many casualties from a flank shot as a unit not in entrenchments. That should not be correct. If a trench is supposed to protect against all sides of the hex, then it isn't doing its job. Casualties should be a little higher with a flank shot but not the amount of casualties that I'm seeing.


Your impression here is correct, if you mean that a flanked unit protected by a breastwork or trench suffers as many casualties as an unflanked unit not protected by a breastwork or a trench. In Overland, the bonus for enfilade is +50% while the penalty for breastworks and trenches is each -50%. So a flanked unit protected by a breastwork or trench is exactly as vulnerable as an unflanked unit without a fortification. In Gettysburg the enfilade bonus is +40%, which is greater than the penalty of -30% for breastworks (unless it is the "entrenched" parameter file which uses -60%. But I have not seen that used in a scenario yet.) Trenches are not enabled in any Gettysburg parameter file. So this means that a flanked unit behind breastworks can potentially take more damage than an unflanked unit without a breastwork.

You might also be seeing a stacking modifier on top of a flanking modifier if you happen to be packing those trench hexes full of strength points. The stacking modifier can increase casualties by up to another 50% on top of the flanking modifier (as an aside this modifier is multiplicative and affects the firing unit's combat value, while the terrain and entrenchment modifiers are additive and are applied to the end combat result). This means that a flanked, overstacked unit in a trench can take up to 50% more casualties than an unflanked unit that is not overstacked and not in a trench. An unflanked unit in a trench that is overstacked may be just as vulnerable as an unflanked unit not in a trench and not overstacked, depending on how overstacked the trench hex is.

A trench in the game will protect from all sides, but less effectively if the unit is flanked. A straight trench that is enfiladed is less a place of cover than it is a shooting gallery.

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PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 11:05 pm 
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Logrus Pattern wrote:
...
The stacking modifier can increase casualties by up to another 50% on top of the flanking modifier (as an aside this modifier is multiplicative and affects the firing unit's combat value, while the terrain and entrenchment modifiers are additive and are applied to the end combat result).
...


Cool. I first heard that the Density Fire Modifier is multiplicative instead of additive like other modifiers. Thank you, sir.

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 2:30 pm 
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Ashdoll Ren wrote:
Cool. I first heard that the Density Fire Modifier is multiplicative instead of additive like other modifiers. Thank you, sir.

You are welcome. For posterity's sake, this information is not currently in the manuals. I confirmed it by testing. If you enable detailed fire results, you can see that a unit's combat value in the combat report is increased according to the stacking modifier.

For practical purposes, this means that if the target hex has an additive modifier of -100% or more (for example in Overland if the unit is behind both a trench and breastwork), the density modifier cannot cancel out any of those protective modifier benefits. IE a target unit is impervious to fire. In order to harm units in such a hex with fire, other additive modifiers must be present, such as for enfilade, mounted cavalry or a cut hexside. Once it is possible to damage the unit again, then the stacking modifier should also provide a benefit.

To reiterate what others have said above, a unit behind a breastwork and in a trench can still be attacked in melee for damage. Only the breastwork provides melee protection, but that protection is significant. As I wrote in the above, the odds of the attacker winning are very bad. In addition to what I wrote there, an attacker needs to bring at least 3.4 : 1 odds in order to have about a 50% chance of winning.

Losing melee has severe consequences for an attacker. Attacking a defender behind a breastwork (-50% combat modifier) with 1:1 odds (for this example say 100 strength vs 100 strength) has only a 1.1% win chance. If the attacker loses, they stand to lose between 5 and 20 men, take 45 to 180 fatigue, and suffer an automatic morale check. The defender stands to take between 1 and 7 casualties for between 1 and 29 fatigue and will suffer a morale check between 4% to 20% of the time.

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