Also, we need to first divorce ourselves from the notion that all the guns in the game are meant to have an equal utility. The Confederate artillery was abysmally organized (to put it mildly) at this time and dozens of new batteries were just forming at this time. A desire to not use some of the 1 gun units and older 6 lbers and 12 lb howitzers and reserve their use only for emergencies is right on and Lee himself would agree with you. They have only a limited role as short range defensive guns to begin with and the attacking Confederates mostly ignored them during the Seven Days. I want to separate these to give players flexibility and an ability to deal with Union guns. Bundling the rifled sections for an "equal effect" to a Union battery is just the effect I want and is just what the Confederates did and the only thing that would give them any chance of it. I know it annoys a lot of you but I try to provide a situation where you can take the horribly disorganized Confederate system and be able to exploit the different roles that different guns have.
Reading accounts of the Seven Days battles makes it clear that Lee concentrated the more modern guns during the pursuit and pushed them to the front, leaving the 6 lbers and howitzers (which make up a large % of the total number of guns) to the rear. When Holmes advanced against the western face of Malvern Hill he took only the rifled sections to his firing positions.
Part of the reason that extra ammo I supply to compensate for the smaller units isn't always transparent is because the Union has more field guns to begin with and the factors I include to simulate the Confederate supply deficiencies make it look like I'm not compensating enough for the smaller unit size. The testers and I have been playing these scenarios for months and honestly artillery ammunition never really became an issue. I even give players the ammunition for all the dozens of fixed fortification guns that will likely never be used, so if anything, in many scenarios, I have given the Confederates more artillery ammo than they should get. The ammo pools are a heavy abstraction.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Sean Turner</i>
<br />Bill, I think we're saying the same thing. But while I agree with the point about usage, it does seem the fact is if you send your single-gun batteries to the rear or off the map then you actually wind up with more ammo for the larger batteries, making the Rebs in effect have *more* ammo than the Yanks.
I do withdraw my single-gun batteries, but because they can't hit anything, not that I'm worried about ammo. We do set up all our batteries and use them, and that's why we run out of ammo. The Union at Gettysburg kept rotating batteries in from the reserve, so actually fairly few were in action at one time. Maybe we need an ammo rating for the whole campaign? Then we will have to *really* plan (which is why I don't see it happening!). [:o)]
So yes, I agree it's abstract in that one ammo point fires 1 or 6 guns, but if you've been given extra points based on the number of sections/units you have, it should work out. And we haven't even gotten into having ammo per gun type, plus cannister vs case vs round vs whatever else you want to include, and having to track those! Can you imagine having mainly 6#ers and capturing an ammo train full of 3" rifle ammo?? [xx(]
Golly gee, this topic really has sparked a debate, hasn't it?? [8D]
Maj Gen Sean Turner
3rd Cavalry Division, "Yankee Thrasher"
I Corps
Army of Alabama
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Colonel
3rd Bde/1st Div/17th Corp
Army of the Tennessee
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