American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

I was wondering if anyone new how the HPS games determine when a crew loss occurs for artillery?

The User Manual gives the method it uses for determining when a gun loss occurs, 1 gun for each 25 man equivalent casualties or probably of for fraction of 25. This applies to fire from artillery at any battery formation but not infantry fire (in spite of manual saying it does).

I would think it would be a little extreme if the 25 man rule was being used to determine crew kills for infantry fire but I don't know that it isn't. Based on the rate of crew losses I have seen I would say a larger number is being used but have found no reference saying.

Anyone know? Have thoughts on? Don't care?[:D]

BG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

Hi, General,

Here is a guess. If a section has two guns, it has fifty men. Say you shoot at the section at point blank range and get forty men. You have an 80% chance of killing the crew. If it is a 6-gun battery your chances are less than 25%. That is only a guess based on what I read in Combat Results in the user's manual. By the way, be wary of meleeing a stack of limbered artillery with too small a force. Even if you win, you will suffer loss yourself and might only cause fatigue to the artillery. Of course, you will both be disrupted.

MG Mike Mihalik
1/III/AoMiss/CSA

In my experience, if I melee a limbered gun section, it takes X-number of casualties and retreats. But even if those losses are, say, 29 guys, it doesn't seem to loose a gun! Only time I've seen the crew killed result is from infantry fire. I haven't looked to notice if these melee crew losses are totaled into the victory infantry losses, but next time the situation occurs, I think I'll check. Now with the older BG system, it may be different.

BGen, 2/XIX/AoS

I haven't gotten around to studying the melee question yet but I have observed the lack of loss of guns there. Apparently in melee the number of kills it reports is converted into equivalent gun loss and rounded down (no fractional kills or accumulated kills). Although I thought the number was 25 for causing a gun kill.

Right now based on observation only I am leaning toward the number 50 for calculating the probability of a crew kill by infantry fire. Infantry fire is the only thing that causes a "crew kill" and it appears to be an all or nothing (no accumulation of casualties). Also, I have seen no indication of the number of guns affecting the odds of a crew kill. A small infantry regiment seems to have about the same chance of taking out a one gun section as a six gun.

All this is strictly by observation right now. Based on the observation that infantry doesn't regularly take out a crew which one would expect if the number used was on the low side like 25. But does hit them often enough at ranges greater than one hex that a number of 100 or greater isn't likely (a six gun battery using a 25/gun factor would be 150). Since the game manual only refers to two other numbers regarding artillery, 8 men/gun for melee defense (I think this one is incorrect) and 50 men per gun for stacking, my guess is the 50.

Since a crew kill takes out the whole battery, personally I think they should have used the melee system, fire takes out guns. But it would leave you no guns to retake. Also, think they should have kept track of the hits and accumulated them.

BG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
III Corps, AoM (CSA)

If anything it seems to me that HPS battery crews are killed too easily / quickly, probably as a result of the fact that the casualties are not accumulated / calculated in the same manner as they are for infantry. For instance, a 200 man infantry unit might only cause 12 casualties against another infantry unit at a couple of hexes range, but might also take out an entire crew of a 4 gun battery at the same range. Why? Infantry units are packed close together - shoulder-to-shoulder - and present a much easier target than an artillery unit which is spread out with spacing between each gun and each crew is also spaced out around their various guns, and part of the crews are constantly moving in one direction or the other, thus decreasing the likelihood of an aimed shot hitting anyone. I know artillery units regularly took casualties from infantry fire during the war, but I don't recall hearing many cases of an entire crew being wiped out. There are plenty of cases where a battery took so many casualties that it would withdraw to safer ground, but the HPS system (or BG system) doesn't even give that option - it just arbitrarily wipes out the entire crew as though Death himself had walked through with his sickle and tapped everyone on the shoulder...

I think the next major improvement that needs to be made is in the area of artillery casualties from infantry fire.

Regards,
Lt. Col. Alan Lynn
3rd Battery "Jacksonville Greys"
4th Div, II Corps, AoA
God bless <><

While it would still be an abstraction, I think an appropriate solution would be to go to "two" steps.

First step would be that the guns are given permanent D Status. That would reflect the loss of crewmen, horses and the like. They could still fire, but at reduced efficiency, and are less mobile. (Ideally, the mobility should allow you to "leave behind" some guns to get the others away, but that would be too much micromanagement).

Then, if a unit in D status takes another hit, then the crew is killed (or more likely, some killed, the rest running). You could also make it that if a crew takes an especially nasty shot, both levels could be done at once. (So, a 500 man battalion at range one could clean out the whole battery in one shot, that is realistic)

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
<br />While it would still be an abstraction, I think an appropriate solution would be to go to "two" steps.

First step would be that the guns are given permanent D Status. That would reflect the loss of crewmen, horses and the like. They could still fire, but at reduced efficiency, and are less mobile. (Ideally, the mobility should allow you to "leave behind" some guns to get the others away, but that would be too much micromanagement).

Then, if a unit in D status takes another hit, then the crew is killed (or more likely, some killed, the rest running). You could also make it that if a crew takes an especially nasty shot, both levels could be done at once. (So, a 500 man battalion at range one could clean out the whole battery in one shot, that is realistic)

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Rather than having the unit disordered each time, I’d rather see them lose guns – reprsenting loss of crew – we could just give batteries a contingent of men just like infantry or cavalry, and require XX number of men per gun and they would take casualties just like a regular infantry unit would take casualties, but each time their unit total dropped down past the required amount of men for their number of cannon, they would lose 1 gun, just like in a ranged artillery fire than takes out a gun. The rest of the guns could keep firing at full strength and still limber up and move away, but if you left them in close range of the enemy long enough you could lose the battery by having it be uncrewed – meaning they have lost too many men to opperate even one gun. At that point you could recrew the battery just as is done now, and they could then go up to whatever strength at F quality as is done presently.

I think having them be permanently disrupted might be too harsh, especially when trying to limber up and move away from the fighting. A real battery could limber up and get the heck out of dodge VERY quickly if necessary during the way, and having them go to disrupt status would cause an unrealistic delay of 20 to 40 minutes to move X number of guns when in reality a battery that hadn’t lost too many horses could get away in less time than it takes one of our simulated turns to occur.


Regards,
Lt. Col. Alan Lynn
3rd Battery "Jacksonville Greys"
4th Div, II Corps, AoA
God bless <><

The thing is, they couldn't necessarily limber up and get out of town very quickly. Generally, if infantry took a gun crew under fire, the first thing to get shot was the horses. If there was enough manpower, they could try to move the things without the animals, or all of them, but that would be slower, which I think that D status would represent nicely. I do see your point about losing guns, but it just comes down to what abstraction you care to favor.

Brig. General Gary McClellan
1st Division, XXIII Corps
AoO,USA