American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

Sept. 30th, 1862.
1st Battle of Newtonia.

Fighting between the Federal Army of Kansas, commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Salomon and a section of the CSA Army of the Trans-Mississippi, commanded by Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, fought from 7:00a.m. until after dark.

Result - a Union defeat.

Casualties: USA 245 : CSA 100

I am currently engaged in a Manoeuvre against a Brother Confederate in this Battle, (HPS Ozark) and between us we have notched up casualties of:

USA 1689 : CSA 941

Comparative to the actual Casualty rates this comes out at an approximate Casualty ratio of 7:9 times the Historical Casualty Rate.

Now I realise the 300 foot General comes into play with these Games and I also understand that we (ACWGC Members)fight Our Troops a lot harder than ACW Generals would have . . . but, does this strike anyone else as being excessively 'overboard' in the differences between Real and Gaming Casualty rates?

Neither side in the Manoeuvre have pushed their Troops into excessively high Fatigue Rates - nor have the 'killed by enemy fire' rates appeared excessive. The Melée rates would probably be the only 'actions' that are a bit high.

I'd also add that we are just finished Turn 10 out of 14 Turns, so there'll be another 4 Turns after this which (continuing the current trend in the Manoeuvre), will bring the Casualty rates into the region of:

USA 2000 : CSA 1300

Is the HPS effectiveness of Armament 'Accuracy' and Hand to Hand Combat set too high? Opinions gratefully received. [:D]

Pat.

Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Lieutenant General.
Highland Division.
II Corps.
Army of Georgia.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

Just out of curiosity, which system are you using, turn or phase? Also, how many of those casualties are captured units due to isolation? Whole units were captured much less frequently in a pitched battle during the Civil War than happens in the HPS system. It was much worse when you had ZOC kills in the old Talonsoft though. Also, units tended to deploy in two-rank lines, so when they were forced to retreat, they didn't lose a lot of POWs because folks were crowded into their rear, as often happens in the game. Just some observations.

MG Mike Mihalik
2/4/I/AoMiss/CSA

Honestly, while there are problems, often, I don't think the rates are as bad as we think. Do the numbers involved represent KIA/WIA only? Or do they also represent stragglers, runners who can't be rallied until after the battle, and just a more generic way of stating that a unit is less capable in combat?

Major General Gary McClellan
Reserve Artillery
2/XV AoT USA

I agree with Gary- I don't think HPS is claiming that losses in their games = to literal casualties, but rather out of combat which would, of course, include casualties of all sorts, as well as stragglers and combat ineffectives.

That being said, too, it needs to be kept in mind that how a scenario plays out is largely in the hands of the scenario designer; I'd seen on another board where a post was trying to stick gun sections as opposed to batteries on John Tiller. That is a scenario designer choice.

From a design-standpoint there seems to be various techniques that can be used to dilute the effectiveness of an attack or combat if used - one of the key ones would be fatigue. I don't know that it is used all that often but it can stop an attack cold if units with significant amounts are over-used, or in some cases -just plain used at all.

Col Stephen Trauth
3/XV/AotT


Specializing in Equestrian Deep Insertion Infrastructure Destruction
or if you want: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

There are a number of contributing factors to the high casualty rates we get in the battles.

Probably top of the list is our ability to get 100% efficiency from our armies. No brigades are sitting around waiting for orders, cooking meals, resting, etc. When the clock starts every man in our virtual armies starts moving toward the enemy which we already know the exact position of. No one has to stop and scout. No one has to deploy skirmishers to make sure they aren't marching into an ambush.

The second is our weapon accuracy. Yes a rifled musket can shoot 500 yards. No, it can't hit a damn thing. Most fire fights in the Civil War took place at less than 100 yards. This made actual fights short and to the point. One side or the other won the position and everyone sat down and rested while waiting for more orders. Artillery was generally ineffective against infantry at ranges over 300 yards.

Third our men never get tired. Yes we have fatigue but it tends to cancel out. Both sides fatigue at the same rate so there is little reason to take it into consideration. Especially in short battles where you aren't going to recover from it if you do stop. An example of an alternative approach is 3 Days at Gettysburg. It's fatigue accumulates very rapidly with moving as well as fighting contributing. It also recovers very rapidly. This forces units to fight and rest in short bursts.

General Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
2/3/IV AoM (CSA)

Gents.

We are using the method of Moving and Fire, click advance to a Melée stage for our Turns. I've grown befuddled as to whether this is Turn or Phase gameplay . . . . Old Age I reckon . . . or m'be the wooden cannonball I took to the Head during Artillery practice back at the VMI???? [:D]

The Casualty numbers given in the original post were for Infantry and Cavalry (US 60/40 <b>%</b> and CSA 0/100 <b>%</b> - Inf/Cav). NO Arty figures given or calculated.

Approximately 40% of the US and 30% of the CSA casualties were caused by Melées on Isolated Units. The remainder came about thru' ranged small arms fire . . . at a BIG stretch approx. 5% of Casualties were caused by Arty.

Now sincerely - I didn't post to complain . . . . I think the Games are excellent representations of ACW Battles generally speaking. I left the Club for nearly 2 years, preferring TS Games above HPS. With all the additional Optional Rules that have come in during that period . . I am much more interested in playing the HPS versions.

I have played this and a couple of other 'contests', since returning to the Club, constantly striving as much as I can (and also of course - as much as my opponents will let me), to 'mimic' ACW Troop Movement and Deployment.

I expected that there would be a disparity between Real Casualty Figures and the Game's. I am a mite surprised at how high the actual difference was . . and wondered if anyone else thought similarly to Me.

Kennon's and Stephen's points are well founded, well argued and plausible in every regard.

My Thanks to Y'all for the replies and opinions - please keep 'em coming! [;)]

As a small after thought . . . would there be a way to link Movement Points, percentage of each Unit left effective and Fatigue points . . . ?

As one small example . . . a Unit of 100 Infantry. . . IF they lose 25% of their Effectives, or their Fatigue rises to 25%, they lose 2 Movement points . . and so on, until at 100% Fatigue or a combination of Effectives left plus Fatigue points, grinds them to a virtual standstill, with 2-3 movement points per Turn.

Something like this would contribute to 'holding' back Our Super-efficient Armies of Supermen, to some degree and cause a semblance of the Stop/Go fighting outlined by Kennon - but in Battles of a smaller scale.

Then again! I know more about Flea-Training than I do about Codes . . . this notion is probably 'Science Fiction'? [:p]

Thanks again Men!

Pat.

Patrick G.M.Carroll,
Lieutenant General.
Highland Division.
II Corps.
Army of Georgia.

" When My Country takes it's rightful place, amongst the Nations of the World, then and only then, let My Epitaph be written. "

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

The single biggest fix these games could have would be to have a CWG2 type attrition system in place.....Every time a unit marched it got a little more tired some would drop by the wayside.......when it was in a firefight, some members would run....when behind the lines in reserve, the stragglers would begin to return and the fatigue to lessen.....Basicly it tarcked both the numer of men in the unit AND the number of effective men on the line....If you fought a unit too hard you might have 400 men in the unit but only 50 still effective on the line fighting....

BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Corp Commanding

What Hank is talking about sounds fairly close to the mechanism in the Panzer Campaigns/Modern Campaigns/ First World War Campaigns series - where it does pretty much how he explained.

What Patrick mentioned also is how those other series use fatigue as well as morale - so programming-wise, the code would exist.

The complication comes in to play in that the programmer, John Tiller, takes his lead from his scenario designers who have to prioritize their engine change requests. Mr Tiller makes his money from doing programming from his military contracts; which normally are unrelated to 19th century (and prior) warfare.

For example, Squad Battles uses another mechanism that would make for some potentially interesting scenarios -where the VP's for VP hexes are tallied up for each turn that a side holds it -leaving the possibility of having uncontrolled vp hexes. Also, I think that series uses a mechanism that varies the actual amount of turns in a scenario a bit. It would say (for example) a scenario has 16 turns - but has an x% chance of ending before, on, or after that turn which isn't disclosed.

Anyways - just my 2 cents.

Col Stephen Trauth
3/XV/AotT


Specializing in Equestrian Deep Insertion Infrastructure Destruction
or if you want: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Funny you would mention the scenatio ending feature....We do something simular in FTW.....Each General chooses the intensity of the batlle he would prfer then there is a dice roll to determine which one gets his choice....then another dice roll for which side goes first....The turns do not start getting counted until serious fighting breaks out....This allows the participants to manuever as much as they wish before joining battle....Here's the kicker....Niether side knows when the scenario will end....We simply inform them once it does.....Makes for a lot more uncertainty....

BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Corp Commanding

I don't know that there is really that fine of a line when it comes to determining what are considered proprietary files; as far as I am concerned for scenario editing purposes, it ends with anything that HPS considers locked.

Edited: I'd been asked for clarification.
This is the definition as I understand it for the term, <b>"proprietary files"</b> by parties that should know for a fact. As such, SDC, will not be dealing with anyone or project that works outside of those limits, until what point those limits are changed by the company.

Col Stephen Trauth
3/XV/AotT


Specializing in Equestrian Deep Insertion Infrastructure Destruction
or if you want: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

Excuse me, I don't believe I ever saked you to work with me on any project of mine. I offered ro work together with you on your map project. But I in no way see why you would make such a comment on this thread....I was simply commenting on what would help more than anything with the casualty rates in the game. I was following the thread. I used an example from another game, and then I explained what we do in FTW regarding scenario endings which is somewhat simular to the method you mentioned. So I simply don't get your response.

BG Hank Smith
Army of Georgia
Smith's Corp Commanding