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Peninsula
http://www.wargame.ch/board/acwgc/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24031		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  M. Johnson [ Thu Oct 30, 2025 9:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Peninsula
The Peninsula Campaign features the use of both a hot-air balloon for observation by the Union and the deployment of land mines by the Confederates. I can't say how much these newer ideas effected things but if the gamemakers ever found a way to add them to the games they could be a way to make the Peninsula title a little more unique.
Author:  Thomas Marshall [ Fri Oct 31, 2025 7:36 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
I have often thought that in the scenarios with bigger maps, the ability to load your guys onto the RR would be a really cool feature.
Author:  Blake [ Fri Oct 31, 2025 2:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
I can see all three of those things being incorporated in some weird way. It will never happen but it theoretically could.

Engineer units could place mines (same tech as water mines except on land) which would inflict anywhere from 0% to 1% losses on an enemy unit which triggers them (and a little fatigue and maybe total loss of MPs for that turn).

Balloons could be units on the map that, when activated, are visibile from 40 hexes by the enemy, and give an expanded view of the battlefield to the side with the balloon. They can be fired upon though and can be eliminated.

Railroads would be the hardest with a lot of rules. But they could be on the map as units which only run along RR lines at a rate of maybe 48 hexes a turn (about 10 MPH). Each RR counter could "load" up to X number of men (maybe 300 for the sake of the example) and the larger the RR unit the more men it could carry. Units on the RR while moving would be at a -90% modifier if fired on and could not return fire. Unloading and loading would require two turns and the unit would be "frozen" in place in column while doing both (and very vulnerable to enemy fire). RR units could be destroyed by enemy fire as well.

None of the above will ever happen but if I ever become a billionaire and purchase WDS from Rich Hamilton (who I am sure would sell for a cool 200 million) maybe I will hire some programmers to look into it all :mrgreen:
Author:  Quaama [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 3:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
M. Johnson wrote:
The Peninsula Campaign features the use of both a hot-air balloon for observation by the Union and the deployment of land mines by the Confederates. I can't say how much these newer ideas effected things but if the gamemakers ever found a way to add them to the games they could be a way to make the Peninsula title a little more unique.


That sounds like a good deal to me. The land mines were fairly effective yet the ballons not so much.

I have come across ballons in two games, Strategic Command American Civil War and one other [Forge of Freedom?]. They are sitting ducks and are destroyed with ease. From memory, the AI in Strategic Command seemed to deploy quite a few of them. Desperate to know where I was, the AI would send forth their balloons. They were destroyed as soon as I saw them, destroyed with ease.

I've never come across mines in a Civil War game. They were present in WWII games from early on. In Steel Panthers you could deploy mines by 'purchasing' them from your allocated points (which were also needed for other things like infantry, tanks and artillery). The enemy couldn't see your mines (you couldn't see theirs either) until they entered the hex you had placed it in, when it would then explode. Results would vary.
I suppose it could work in a Civil War game by expenditure of supply (a precious commodity for the CSA). They could be placed at the beginning of the battle, or last night turn. They would be visible to the CSA side but not the Union. When entered a random element would then determine casualties (a density modifier would be critical). If a Confederate unit entered one of their mined hexes they would suffer the same fate (as would occur in Steel Panthers).
Any such thing would probably be assisted by a house rule to prohibit expendable units being used as mine clearers.
Author:  Blake [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 3:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
Quaama wrote:
Any such thing would probably be assisted by a house rule to prohibit expendable units being used as mine clearers.


The Federals used Confederate prisoners as mine clearers on the Peninsula, lol. I mean, hey, better them than me, right?
Author:  Quaama [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 5:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
Blake wrote:
Quaama wrote:
Any such thing would probably be assisted by a house rule to prohibit expendable units being used as mine clearers.


The Federals used Confederate prisoners as mine clearers on the Peninsula, lol. I mean, hey, better them than me, right?


I hadn't heard of that before now. It would seem that the Union started their war crimes earlier than I realised.
Author:  mihalik [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 5:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
I never read much about either land mines or balloons being used after the Peninsula Campaign. I'm sure there is a reason for this.
Author:  Quaama [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 5:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
mihalik wrote:
I never read much about either land mines or balloons being used after the Peninsula Campaign. I'm sure there is a reason for this.


The balloons weren't very effective and in 1863 the Union Balloon Corps was disbanded.

The Confederate land mines were more effective and used throughout the war. Their deployment enraged Sherman. As he said in his memoirs regarding the March to the Sea:

"There had been no resistance at that point, nothing to give warning of danger, and the rebels had planted eight-inch shells in the road, with friction-matches to explode them by being trodden on. This was not war, but murder, and it made me very angry. I immediately ordered a lot of rebel prisoners to be brought from the provost-guard, armed with picks and spades, and made them march in close order along the road, so as to explode their own torpedoes, or to discover and dig them up. They begged hard, but I reiterated the order, and could hardly help laughing at their stepping so gingerly along the road, where it was supposed sunken torpedoes might explode at each step, but they found no other torpedoes till near Fort McAllister."

Well, that's Sherman for you. Using prisoners was not only a criminal act but the fact he took glee in it tells you a lot about him.
Author:  Blake [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 8:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
https://armyhistory.org/mine-warfare-in-the-civil-war/

Good article on mine usage. Much more common than I thought.

In response to the mines, Major General George B. McClellan, who also had been an American observer of the Crimean War, vowed to “make the prisoners remove [the mines] at their own peril,” and soon began ordering Confederate prisoners to clear mines at Yorktown. This threat was repeated by Major General William Sherman and Read Admiral David Dixon Porter later in the war.

McClellan was not a "hard war" advocate but even he understood that in the age before "mine detectors" that using enemy prisoners made sense. As a commanding officer, are you going to order your men to walk across a mined area and take the punishment... knowing they may later shoot you in the back in a future battle for risking their lives? Or, will you make the soldiers happy, and have those that planted them act as detectors to save the lives of your men? Or, from the other side, if you were a private in the 2nd Mississippi and the Yankees planted mines all around Washington and Early says, "hey, Swanson, march on ahead and see if that road is booby-trapped!" Are you saluting and saying, "yes, sir," or are you looking at the Yankee captives and saying, "I think I have a better idea."

In the end, Gabriel Rains (CSA) best captured the moral dilemma of mine warfare, stating, “Each new invention of war has been assailed and denounced as barbarous and anti-Christian, yet each in its turn notwithstanding has taken its position by the universal consent of nations according to its efficiency in human slaughter.”
Author:  Quaama [ Sat Nov 01, 2025 11:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Peninsula
Blake wrote:
https://armyhistory.org/mine-warfare-in-the-civil-war/

Good article on mine usage. Much more common than I thought.

In response to the mines, Major General George B. McClellan, who also had been an American observer of the Crimean War, vowed to “make the prisoners remove [the mines] at their own peril,” and soon began ordering Confederate prisoners to clear mines at Yorktown. This threat was repeated by Major General William Sherman and Read Admiral David Dixon Porter later in the war.

McClellan was not a "hard war" advocate but even he understood that in the age before "mine detectors" that using enemy prisoners made sense. As a commanding officer, are you going to order your men to walk across a mined area and take the punishment... knowing they may later shoot you in the back in a future battle for risking their lives? Or, will you make the soldiers happy, and have those that planted them act as detectors to save the lives of your men? Or, from the other side, if you were a private in the 2nd Mississippi and the Yankees planted mines all around Washington and Early says, "hey, Swanson, march on ahead and see if that road is booby-trapped!" Are you saluting and saying, "yes, sir," or are you looking at the Yankee captives and saying, "I think I have a better idea."

In the end, Gabriel Rains (CSA) best captured the moral dilemma of mine warfare, stating, “Each new invention of war has been assailed and denounced as barbarous and anti-Christian, yet each in its turn notwithstanding has taken its position by the universal consent of nations according to its efficiency in human slaughter.”


I'm sorry but it's against the Union's own rules (https://www.generalstaff.org/WFA/Dox/WD_GO-100.htm) to utilise prisoners in such a manner. Specifically [my emphasis in bold]:
56. A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity.
68. Modern wars are not internecine wars ... Unnecessary or revengeful destruction of life is not lawful.
71. Whoever intentionally inflicts additional wounds on an enemy already wholly disabled, or kills such an enemy, or who orders or encourages soldiers to do so, shall suffer death ...
75. Prisoners of war are subject to confinement or imprisonment such as may be deemed necessary on account of safety, but they are to be subjected to no other intentional suffering or indignity.

As those rules were only in place from 24 April 1863 that may excuse earlier incidents. However, they still would have been bound by other laws of war and the expectation that they behave in a manner befitting an officer. The other complication for earlier incidents was that the U.S.A. didn't recognise the Confederacy as another State so they may not have seen the conflict as an international one. Still, practical necessity (the Confederates were also capturing Union combatants) meant that 'prisoners of war' is what they were, even before General Order 100.

However, there is no excuse for Sherman. General Order 100 had been in place for more than a year before the actions described earlier. That he took pleasure in such things makes it all the worse.
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