American Civil War Game Club (ACWGC)

To My misguided Yankee club members ( Laughing as i type )if we get trounced i will never bring it up again
but if we win or it turns out to be a good game i will report on it and continue to seek out
Brave club members that want to modify how they see and play this game.

I am not trying to cause a stir merely looking to add depth and layers to what it takes to be good at this game
IMO this is the Best tactical Civil War game on the Market. Victory Games Civil War is my Favorite strategic game
on the Civil War

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COL. R.T Coyne
7th Brigade 4th Division" Coyne's Cavalry Rangers"
1st Corp Army of Northern Virginia

I agree that it is pleasing to try out different game mechanics (Optional Rules) to see how they operate. I have probably tried most of them 'on' and 'off' at one time or another.

I was very pleased that I was able to obtain Victory Games Civil War a few years ago. I'd recommend another one from Eric Lee Smith, Across Five Aprils (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4047/across-5-aprils/ratings). I don't own a copy [it's on the 'to get' list] but have played it on repeated occasions. It plays quickly and has interesting mechanics that enhance 'replayability'.

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia

The issue with artillery and ammunition isn't so much that the Confederates "didn't have enough" but that what they had was often defective. There was also a huge mixture of weapons in each unit. For Lee this was always a supply nightmare. Lee gave up trying to arm all his men with rifled muskets and in March 1863 simply requested that "measures be taken to bring about a homogenous armament in Regts where practicable and certainly so in Companies." In the 26th NC before Gettysburg there were numerous companies armed with smoothbore muskets and others with rifled muskets. Nor did Confederate troops have the advantage of Williams cleaners, which Union soldiers carried. With black-gunpowder weapons, ten or twelve rounds would foul the musket, so that soldiers would have to clean the weapon in order to load another round. In the Federal army, soldiers received two Williams cleaners with every twenty rounds. The cleaner scoured the barrel and enabled soldiers to fire up to twenty rounds before they had to clean their muskets, an enormous advantage in combat. Dissatisfied with their effectiveness, the Union stopped issuing Williams cleaners in 1864, but they unquestionably gave Yankee infantrymen an edge for the first three years of the war. By then large numbers of Federals carried repeating rifles, which enabled their soldiers to fire between seven and sixteen rounds in the time a Rebel could load and fire one.

One of the more interesting "what ifs" of the war revolves around a woman named Mary Kelly who worked for the Ordinance Department in Richmond. A long story shortened is that she inadvertently triggered a massive explosion which killed 43 women and injured 25 others in the factory she was working in. This occurred in March 1863 as Lee was preparing for his summer campaign. The Ordinance Department had been working to improve the reliability and consistency of the artillery ammunition being produced in the Richmond Ordinance factories where Mary Kelly had worked before being blown sky high. The accident resulted in Lee's army having to resupply their army from a South Carolina facility which was not as well overseen and whose artillery rounds were neither as consistent nor as reliable as the rounds being produced in Richmond. When the Battle of Gettysburg occurred... guess what the main complaint was of Confederate gunners?

It is undeniable the Confederates often fought with inferior weaponry and ammunition. To compensate, Lee's army had to rely on superior leadership and combat effectiveness. But as the army drained manpower in battle after battle, and its pool of talented officers and enlisted men diminished, these advantages became harder to sustain. The Union could rely on better equipment and greater resources and manpower to compensate for its battlefield losses. The Confederacy had no such luxury.

I write all that to point out that there are many aspects of these games which fail to really reflect "history" as it was. At the end of the day it is more important that WDS presents a fun and balanced game rather than one which seeks to recreate history perfectly. Largely because, in my opinion, no matter how hard one tries to perfectly recreate historical variables, it is impossible. There are simply too many variables which a game can't take into account (variables like water supplies during a battle, sunstroke, frostbite, shoes, the angle of the sun, acoustic shadows, and so on and so on).

Everyone should enjoy the games in their own way. But there is no right or wrong way to use the Optional Rules since they are all based on ones personal preferences. I think Paul and everyone here would agree on that point. Have fun and play with the rules you prefer - and try different rule configurations from time to time because as long as you are having fun then not much else matters.

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Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012

My knowledge of the small arms is limited but I do agree that there was a "huge mixture of weapons". I'm not so sure they were defective in any way although in many regards they were probably less efficient. The only defective thing I'm aware of was the fuses used for many artillery rounds was poor and often dangerous (not to the enemy).

The variety can, and is, well reflected in artillery with the CSA guns split into units of the same gun type.

The mixture and less effectiveness should be reflected in the weapons issued to infantry units in the games. From memory, almost all the units (both sides) in the Gettysburg scenario have Rifled Muskets so the same range and effectiveness.
Rather than fiddle around with ammunition allocation I think it would be far better to allocate more Confederate units with lesser rifles like the 'Infantry Rifle Musket' used in other scenarios/titles. I appreciate that it must be standardised to some degree as when the unit is allocated a weapon then all are assumed to have the same even though that wasn't the case. Better to allocate them a lesser weapon overall to reflect the different effectiveness of the unit's variety of weapons. A paucity of ammunition means that if the battle goes late into Day 2 you have next to nothing left (small arms and artillery) and that certainly was not the situation.

" ... guess what the main complaint was of Confederate gunners?"

It was probably due to the Bormann fuse. Although the CSA stopped producing rounds with it in late 1862 it was still in use through 1863 as they used up the old rounds.

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Paul Swanson
Lieutenant-General
First Division
First Corps
Army of Northern Virginia