Most games have the rebels running out of small arms ammunition resupply long before the end of the scenario, drastically reducing their ability to fight. It's not enough to be barefoot and hungry.[:p] We often have a lot of units, sometimes dozens, who need to be withdrawing from contact or will be taking fire without being able to reply. [xx(] This is especially a problem in some of the longer scenarios such as Gettysburg. It is the same in TalonSoft and HPS.
I submit that this is ahistorical. I don't know of a battle that has the rebel army needing to retire from the battlefield because they ran out of small arms ammunition. (other than Bunker Hill [;)])
Individual units being pulled back for resupply,...yes. On both sides. But why must the rebel army supply always run dry?
I propose that a "fix" is needed and am opening this thread for suggestions.
If a basic load for the infantry soldier was 40 rounds, it would be easy for a regiment to fire it all away in 20 minutes. I would think that their commanders accordingly, when knowing that supply wagons were not available, exercised fire discipline, firing in volleys on command, to keep their units combat worthy. Somehow, running out of ammunition was not that common a problem.
Possible fixes...
1. Double the supply... or even <u>unlimited small arms supply</u> from supply wagons. (That would certainly cause players to protect their supply trains from capture.) Where and when did a division ever expend all of its small arms ammo? Was there also a supply train for a corps? Lee's chief of artillery, supervising the softening up barrage before Pickett's Charge, warned Lee that he was running low and would not be able to support the assault if it were not launched promptly. I would bet that in the coming days that the caissons of his firing cannons were resupplied from another source. Otherwise, Meade would have likely felt free to attack, which he did not in the following two days.
2. In the Hamilton thread on proposed changes, we discussed that individual units might have a built in supply level, which could be watched by the owning player to determine when it is time to withdraw or resupply the unit. <font color="yellow">There could also be a control similar to our present HPS for conserving fire at minimal or medium distances, this time firing at half power to conserve ammo expenditure. I don't much like this one, but it is better than what we've got.</font id="yellow"> On the positive side, it would lower casualties, which tends to run far ahead of historical levels in our games.
An optional patch would just suit me fine.
It is also bad enough in HPS that the Union can use provost troops for frontline combat. I actually like having them available to protect union communications, but when they're added to Union cavalry units, which many are excellent quality, then J.E.B. Stuart's division cannot stand against them at Gettysburg, much less try to attack and break them, unless the Union player is timid and/or incompetent. But all this is another issue that deserves its own thread. I like some of the ACW house optional house rules on the subject, but the more operations that can be programmed into the game engine, the better.
BG Ross McDaniel
2nd Bde, 3rd Div, III Corps, AoG
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.â€
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