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Author Topic: Proper Civil War Tactics in games?  (Read 12433 times)

panzerde

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Reply #15 on: April 12, 2019, 06:14:47 PM
see, there was a reason I wanted to throw this out there for y'all to discuss... 


So it sounds like someone proposing Squad Leader: Civil War Edition would have some legitimacy in the game, beyond just massed blocks of troop formations parading around the battlefield, but at the scale of most ACW games it's kind of pointless unless you just build it into existing modifiers

Right, because the skirmishers would never be acting completely independently, either from their parent unit or their fire support (artillery). Which would be often difficult to get on the board at the scale a tactical game like that. There certainly are rules like Sharp Practice that are effective ASL for the Black Powder Era, including the ACW. https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/sharp-practice-2/, which Jim and Co. have been playing via TTS.


I actually don't really like games.

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Cyrano

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Reply #16 on: May 03, 2019, 04:21:05 PM
I really do like being right and I just don't understand why this is so misunderstood by designers...

Reading Prof. G''s Thunder on the Danube: I and he writes that at Haugen-Teugn Davout, rather than grant the Austrians time to form at the top of the crest line, shoved the entire 3rd Regiment from his mighty III Corps into battle in skirmish order.  Do that in "Sharp Practice 2" if you've got a really long weekend.

How dreadful must it have been for the revolutionary/early war commanders when French troops became pressed so young that they could no longer skirmish that way.


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besilarius

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Reply #17 on: May 03, 2019, 08:33:51 PM
Skirmishing is really the natural way for most people to fight once they've been shot at.  To keep people in tight formation under fire requires a lot of drill and discipline.
In between the wars, the armies tended to gravitate to the close order, easily controlled, dense lines.  During the maneuvers on Salisbury Plain, the umpires gave the best marks to units that could keep their three deep line formation in neat arrangement.  Skirmishers, like the Green Jackets, were not givne a fair grade in that system.
One of the first things that units learned in a real shooting war, was to open up formations.  Loose order - skirmish order, it's all the same.

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.