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Author Topic: Proper Civil War Tactics in games?  (Read 12310 times)

bayonetbrant

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on: April 11, 2019, 03:39:25 PM
Doug, Jim, Bawb... care to weigh in?

it's an extended twiter thread

https://twitter.com/xv40rds/status/1116111402362703874

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bob48

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Reply #1 on: April 11, 2019, 04:08:09 PM
I need to read this and think about it. At first glance, it does not seem to agree with all the very many ACW books that I've read over the last 40 years and the accounts of numerous engagements both large and small.

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panzerde

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Reply #2 on: April 11, 2019, 10:20:44 PM
If you read far enough down, you finally get to the Napoleonic tie-in. What he's really talking about is skirmishers and "light infantry" tactics, and he's generally correct in what he's saying - he's just saying it in a way to make it appear different/controversial. I don't think it really is; most people that have studied this know that ACW tactics were essentially Napoleonic.

Having said that, my impression is that the tactics in use in the US would probably best be described as very similar to British Rifle unit tactics in Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. By 1861 many, if not most regiments were equipped with rifle muskets so these tactics make sense.  I don't have the impression (and here I'm less well versed than in Napoleonic and 18th Century formations) than either side used anything that looked like the French assault column during the ACW, even for bayonet charges.

Burke seems to be advancing the idea in his posts that ACW regiments seldom fought in firing lines and I don't think this is anymore the case than is the misconception that the Napoleonic French never deployed in line.  There certainly would have been plenty of tactical situations where the firing line was the best formation for the job - but by the 1860s, this was not the three- to four-deep, tightly spaced formation of the 18th and early 19th centuries, but an open order formation much more closely related to the British infantry tactics during the American War of Independence (see "By Zeal and Bayonets Only" for an excellent, in-depth discussion of the shift in British tactics away from European linear formations to open order, two-rank formations and skirmishers).

In most films and even written accounts about the war, attention is typically focused on the grand assaults, like the Union attacks at Fredricksburg or the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge at Gettysburg.  While I don't know that skirmishers weren't deployed by the attackers in either of these cases, I would suspect that given the intent of these as assaults, their use was limited. Reenactors seldom engage in skirmishing either; rigid firing lines pouring volleys into one another shows better (and makes more smoke) than skirmishing does.

Skirmishers almost certainly were used extensively later in the war (and Burke alludes to this, though he seems to argue that they were as extensively used early in the war) and I can't imagine they weren't deployed during the Wilderness campaign, for example.  Burke may well be right about the use of clouds of skirmishers early in the war for the same reason they became a staple of the French Revolutionary Wars: the amateur nature of the armies. Troops that aren't well drilled will tend to disperse into a "cloud" as described.

The other reason that ACW armies almost certainly used a lot of skirmishers is the same reason the British army switched to open-order and light infantry tactics in the Americas during the AWI: the terrain in the US during these eras was not at all conducive to more rigid, linear tactics. The open fields of Gettysburg between Seminary and Cemetery Ridges are somewhat unusual for ACW battlefields.  Other major battlefields are covered with fences, orchards, copses of trees, outright forests, and other obstacles. Nothing short of an open-order formation and skirmishers has any real hope of maneuvering in that terrain. Even large parts of Gettysburg are really not great for deploying a line and trying to advance it; anyone that's visited Little Round Top and given it any thought can see that there's no way you're keeping a regiment in a linear formation as you advance up that hill.

In terms of gaming, about the only ACW board game I've played in the past decade is Great Campaigns of the American Civil War, which isn't of a scale to worry about skirmishers. The John Tiller ACW games, as well as Matrix's "Brother Versus Brother,: The Drawing of the Sword" both allow skirmishers to be deployed and doing so has a noticeable impact on firefights. As one might expect, it's best to recover them before launching an assault, which generally reflects the points made in Burke's series of Twitter posts.

I can't comment on games from GMT's Great Battles of the American Civil War because I've never played any of them or even read the rules. Comments I've seen about them suggest there's enough depth there that I would think skirmishing is somehow represented. Many other games covering the period seem to be more grand tactical in scale, and skirmishers are abstracted away.

Like Napoleonic gaming, ACW gaming really needs to capture skirmishing and light infantry tactics better.  Jim covered this for Napoleonic gaming in our joint talk on the subject last year at Origins. Burke may have slightly overstated his case, but he's not at all wrong, and if you're going to have a tactical ACW game system, it really does need to capture this aspect of the tactics of the period to represent things at all accurately.

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Sir Slash

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Reply #3 on: April 11, 2019, 10:25:10 PM
I certainly believe there was a huge amount of skirmishing during the war but this claim doesn't fit any description of any of the ACW battles I've read about or the battlefields I've been to. Put me down as holding out on the top of 'Very Skeptical Hill'.

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panzerde

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Reply #4 on: April 11, 2019, 11:27:28 PM
From the National Park Service's web page on Shiloh:

As Powell's patrol neared the Corinth-Pittsburg road, three-quarters of a mile southwest of camp, they were suddenly fired on by Confederate cavalry vedettes. Not realizing the danger ahead, the major hurriedly formed his 250 men into a skirmish line and advanced into J. J. Fraley's field. Ahead in the darkness was Brig. Gen. Sterling A. M. Wood's brigade of Hardee's corps. The Federals had at long last discovered the advancing Confederate army. Maj. Aaron B. Hardcastle's 3rd Mississippi Battalion, 280 muskets, had been thrown forward as skirmishers for General Wood's brigade. About 4:50 A.M., as the shadowy forms of Powell's skirmishers closed to within two hundred yards, Hardcastle's Mississippians opened fire. The Battle of Shiloh had begun. For the next hour, as sunlight streaked the sky, both sides doggedly traded blows, each refusing to give way.

...

Stumbling ahead in the semidarkness was General Hardee's assault line, some 9,000 Confederate soldiers. Had the attack been launched at sunrise, the near surprise advantage the Confederates achieved would have been maintained. Yet an hour and a half of precious daylight had been squandered in useless skirmishing in clearing the Federals out of Fraley's and Lewis Seay's fields. The Confederate advance was sluggish and uncoordinated, hardly the "Alpine avalanche" later boasted by Beauregard.

...

From the monument of the 1st Delaware at Antietam:

1st DELAWARE VOLUNTEERS
COLONEL JOHN W. ANDREWS
3rd BRIGADE 3rd DIVSION II CORPS
On the morning of September 17, 1862 this regiment crossed Antietam Creek forming right of first line of French's Division. Advanced with heavy skirmishing through Roulette Farm and became fiercely engaged immediately, in front of Sunken Road. Withdrew to stronger position 100 yards north of here. 8 of 10 Company Commanders and entire color-guard killed-or-wounded
LOSSES
Killed 3 OFFICERS 26 MEN
Wounded 10 OFFICERS 172 MEN
Total 230 of 708 engaged


Wikipedia entry on the Irish Brigade:

The Irish Brigade distinguished itself from the rest of the Army of the Potomac by Meagher's insistence on arming the 8 line companies of each NY regiment with Model 1842 smoothbore muskets, an obsolete weapon that was largely phased out during 1862, because he wanted his men to be able to fire buck-and-ball shot (a .69 caliber musket ball with four smaller balls), which produced a shotgun effect in close-range combat and could not be used with rifles. The three original New York regiments carried Model 1842 muskets all through the AoP's campaigns and battles in 1862–63, using buck-and-ball shot with deadly effect in the Wheatfield on July 2 at Gettysburg. The 2 Light companies of each NY regiment were issued with either Springfield or Enfield rifles and with these sniped at Pettigrew's command during Pickett's Charge. The 28th Massachusetts (which joined in October 1862) had Enfield rifles and were with the 6 company NY "light Battalion" often detailed for skirmishing duty.

Meagher assumed his brigade would perform most fighting at close range where smoothbores were effective, and his officers generally agreed. The majority of the soldiers continued to use their Model 1842s through the Overland Campaign until the depleted outfit was temporarily broken up in June 1864. The 116th Pennsylvania was separated from its fellow regiments and finally got Model 1861 Springfield rifles. Ordnance records also indicate that the New York regiments received the newer weapons as well. In any case, by 1864, officers had at last realized the power of rifles and firing was now typically being done from distances of up to 200 yards. There are relatively few complaints on record from the enlisted men about their outdated muskets, although one veteran of the 88th New York recalled that "we were sometimes at a disadvantage because of the short range", and that he had to pick up a discarded rifle from the field at Antietam to deal with Confederate skirmishers.[5]


That's about five minutes of research. I suspect that when most of us read an account and encounter the word "skirmishing" we picture something other than the detachment of small groups of men in front of the main body, using fire and maneuver tactics. Our brains tend to skip over it and it doesn't really register.

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mirth

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Reply #5 on: April 12, 2019, 08:48:21 AM
As Panzerde noted, with ACW gaming it is often a matter of scale. Very small tactical groupings of skirmishers don't fit well into a brigade-level game. At that scale, they most likely will be abstracted as part of a parent formation if they are represented at all.
I don't think most of us somehow disbelieve that skirmishers were commonly used in the ACW. I'm just not sure how many of us play games where they would show up on a board or table.

I know some guys locally who play ACW at a tactical scale using 28mm figs. Makes for a gorgeous table, but it doesn't much interest me as a game. I never looked closely at the system, but at that scale it seems like pretty much everything must be skirmishers. You aren't doing massed lines in 28mm unless you're a millionaire.

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JasonPratt

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Reply #6 on: April 12, 2019, 08:58:19 AM
Heh, that new ACW massive multiplayer game turns out to be realistic after all!

While I haven't played BroVsBro, I played their original ACW game Forge of Freedom a lot, and I always made sure to throw out skirmishers from my brigades, first thing, and especially if I was setting up on defense. I usually didn't recall them during assaults either, preferring to organize my brigades to concentrate fire on a battle line's end and roll up the enemy line (if I didn't just sit around in a nicely fortified area and repel boarders all battle. ;) ) For that purpose, keeping skirmishers out for flank security was still preferable, and having multiple brigades working up a line concentrated the firepower I needed without having to regather the skirms. (Also in that game I'm in control of weapon production and training etc., so my Confederate boys have quality advantages rather quickly in a campaign.)

Ultimate General Civil War, I rarely create or keep dedicated skirmisher troops anymore, because even though they have superior weaponry generally, they just can't put out the damage-on-target rates I need for the way these battles are set up -- and they take up a whole slot in my divisions, which could better be used by something else. I do deploy skirms from my brigade lines on occasion in order to defend my rear, or to try to get a side-angle on a target brigade, or to run down an opportunity supply wagon nearby. Even then, I rarely find myself fighting skirm vs skirm. (And I don't think I've ever seen the AI deploy temporary skirmishers.)

Scourge of War and its predecessors, I don't think I've ever even had the option to use skirmishers per se! There are just line regiments, which do not spread out well into a skirmish-open formation even though that's a command option (if I recall correctly). Certainly there are no four-man teams potting at each other. I do naturally put my lines into defensible formations, which especially in trees would be effectively 'open' not 'line' really.


Having recently read the memoirs of the English officer touring the ACW from the Rio Grand up to the battle of Gettysburg, my impression is that he does talk more about what amounts to skirmish action than drawn up line battles, although he wasn't present for much fighting first hand. One of his more amusing stories from East Tennessee action involved a Confed officer mistaking a Union skirmish regiment pot-shotting at arriving Confed regiments, for a Confed regiment giving friendly fire. He was also present for a demonstration of what amounted to a cav skirmish battle, with the cav serving its typical ACW role of mobile skirmish infantry (i.e. the horses allow rapid deployment of small groups in harassment areas, and then for rapid withdrawal when the time comes.)


Panzerde's theory that we tend to just overlook 'skirmish' action in reading about accounts, seems apt.



Cyrano

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Reply #7 on: April 12, 2019, 01:20:08 PM
I will surprise no one and say I'm with Doug.  We do fight, and when we do it's grim business, but that's rare enough.

We spent an entire War College session last year on how gamers typically screw up skirmishing.

One, it is absolutely a question of scale.  Even in Shako II, still my preferred battalion-level game, they're a kitbash.  Forget about brgade-level and up where they get scrunched into modifiers.

Two, it's not how we've "seen" these battles because we like the grandest bits.  We love the lines flowing across the field.  Bowen Simmons, in his notes for his seminal "Napoleon's Triumph" goes so far as to say that's what inspired him to design the game the way he did.  We love to talk about "Schwerpunkt" and flanks, and envelopment, and all that -- heavens knows I do -- but, proportionally speaking, how much of these battles was the ebb and flow of these lines on the march (or standing stock still waiting) and how much was actual violence?

Waterloo is, what, 11:30 a.m. to the advance of the guard ca. 7:30 p.m.?  How much of it is line-versus-line shooting?  How much could it have been given ammunition supplies?  Dick Sharp tells us a rifleman fires three rounds a minute.  One hundred and eighty round an hour.  At about 15 the pound, that's, being generous, ten pounds per man per hour.  With 100 men in a company (paper), who do we imagine was carrying around the shot necessary to carry on even four hours of uninterrupted shooting by one company.?   And don't even get me started on how many shots you could get out of a Charleville musket before it fouled.

Finally, many of the biggest fights in Napoleonic wars couldn't have been anything other than skirmishes:  Hougomont, La Haie Saint Plancenoit, Aspern, Essling, Vierzehnheiligen, Sokonitz, Telnitz, and others could not have been conducted by formed troops.

It's one of the reasons I'm finding my games of "Sharp Practice 2" such a pleasure.

No, I think this is important information, but it's making much of something that anyone paying attention knew was already there.




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mirth

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Reply #8 on: April 12, 2019, 01:53:03 PM
No, I think this is important information, but it's making much of something that anyone paying attention knew was already there.

this   :bigthumb:

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panzerde

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Reply #9 on: April 12, 2019, 02:15:09 PM

Scourge of War and its predecessors, I don't think I've ever even had the option to use skirmishers per se! There are just line regiments, which do not spread out well into a skirmish-open formation even though that's a command option (if I recall correctly). Certainly there are no four-man teams potting at each other. I do naturally put my lines into defensible formations, which especially in trees would be effectively 'open' not 'line' really.

Right - there is a command to skirmish, but it doesn't really do anything. It's purely cosmetic. SOW:W does add real skirmishers, and the KS mod for the Napoleonic game adds skirmishers that behave in a reasonable way. SOW:G, no joy, though.

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bayonetbrant

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Reply #10 on: April 12, 2019, 02:29:27 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

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mirth

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Reply #11 on: April 12, 2019, 02:49:00 PM
Right - there is a command to skirmish, but it doesn't really do anything. It's purely cosmetic.

That's odd because it isn't hard to model. Most games handle skrimishers just by adding DRMs. Skrimishers are harder to hit and hit a little less hard.

What you don't really see in the ACW games I play are skirmishers created out of a larger unit and pushed ahead of the main body. Skirmish capable units are usually light infantry that are a formed unit unto itself and they are placed as a screen for other, heavier units.

There was some game that my group was discussing recently that did give you an option to detach a stand of troops from a larger unit and treat them as skrimishers that could fight independently of the parent unit. It was a nice idea, but I forget the system and I'm not sure if it's something we'll be playing in the group.

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bob48

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Reply #12 on: April 12, 2019, 03:05:39 PM
Just look at the organisation of a Union regiment (volunteer) of 10 companies and how they were designed to be deployed (yes, I know there are exceptional circumstances).
6 Companies in line
2 companies reserve
2 companies as skirmishers

I doubt if, at least in the early years, there were sufficient trained officers / NCO who were capable of handling large scale tactical combat, and, because of command control difficulties it would be relatively easy to control large bodies of troops..

Also consider the number of men in a regiment, especially as the war progressed. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the average Union size was in the region of 400 men (against an establishment of 1000ish) and for the Confederacy maybe half that number, which is little more that a 2 company skirmish line.

So, I think its important to look at the situation at different points. In general terms, the Union gets stronger and gains more experience, while the opposite is true for the Confederacy.


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panzerde

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Reply #13 on: April 12, 2019, 06:01:14 PM

I doubt if, at least in the early years, there were sufficient trained officers / NCO who were capable of handling large scale tactical combat, and, because of command control difficulties it would be relatively easy to control large bodies of troops..

I agree that seems logical. Looking at history, however, suggests that the opposite often happened. As I mentioned above, the French Revolutionary armies ended up making extensive use of skirmishers exactly because they couldn't control the troops as effectively. Combine that with the "revolutionary zeal" of the French citizen-soldiers during the Revolutionary period and you get lots and lots of open-order skirmishers, not so much Prussian-style linear formations. Which turned out to be pretty damn effective. Effective like the unquestionably less well-drilled by highly motivated Confederate regiments throughout the war.

Quote
Also consider the number of men in a regiment, especially as the war progressed. I can't remember the exact numbers, but the average Union size was in the region of 400 men (against an establishment of 1000ish) and for the Confederacy maybe half that number, which is little more that a 2 company skirmish line.

Those numbers are generally similar to Napoleonic battalion field strengths. In both cases the actual maneuver unit was the brigade (as it was for Continental forces during the AWI) and not the regiment/battalion. A brigade could include any number of regiments/battalions, and the practice was to brigade several of the smaller formations together to make up close to standard sized brigades. In that context, the deployment of skirmishers for the brigade wasn't going to come from two companies from each regiment, but more likely from one or more entire reduced strength regiments deployed entirely as skirmishers. See the Wikipedia article on the Irish Brigade I pointed to above, describing exactly this. Another great example would be the Stonewall Brigade.

Fittingly enough Jim and I are talking at the Origins War College on the right size of maneuver unit to depict for Age of Gunpowder gaming. I'm firmly convinced it's the brigade, and the above situation (and historical documentation backing it up) is a large part of the reason why.

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panzerde

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Reply #14 on: April 12, 2019, 06:08:25 PM
Right - there is a command to skirmish, but it doesn't really do anything. It's purely cosmetic.

That's odd because it isn't hard to model. Most games handle skrimishers just by adding DRMs. Skrimishers are harder to hit and hit a little less hard.

I think they just whiffed on it. At least partially due to the very impressions and ideas about skirmishers we're discussing.

Quote
What you don't really see in the ACW games I play are skirmishers created out of a larger unit and pushed ahead of the main body. Skirmish capable units are usually light infantry that are a formed unit unto itself and they are placed as a screen for other, heavier units.

Which definitely did happen, and is again very Napoleonic - the difference between Ligne and Légère regiments, for example. But yeah, too many ACW games completely neglect the capability of units to throw out detached companies of their own. This seems to be handled better in computer games than with board/minis.

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