Cover and defensive area's

[DrMike1997]

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support :huh:

[MrSpkr]

DrMike1997 wrote:

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support :huh:

Exactly!

Um, I mean . . . wait a second . . . .

Steve

[Janh]

DrMike1997 wrote:

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support.

Mike, have you been there? You might find that the Peach Orchard was on a slight elevation and quite suitable for artillery positioning. The position Sickles chose was not as blindly picked as some text books claim it was. Some military historians actually analyzed and found that without that move and the early warning as well as the delay it caused to Hood and McLaws, LRT and the lower Cemetery Ridge would have fallen that evening. I can look up the reference if you want -- it was published in the West Point CMH series.

Anyway, you might not have played some mods in TC2M, for example the Fredericksburg one where the AI flaws became most obvious. If you play Confed in that Mod, but leave division and BG command to AI, you will always (and that is the problem) see things like Anderson leaving the north end of Marye to attack into the bristling teeth of 5x superior union forces in Fredericksburg, or Hood and Pickett near Lee's Hill leaving their trenches for a bloody tea time on the open plain in front of the superior blue mass...

There are simply situations where a commander of whatever level most likely would not have send whole formations out from their positions. Sickles had no entrenchments, ranged fields of fire, etc. that he needed to stick to and he was in a meeting engagement. Longstreet and Jackson, in my contrasting example of Fredericksburg, were on the defense and simply just had to wait for the enemy, and at least the former in well fortified positions of extreme natural strength. Now, how stupid should Barksdale, Semmes, McLaws, Anderson, Hood etc. have been to charge across the plain into the Union host before it even was repulsed once?

[Fish_au]

i always played TC2M with every frontline unit under direct command no matter how big the battle.

meant pausing the game alot and letting it run in short bursts

[IronBMike]

Janh wrote:

DrMike1997 wrote:

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support.

Mike, have you been there? You might find that the Peach Orchard was on a slight elevation and quite suitable for artillery positioning. The position Sickles chose was not as blindly picked as some text books claim it was. Some military historians actually analyzed and found that without that move and the early warning as well as the delay it caused to Hood and McLaws, LRT and the lower Cemetery Ridge would have fallen that evening. I can look up the reference if you want -- it was published in the West Point CMH series.

Anyway, you might not have played some mods in TC2M, for example the Fredericksburg one where the AI flaws became most obvious. If you play Confed in that Mod, but leave division and BG command to AI, you will always (and that is the problem) see things like Anderson leaving the north end of Marye to attack into the bristling teeth of 5x superior union forces in Fredericksburg, or Hood and Pickett near Lee's Hill leaving their trenches for a bloody tea time on the open plain in front of the superior blue mass...

There are simply situations where a commander of whatever level most likely would not have send whole formations out from their positions. Sickles had no entrenchments, ranged fields of fire, etc. that he needed to stick to and he was in a meeting engagement. Longstreet and Jackson, in my contrasting example of Fredericksburg, were on the defense and simply just had to wait for the enemy, and at least the former in well fortified positions of extreme natural strength. Now, how stupid should Barksdale, Semmes, McLaws, Anderson, Hood etc. have been to charge across the plain into the Union host before it even was repulsed once?

I'd like to see that study, if you can find it.

[BOSTON]

Fish_au wrote:

i always played TC2M with every frontline unit under direct command no matter how big the battle.

meant pausing the game alot and letting it run in short bursts

Me too!

[MrSpkr]

Janh wrote:

DrMike1997 wrote:

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support.

Mike, have you been there? You might find that the Peach Orchard was on a slight elevation and quite suitable for artillery positioning. The position Sickles chose was not as blindly picked as some text books claim it was. Some military historians actually analyzed and found that without that move and the early warning as well as the delay it caused to Hood and McLaws, LRT and the lower Cemetery Ridge would have fallen that evening. I can look up the reference if you want -- it was published in the West Point CMH series.

About a fourth of the way down on this page is a nice panoramic shot of the area. You can see that the peach orchard is on a slight rise.

Steve

[Colonel Dreux]

IronBMike wrote:

Janh wrote:

DrMike1997 wrote:

Yes because in the Civil War you would never have a General officer do something so bone headed as to move off of a ridgline to a position in a wheat field or peach orchard half a mile from his flank support.

Mike, have you been there? You might find that the Peach Orchard was on a slight elevation and quite suitable for artillery positioning. The position Sickles chose was not as blindly picked as some text books claim it was. Some military historians actually analyzed and found that without that move and the early warning as well as the delay it caused to Hood and McLaws, LRT and the lower Cemetery Ridge would have fallen that evening. I can look up the reference if you want -- it was published in the West Point CMH series.

Anyway, you might not have played some mods in TC2M, for example the Fredericksburg one where the AI flaws became most obvious. If you play Confed in that Mod, but leave division and BG command to AI, you will always (and that is the problem) see things like Anderson leaving the north end of Marye to attack into the bristling teeth of 5x superior union forces in Fredericksburg, or Hood and Pickett near Lee's Hill leaving their trenches for a bloody tea time on the open plain in front of the superior blue mass...

There are simply situations where a commander of whatever level most likely would not have send whole formations out from their positions. Sickles had no entrenchments, ranged fields of fire, etc. that he needed to stick to and he was in a meeting engagement. Longstreet and Jackson, in my contrasting example of Fredericksburg, were on the defense and simply just had to wait for the enemy, and at least the former in well fortified positions of extreme natural strength. Now, how stupid should Barksdale, Semmes, McLaws, Anderson, Hood etc. have been to charge across the plain into the Union host before it even was repulsed once?

I'd like to see that study, if you can find it.

Check out the new Sickles book... "Sickles at Gettysburg" by James A. Hessler. You can watch him go through Sickles at Gettysburg Daily here. http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?page_id=3589

Hessler stills concludes Sickles move was the wrong move, as in he didn't do what Meade wanted him to do or what he should have done if he took the time to look around. The problem is the Peach Orchard area was higher ground than the ground he was camped out on at the end of Cemetery Ridge, and Meade wouldn't help Sickles determine where he should be. Some officers in the III Corps and General Staff thought the Peach Orchard ground was not bad and defensible as well.

[DrMike1997]

Well the commander on the scene (Meade) was horrified and tried to bring
his troops back into the Union line and it was too late. I'll take his word
any day. Also, It really doesn't dispute the thrust of the argument that
lower level commanders will sometimes do things their superior did not order
and that their superiors did not want them to do.

Having said that, the problem was exagerated beyond the historical norm and it
is something that we on the team tried to fix several times. I think part of the
problem is that the character assigned to each general over rode even the stay and
do not move orders sent to them. Have you noticed in TC that it is usually the
confederates who act rashly? Krasnowski will not move out of fortified areas
that he is asked to defend but AP Hill has to be nailed in place and you better
not accidentally release him from direct control!

[Colonel Dreux]

DrMike1997 wrote:

Well the commander on the scene (Meade) was horrified and tried to bring
his troops back into the Union line and it was too late. I'll take his word
any day. Also, It really doesn't dispute the thrust of the argument that
lower level commanders will sometimes do things their superior did not order
and that their superiors did not want them to do.

Having said that, the problem was exagerated beyond the historical norm and it
is something that we on the team tried to fix several times. I think part of the
problem is that the character assigned to each general over rode even the stay and
do not move orders sent to them. Have you noticed in TC that it is usually the
confederates who act rashly? Krasnowski will not move out of fortified areas
that he is asked to defend but AP Hill has to be nailed in place and you better
not accidentally release him from direct control!

The problem with Meade is that he didn't go out to help Sickles earlier or send someone with the authority to do so. Sickles from the very beginning of July 2 tried to get Meade to come out and check the ground on his part of the battlefield. Meade didn't do it until about the time the Confederates started to attack and then it was too late.