Scourge of War Boards

K:
Gun crews were unable to fire as quickly when under fire because gun commanders needed to protect their men from unnecessary casualties. This is recorded in many first-hand accounts of battle by artillerymen.

Since it takes about 30sec for a reasonable soldier to reload in firing at will, the firing should go in waves, allowing cannoneers to duck when the firing was hottest.

Hancock -

In response to your lengthy post reference canister, you make multiple interesting points.
I agree that batteries should be able to "halt" the enemy and that doesn't occur, especially in GCM games.

The Bigelow engagement is of interesting note as it adequately covers many different issues:

#1 - A battery engaging a single regiment
#2 - Losses on both sides
#3 - Engagement time of 30 minutes
#4 - Rough ground

In a GCM or stock game, we don't see those engagements for that length of time. Generally one or the other unit would be wiped out - most likely the arty in a GCM game and probably a 50-50 proposition in the stock game. The reason for this is that we are still taking ahistorically high losses in games. IMO, I think part of the problem is that the ROF for infantry and artillery is probably still fast AND the morale/fatigue malus is still too low.

There should be a direct correlation between well rested/high morale units and their ability to inflict damage at both a high ROF and high hit %. As units fatigue/morale decreases, the ROF and hit % should decrease. I can't speak for the mechanics of the game, so the modders or NSD will need to chime in here, but I don't think that correlation is working at historic level.

Overall, the ROF for all units is probably still high. For arty, canister should be reloading at 30-45 secs per shot, about 1 minute for aimed fire and about 2 minutes for well aimed fire - all scaled to the skill level of the gun crew. Both infantry ROF and hit % should be lowered a bit as well. To compensate for the lower hit % and decreased ROF, units under battle stress should receive a much higher fatigue and morale malus.

The other thing to remember with accuracy of fire for all units is that you need to factor in a dynamic battlefield. It isn't like all these units on the battlefield are just standing there. For example, the cannon you aimed at with your 3inch gun recoiled just as you fired, so your shell hit empty ground instead of dismounting the enemy piece.

Played a MP yesterday on the Olstee map. The large field in the middle of the map was right in front of me and I brought two batteries up and placed then on the edge of the field in the tree line. Much of the map is timbered. The rebs showed themselves on the other side of the field and in 15 minutes of game time I had almost 200 infantry kills. This was with GCM mod. That is a nice kill rate considering the range was probably 4 or 5 hundred yards and the ammo was all solid shot.

Played a MP yesterday on the Olstee map. The large field in the middle of the map was right in front of me and I brought two batteries up and placed then on the edge of the field in the tree line. Much of the map is timbered. The rebs showed themselves on the other side of the field and in 15 minutes of game time I had almost 200 infantry kills. This was with GCM mod. That is a nice kill rate considering the range was probably 4 or 5 hundred yards and the ammo was all solid shot.

That is probably a bit too high. I wish someone from NSD could explain how we can work with them to change the hard-coded shell types, inflicted damage and morale/fatigue malus.