Supply Wagons

[Saddletank]

In my view ammo wagons should be removed. Ammo was very rarely brought to the front line to resupply units in the firing line; units in the firing line usually were withdrawn to rest and resupply, and often that wasn't until the end of the day's fighting.

I'd prefer to see some kind of designated division assembly point that remained about 500 yds behind the div general and towards the baseline of the army's starting point. Or in a designated HQ farm or village behind the army (set up in the way an objectve marker is). Units should have to go there to resupply and while there they could recover fatigue, some casualties and some morale back but they'd need to be there a minimum of about ~10 to ~15 minutes. In order to encourage correct tactical play whole BRIGADES withdrawn to rest should recover lost fatigue/men/morale at twice the speed. Routed units would also congregate there and could be rallied after about ~20 to ~30 minutes, though they wouldn't be much use in a fight afterwards (though an enemy player wouldn't know that).

The supply wagon models are still useful to have as targets in scenarios that involve cutting supply lines or capturing supplies and such but they should come in units of about 3 wagons with a commanding officer, like an artillery battery.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I agree with Saddletank. Drive-by refills for infantry and artillery is one of the more cartoonish aspects of the game. His suggestions would go a long way to making this aspect of the game far more useful and believable.

[Garnier]

It's easy to mod the key point there. Make supply wagons move very slowly or not at all, and you have an immobile resupply point back where the army started.

GCM has an option for this although I have trouble convincing anyone that it's more fun. :/

[Davinci]

Saddletank may have a good idea but I don't think that that would work with the current AI.

The AI has trouble cooperating with other AI Divisions or Corps, and doesn't protect the road system.

@ Garnier - How did you get the Supply-Wagons to stay still, or move slower?

I have always been under the impression that the wagons move at the speed of the Divisional Commander.

davinci

[Garnier]

You can use a supply wagon formation for them, and set the speed modifier to a large negative number.

Or (better) modify unitglobal.csv and change the wagon's movement speed.

[Davinci]

I tried adjusting the K Column in the drills.csv file - that didn't work!

I'm using a -50 where as everyone else has a -10 ......No Luck there!

Using the unitglobal file doesn't work either, the wagon will default to the speed of the Divisional Commander.

Unless the Multi-Player settings are different than the Single-Player settings, I'm not sure why we are getting different results.

davinci

[Jack ONeill]

All,

Both of Tanks Ideas are excellent. In most of my custom OOBs I have already removed the ammo wagons. As He said, it was bloody difficult to resupply troops in the middle of a Battle.
Also, the idea of a "Rally Point" some distance behind the lines for Brigades is great!

Jack B)

[Martin James]

I prefer Garnier's approach. Wagons were very slow. They were typically overloaded due to the chronic shortage of horses, and they were also given the worst animals.

But they were also a key asset, and were normally kept near the fighting troops because they would be desperately needed at the end of the battle, if not during it. Ammo wagons were only a part of the trains. They were also carrying replacement weapons & equipment, tents, bedding, food, fodder, blacksmiths, hospitals, medical supplies, bridging equipment, engineering equipment etc etc. In the ACW at least, the wagons were also kept near the troops for protection, partly due to the presence of numerous enemy cavalry. The only other alternative would have been to detach a large part of the army to guard them.

One consequence was the damage caused if you were forced off the field. In the game, it’s too easy for a corps to pull back from a difficult position, because you don’t have all those wagons sitting behind you. A pretty big distortion.

But wagons are not especially fun, and that’s the problem I think. At the moment, we only include 1 wagon per division, and complain about that! But in reality a division would have hundreds of wagons.

Martin

[Kerflumoxed]

Two quick historical facts:

1. The vast majority of animals used to pull the wagons were not horses, but mules. Mules have a distinct disliking for loud noises (i.e. gunfire) and were very unsteady when exposed to that wartime circumstance!

2. Unlike the game characterization, the wagons were not driven from the seat like the old west schooner wagons - there were no "wagon seats" on the supply wagons. Rather, there were driven from the saddle of the "near" span. (Incidentally, a team of horses, a span of mules. Mules were not called teams.) Similar to the artillery, the span nearest the front of the wagon (or gun) was called the wheel span or pole span (artillery = wheel team), the middle span was called the "swing" span (swing team) and the span in front was called the lead span (lead team). Unlike the artillery hitch of three teams (depicted in the game as 1 team), the driver for the entire hitch controlled the entire hitch with one rein attached to "near" lead mule and a series of curses disguised as orders! (Gee, Haw, etc.) There was also a line leading to the wagon brakes. (See the article in No. 5 below)

3. I would suggest that the wagons were not as close to the front line as some would think. If they were that close, would it have necessary to "forage" for ammunition from the dead? Don't know...just asking!

4. "This photograph was taken in 1862 near Savage Station, Virginia. The picture has a nice view of a Civil War camp, including supply wagons." http://old-photos.blogspot.com/2007/12/ ... agons.html

5. As an aside, I have frequently wondered how such a marvelous game could miss the obvious. The supply wagon is just one example...the artillery is another! Norb did a wonderful job in designing this game...too bad he relied on some "mental midgets" who provided inaccurate historical date/details. It's amazing how easy it is today to find photographic evidence and historical evidence is available. For example, supply wagons. Want to know more?
http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/ ... trains.htm

Jack

PS: If you don't have the Jack Coggins book, Arms and Equipment of the Civil War, it would be a nice, inexpensive edition to your Civil War library. While it is not the equivalent of Alfred Mordecei, for example, it includes enough referenced data to satisfy most neophyte historians.

[Garnier]

Davinci,

I checked, and GCM is using the unitglobal method, and it does work. Change the Walk Speed and Run Speed columns for the supply wagon unit. Setting it to 0 doesn't make them completely immobile, apparently, but they're definitely very slow, much slower than commanders.

My lines are like this in unitglobal:

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UGLB_USA_Wagon_Fast,4,,UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Fast,4,4,USPR_USA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_US_Wagon,GUI_US_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_US_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_USA_Wagon_Medium,4,,UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Medium,3,3,USPR_USA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_US_Wagon,GUI_US_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_US_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_USA_Wagon_Slow,4,,UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Slow,2,2,USPR_USA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_US_Wagon,GUI_US_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_US_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_USA_Wagon_Slowest,4,,UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Slowest,1,1,USPR_USA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_US_Wagon,GUI_US_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_US_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_USA_Wagon_Immobile,4,,UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Immobile,0,0,USPR_USA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_1,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_US_Wagon,GUI_US_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_US_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Fast,4,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Fast,4,4,USPR_CSA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_CS_Wagon,GUI_CS_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_CS_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Medium,4,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Medium,3,3,USPR_CSA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_CS_Wagon,GUI_CS_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_CS_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Slow,4,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Slow,2,2,USPR_CSA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_CS_Wagon,GUI_CS_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_CS_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Slowest,4,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Slowest,1,1,USPR_CSA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_CS_Wagon,GUI_CS_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_CS_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon
UGLB_CSA_Wagon_Immobile,4,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Immobile,0,0,USPR_CSA_TRANS_Wagon,USPR_TRANS_Mules,,,,,SFX_Wagon_Walk_1,SFX_Wagon_Stand_1,SFX_Art_Load_1,SFX_Art_Ready_1,SFX_Cdr_Fire_1,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Wagon_Run_2,SFX_Cdr_Melee_1,SFX_Cdr_Prone_1,USPR_TRANS_Mules,GUI_CS_Wagon,GUI_CS_LVL6_Friendly,GUI_CS_Enemy,DRIL_SupplyWagon,DRIL_SupplyWagon

And here's one from a scenario:

Code: Select all

1,1,1,1,10,0,OOB_U_Supply_10_14,Ordnance Supply Wagon,,UGLB_USA_Wagon_Immobile,,(1-0),,100000,0.9480013,-0.3182663,57640,147952,GFX_US_National_Cav,,DRIL_SupplyWagon,10,,,,,,3,5,8,1,1,3,3,5,0,2,7