Improved Artillery Fire and Enfilade Fire Mod

[Marching Thru Georgia]

This mod will no doubt be controversial. It is really two mods in one.

The first, enhances the artillery effects at ranges greater than canister range which itself has been increased to 300 yd.. I have increased the number of casualties created by all types of ammunition, except for canister. This was to try to account for the fact that enfilade fire would cause more casualties than frontal fire. I have also increased the efficiency of case and shrapnel. This change was made to account for the fact that these are area effect munitions, and a close miss will still cause casualties.

The second mod greatly increases the morale lowering effect of enfilade fire by infantry. Troops receiving fire from the flank or rear will break much sooner than they currently do now. Be prepared! I did not make this historically accurate, i.e. the troops do not break after the first such volley. This is due to the fact that individual regiments do not seem to be overly worried about their flanks, unlike brigade and division units. With more realistic values, the battle quickly becomes chaotic with troops breaking, reforming, advancing and retreating again. The original game is much more sedate, almost like chess by comparison. For those who would like to see this, simply change the values of CMPctRearFire to 1840 and CMPctFlankFire to 1750 in defines.ini. The battle quickly gets out of control.

Instead, in the mod, I raised these values to levels where units will only stand a short while ~2-3 minutes. However the battle flows much more smoothly. One side effect I have noticed, is that regiments that are receiving flank fire will tend to whirl more frequently as if trying to avoid the fire.

If you choose to try this mod, I hope you will give feedback, so adjustment to the values can be made.

As always, just unzip this file into your mod folder. You can rename the file to anything you like.

FOR PATCH 1.40

The attachment EnhancedArtilleryFlankFire140.zip is no longer available

[oho]

will try it asap. Sounds good.
Are you planning to somehow decrease canister effects too, so that I can conquer a battery in frontline more easily?

[gbs]

What do you think about increasing the effect of infantry fire on arty units when inside 100 yards so that they might be incouraged to retreat to a safer distance quicker?

[Marching Thru Georgia]

oho wrote:

Are you planning to somehow decrease canister effects too, so that I can conquer a battery in frontline more easily?

No, I thought the cannister casualties were actually a little low, but I did not raise them.

gbs wrote:

What do you think about increasing the effect of infantry fire on arty units when inside 100 yards so that they might be incouraged to retreat to a safer distance quicker?

I wish that were possible, but unfortunately it is not. To fix the infantry vs artillery problem, Norb will have to create another table which specifies firing ranges vs different target types. I don't know if he is considering that.

[RebBugler]

Interesting changes here, anxious to hear more forum feedback. Have you considered changing musket range to 200 yards? I may try this in a scenario, and see if this evens things up a bit, making events more realistic possibly.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

RebBugler wrote:

Have you considered changing musket range to 200 yards? I may try this in a scenario, and see if this evens things up a bit, making events more realistic possibly.

Yes, I did, sort of. I did not like it. I actually changed it to 210 yds. It makes a very large change as to how the game 'feels'. Infantry vs infantry now stand off farther and battle it out. I think historically, most fighting was done at about 120 yds or less. At 210 yds it seemed more like 20th century warfare. That's just my personal impression, though. As I recall from the TC2M forum, the 160 yd limit was picked to force the combatants closer, and also to simulate the need to get closer due to the smoke on the field obscuring matters. That seems like a reasonable game compromise.

[Jack ONeill]

All,

According to Paddy Griffith in one of his two books on ACW Battlefield tactics, (I don't remember which one), the average firefight range for Infantry was around 40 yards. He based this on the following -
The large number of smoothbore muskets still in use, even late in the war by the Confederacy.
The North American terrain itself, very unlike Europe with its manicured forests, etc. The relative lack of training in live-fire musketry training.
The tendency of officers on both sides to use rifle-muskets as smoothbores, based on the "we tend to fight the last war" tactics and training.

My 2 cents again.

Sic Semper Avantis

Jack O'Neill B)

[RebBugler]

Jack ONeill wrote:

All,

According to Paddy Griffith in one of his two books on ACW Battlefield tactics, (I don't remember which one), the average firefight range for Infantry was around 40 yards. He based this on the following -
The large number of smoothbore muskets still in use, even late in the war by the Confederacy.
The North American terrain itself, very unlike Europe with its manicured forests, etc. The relative lack of training in live-fire musketry training.
The tendency of officers on both sides to use rifle-muskets as smoothbores, based on the "we tend to fight the last war" tactics and training.

My 2 cents again.

Sic Semper Avantis

Jack O'Neill B)

And a valuable 1863 2 cents it was. Probably get you a beer and breakfast at the nearest tavern. :laugh:

Yeah, my concern is 'out of engagement range' units getting riddled with canister. I just submitted a 'feature patch' to try and address this, what I call, an issue. If implemented, it would make units either run up to engage guns or retreat out of canister range upon receiving a canister blast, their reaction time dependent on their 'abilities' level and experience.

Oops, hope I'm not steering this off thread...permission to proceed? Sir Georgia

[BOSTON]

Marching Thru Georgia wrote:

RebBugler wrote:

Have you considered changing musket range to 200 yards? I may try this in a scenario, and see if this evens things up a bit, making events more realistic possibly.

Yes, I did, sort of. I did not like it. I actually changed it to 210 yds. It makes a very large change as to how the game 'feels'. Infantry vs infantry now stand off farther and battle it out. I think historically, most fighting was done at about 120 yds or less. At 210 yds it seemed more like 20th century warfare. That's just my personal impression, though. As I recall from the TC2M forum, the 160 yd limit was picked to force the combatants closer, and also to simulate the need to get closer due to the smoke on the field obscuring matters. That seems like a reasonable game compromise.

At present I don't know the most effective range for the different infantry weapons. There are charts and graphs to indicate that infantry firing from 160 yds would be more effective than at 210, also the closer the distance to a target effectiveness improves.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

RebBugler:
Feel free. The only problem that I see with that idea, is that the AI will never capture a battery on its own. I would also like to see the AI overrun a battery in the same manner as we do occasionally. Right now, the only way the AI can drive off the artillery is to have the infantry shoot it out with them. I certainly see the reason for your suggestion though. I've seen a number of brigades destroyed by 1 or 2 batteries. That's why I am lobbying for major game change by creating a new table.