Scourge of War Boards

Played a MP game last night that is worth noting. I was on the Union side day 1 OOB Doubleday’s 1st Corp. Rebs were Rode's Division also day 1 OOB. We took up good defensive position and engaged our artillery on good elevation against the reb artillery. We allowed time for the counter battery to take effect. The rebs didn’t act aggressively and remained in their position. Our batteries drove off and routed a number of the rebel artillery. We also used our guns against the rebel infantry at ranges of 300 to 400 yards. We developed an attack that flanked and split the rebel forces giving us the victory.
The key point here is that our victory could not have been possible without our artillery. I’m almost certain that we fired “0” rounds of canister . No canister was fired by us. The ranges for the artillery was never under 200 yards and they did excellent service. Actually, the rebels fired very few rounds of canister themselves as we had driven off the rebel guns at our point of attack.
Proper use of artillery is the reason for our good results, as the artillery caused several casualties. Not the excessive casualties of canister, but casualties that helped ensure our victory. Giving the guns time to do their work and elevation being 2 good tactics for artillery use.
Artillery tactics are like a developed skill. I hope everyone appreciates the historical representation of artillery within this game and the use of artillery at ranges beyond 200yds. Too many players think artillery is useless at ranges greater than 200 yds.

Harmon
NY Cavalry

All -

NYC is correct in his assessment.
He and I were teamed together in the MP game he referenced.

I am not going to say that the artillery is working "historically" as I am not qualified to make that determination. However, I can say from my extensive experience with artillery - especially in MP play - is that it IS working.

In my experience, the two biggest problems with artillery use in game play are not the result of any programing, but failure by the player to properly use artillery (suprise, suprise, each of the guns has a role!!!) and not giving the artillery enough time to do their job.

The bottomline is that any player can run up big kill scores my rolling the guns up into canister range. However, if you experiment enough with gun placement/distances and counterbattery fire, you will see that the guns can do other things when effectively commanded.

Hope to see you all in the MP forum!!!

*S*

Willard