Battle lines

[Von_Clausewitz]

I am more of a napoleonic gamer but i am very interested in this revolutionary game, i have both Bull Run and TC2M and I enjoy them a lot.
One thing that i did not get in both games is sometimes the lack of clear battle lines.
A lot of the time you have a regiment "A" flanking regiment "B" which is flanking regiment "C" and then you see a regiment "D" coming to try and Flank regiment "A" and then the AI tries to get yet another regiment to flank "D".

Was it the way the civil war was fought? or is it an AI thing?, in the napoleonic era you had clear battle lines with major flanking maneuvers at the divisional/corps levels and not really at the regimental level.
How will this be handled in war3d?

thank you in advance,
VC

[Jim]

Some of the answer is that the TC2M AI is rather aggressive and when you have a number of AI controlled units, things can get out of hand. Another part of the answer is that ACW combat was less well defined the NW conflicts. A significant factor in this is the difference between European and American terrain. In the Eastern US, the landscape is much more heavily wooded than in Europe. This limited visibility tends to limit command control and results in much more localized decisions and reactions. Because of the very limited visibility units can collide in many ways and directions that would never occur on open terrain. This results in a notably more disorganized battle. It is very difficult to write a clear description of, for example, the actions on the Union left on the second day as a significant amount of the fighting was in and out of woods and things actually were chaotic and disorganized.

-Jim

[Gfran64]

The Union left on the 2nd day of Gettysburg, as Jim states, was at the very best chaotic and disorganized. More likely it was a complete command failure. Units had no idea where the line was as the ground was rolling and wooded. Reserve brigades were put in piecemeal and scattered all over the field. Reinforcements were sent to support locations that had become over run by the ANV and thus when they deployed forward they had Confederates in their front and in their rear.

From what I've read one of the many reasons that losses were so high in the ACW was that most of the high level commanders attended West Point and were well schooled in NW. However, advances in artillery and muskets, namely rifling, changed the way battles were fought and Napoleonic tactics became less effective. The Generals that learned that first, (Jackson), succeeded the most in the ACW. Frontal assaults became less frequent and movement under cover and around the flanks became more favored. I think the AI in TC2M really tries to exploit the flanks be it a regiment or a corp.

GregB)

[Von_Clausewitz]

I have read the same that the reason for high casualties was due to application of obsolete napoleonic tactics. Napoleonic warfare also was largely based on maneuvering and flanking, frontal assaults were only made after artillery had softened up enemy lines.
The main difference between the 2 wars is the wide availability of rifles in the civil war compared to smooth bore muskets in the napoleonic era. Rifles added a lot more range and above all accuracy. So standing shoulder to shoulder in the civil war exchanging volleys with the enemy in open terrain lead to a lot more casualties. They should have probably spread up more and used more cover, which they learned later on.
I do hope though that the AI will respect battle lines in open terrain in this new release, going for wide flanking maneuvers. I understand that in woods chaos can happen.

VC

[Hancock the Superb]

So standing shoulder to shoulder in the civil war exchanging volleys with the enemy in open terrain lead to a lot more casualties.

However, generally the American footsoldiers couldn't kill a three-toed sloth (a very slow animal) with a rifle so the close battle lines were a necessity until the regiments had been in combat for a long time - close to being Crack. By the end, the regiments were very skilled in modern combat, for example: Five Forks. Here, regiments would dash in for an attack, if they failed, they would retreat to some covered terrain. Then this would happen.

A small group of men would go out and form a skirmish line.
Company sized groups of men would dash forward and assault the enemy.
Once these troops got close enough, they would put up one good fire, then fall back by squads and eventually regroup under their position
The regiment would continue to do this and wear down the enemy until by one attack, they would charge forward and either initiate melee or the enemy would fall back to a position in the rear.

By this style of fighting, positions were overrun, recaptured, overrun again, at a minimum cost in casualties.