Trade tips and tricks, workarounds maps, and graphics mods. Why certain scenarios or campaigns are favorites, or how to improve stinkers. Attach your work to share/critique.
David, go ahead and send me the list. I'll see what I can do to it.
As for your question about rifle ranges..of course there is difference between rifles that are so far apart technically and performancewise. however, I think that if the other side has French made flintlocks from 18th century and the other side has UK made flintlocks from same era, then there should be no significant difference in ranges/accuracy.
I'd like to say the same about black powder cartridge rifles but as that time the development was fast there were so many calibres and rifle lengths in use the differences do show.
Btw, if there are two lines of men firing at each other at 50 metres distance and the other side has enfields and the other side has flintlocks...well, if they both know what they are doing I'd say the hit % would not differ very much. Increase the distance to 200m and...totally different case
Voriax
Oh God give Me strength to accept those things I cannot change with a firearm!
I just got "Civil War Firearms: Their historical background, Tactical use and modern collecting and shhoting", by Joseph Bilby, in the mail this evening (actually the postman left it on the porch, and I didn't notice it until this evening!).
I just looked at it for a few minutes, and one thing that struck me was the fact that units that had smoothbore muskets didn't really feel that they were at a disadvantage. The reason is that, because many/most officers wouldn't let their men fire until they were within 100 yards, the men with the smoothbores, loaded with "buck and ball" were just as deadly at that range, or more, as the men with the rifle muskets. The differance comes past 100 yards.
Bilby says (at least this is my initial impression) that most of your Civil War infantrymen, who rarely received live-fire traing, although they were drilled like heck on school of the soldier, were not effective past 200 yards.
So, the trick seems to be modeling crappy marksmanship, rather than the capability of the different firearms, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Maybe, the difference in performance between the different types of rifle muskets being negligable, that is why SPI just used a generic R, M, etc. for their hit tables for "Terrible Swift Sword". BUT...hexes are 120 yards in that game. I want to use 25 yard hexes. There has got to be a difference between things like two-band and three- band rifle muskets, etc., with that in consideration.
I love this stuff. This reminds me of the "old days" of Steel Panthers ('95-96), when guys were just starting to try to fix all of the things that were "broken". It would be fantastic to look into a crystal ball and see a Civil War mod. progress as far as Steel Panthers has. Saddly, I don't a whole lotta people very interested. Maybe I'm wrong. Heck, I'd love to be wrong!
Just a report on other things I've been looking at. I mentioned that I was looking at replacing hedges with split rail fences, and bocage with hedges. I made a trip to Gettysburg and looked around, and purchased a very detailed topo. map of the battlefield. One thing I noticed from my observations, as well as from the map was that "post and rail" fences were much more common than "split rail" (zig-zag) fences. After doing a little research on that, I learned that split rail fences were used only in a "frontier" situation, or where a farmer wanted the fence to be removeable. Post and rail fences were built if the farmer wanted the fence to be permanent. Looking at the map, I would have to say that about 50% of the fences in the path of Pickett's Charge were "post and rail" and 50% were "split rail". So I'm not sure which one I'll do (probably the one that is the easiest, although I'd prefer the one that looks better.
I also noticed that a lot of stone fences (and i've seen this with old period stone fences around my neck of the woods) were supportd by a rail on top and angled posts every few yards. So, I'm also toying with using the desert stone walls to create that effect, as well. After working on these things a bit, I've come to the conclusion that Mike Amos, or whoever designed the terrain icons, is one heck of a graphic genius. You'd think that doing a split rail fence, or for that matter, and angled post, is easy???? Not...but I wil prevail. It's the computer programming stuff that I draw the line at...
When it rains, it pours.....As I was playing around a bit with some new terrain icons I have made, I looked at some of the buildings that were on the map and wondered if they were correct for a Civil War period map! Why would I think that? Maybe someone could enlighten me as to whether or not your average building in those days would have chimneys/fireplaces in places other than exterior walls. I know rich folk had fireplaces in interior walls, but did your average homeowner have that setup? If not, then I need to do a lot of shifting of chimneys...... Hey, if there is one thing that drives me crazy, it is ignorance of, or lack of concern for, historical correctness....So, if I am aware of it, it has to be changed....
I'm not sure about mounted infantry, but I suggest that for the time being you simply conglomerate the horse and the man--light infantry with high mobility. Possibly a special set of weapons with ranges/damages between the range of any they may use while mounted and any they may use while dismounted.
Sure, it's ugly, and it's a kluge. But for a temporary solution, it could work.
