Action in the Shenandoah Valley

[Artmiser]

In early November of 1862 the Newly formed 13th Divions with five brigades under the command of Major General Duffie and the Dept of the Ohio with 4 brigades, including the renowned Eagle brigade, under the command of Major General Cullum, made there mark in History.

The Confederate forces under Lt.Gen Early, with a force of 120,000 assaulted the 30,000 union troops in the Shenandoah Valley. With the 13th Divion on the left and the Dept of the Ohio on the right the outnumbered union troops stood in the freshly fallen snow to await there arrival. The rebel cavalry arrived first, and with the utmost contempt for our foces charged striaght in. They quickly fell back when our lines refused to budge, and with the arrival of the confederate forces a slugging match started that would last into the early afternoon. All hope was almost lost when Br.Gen Wallace took it upon himself to charge out from our lines and take the fight to the enemy. The horde of rebel troops hit his brigade from four sides, and the brigade broke. Two more brigades followed and the two Divions tightened there lines and refused to budge further. Eventually the Confederates had enough and quit the field.

Union Dead 11788
Conf Dead 8972

[Artmiser]

Side note the forces here were probably my highest quality Divions, they had stood off two smaller attacks, a minor 60k to 30k twice before.

At the end I had three brigades left in line with two that had rallied returning to the fight. And still dont know why I won heh morale is the key I guess.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Artmiser

In early November of 1862 the Newly formed 13th Divions with five brigades under the command of Major General Duffie and the Dept of the Ohio with 4 brigades, including the renowned Eagle brigade, under the command of Major General Cullum, made there mark in History.

The Confederate forces under Lt.Gen Early, with a force of 120,000 assaulted the 30,000 union troops in the Shenandoah Valley. With the 13th Divion on the left and the Dept of the Ohio on the right the outnumbered union troops stood in the freshly fallen snow to await there arrival. The rebel cavalry arrived first, and with the utmost contempt for our foces charged striaght in. They quickly fell back when our lines refused to budge, and with the arrival of the confederate forces a slugging match started that would last into the early afternoon. All hope was almost lost when Br.Gen Wallace took it upon himself to charge out from our lines and take the fight to the enemy. The horde of rebel troops hit his brigade from four sides, and the brigade broke. Two more brigades followed and the two Divions tightened there lines and refused to budge further. Eventually the Confederates had enough and quit the field.

Union Dead 11788
Conf Dead 8972

You've certainly given proof that both the AI and the "Detailed Battle" system are a long way from good. Absolutely no attempt by the force that outnumbered you 4:1 to "pin" you with 60,000 while the other half marches round and smashes into your flank or rear? Sounds more like two big horned sheep having a head butting contest than a Civil War Battle. How did your 30,000 men even cover enough "front" to keep 120,000 enemies from overlapping and rolling up your flanks?

[Artmiser]

I had five units in line with four units turn in to protect my flanks, units were entrenched on 2 to 3 sides each.  My troop quality was 3/5 to 4ish.

The problem is the ai is to willing to use assault columns to try and break my lines.  Against decent troops it will fail, and the ai will take a massive 1 to 2k in casualties.  So much for that unit, the ai keeps trying to pin the front but it went about it all wrong, eventually I was exchanging fire fights with the ai but its army morale was already suffering from the early attacks.  The ai had to feed fresh units past the routed units, and while it eventually did tie up my front it used allot of brigades up.  it did try and work my flanks but with the massive losses to the front it kept having to reinforce the pinning units.    Also if my defensive line is anything like the ai's when I attack the back area is full of yellow and red.  This just accelerates tha ai's morale problems when it finnaly started to work my flanks.    Like I said at the end I only had three brigades left holding the front and two coming back, but the ai's problems were worse then mine morale wise and the army morale broke.

Recommendations.

Make the ai less likely to use assault colums when attacking formed troops.   Better yet you need to cap out the amount of damage a unit will take. I threw some ideas around in another area, called shooting.  Im having some 2nd thoughts about a few of the things but the way casualties are calculated needs to be looked at.

Also look at forts again, attacking some forts I had to write of 2 or three brigades at the start.  one took 13k casualties, cap it at half the brigades str, a unit would break and run at that many casualties during an assault.

[Hard Sarge]

it would break and run, unless it was shot dead, which also happened

the biggest thing I disagreed with was the AI chargeing, but early in the war, the Charge was a big part of the CW tactics and was used by both, so it is working as designed

which it can cause massive damage to you too, but it is a dangerous tactic to use unless in real need

which I wonder at some of your losses, the game is set up to lower losses and take more of a morale hit if over 300 losses are taken ?

(maybe the idea for fire combat did not make it to the charge combat ?)

overall, sounds like a good battle