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Russian Artillery on a Saturday

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Post  Charmead Sun Jun 26, 2016 3:08 am

Well it was great to play again.

And like all plans, ours was good. Keep Russian attention to the north and northwest, stay out of gun range for 1 hour 30 minutes. Then attack. Meanwhile I did the Stonewall Jackson thing around the left.

So to come around "behind" the Russians and find myself staring at the muzzles of a big russkie battery was less than ideal. Then another battery. Ewwww. That was simply ugly.

My division go shredded, thanx to Kevin
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Post  Uncle Billy Sun Jun 26, 2016 2:46 pm

An assault down the barrels of a fresh Russian battery is not for the faint of heart. It is for the suicidal, however. To be fair, I ordered my heavy battery to target your artillery and left my horse battery to do the wet work. It was only when those bearskins popped up over the ridge did the 12 lbers lose their discipline and decide to knock those hats off the smug fellows. My apologies, sir. Embarassed

We had a short discussion after the battle as to the number of cannon on the field thinking the artillery was over represented. I looked at the battle of Borodino. The best current estimates had the Russians with 125,000 men and 640 cannon present. That's 1 gun for 195 men. The French had 128,000 men and 584 cannon. That's 1 gun for 219 men. Using those ratios, the Russians should have had 99 guns yesterday. We had a paltry 54. Crying or Very sad The French should have had 84 guns. They only brought 34. cheers
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Post  Mr. Digby Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:01 pm

I thought the French artillery were not very numerous. Usually with 24 Russian guns per division a game needs 3 batteries per French division. In cases like a nice big hill to sit on and defending the objective the attacker could have done with 4 batteries per division and probably an extra brigade per division as well!

I blame the scenario designer. Who was that by the way? Twisted Evil
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 4:56 pm

I got no idea who made the scenario, his name is "Create Scenario" but the next I use him I will count guns. Then reconfig the setting and Mr. Scenario do it again. Mad Mad Mad Mad

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Post  Charmead Sun Jun 26, 2016 5:01 pm

Then maybe we could ALL start the scenario off the map
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 5:35 pm

I should have stayed off the map! affraid

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Post  Uncle Billy Sun Jun 26, 2016 6:02 pm

It would be an interesting scenario had the French twice as many guns as they did and then mass them in front of the area they planned to attack. After a 30 minute barrage the troops go in. That would have been a typical Napoleonic battle.
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 6:29 pm

I guess on a map where someone is attacking up hill we should allow the attackers few more guns then.

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Post  Mr. Digby Sun Jun 26, 2016 6:31 pm

I don't know if you, Phil, were targetting my guns but it looked like your guns were doing counterbattery. I just let mine shoot at what they liked except at one point when a Cuirassier regiment moved across my front when I told one battery to target that. But when the attack came in my guns began to rack up an obscenely high score. To me the battle became a game of maintaining an unbroken line of battalions that were merely there to protect my guns - which were actually fighting the battle. I know I lost the infantry fight heavily but to me that didn't matter.

I do not think that is a very Napoleonic thought process but it does seem to happen in a lot of our games, especially when I defend.

EDIT: Mike - we should probably experiment with more games where an attacker has significantly more infantry as well. I suspect the cavalry is still unbalanced in SoW so keeping their numbers on par might be best.
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Post  Uncle Billy Sun Jun 26, 2016 7:15 pm

Had there had been a French grand battery hitting your position and damaging your visible battalions and guns, it might have ended with more of an infantry contest than the slaughter of the lambs by Russian guns. Although the French side was outmatched in number of guns, the ones they had were hardly used. That's the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight.
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 9:52 pm

Digby I could use that same map and set up a scenario with an attack force to include a grand battery and run the final strength numbers by you and Kevin. Then try the battle again just to see the outcome.

I do think that one problem with our guns was the poor angle of attack they had. I just could not get them to aim right, I figured that I needed to set the guns back. Never got to that since Andrew extracted my life force so quickly. Embarassed

Or I could do it on another map that I have in mind too.

What do you guys think would be a fair ration for

INF: D-A

CAV: D-A

ARTTY: D-A

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Post  Charmead Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:00 pm

My batteries remained limbered. Would not unlimber at all. No matter what orders or posture I gave for better part of 40 minutes

Now ... a lot of my flank move was over rough terrain. Most of my infantry was fine but a couple battalions were utterly exhausted. There are no such indicators in artillery. Is it possible they were likewise exhausted but there were no indicators? And then that created just a really really slow rate of unlimbering? Or is it just a quirk in the code?
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:11 pm

Sometimes when you do a restart the guns get quirky but you could be onto something thinking they were tired after your march.

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Post  Uncle Billy Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:23 pm

Now ... a lot of my flank move was over rough terrain. Most of my infantry was fine but a couple battalions were utterly exhausted. There are no such indicators in artillery. Is it possible they were likewise exhausted but there were no indicators? And then that created just a really really slow rate of unlimbering? Or is it just a quirk in the code?
The individual guns have morale and fatigue bars just like battalions. Since they do not have flags you must click on the battery commander and then use the down and right/left arrows to navigate through all the guns.

Your guns did fire near the start of the encounter. It was at that point I brought up my heavy battery to deal with the annoyance. I know they put one or two guns out of commission. I assumed you pulled your guns back at that stage because the battery decided to go bear hunting not long after that. Bagged their limit too. Twisted Evil Your guns may not have had a LOS once they moved back.

Mike, for that last battle I agree with Martin that the French should have 4 batteries in each infantry division. For battles with the Russians, I always give the French at least 3 batteries/division. Russian batteries have 12 guns and the French usually have 8.
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Post  Guest Sun Jun 26, 2016 10:43 pm

I figured that out when messing and looking over some OOB's....Thanks

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Post  scauispo Mon Jun 27, 2016 1:04 am

Martin, at one point I did have my artillery target your guns, which where shredding my infantry. Being on higher ground your guns seemed to ignore the cloud of skirmishers leading my assault & murderously targeted the formed units behind.

Kevin, if you really had as at Borodino 1 gun per 195 or 219 men I fear our games would devolve into a stagnant artillery match. Everyone would attempt to shelter their inf & cav behind every nook & cranny they could find. I do feel that artillery is now too potent especially after Friday’s game seeing what it did to Martin’s troops (& I think you said that Fr arty was something of a militia grade). I fully expected annihilation attacking those artillery laden heights yesterday, but the result felt more like civil war era artillery.
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Post  Uncle Billy Mon Jun 27, 2016 5:32 am

Not to worry, the artillery is calibrated to deal out the required pain with half the normal accompaniment of guns a division would normally have. Rarely do we ever play with something other than 2 or 3 batteries per division. Friday's game was an exercise in loading and firing canister. Canister rounds never miss no matter how poorly trained the gun crew is. The same was largely true in my encounter with the French Saturday.

You noticed that the arty ignores skirmishers to concentrate on the formed troops behind them? No self respecting artilleryman would waste a cannonball on a skirmisher. They'd wait until they were perceived to be a threat and then unload on them with canister.
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