MP Scenario 2: Supply Lines

Leffe7 wrote:Ok, I rescheduled the game to next thursday (26th April), same time. Being a short scenario it works for me on weekdays. I can play longer on fridays. Weekends are more difficult to plan before
I would like to have Martin and Jeff in command again - and the other players to post here to join the players list.
I agree with Jeff that 24h before the game starts, all player slots should be filled.

Thanks, Stefan. I'll be there.

Blaugrana wrote:

Leffe7 wrote:Ok, I rescheduled the game to next thursday (26th April), same time. Being a short scenario it works for me on weekdays. I can play longer on fridays. Weekends are more difficult to plan before
I would like to have Martin and Jeff in command again - and the other players to post here to join the players list.
I agree with Jeff that 24h before the game starts, all player slots should be filled.

Thanks, Stefan. I'll be there.

Me too.

Martin

Baylor wrote:

"Every man rises to his own level of incompetence!"

That's the Peter Principle. Since it is not a canonical law as is Murphy's, there is hope for you. Try commanding a division with human brigade commanders and just one or two artillery batteries under your command. Then you can just focus on the big picture and timing the counter stroke and not the messy minutia of brigade command.

I'll play on the 26th. I was Slemons CSA cavalry before and I would prefer this again as it means I learn the least about the rest of the game but I am quite happy to take any role.

Stefan, was talking with Jack and he said infantry would almost never escort supply wagons. How about you change the escorts to cavalry?

I created a doodle page to facilitate the recruitement and date selection.

Please follow this link http://www.doodle.com/i99cda5qf95c3i66 if you want to play in the next run of "Supply Lines".

All you have to do is click

• side (USA or CSA)
  
• if you are willing to play cavalry (required on CSA side...)
  
• and what date is possible

(YES) means "if need be".

Please register no later than wednesday (25th april).
Thanks!

At the moment there are still too few registered in doodle for the scenario2 being played this week. I hope some more enlist until tomorrow


I did run some tests with cavalry capturing supply wagons (both in SP and MP, there is no difference):

• Giving the order to "charge" doesn't work.
  
• Just walking/riding on the wagons does work sometimes (it seems your flag has to touch the enemy's flag).
  
• The best way I have found is to use the special cavalry command "Raid weak targets", one of the green toggle buttons on the last page of the cavalry toolbar. This works in about 90% of all cases. The cavalry rides towards the nearest weak target and charges it. In the other 10% they walk away and must be halted or moved closer to the target first. I will post a tutorial with some screenshots about how to use this properly.

I am positive that capturing will work more or less as designed.

Apologies for feebleness, but the female gender has imposed a moratorium on my online gaming activities at the present time, alleging overindulgence :-) I hope to rediscover my masculinity and rejoin you guys at a later stage - rest assured you are doing a great job Stefan.

A little off topic, but last night in an MP game one of my infantry regiments captured a wagon. Actually, it blundered into the regiment, but it was still captured. It may be that the flag of the regiment has to touch the flag of the wagon. I've seen a few wagons pass though a part of an enemy regiment without being captured, so that may be something worth trying.

Yes, that has always been my thinking, that flag must hit flag and was what I was trying to do when testing with cavalry when trying to capture wagons in the game last week.

EDIT: Also guys, even if you cannot make any of the offered dates, or have no interest in the scenario, or have other reasons why you don't want to play, it is still worth you logging in, filling the rows with red Xs and leaving a note in the comments section as to why. That is still valuable feedback and will help us all to schedule games at different times or design different scenarios. Votes of "no thank you" are still valuable votes, as long as we know why you voted "no".

I updated the scenario based on the experience from the first try and some further testing.
I will send the initial briefings now to the designated CinC's Blaugrana and Martin James. Just in case we get enough players for a game this week. It looks like saturday might work.

@Mr Digby and Martin James: Could you please register in doodle as well? http://www.doodle.com/i99cda5qf95c3i66
Thanks

The scenario will be played this saturday, 28th april, 20h00 UK time.
I will send out the initial briefings now to the registered players. The CinC are supposed to send their orders by friday to their teammates.

There are still open slots if anyone wants to join.

Looking forward to it!

Mr. Digby wrote:Looking forward to it!

Me too.

I'm in. Thanks for the invitation, Leffe

I can play Saturday also count me in. Assign me a brigade , side doesn't matter.

Hi Khryses and kg_spoom, please use doodle to sign up for the game. Thank you very much.

Leffe7 wrote:Hi Khryses and kg_spoom, please use doodle to sign up for the game. Thank you very much.

One more thing, I need your e-mail adress to send you both the briefings. You can send it by the forum. Thx

Great scenario, Stefan, and great game, all! It was utterly absorbing - I'm exhausted.

Thanks again,

Jeff

Yes I feel exactly the same. On all counts!

Many thanks, Stefan.

Martin

This was the player list of yesterdays game.

Martin is playing Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley
Marching Thru Georgia is playing Col. Albert Jenks
kg sspoom is playing Col. John W. Fuller
Khryses is playing Col. Joseph A. Mower

Blaugrana is playing Brig. Gen. Frank C. Armstrong
Hays is playing Col. W. C. Falkner
Digby is playing Col. William F. Slemons
4TEXAS is playing Brig. Gen. Louis Hebert

I was riding as an observer with the main union force in the eastern part of the battle.
Here are some pictures


General Mower is very closely escorting his supply wagons.


But then two of the wagons decided to take a wrong turn. General Hebert, who was only screening the US advance until now, senses an excellent opportunity to strike and attacks. Col. Jenks sees this threat and is able to counter with one of his Illionis cavalry regiments.


Meanwhile the other two wagons on the main road are undefended and General Stanley cannot believe his eyes when they are captured under his nose by rebel raiders. Col. Falkner plays a very nice hit-and-run game and disappears as fast as he appeared.


After this shock the federal commanders are able to recover and get back most of the captured supplies.


On the hills north of Union Mills begins a fierce cavalry battle between Col. Jenks and Col. Slemons. Later, the confederates are able to gain a numerical advantage and drive the federals off the hills.


As General Mowers brigade reaches the safe ground of Union Mills, the US supply wagons did not and are captured once again by General Hebert!
But Mowers brigade was able to regain its credit when they turned back, drove the rebels from the road and even recaptured some wagons

Final Result
1 supply wagon reached its destination.
6 supply wagons were captured by rebels but recaptured again by federal troops and reached their destination in time. Some of the goods however were destroyed in the constant fighting.
The rest has fallen in rebel hands or didnt reach the destination in time.

Major Victory for the Confederate side. Congratulations!

Outlook: This outcome fits very nicely to the Iuka storyline Hope to see you in next weeks scenario, there are still open slots...

Thanks Stefan for this excellent description of the ups and downs of last night's scenario with its raids and battles. I enjoyed it enormously & am very glad to now be able to see some things I didn't see at the time*. Thanks to Martin SC, Niall and John and to our gallant enemies - Martin J, Kevin, Justin & Steve.

I imagine controlling the wagons was very challenging. I hadn't thought through what to do with them once captured. Perhaps I should have had a plan in place for that and maybe a command detailed to guard them. Having said that, we were not really set up to defend wagons - as Martin said last night, we would probably have had to make do with burning the wagons and denying them to the enemy. Perhaps that could be a tweak for future re-runs? Not the burning - that just has to go on the wish list, but maybe Rebs could choose either to try and keep and defend wagons or, for less 'points', destroy them. They could announce the burning via the on-screen message, with the proviso that they couldn't do it just as the wagon is about to be captured. Tricky to umpire, I know ...

Could your trilogy be run as a campaign, Stefan, with troop losses carried over? That would (yet another) level of excellence.

*NSD wish list - the ability to record a battle fought with HITS and then go back and watch it from the Goodyear blimp!!!

Regards,

Jeff

Last night was very exciting and quite unusual for an SoW game. Rather than hunt the enemy for ages and then fight them when we found them, this time it was quite straightforward to find them but then we didn't want to fight them!

As Slemons, my brigade was operating on the west side of Myersville and up towards Bank and apart from seeing Hebert and Jenks staring each other down on the hills north of Myersville for about 20 minutes I saw no sign of any enemy wagons. Genl Armstrong then rode over and we conferred and he suggested I stop looking towards the north around Bank where I had been but scout to the far south west which I did to finally find Col. Fuller's column of two infantry regiments and some (three? four?) supply wagons. My own cavalry however were about fifteen minutes beghind me delayed by those cussed locals and their bad directions; the local road network was atrocious with many dead ends and some downright lies for local farmers about where they led!

Eventually I was able to bring one regimnent up to charge an enemy infantry regiment but they were atop a ridge and got off some good volleys as my boys charged. We hit them and routed them but this action tired out the horses and that regiment from then on wasn't much use. The ever present Genl Hebert then showed up to attack the enemy column's front from the east and their second regiment formed line to face his troopers only to present its flank to my second regiment which came over the same ridge and thundered into its left flank and rear, crumpling it and routing it for the los of only 16 men.

Unfortunately Fullers wagons must have been drawn by Spanish stallions as they shot off at extremely high speed and my boys were unable to cath them though I think Genl Armstrong captured them with one of Col Falkner's regiments under his command.

My command, now somewhat tired moved onto the steep hills to the NE of Myersville and got some rest with a couple of captured wagons in their rear. Some enemy cavalry tried to get at them from the east however and my one remaining un-blown regiment countercharged. This was teh first cavalry vs cavalry mele I've seen in SoW and it was handled quite realistically, the actual fight being quite short and the winners (my boys) chasing the enemy for a couple of hundred yards before I was able to rein them in.

The enemy regrouped however and returned and in a second melee my first regiment was routed but my second intervened and finally drive the Yankee boys away to the north east, saving the two wagons. After that, while we had several cvalry units on these hills, three Union infantry regiments came north out of Union Mills and I think at this point the Rebs would have taken their booty and withdrawn.

It was a very confusing and hard-fought battle, not helped by the fact that I couldn't find the right command button to get my cavalry to capture the weak targets (wagons)!

It is also interesting to read Stefan's report - clearly my side of the battle was the quieter side, most of the action went on to the east and I knew nothing of it, thinking we had lost at the end!


Run, Yankees, run! One of the cavalry vs cavalry fights at the end. My boys have just dismounted to send the northerners a parting gift.


Federal reserve columns coming out of Union Mills to see us off while their high command gallops hither and thither like so many chickens with a fox nearby and one wagon escapes across country (naughty, naughty!)

Moving from our camp around the Blacks Shop and moving to the west per commanding General F.C. Armstrong's orders to move to the area north of Myersville and patrol the road from the Hollis farm area. Movement to the area north of Myersville was un-opposed, and then moving north a short distance found a large column with at least 4 or more yank wagons moving east past the Hollis farm.

Ordered to screen from any yank advance to he south, Heberts Brigade formed up and watched the yank column continue its movement to the east. Observing the yank rear guard beginning its movement to the east, Heberts brigade decided to move to the next ridge to the east, and while moving there saw to yank wagons in the valley, orders were given to charge the wagons as they were un-supported at the moment, unable to catch the wagons before there supports came up we continued to the next ridge. Holding here was orered by Gen Armstrong to the support of Col. Slemons to the S.W. and arriving there found both the yanks and Col. Slemons unit disengaging each other the battle being
fought out there.

Moving back to a position just north of Myersville, found that a column of the enemy was moving south toward Myersville, the yank units had left 3 wagons alone on the road, and these wagons were captured by the 1st Texas Legion, but unable to guide the nags pulling the wagons from the road it was
decided to take what we could and withdraw to the ridge, as a large force of yanks was coming to the wagons aide.

We held this position until the end of the fight. Loses to Heberts Brigade can only be discribed as
lite, being to my best guess as 2 killed, and 12 wounded.

I would like to thank all involved in this battle, as this was the best hour and one half I had all week, and was very realistic in my eyes.

Blaugrana wrote:I hadn't thought through what to do with them once captured. Perhaps I should have had a plan in place for that and maybe a command detailed to guard them. Having said that, we were not really set up to defend wagons - as Martin said last night, we would probably have had to make do with burning the wagons and denying them to the enemy. Perhaps that could be a tweak for future re-runs? Not the burning - that just has to go on the wish list, but maybe Rebs could choose either to try and keep and defend wagons or, for less 'points', destroy them. They could announce the burning via the on-screen message, with the proviso that they couldn't do it just as the wagon is about to be captured. Tricky to umpire, I know ...

The idea for the Confederate side was to capture the supplies, so yes the wagons should be moved away from the federals. I guess, once captured they are under the command of Armstrong, but I'm not sure.
I agree that the next best thing for the Confederates would be to destroy the supplies and denying them to the Union. This can't be modeled by the game and announcing in chat is not ideal either.
What I did was to calculate the recaptured wagons as being impaired and counted them only half for the Union score.

Blaugrana wrote:
Could your trilogy be run as a campaign, Stefan, with troop losses carried over? That would (yet another) level of excellence.

Well, this would be nice, but I don't see any way of implementing this. The scenarios are meant to be replayed a couple of times, and the roles of players may change each time. And if the result of a game would be extreme, like the confederates are annihilated in trying to attack the Union supply route in scenario1, what would be the point in playing scenario2?

What could be done easier though is to implement minor changes to the scenarios like the units starting locations or mission-relevant locations.

I thought our Confederate chums might be interested in the Union objectives and plan. We had two infantry brigades, each escorting a wagon train, plus a cavalry brigade. The wagon trains were each to move to one of two farms, at which food had been collected, pick this up and move on to the granary at Union Mills. The two farms were widely separated however, and there was insufficient time to visit them in succession, so the division was ordered to operate in two independent columns. That was a concern, but there seemed no way round it.



I sent the weakest infantry brigade to the westernmost farm (Kerbel), hoping that they might not be spotted, and could sneak through to Union Mills. The main column consisting of the other two brigades were to move to the eastern farm (Millwell), show themselves and draw onto them any enemy forces. I hoped they would have the strength to fight their way through if necessary. Our cavalry brigade included an artillery battery. This consisted of replacements, and was not really combat-worthy, but we were hoping it could get a few shots off and frighten the rebels at least. I intended to travel with the main column.

Things appeared to go well at the outset. Colonel Fuller’s weak infantry brigade marched west and then south towards Kerbel Farm, and as far as we could tell had not been spotted. The main column moved east towards Millwell Farm, and were soon in contact with enemy militia, but our cavalry drove them off in fine style. This enabled Colonel Mower’s infantry and wagon train to push on as far as the Hanover Road. By this time regular Confederate cavalry had appeared, but Captain Jenks’ cavalry presented a brave front, and the enemy did not attempt to close. Mower’s wagons meanwhile pushed on to reach Millwell Farm without incident, and loaded the foodstuffs.

Although communication with the detached Fuller was understandably infrequent, things appeared to be going well at this point. There were a few causes for concern however. Time was moving on, and Mower’s wagons were authentically slow, which forced him to halt his infantry periodically for them to catch-up. Even then, the wagons were difficult to control, some seeming to have a mind of their own. Jenks was experiencing even worse problems with his artillery, which in spite of repeated orders to close-up did not appear at all. A gap had by now opened between him and Mower. Eventually we both decided that the guns would have to fend for themselves, and Jenks brought his Illinois cavalry up. They arrived in the nick of time, as rebel cavalry had just swept onto Mower’s wagons and captured most of them. Our own cavalry were able to retake the train - although in real life I suspect most would have been burnt by the rascally insurgents.

It was initially unclear who had control of the recaptured wagons, and there was further delay while we worked-out it was Jenks, rather than Mower. The latter pushed-on towards Union Mills with some of the wagons, while Jenks struggled to shepherd the others there as well. Another gap had opened between them at this point however. I did not help matters by ordering Mower to go on from Union Mills to Fuller’s relief, as I had received a message from him that he had been attacked by enemy cavalry E of Kerbel Farm, and was in trouble.

At this point, the rebel cavalry attacked again and once more captured several of the wagons – this time from Jenks! A quick order to Mower turned him around, and he was able to recapture the lost wagons for a second time. The Confederates evidently found as much difficulty as we did controlling them. We finally got them all to Union Mills, where we were surprised to find we had more than we started with! I was also pleased that Colonel Fuller was able to join us there with his remaining troops. Our artillery never did show up (we suspect broken roads on the map).

The senior officers joined me for an excellent dinner that evening, but I fear the rank-and-file will be on short rations for a while.

After this sort of debacle it is traditional for top brass to search for junior scapegoats. All my immediate subordinates are all quite blameless of course, so please step forward Mower’s wagon train commander and Jenks’ artillery battery commander, who are to face courts-martial for drunkenness and cowardice respectively.

A full bottle of Tennessee sippin’ whiskey has since led me to a bout of introspection however, and I have to admit to at least a couple of mistakes of my own. I erred in waiting too long before ordering Jenks’ cavalry up in support of Mower S of Millwell Farm, and then in failing to enforce tighter march discipline on the final stage into Union Mills.

A great game, played by all in an excellent spirit, and many thanks again to Stefan for running it.

Martin