Campaign update 10/4

Mr. Digby wrote:Lets just try and avoid initiating too many melees. I know that in HITS and especially in wooded terrain two sides can collide accidentally and in fact most of our melees happen in these circumstances because you often can't see the enemy nor exactly where your units are heading and the auto-charge function kicks in and takes over.

Jack, you're quite right, we all know hand-to-hand fighting took place but if you begin to list these instances by name, that's just a way of illustrating how rare they were. How many battles ocurred where there wasn't any significant melee? Or where charges were ordered but the troops didn't come to physical blows.

Perhaps a sophist argument at best as I only listed the first battles that came to mind. I suspect that by reading the first-person accounts, such as the following from a Southern soldier in the Army of Tennessee opposing Uncle Billy's March to the Sea, we could determine the actual number. Unfortunately, I don't have that much time left, I'm afraid! LOL Someone younger will need to accomplish that task.

"Column after column of Federal soldiers were crowded upon that line, and by referring to the history of the war you will find they were massed in column forty columns deep; in fact, the whole force of the Yankee army was hurled against this point, but no sooner would a regiment mount our works than they were shot down or surrendered, and soon we had every "gopher hole" full of Yankee prisoners. Yet still the Yankees came.

"It seemed impossible to check the onslaught, but every man was true to his trust, and seemed to think that at that moment the whole responsibility of the Confederate government was rested upon his shoulders. Talk about other battles, victories, shouts, cheers, and triumphs, but in comparison with this day's fight, all others dwarf into insignificance. The sun beaming down on our uncovered heads, the thermometer being one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and a solid line of blazing fire right from the muzzles of the Yankee guns being poured right into our very faces, singeing our hair and clothes, the hot blood of our dead and wounded spurting on us, the blinding smoke and stifling atmosphere filling our eyes and mouths, and the awful concussion causing the blood to gush out of our noses and ears, and above all, the roar of battle, made it a perfect pandemonium. Afterward I heard a soldier express himself by saying that he thought "Hell had broke loose
in Georgia, sure enough."

. . .

"After we had abandoned the line, and on coming to a little stream of water, I undressed for the purpose of bathing, and after undressing found my arm all battered and bruised and bloodshot from my wrist to my shoulder, and as sore as a blister. I had shot one hundred and twenty times that day. My gun became so hot that frequently the powder would flash before I could ram home the ball, and I had frequently to exchange my gun for that of a dead comrade.

"Colonel H. R. Field was loading and shooting the same as any private in the ranks when he fell off the skid from which he was shooting right over my shoulder, shot through the head. I laid him down in the trench, and he said, "Well, they have got me at last, but I have killed fifteen of them; time about is fair play, I reckon." But Colonel Field was not killed--only wounded, and one side paralyzed.

"Captain Joe P. Lee, Captain Mack Campbell, Lieutenant T. H. Maney, and other officers of theregiment, threw rocks and beat them in their faces with sticks. The Yankees did the same. The rocks came in upon us like a perfect hail storm, and the Yankees seemed very obstinate, and in no hurry to get away from our front, and we had to keep up the firing and shooting them down in self-defense. They seemed to walk up and take death as coolly as if they were automatic or wooden men, and our boys did not shoot for the fun of the thing. It was, verily, a life and death grapple, and the least flicker on our part, would have been sure death to all. We could not be reinforced on account of our position, and we had to stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder.

"When the Yankees fell back, and the firing ceased, I never saw so many broken down and exhausted men in my life. I was as sick as a horse, and as wet with blood and sweat as I could be, and many of our men were vomiting with excessive fatigue, over-exhaustion, and sunstroke; our tongues were parched and cracked for water, and our faces blackened with powder and smoke, and our dead and wounded were piled indiscriminately in the trenches. There was not a single man in the company who was not wounded, or had holes shot through his hat and clothing. Captain Beasley was killed, and nearly all his company killed and wounded. The Rock City Guards were almost piled in heaps and so was our company. Captain Joe P. Lee was badly wounded. Poor Walter Hood and Jim Brandon were lying there among us, while their spirits were in heaven; also, William A. Hughes, my old mess-mate and friend, who had clerked with me for S. F. & J. M. Mayes, and who had slept with me for lo! these many years, and a boy who loved me more than any other person on earth has ever done.

"I had just discharged the contents of my gun into the bosoms of two men, one right behind the other, killing them both, and was re-loading, when a Yankee rushed upon me, having me at a disadvantage, and said, "You have killed my two brothers, and now I've got you."

"Everything I had ever done rushed through my mind. I heard the roar, and felt the flash of fire, and saw my more than friend, William A. Hughes, grab the muzzle of the gun, receiving the whole contents in his hand and arm, and mortally wounding him. Reader, he died for me.

"In saving my life, he lost his own. When the infirmary corps carried him off, all mutilated and bleeding he told them to give me "Florence Fleming" (that was the name of his gun, which he had put on it in silver letters), and to give me his blanket and clothing. He gave his life for me."

J

When talking about melees I don't include any combats that involved the defence or assault of works, since with works, melees were the rule, not the exception.

In open field battles the reverse was true.

In your quoted account Jack, do you see how much emphaisis is put on shooting and not on actual hand to hand combat? This is my point - actual melee was rare.

Mr. Digby wrote:When talking about melees I don't include any combats that involved the defence or assault of works, since with works, melees were the rule, not the exception.

In open field battles the reverse was true.

Oh, I see. My misunderstanding of the definition of melee as I did not differentiate between types of melees/hand-to-hand combat. Thanks, Diggy, for the clarification.

In my frame of reference, any closure of the troops with the ranges described in the contemporary account I quoted would qualify as a melee! But, that is just my definition! LOL

J

Sadly in war there are very view gentlemans agreements and this is a war game and if i feel the need to charge a section of your line with say 2 of my regiments then i may do so also i cannot help what auto charge does.

But remember this and you can ask most of those that play GCM here i am not a big charger but feel it is wrong to force this on players if you want to errr on the side of realism.

Jonah, we must remember that the Hits and Couriers games do not use the GCM; therefore, a massed charge in road columns would be much more effective than one in the GCM mod as it is today.

That said, I think everyone here understands these will not be the no holds barred fights which are GCM battles. I love them. You will not find more drama and excitement in any game anywhere.

That doesn't mean these games will not be fun, just different.

The Hits games are more historically based and I think everyone understands they should play as historically as possible.

I will play by whatever rules are agreed upon and will not offer my opinions on any.

I really don't think we will have any problems.

Mark

I do have one question regarding units in melee.

If you have a regiment autocharge, must you retreat a unit already in a melee which you initiated? Because rarely in GCM games does anyone actually press the charge button. You simply march your flag to the enemy's and let autocharge do the work.

Mark

kg little mac wrote:I really don't think we will have any problems.
Mark

I agree, Mark. In all the games I've played with this group we haven't had a post-game argument re this sort of thing. On your question re auto-charging, my feeling is that, in keeping with the spirit of the rules, you should avoid letting one regiment auto charge if another is already meleeing.

Jeff

Agreed soldier I just feel for historical accuracy it should be allowed does not mean to say I will use it.

If I come up against a reb regiment on stone walls I should be able to use whatever means I have available to me and if I think it will need more than one regiment to carry the victory and hold those walls then it should be allowed in the rules to do so.

I believe everyone here wants this to be as close to real as we can make it.
To me rule 7 just seems to start problems before the game ever starts.
If the situation ever arose where I had 2 big regiments of dubious quality going up against 1 smaller higher quality regiment holding a wall per se, wouldnt it be crazy not to charge with the 2 before they break under fire?
I would do it in a heart beat.... wouldnt everyone else? including Jackson, Lee, Sherman and obviously Grant?
This type of thing should never cause a argument or hard feelings or even be considered (IMHO) a violationn of rules in either name or spirit.
Now if I ran my whole brigade over them I could see cause for concern =)

I agree 1 regiment seems a bit odd. How about you just can't charge your whole brigade simultaneously, as that was rare. If I do charge, it's usually only 1-2 regiments.

Thankyou Baldwin and Steve.

Agreed, no gentleman's rules in war, but we are not at war, we are playing a game for relaxation and entertainment. Easy to have gentlemen's rules in a game.

The issue is not so much one of historical accuracy or realism, its that the game behaves so differently to reality.

In SoW we charge a lot because it works. Its a good way for the player with 2 big green regts to smash that smaller high quality regt off that stone wall.

In the ACW commanders might also have ordered charges a lot but unlike SoW, mostly, it didn't work. Firefights were the norm. Many units ordered to charge failed to reach their targets and stopped to engage in firing or fell back. Many units being charged wouldn't hold their ground and retreated.

SoW just handles this badly and incorrectly.

We all know this.

Its why massed charges worked in GCM until a while ago. The GCM group has spent a long time discussing this and adjusting the game so that mass charges no no longer work so well. It is also easier in GCM with the more elevated camera position to identify when players are mass-charging and counter it, or call a player out on using the tactic.

In HITS it is often impossible to see what is going to hit your command until you are in a world of hurt, and we play with vanilla rules, mostly, so mass charges could be conducted without players even realising it until its too late.

Obviously, if the AI auto-charges we can't count that as a player-instigated charge. I used the word "instigated" or "initiated" deliberately to differentiate between AI auto-charges and charges a player orders via the button supplied on the toolbar for that purpose. If a pair of units have bumped together by the AI bringing them into auto-charge range that doesn't count as a player-ordered charge and the player is still free to order a charge elsewhere.

We players are all aware that in the game charging is much more effective and much less risky than it was in reality. It also can damage an enemy much more. This is why I say a 1 regt at a time rule is valid and useful.

If our umpire and 2 corps commanders endorse it then its a rule. We are not going to go round the houses again in this discusssion. This is a HITS & couriers campaign and we'll be playing in the spirit of how those games are played. If you really cannot trust yourself to be restrained and not throw half your brigade into melee at once, you need to ask yourself "is this playing style for me?"

Well let's just hope that the Oob and scenario designers learned the lesson of our sunken road scenario when they set the experience levels.
If the Yanks are saddled with troops like we had there this Will be over before it gets started.
I had 2 large irregulars get close enough to shoot at 1 reb unit that was half the size of a single regiment.
The reb then proceeded to shoot up the yanks and the yanks did not get ANY hits on the rebs.
4 to1 and the 1 was dominant. So if they can't charge and they can't shoot what is their option?
Everyone seems to forget that the defenders can leave before getting caught in a 2 on 1 melee and thus mimic what the soldiers would have done IRL.

Martin you spent a fair bit of time trying to get me to jump ship before but I didn't want to I stayed behind and discussed the faults even tested the system used by the gcm group now and now I am here you do not want to even listen to our point of view . As sspoom pointed some situations may demand the use of 2 regiments to charge a good position and as he also stated you can withdraw your troops in a timely fashion as to not get caught in melee.

I came here by choice and as you suggest I now think that could be a mistake. Remember that at no time have I said I will blatantly use mass charges to conduct my part in the campaign I just believe that this is not your normal HITS game but a separate campaign using the HITS style of playing the game and as such the rules set should agreed by all parties involved from the oldest members to the.newest members.

M.Jonah wrote:[...] I am here you do not want to even listen to our point of view.

Mark, your point of view has been listened to. It has been debated at length. It has not won over the umpire and the two corps commanders and they decide the rules for this campaign. I hope you take part, that we all enjoy it and that the details of Rule 7 don't decrease that enjoyment an iota.

Yours,

Jeff

Rule 7 Will almost inevitably lead to problems.
When the 1st 2 v 1 happens and with autocharging it certainly will
the fingerpointing and accusations will start.
I personally would have liked to see more people put their opinions
out there and have this discussion include all of us heard on this important issue.
I don't want to see this attempt at a campaign fall apart like all the others.
Steering people to the door who have differing ideas is not going to help our group grow.
Assuming all want it to grow ( I hope all want it to grow but I'm not convinced everyone feels this way)

kg_sspoom wrote:Steering people to the door who have differing ideas is not going to help our group grow.

Steve, 'having differing ideas' is not the problem. We all have differing ideas. As I see it, the problem here is that this has been debated and debated and the people who are in charge of the campaign (the umpire and the two corps commanders) are happy with the rule. The umpire has issued his decision. The debate (as far as deciding the rules for this campaign is concerned) is over. The rules are what they are.

I strongly disagree that anyone is being steered to a door for having differing ideas. The issue is whether one can agree to play on despite disagreeing with a rule.

Yours,

Jeff

Jeff

I think you need to re read Martin's post that's exactly what he was doing. This topic was agreed before it was debated properly and our corps commander did not discuss this with me to listen to my fears when he had ample opportunity in ts.

I respect the way you guys want to play but remember this is only one rule that has been argued against and remember that we are not talking division sized mass charges just at most a brigade size.

-Mark

kg_sspoom wrote: I believe everyone here wants this to be as close to real as we can make it.
To me rule 7 just seems to start problems before the game ever starts.
If the situation ever arose where I had 2 big regiments of dubious quality going up against 1 smaller higher quality regiment holding a wall per se, wouldnt it be crazy not to charge with the 2 before they break under fire?
I would do it in a heart beat.... wouldnt everyone else? including Jackson, Lee, Sherman and obviously Grant?
This type of thing should never cause a argument or hard feelings or even be considered (IMHO) a violationn of rules in either name or spirit.
Now if I ran my whole brigade over them I could see cause for concern =)

"You betchum, Red Ryder!"

J

We are not going to accept players hitting the charge button for "just at most a brigade size". I do not think I am being unreasonable to suggest that if you can't change the way you play in this group you are better off not playing. If you are a smoker and its a no-smoking room, you don't smoke. You need to apply that kind of logic here. I'm not steering you to the door, but it is you who is saying, "I might well ignore those no-smoking signs and light up if I want." That's the problem. The kind of gameplay you're supporting is one of the reasons several of us don't play GCM any more and everyone in the HITS group does not play that way. We won't accept it.

It was unfortunate that the campaign got running before we had the chance to discuss this, but even so we have had the opportunity to air our views. Mark, you are going to have to take on board the fact that this group has a different playing ethos and change your style accordingly.

I would not dream of joining a GCM game and trying to play in a HITS style. I'd be slaughtered quickly. You need to respect the different approach a different group has and play within their rules.

M.Jonah wrote:Martina you spent a fair bit of time trying to get me to jump ship before but I didn't want to I stayed behind and discussed the faults even tested the system used by the gcm group now and now I am here you do not want to even listen to our point of view . As sspoom pointed some situations may demand the use of 2 regiments to charge a good position and as he also stated you can withdraw your troops in a timely fashion as to not get caught in melee.

I came here by choice and as you suggest I now think that could be a mistake. Remember that at no time have I said I will blatantly use mass charges to conduct my part in the campaign I just believe that this is not your normal HITS game but a separate campaign using the HITS style of playing the game and as such the rules set should agreed by all parties involved from the oldest members to the.newest members.

Listening to all is always a good option, rather than having 2 or 3 select individuals be the deciding factor....at least in my humble consideration.

J

The reverse view also has its merits

Mr. Digby wrote:The reverse view also has its merits

Which are??????

J

That having a small number of senior people decide something on behalf of the masses is a good thing.