Thank You Father General

Even though the battle didn't go very well (in my opinion), I'd like to thank Neal for giving it a go. I always advocate experimentation, and with that must come the acceptance that sometimes the games will not go as planned.

A big problem is the Antietam map itself -- like slogging through a swamp. If we'd have tried to make a stand, there's no way to disengage on that map: too many fences, too much of a fatigue penalty for movement. My guys were exhausted for 90% of the battle.

Once again, thanks Neal. I appreciate the effort.

kg little mac

Mark

Sir, you are welcome. I look forward to continuing to to serve this community in whatever capacity I can. Although with the new baby, my schedule has tightened up a bit, I can still manage all this and will do so. I plan on getting everything set later today, but could possibly use some AARs or a replay.

I already have the processed master OOB back from Hays. I'll specify the disposition of each side's troops then send it our to the side commanders for study and consideration.

This will be a fun campaign!

Thanks again for the recognition. :-)

-Neal

Sirs,

I submit my report of the battle in and around Harper's Ferry yesterday.

I was in charge of a Corps in the Army of Western Virginia, consisting three infantry brigades under Hazard (Sspoom), Rubinchik (Mitra), and Schmid (Grog), plus a battery of artillery under Frobel (Blackstreet).

I was under direct orders from General Neal to assault across the lower stone bridge immediately, and prevent the Yankees from evacuating the arsenal in the town.

The assault fairly well followed the initial plan. While the long-range artillery was moved into a position to fire upon the enemy batteries, Hazard's division moved into a position where it could engage the enemy who were within firing distance across the creek. The intention was to drive back the Yankee infantry, and artillery, which would allow an assault over the bridge. After around 15 or 20 minutes of artillery and infantry duelling over the river, Schmid's division was ordered to cross. Unfortunately, the lead brigadier Byrd (Neal) caught a piece of shrapnel just before the assault started. General Schmid had to reorganise his forces and so the assault was somewhat delayed. Once underway, Byrd's brigade was able to cross the bridge. There was some melee, but the Yankees were swiftly driven back.

It was at this time that I noticed Rubinchick's division on our left, who had also been engaging the enemy over the river, had ordered his men to swim across. This was a dangerous move, and against the orders of the Father General who commanded the Army. I sent three messages to General Rubinchick not to cross there, but the only messages I recieved were that of success at driving the enemy away.

By this time the enemy were in full retreat. I ordered Hazard's division across the river, and for the next few hours we drove the enemy hard. First the Yankees regrouped NW of the town. Hazard did a superb job of moving around to their left, while Alcibiades brigade (BoldRover) monitored our left. Several attempts were made to encircle the enemy, but they kept on the move, and this prevented their complete destruction. By the end of the day, our forces were still pursuing the enemy several miles North of the town. The enemy had started to fragment, and one of these fragments (KGSoldier) was able to harass our artillery.

Sirs, we have those Yankees on the run, and I hope to continue to drive them hard. I await orders and other news.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

Maj. Gen. O S Blackstreet
Army of West Virginia

P.S. Yes, thank you so much for your time and effort Neal, and I'm so sorry you dropped! I think I have got the asymmetry thing out of my system for a while at least It was a lot of marching, and a lot of exhausted units. It was very tiring. And the boys' boots are worn to the skin.

Thank you Neal and all those who took part.

Sorry Neal for your early departure. I had just sent you some orders when I learned of your fate. Funnily, I then received some orders to me written from myself, ha!, I was confused.

Appologies to all CSA for my less than inspired performance. I did find it tricky marshalling the division down that crowded road. I was TC'ing my regiments over the bridge when I was distracted by Mitra across the river about to take all the glory , and accidentally gave my leading brigade a formation order. Thus, my regiments started marching back along the road, causing a dreadful traffic jam. Spoom, rightfully, got his troops over whilst I fumbled about.

I was also having some subordinate control problems stemming form my forgetting to allow time for the couriers to deliver my orders. I really am still getting used to some of the finer points of this game. More time in boot camp should help

I did record the battle as a Fraps movie, if anyone is desperately interested?

Also, saved the replay, if you still want it Neal?

Mike

Mike doesn't you know that italians never respect the lines ; anyway I found the concept of battle very good, bravo Neal; only should be necessary give more "problems" to the the attackers, like enemy reinforcements expected after some time or a minimum time for take the objective.

mitra wrote:Mike doesn't you know that italians never respect the lines ; anyway I found the concept of battle very good, bravo Neal; only should be necessary give more "problems" to the the attackers, like enemy reinforcements expected after some time or a minimum time for take the objective.

Hey Mitra - I think the idea of the rule that we were only allowed to cross at the one bridge was intended to give us all the "problems" we needed. I think your assault over the river was really against these rules and made it too easy for us CSA.

Mitra is right.

Caesar and the Rubicon.

Ale alecta est!

Father General wrote:Mitra is right.

Caesar and the Rubicon.

Ale alecta est!

Ok, i'm confused - a word in TS Neal?

Blackstreet I don't remember in the orders any rule about the river be considered not fordable a part of the bridge, if it was written in other posts my apologies to all you guys and to Neal. But if a rule was broken why dont' tell me in TS before I completed the fording?

mitra wrote:Blackstreet I don't remember in the orders any rule about the river be considered not fordable a part of the bridge, if it was written in other posts my apologies to all you guys and to Neal. But if a rule was broken why dont' tell me in TS before I completed the fording?

Well, in the Battle Doodle page:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Neal wrote "The Confederates MAY NOT cross at any other point and must take the bridge to press into the town."

In my orders I wrote " the commanding general has decided that we shall all be crossing at the one stone bridge."

And during the pre-game discussion, Neal reiterated that we could only cross at the bridge, and I also stressed that this was the plan.

Regarding the use of TS: I did consider using TS to tell you to fall back, but had to make a snap judgement on whether this would be in the spirit of KS. In the end I sent you several couriers saying that you must not cross there.

In the end, I don't think it affected the outcome very much. Sspoom and Grog were driving the Yanks away at the bridge very effectively. And of course, your assault over the bridge was very well handled indeed - I imagine the firing over the creek that your division started with did a lot of the damage.

Still - all good fun, and of course on the other hand I was delighted to see Kevin's right flank get such a pummelling from you

Blackstreet wrote:
Regarding the use of TS: I did consider using TS to tell you to fall back, but had to make a snap judgement on whether this would be in the spirit of KS. In the end I sent you several couriers saying that you must not cross there.

Well in reality is arrived only one and I was already on the other side, so perhaps the other were covered by other messages to my regiments. Remember that I 'm not english as mother language so is not always easy for me understand what you tell (especially Kevin ) . When I saw yankees defend the banks for river face to me I assumed it was because they fear we can pass it, otherwise why some many regiments far from the bridge? (also if at the end it was only one I saw from the replay)

mitra wrote:
When I saw yankees defend the banks for river face to me I assumed it was because they fear we can pass it, otherwise why some many regiments far from the bridge?

This is a good point. Kevin?

Initially we had two regiments in the woods to harass the rebel troops as they marched down the road. I received a message from Hays that there were a lot rebs on our side of the river. I thought this was part of the scenario. You know how Neal lies. I thought this was a secret crossing point he had thrown into the scenario since it would have been difficult to effect a crossing at the bridge. I immediately gave orders to disengaged and fall back to the high ground north of town. In order to get the artillery safely away, I sent Palmer's brigade to the stream crossing to help slow down the rebel advance. Those were the troops seen by Mitra.

Once the arty was away and Hays had disengaged, Soldier pulled away from the bridge. That is when the rebs began to cross. None had attempted the bridge up until that time. That gave added weight to my belief that the stream crossing was part of the scenario. There was no need to commit suicide when there was a better way across. I do admit that I thought it unsporting that Neal put the secret crossing so close to the legitimate one. But you know how Neal hates to see his boys in grey falling in windrows.

I must say, that my 3 brigade commanders, Mark, Niall and Ron, made an extremely difficult task of breaking contact with a numerically superior force look easy. Twice. It was a very impressive display of troop handling.

If we have other scenarios that require troops to avoid certain area, I think I know how to have the game prevent troops moving through certain areas. I can make or show someone how to make a special bmp of the map.

Blackstreet sneers:

Still - all good fun, and of course on the other hand I was delighted to see Kevin's right flank get such a pummelling from you

You will regret the insult, sir. You will regret it very much.

Uncle Billy wrote:Initially we had two regiments in the woods to harass the rebel troops as they marched down the road. I received a message from Hays that there were a lot rebs on our side of the river. I thought this was part of the scenario. You know how Neal lies. I thought this was a secret crossing point he had thrown into the scenario since it would have been difficult to effect a crossing at the bridge. I immediately gave orders to disengaged and fall back to the high ground north of town. In order to get the artillery safely away, I sent Palmer's brigade to the stream crossing to help slow down the rebel advance. Those were the troops seen by Mitra.

Once the arty was away and Hays had disengaged, Soldier pulled away from the bridge. That is when the rebs began to cross. None had attempted the bridge up until that time. That gave added weight to my belief that the stream crossing was part of the scenario. There was no need to commit suicide when there was a better way across. I do admit that I thought it unsporting that Neal put the secret crossing so close to the legitimate one. But you know how Neal hates to see his boys in grey falling in windrows.

I must say, that my 3 brigade commanders, Mark, Niall and Ron, made an extremely difficult task of breaking contact with a numerically superior force look easy. Twice. It was a very impressive display of troop handling.

If we have other scenarios that require troops to avoid certain area, I think I know how to have the game prevent troops moving through certain areas. I can make or show someone how to make a special bmp of the map.

Blackstreet sneers:

Still - all good fun, and of course on the other hand I was delighted to see Kevin's right flank get such a pummelling from you

You will regret the insult, sir. You will regret it very much.

I think they was the initial two, the visible out of woods, they start to engage Spoom units and I saw one of his regiment try to crossing (probably because of the AI). Because there was no action on the brigde at that moment I assumed Grog was blocked by the fire and you were defending the woods from the crossing with more regiments behind, and when I saw your reinforcements I assumed they were already in the place since the start

To be clear, there was no second or secret crossing.

Two reasons:

1. The Father General is a very insistent personality so that he would never permit such a thing as tactical finesse to interfere with his Biblical duty.

2. If you look at Harper's Ferry, you cannot cross from the East except by bridge. You physically cannot ford the river, which is below the bluffs. The rule was designed to simulate this.

Next time, I will not have so much of a role designing the scenario. It will be based entirely on your movements, so we can expect a better battle.

-Neal

Early on 1 of my regiments did cross on its own as I tried to get the regiment in question into firing position.
I did call them back(much to their dismay at around 80 casualties)
Later I gave a whole brigade road march orders to cross the bridge for whatever reason, pathfinding or just proximity
to road on other bank, the whole brigade waded across. In Hits its a bear to stop things like this once they start happening. In theory the Idea of crossing the bridge and bridge only was sound and seemed like a real tough nut to crack. In reality the engine didnt support it as fully as we would have liked. I was on the far side of the bridge when I ordered the brigade across by road so maybe they headed to me THEN were going to take the road.

kg_sspoom wrote:In theory the Idea of crossing the bridge and bridge only was sound and seemed like a real tough nut to crack. In reality the engine didnt support it as fully as we would have liked.

That's a nice summary

Someone mentioned a fraps recording of this battle. Is it around somewhere please?

Mr Digby,

I did record a frapps account but I doubt I have it anymore ( I didn't upload it to youtube). I will look but wouldn't recommend the movie, anyway.