Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: teutoburgiensi saltu

How good is the Toaw series in simulating napoleonic era warfare?

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ORIGINAL: teutoburgiensi saltu

How good is the Toaw series in simulating napoleonic era warfare? I’ve noticed some napoleonic scenarios (waterloo) and some others for COW. Then I checked the editor and noticed that one can build units with 1800’s weapons technology. I’m aware of the fact that the game’s focus is on 20th century combat. The reason I’m interested in using TOAW for napoleonic era scenarios is because of its good AI. I suppose that a game that has been designed to primarily simulate 20th century combat is not the best option to simulate early 19th century linear tactics. But maybe when designing scenarios from a brigade / division level upwards, those short comings can be overcome. Anyhow, I would be interested to know if there anyone out there who has experimented with this. Any ideas, suggestions?

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

1. Hex Size. The minimum hex size in TOAW is 2.5 Kilometers. To really simulate the Napoleonic era we would need a hex size of 50 to 100 meters. This would necessitate infantry having ranged weapons.

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2. Communications. TOAW presumes distant units have some sort of communications that is instantaneous (wireless, radio, microwave or satellite) with their respective HQs. Napoleonic era scenarios require the speed of the horse rather that the speed of the electron to accurately depict communications prior to 1909.

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3. People. You and I do not play TOAW scenarios in the same fashion as warfare was conducted in the Napoleonic era. In TOAW you cannot win by lining the regiments up and marching into the face of enemy guns.

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ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

2. Equipment - while there are napoleonic cavalry and artillery items in the database, there is no "smoothbore musket" squad. And values used in the database assume even these items are employed in modern "non-linear" fashion. I used AT- teams as a substitute for a "smoothbore musket" company. And counted cavalry squads as platoons instead. All that was to give greater strength to artillery and cavalry relative to infantry as per Napoleonic realities. When an equipment editor becomes available, this can be better realized than currently.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

1. Hex Size. The minimum hex size in TOAW is 2.5 Kilometers. To really simulate the Napoleonic era we would need a hex size of 50 to 100 meters. This would necessitate infantry having ranged weapons.

Well- see Bob's Waterloo. The operational art wasn't a huge thing in 1815, but there is some scope for operational simulation.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms


[Chuck took a similar route in his ACW scenario. Because TOAW gives different equipment types a number of "shots", counting a squad as 10 men just didn't work, because it meant that artillery could only fire at 3 or so squads per turn.

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In retrospect, I would have recommended that Chuck at least go to one squad=one regiment, as a regiment was about the smallest meaningful maneuver unit in the Civil War.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

While I don't agree that you'd have to go to a scale that required ranged small arms fire, smaller map scales would be neat. You'd get both a sense of operational manuever and a nice grand tactical effect for battles(okay, very grand tactical).

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
For that matter, see your own War of the Ring scenario. That uses existing TOAW scales, doesn't it?

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms


[Chuck took a similar route in his ACW scenario. Because TOAW gives different equipment types a number of "shots", counting a squad as 10 men just didn't work, because it meant that artillery could only fire at 3 or so squads per turn.

This is how AT fire works in TOAW- but AP fire is just lumped together. One very powerful gun can kill lots and lots of equipment.

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In retrospect, I would have recommended that Chuck at least go to one squad=one regiment, as a regiment was about the smallest meaningful maneuver unit in the Civil War.

I think this would be a bad idea. Units would then be made up of only a few peices of equipment each and Chuck would lose fine control over the replacements system.
Presumably there were some modern rifles in the Confederate arsenal- but I can't imagine one often ran into entire regiments so equipped.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

While I don't agree that you'd have to go to a scale that required ranged small arms fire, smaller map scales would be neat. You'd get both a sense of operational manuever and a nice grand tactical effect for battles(okay, very grand tactical).

I suppose this could work out pretty well- provided one doesn't get into questions of line of sight, which would require major additions to the terrain in TOAW which are really beyond the scope of the system. I'm not a Napoleonic buff; what's the range of a smoothbore cannon when it's at home?

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ORIGINAL: rhinobones

Existing scales, operational? No, not really. It's more on the tactical side.

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Want to play a game?

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

19th century artillery isn't treated like "regular"(read: modern) artillery. They're basically considered to be like machine guns in the database.

But yes, there is a limit on how many targets each piece of equipment can engage; I very distinctly remember testing this out using toawlog.

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Not really. A brigade typically had about 4-5 regiments. A full strength regiment breaks down into about 3-4 companies. Chuck was using divisions as his maneuver units, right?
So, let's pick a random Confederate division at Gettysburg- McLaw's Division. Breaks down to about 20 pieces of infantry equipment using regiments, versus 60 or so using companies.

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I don't really see your point concerning modern rifles.

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It's also incorrect; especially in the West, Union forces often used captured Confederate rifles, most notably after Vicksburg.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

Offhand- I'd say a mile, mile and a half.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Though I have wanted to try your Revisionist War for some time.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

OK, you're right, this only applies to ranged peices. Still, I don't think a single 24 pounder peice would be likely to disable more than three companies in a single engagement. That's hundreds of men.

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Right. Weren't Union divisions a lot smaller? In any case, one often sees these units being divided, and taking losses. So a third of a Federal division after action might be two or three regiments. TOAW can have problems with such small amounts of equipment.

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It's thus: In Chuck's scenario as it stands, the Confederate replacement rate for breech-loading rifles is 6 companies per turn. This would make 1 1/2 or 2 regiments. Quite apart from the fact one can't have half a peice of equipment in TOAW, there are also various events which increase or decrease by a percentage value. Such gentle manipulation of the figures would be impossible if the replacement rate was 2. You can either halve the rate or increase it by 50%. No smaller change is possible. This gets even worse if you look at sharpshooter companies and flintlock companies (2 of each per turn).

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That's right. The Union was only able to achieve victory by plundering the fruits of the awesome military industrial machine of the Southern States.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

Didn't Chuck's scenario use weekly turns, though? Anyway, there were plenty of Civil War battles where artillery really mauled one side- Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. The first in particular is almost entirely attributable to Union artillery fire. I forget what the Confederate casualties were, but IIRC it was in the thousands, over the course of 12 hours or so.

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I was thinking that Chuck used corps as the basic manuever unit for the Union. If he didn't that is what would be most appropriate.

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Breechloaders and flintlocks just seem out of place to me. The Confederacy didn't field enough of either to be relevant at this scale.

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Pick up a history book. Grant reequipped his army after Vicksburg with captured Enfields; it's a fact.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

Offhand- I'd say a mile, mile and a half.

Well that would be a problem. If one reduces the scale down to the point where they can fire across the width of one entire hex, one is going to have to ask whether the shot is going to be able to pass through that hex without hitting anything. TOAW at present is not able to make any such test, and adding this would require a major overhaul of the terrain system.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

Didn't Chuck's scenario use weekly turns, though? Anyway, there were plenty of Civil War battles where artillery really mauled one side- Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. The first in particular is almost entirely attributable to Union artillery fire. I forget what the Confederate casualties were, but IIRC it was in the thousands, over the course of 12 hours or so.

Quite. This from 250 guns. So each gun only accounted for about 20 Confederate casualties in the course of the battle, only a fraction of one company.

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Breechloaders and flintlocks just seem out of place to me. The Confederacy didn't field enough of either to be relevant at this scale.

No? The Confederate receive 42 infantry companies altogether per turn, excluding reserves and militia. So you've just dismissed nearly 20% of their replacements.

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Pick up a history book. Grant reequipped his army after Vicksburg with captured Enfields; it's a fact.

No doubt. However, the reverse happened much more frequently, by virtue of the North being in possession of the vast majority of the capacity to make these weapons in the first place. That the South had these guns to capture in the first place is a consequence of the guns being taken from Federal arsenals upon secession or after battles. In particular, some 36,000 rifles were recovered during the Seven Days.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

OK, you're right, this only applies to ranged peices. Still, I don't think a single 24 pounder peice would be likely to disable more than three companies in a single engagement. That's hundreds of men.

Didn't Chuck's scenario use weekly turns, though? Anyway, there were plenty of Civil War battles where artillery really mauled one side- Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg. The first in particular is almost entirely attributable to Union artillery fire. I forget what the Confederate casualties were, but IIRC it was in the thousands, over the course of 12 hours or so.

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I was thinking that Chuck used corps as the basic manuever unit for the Union. If he didn't that is what would be most appropriate.

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Breechloaders and flintlocks just seem out of place to me. The Confederacy didn't field enough of either to be relevant at this scale.

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That's right. The Union was only able to achieve victory by plundering the fruits of the awesome military industrial machine of the Southern States.

Pick up a history book. Grant reequipped his army after Vicksburg with captured Enfields; it's a fact.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

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No doubt. However, the reverse happened much more frequently, by virtue of the North being in possession of the vast majority of the capacity to make these weapons in the first place. That the South had these guns to capture in the first place is a consequence of the guns being taken from Federal arsenals upon secession or after battles. In particular, some 36,000 rifles were recovered during the Seven Days.

I'm really tiring of responding to this pop history view of the Civil War. Do you seriously think that the federal government had massive(30,000+) stocks of British rifles sitting around before the war? Again, totally laughable.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

Again with the non-sequiturs. What are you talking about?

I must also point out that part of this completely contradicts your earlier (ridiculous)assertion that the Confederacy didn't have enough modern rifles to equip whole regiments with. But you do think that a regiment or so of breechloaders per week is kosher? Laughable.

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I'm really tiring of responding to this pop history view of the Civil War. Do you seriously think that the federal government had massive(30,000+) stocks of British rifles sitting around before the war? Again, totally laughable.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

No, neither side had large stocks of rifles available. Each side ended up buying a similar number of rifles from oversea sources like Britain. The difference ended up being that Northern domestic production of rifles far outpaced what the Confederacy attained from their crash firearm production effort.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

No, neither side had large stocks of rifles available. Each side ended up buying a similar number of rifles from oversea sources like Britain. The difference ended up being that Northern domestic production of rifles far outpaced what the Confederacy attained from their crash firearm production effort.

I also suspect that the South wasn't buying many guns at all in the later years of the war, with the blockade in full effect. Nor indeed did they have the financial resources that the Federal government enjoyed, due to their decision to stockpile cotton at the start of the war.

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ORIGINAL: golden delicious
And I'm tired of you evading the point: that the Confederates relied far more heavily on captured equipment than the Union did. This isn't even really a debatable point. Yes, the Union captured Confederate equipment, sometimes in large quantity. However this paled in comparison to the reverse.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2


In regards to the flinklocks, these represented some really old firearms that were being used. The Confederacy at one time was thinking about using pikes because of their shortage of firearms. IIRC Lee wrote a letter stating that this was a good idea. Or maybe it was Jackson. Eventually they purchased enough rifles from overseas to properly equip the troops and the pike proposal was dropped. But at the beginning of the war they had to use every firearm they could scrap up due to acute shortages.

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I think the breechloaders represent advanced weapons that didn't arrive until near the end of the scenario.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

True enough but the Confederacy usually had an adequate number of firearms in the later years of the war. As you alluded to earlier, they did capture many when they took the Harper's Ferry Arsenal in 1861 plus the machinery to fabricate more. The main problem was when they tried to rapidly expand the size of their army between late-1861 and early-1862. Imports between 1862-1864 including up to 400,000 British Enfield rifles met this problem and the Confederacy yielded large armies up to the last few months of the war.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2


In regards to the flinklocks, these represented some really old firearms that were being used. The Confederacy at one time was thinking about using pikes because of their shortage of firearms. IIRC Lee wrote a letter stating that this was a good idea. Or maybe it was Jackson. Eventually they purchased enough rifles from overseas to properly equip the troops and the pike proposal was dropped. But at the beginning of the war they had to use every firearm they could scrap up due to acute shortages.

The pike thing is way overblown, and I've never seen Lee's name attached to it. Joe Brown had some pikes made for the Georgia militia which weren't even issued. In general, the whole "flintlocks and squirrel rifles" school of thought is vastly overblown, and to the extent it was true, it was mostly the case early in the war in the West.

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The Confederacy did like to arm its sharpshooters with Sharps buffalo guns whenever possible, but they were very hard to come by. It was mainly the rate I objected to. Might be something to it, though- there was a recent book which dealt with the differences in skirmishing and sharpshooting tactics between the Union and Confederacy. I forget its name. But the thesis was basically that the Confederates had a light infantry superiority early on that hurt the Union badly until they were able to adapt.

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ORIGINAL: Fidel_Helms

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2

True enough but the Confederacy usually had an adequate number of firearms in the later years of the war. As you alluded to earlier, they did capture many when they took the Harper's Ferry Arsenal in 1861 plus the machinery to fabricate more. The main problem was when they tried to rapidly expand the size of their army between late-1861 and early-1862. Imports between 1862-1864 including up to 400,000 British Enfield rifles met this problem and the Confederacy yielded large armies up to the last few months of the war.

It's interesting to read about Lee's retreat away from Richmond. He was vexed over and over again by the arrival of trains bumping full of guns and ammo, when what he needed was food.

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ORIGINAL: Chuck2


There is a little bit about the pikes in the biography of Gorgas called Ploughshares into Swords. The peak of the pikes craze was in April 1862. Lee did order Gorgas to send 1,000 pikes to Jackson but that appears to be the extent of it.