steel god
Posts: 48
Joined: 7/8/2009
Status: offline
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I understand that Matrix is not actively working on FoF at the moment, so I'm not looking to complain for the purposes of affecting change; it's more like speaking out loud in hopes that some one will explain the rationale of how the game is designed so that I can accept it.
My issue is that I'm having a tough time with the way the rivers and gunboats are portrayed. The ease with which the CSA can push a major army across navigable rivers seems unrealistic to me. A friend explained to me that a river province means means you own both shores and therefore the crossing points, which I accept at face value. But, the logical answer would be to put forces into that river that could hinder that crossing and in FoF those forces are not Gunboats as one would suspect but, but ground units. It seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
If memory serves me, no navigable river was crossed by the Confederates during the CW, unless it was unopposed or the CSA controlled the crossing point with gun batteries/forts. Where the ANV crossed the Potomac I don't believe it was navigable. In the west along the Mississippi - Missouri - Ohio etc, no crossing were possible if the Union navy was present UNLESS the CSA had Forts/Batteries of their own to contest some portion of it. But none of this is present in FoF. The only naval assets on the rivers at all are gunboats which have been described as impressed private vessels with a gun on the bow, when in reality the number and quality of the River Ironclads fielded by the Union Navy was as impressive as it was vital. The entirety of the Vicksburg Campaign revolved around those boats.
Now like I said, I am open to an explanation of the existing rules as they are written. I just think the game makes a mistake down playing the Union River Navy, and the results of doing so, creates a strategic ground situation that is unrealistic, namely the possibility that significant CSA forces could have crossed the Ohio and invaded the north. They might have had the ability to get across, but would have never done so without a secure crossing port with batteries that they could control to secure their LoC otherwise they would know the Union Navy would cut them off. In FoF they are free to pursue the strategy because the Union Navy on the Rivers doesn't exist except as mobile siege artillery.
Thanks for listening.
< Message edited by steel god -- 7/17/2009 2:03:23 AM >
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Of Rivers, Gunboats and Forts - 
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