Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: ndrose

I think the phrase "assuming one is present" is the heart of the question. A force that is in an EiA area is not necessarily present in an entrenched position on the beach. It is probably nowhere near. An invasion force that found such a defense waiting for them would probably look for somewhere else to land. Are there examples from this period of fighting on the beach?

There seem to be plenty of examples of forces large and small landing and *not* fighting immediately. An army in that situation has a supply problem, but that is reflected in the game. By the time it fights, a day, a week, two weeks later, there is no reason to assume it has its back to the water.

When the French landed in Ireland in 1798, the first battle was at Castlebar, 10 miles from any coast and more like 30 from where they actually landed. Indeed, the later proliferation of the Martello Towers was an attempt to address the fundamental problem that if you didn't catch them at sea there was no way to know about and respond quickly to a landing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jimmer

I think you guys are missing the point:

An army that crosses water starts at the edge of that water (the "beach", if you will). It is then forced to fight an entrenched army (assuming one is present), at or near the place where they landed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mardonius

Hi Jimmer:

Your logic is clearly sound. So sound that I think that it encapsulates why this sort of operation never even took place in our era. (If I am wrong, please correct me... the closest I can think of are riverine crossings)

I can not think of an instance where anyone attempted an amphibious operation in the direct face of hostile guns until WW2 (note: Galipoli and the Peninsula Campaign of Virginia were initially unopposed). I do know that a few farmers from NY/NJ did hold up the whole British Army near Throg's Neck from being able to come ashore in force.

There were plenty of amphibious operations, true, but always involving landing troops away from enemy positions so that by the time the fights happened the troops were well past any port landing or beach (in small raids only) landing area. I think the best way to capture the landing penalty is a -1 to all combat die rolls/pursuits by the landing force during the first month of landing. What are your thoughts?

best
Mardonius

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ashtar

Jimmer, my point is that a land area in EIA is typically 100~200 km wide, and a turn a month long, so you do not necessarily have an army landing on the beach trying to go past an entrenched army.
Maybe you have an army landing unopposed and meeting the "defending ones" a couple of days later.

First of all, the minimum scale of a grand strategy game is such that a lot of small scale details got loss, this is unavoidable. Secondly, this is Napoleonic warfare, not WWI or II. Typical battles were fought on open ground, forget the trenches (a notably exception could be the fortified lines built by Wellington to defend Lisbon, but maybe that could still be considered as an enhancement of Lisbon fortification). Moreover, I doubt armies could have been capable of defending a 100 long km coastline in a WWII battle Normandy style.

quote:

ORIGINAL: NeverMan
I think the other point is this:

The areas in the EiANW maps represent a wide space, why is the army automatically entrenched in the beaches?

I'm just saying, the area is REALLY big. I mean if you want to get technical do you think that a 1 factor corps can encompass the entire shore of that area and STILL be able to defend itself? How far apart would the men have to be? Answer: too far apart to be effective.. probably a lot more than 5m.

EDIT: Sorry, I just read others' posts and noticed they covered this one.