Here are my house rules for the CWB regarding brigade fire splitting and detaching gun points for the morale shift.

Brigade Fire Splitting

I only allow brigades to split in half; i.e. A=2Bs or B=2Cs. I do not allow uneven splits; for example, A=C+B+C. I think this latter example is the type of gamey tactic you seek to prevent. The first example I think should be permitted and was what you originally had in mind. Additionally, I think a commander would seek to return the fire of all the troops firing on him, so as to not allow enemy troops in his front to fire on him undisturbed. Furthermore, I suspect it would also be the natural inclination of the troops themselves to shoot back at those shooting at them, as opposed to having their fire directed elsewhere.

In summary, if the troops are in good order, the brigadier should be able to split his fire if so desired; and if disorganized, they are likely to split their fire regardless of his wishes, as command control has broken down. Maybe as a bit of chrome, disorganized troops should be required to split their fire as evenly as possible amongst the troops in their front and only to fire at 2 hex range if there are no targets at I hex.

Battery Splitting

I do not do anything to prevent batteries from splitting. However, I do require the presence of 2 or more gun points with the troops for them to receive the benefits of being stacked with guns.

This has two main effects. First, one point batteries are more vulnerable to the Gun Loss Table as they do nothing to steady the troops. And, if they do survive the Gun Loss Table and the troops are driven back by 2-hex fires you still have the problem of limbering the guns at the front and the chances are good that the enemy will get a shot at them with his own cannons before they can unlimber or make it safely to the rear.

The second effect is this. Counter battery fires need only knock out 1 gun point of a 2 point battery to bring about this effect. Therefore, to build a gun line with some staying power you will need 3 or 4 gun points in the hex with some troops.

The above rule eliminates the advantages of the 1 point battery and at the same time discourages its employment.

Here are some other play tips I use:

1) When firing, I count up all the gun points in my line that will be firing and pay that cost up front. This eliminates having to remember to pay as you go during the phase as they fire off and will result in a more accurate tally of ammo usage over the course of the game. This also virtually eliminates any reason to keep track of fractional ammo expenditure.

2) I record corps supply wagon ammo supply on the Loss Charts next to the respective corps. This eliminates one more utility counter on the map.

3) I record artillery ammo expenditure on a sheet of paper, usually my orders sheet. This way the ammo counters cannot get knocked around. I do the same thing for McClellan Points.

4) For more limited intel, record Low Ammo status on the casualty roster, not with Low Ammo markers. This way your opponent cannot look over to see who is beat to close assault or fire on from a range of two hexes. One might want to consider allowing defending low ammo units to fire at 2 hex range during the defensive fire phase; assuming there are no adjacent targets. This denies any benefit to the attacker of this gamey tactic. Note that the attacker here is the player who is moving in the current half of the turn; not necessarily the guy with the attack orders.

Other comments:

1) Defensive Order Failure Optional Rule. I do not like the notion of the mandatory Emergency Retreats (ER) being brought on by Defensive Order Failure (DOF); this is too extreme. Instead, I would have the troops and their cannons fall back out of small arms range; that is at least a three hex retreat and roll the straggler check.

The corps HQ would be permitted to relocate to the rear; but would not be required to move 6 to 13 MPs back as called for by an ER. The corps would also retain its defensive orders, or if that's not feasible convert them to a defend in place order. An example of this would be a corps with orders to defend Culps Hill. After falling back, they would no longer occupy the hill and therefore the orderto defend Culps Hill changes to a defend in place order.

I explain the order conversion as follows. The ER is a form of initiative to flee from the enemy and is intended to preserve the threatened command from imminent destruction. Using the ER as written for DOF has the corps commander behaving in a craven manner when attacked; they flee from the enemy. My option has the cardboard commander yield ground more gradually; which is something the player probably does not want and would not do otherwise; without having the cardboard commander breaking into the head long flight of the ER.

While this may not seem like much, DOFs will usually happen to already wrecked corps and therefore are likely to occur frequently when they are attacked. (This is one more good reason to pull them outof the line to recoup them in the rear.) The DOF straggler check coupled with the morale and straggler penalties wrecked brigades incur should insure that wrecked corps will yield ground when seriously attacked ; and not hold to the last strength point, praying for the enemy to roll corps attack stoppage.

2) I love Thomas Prowell's suggestion for distorted order delay. Likewise, I look forward to trying out his incremental combat chart.

3) Unfortunately, my OPS issues 1-10 are at my cousin's house, so I cannot review them for the other good ideas that they contain.

Finally, one thing I would like to see would be some of the various ideas that you and the others have encountered which are not included in the game. I know from phone conversations with you that the limited use of independent detached extended line markers is okay, but not included in the official published version to prevent the obvious confusion and strife that wide spread use would cause; but for solitaire play, this is not a problem. These could be presented as optional rules for use by those who desire more detail or who play solitaire.

Morale

Thank you for printing my article, and for spending the time to spice up my accompanying map. Many thanks also to Sara for editing.

Since you've opened up the letters section to discussion of house rules, here's a contribution:

The Rally procedure seems inherently asymmetrical, letting the phasing player dodge the consequences of bad morale results by letting him improve morale immediately (in the immediately following rally phase), while the non-phasing player has to suffer through his following player-turn with any bad morale results unimproved. A veteran player will not even place his Shaken markers on his units in his own fire combat phase because they will be removed immediately, anyway. Likewise, he will place Shaken markers on units which get DGd. To me, this indicates a suspect procedure. Instead, I recommend the following for consideration:

I use two different shades of morale markers from different CWB games. When I place markers on phasing units, I use lighter colored markers. When I place markers on non-phasing units , I use darker markers.

During the Rally Phase, I recover phasing units with dark markers and non-phasing ones with lighter markers. In order to move routed units away from their unrealistic vulnerability immediately after they're routed (after all they are running pell-mell from the enemy), I move them 6 hexes away from enemy units when they rout, not in their next Movement Phase as in the rules.

My rule makes all units recover morale at the same rate, and it's simple and easy to apply.

Vet

A Game Piece comes to Life-A Vet from the 1st Bn, 110th Infantry. I met this guy after I stopped his car for a traffic violation, He showed me the below article he had written for his VFW newsletter. Although he is getting up there in years and many of the details are fuzzy, he remembered being wounded and captured in a night action around Clervaux. You should have seen his eyes light up when (after he told me he was in the 28th Infantry Division), I said, "Oh, the Bloody Bucket-Do you remember Col. Fuller?" (Thanks, Dean, you get an assist on that one.)

[Ed. Note: Don't mention it ... so, Jerry, did ),on give him the ticket or what?]

Mr. Cohen's grammar isn't the best-but, he sure is.

Morris Cohen: Ex-Prisoner of War (Unedited)

Although I would like to forget that bloody era, there are somethings that I just cannot forget about World War II-like the first time when I got wounded. We were engaged in a bloody battle in the Zigfried Lines when one of our men got hit and was trapped and cried out for help. He was in bad shape and I carried him out and on the way I got hit in the arm. I remember it feeling like a sharp sting-- not immediate pain--that comes minutes later. I kept on fighting until my arm got swollen and I was sent to a hospital in France. I almost lost my arm, but I made it. The boy I had rescued did not make it. Before he died, he wrote a letter to his Mother, telling her all about what happened and "if I live, I have to thank this man, Morris Cohen." She sent that letter for the War Department and they sent it to my wife. The boy lived three days--long enough to write his Mother for the last time.

As soon as my arm healed, I was sent back into battle and wound up in Luxemburg to the Battle of the Bulge. We were outnumbered, Germans were all over, casualties were many and a lot of us were wounded and taken prisoners. It started with a march I thought would never end-for days and days-and many of our men died. After finally crossing the Rhine, we were put into box-cars pressed like sardines for a five day journey. The box-cars may have been my worst experience--it was a seemingly endless nightmare, surrounded with people in agony. We arrived to Stalag XII-A. I wasn't too long there, when five of us were sent to a "farm". There we ate what we could steal and that was rotted potatoes.

Finally, we were liberated by the Russians and they sent me to the English lines where they cleaned us up (de-loused), gave us clean clothes and then sent us to the American lines. I was sent to a hospital for awhile and when I felt better, I was sent home.

The memories of the war took a long time to heal. No matter how deep I send the memories to the back of my mind, the sights and sounds and smells remain with me forever.