For the past several years we have seen many articles complain/applaud the casualty tables in our favorite Civil War brigade system. Many noble and not-so-noble attempts have been proposed in these pages to "fix the problem." Some have been worthwhile, and others have thankfully been forgotten. Here is my modest attempt to add to this mix a possible easy solution.

The first question to ask is what is the "normal" casualty rate for a Civil War battle? Unfortunately there is no such thing. As each battle is unique to itself in who was where it was also unique in the factors that determined it casualties. Was visibility good or bad? How about cover and the quality of troops present? Were entrenchments used? What was the position of the sun relative to the firers, et cetera? Each field produced its own "normal." Generally and not surprisingly, if the engaged troops were standing in the open the casualties tended to be higher than if they were behind earthworks. I propose that there is no "normal" casualty rate that can be uniformly applied to these games. The scale of the games themselves dictate this.

Why the scale? Because we are dealing with brigades, not regiments. As players we are focused on two separate command levels. The first level is primarily the army commander's role; we issue orders to corps and see that they are carried out. The tactical level that concerns us divisional. We act as the division commanders in carrying out the orders from above. We cannot dictate below the divisional level how the battle will be fought. All we can do is place our brigades where we hope they can do the most damage.

Rules and Realities

In my opinion any rules that deal with realities below the division level are not worth the effort. Rules on "going prone" come to mind in this instance. I am certain troops did this; however, it would have been a command of the brigade commander or lower, not divisional or higher that made it happen. We need to stick with the structure of the games' focus, which is army for commands and division for tactics. So, now that we are focused on the level of command, the next question is what any of this has to do casualties.

As many of you know, there has been much ink spilt on the issue of whether the combat tables [Ed. note: the Fire Combat Table mainly, along with the Straggler Table and the Morale Table] are a good gauge of casualties over time in combat. Some argue that they are, others that they overstate the casualties. I propose that they are an adequate, and here is why. Our turn cycle is pegged at one half hour, a rather long time for a given brigade. With a half-hour turn we can realistically expect a brigade to stay in heavy combat for only three turns. The key to all this is ammunition.

A "typical" brigade would ensure that its men carried anywhere from 40 to 60 rounds of ammunition. Assuming that these men could fire off two rounds a minute (a rather slow rate) gives them one or two turns of shooting. Add some maneuver time and you average that into three turns. How many times in your games have your units blazed away on some target for three, four, five, or more turns? How did all that ammunition appear? What about picking up ammunition from the dead and wounded lying all around?

Certainly that would help explain some of the long-winded shooting, but try firing any muzzle-loader that has had 50 or more rounds fired through it in the last hour. You would be very lucky to get one round off per minute. Read Rufus Dawes's account of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry at Sharpsburg. While in the cornfield he complains of his powder being very bad and reports that it takes hard pounding for his men to ram their charges home. Certainly they were not getting off many rounds per minute.

What I am trying to get at is that the Fire Combat Table is probably fine for this scale. On the lack of hard evidence to the contrary we will never find the "normal" casualty rate for units at brigade level in the Civil War. So do not worry about the blood letting in the casualty table.

Firefight Longevity

My concern is the longevity of the fire fights. I believe the ammunition rules are not restrictive enough. Given enough ammunition, the real Civil War battles would have had casualty rates that approach ours in a game. Supplying attacking forces with ammunition was always a problem for Civil War forces. Take a trip to Sharpsburgh and notice that on almost all Federal plaques that the reason state for withdrawal from the front was the lack of ammunition (and troops no doubt!). [Ed. note: I won't take issue with the importance of ammunition. But I don't imagine that many battlefield monuments would record the reason for a unit falling back as "They got spooked and ran away."] Also, note the time in the forefront of the attack by these units; it was usually less than one hour, sometimes less than 30 minutes. In our games ammunition rules are only an occasional and rather minor annoyance. Unfortunately our Civil War counterparts were not able to ignore this issue. I propose that the Low Ammo rule be implemented on rolls of 10, 11, and 12. Units ran out of ammunition in the Civil War far more often than they do in my games. I also would propose a two-column shift to the left on the Fire Combat Table. The troops may not be all the way "out" or ammunition, but the effect of say 500 out of 1,000 men being out is pretty drastic. Also units that had fired many rounds through their guns often had difficulty loading them: black powder and the lead fragments tend to gum up the works after 30 or so rounds. We need to reflect that.

I propose that the troops being resupplied not be allowed to be within four hexes of any enemy forces. I have read of no instance during the war that units at brigade level or higher undertook an ammunition resupply from wagons on the firing line. [Ed note: How about 400 yards behind the firing line?] In my games it was not uncommon for the supply wagons to be placed just behind the leading units "just in case." Again, I know of no instance during the war when some supply column kept up with the tactical advance on the field. This rule change will force players to fully disengage their ammo-depleted units from the fight to resupply them.

It will also bring into play something we wargamers tend to ignore but our divisional counterparts were not able to, namely reserves. With this reworking of the ammunition rules, players will want to hold back a brigade or two from the front line so that they can come in and replace ammo-depleted units and maintain a steady rate of fire. No longer will you be as willing to place your entire force on the line with no reserves. In heavy combat your troops will become ammo-depleted; good general will find a way to always have fresh troops available for the crisis (read the accounts of the Union 12 Corps at Gettysburg. Not-so-good generals won't (read the accounts of General Wood's division at Chickamauga). [Ed. note: rotating brigades is also a good way to delay brigade and divisional wreckage. Given the four-hex offset proposed here, it may be a good idea to have brigades recover both stragglers and ammo simultaneously.]

I think that these small additions to the rules will tend to reduce the casualty rate because they will restrict the time that a unit is in contact with the enemy. This is the issue with the excessive casualty rates. The less time in contact, the fewer casualties you are likely to take or give. The Fire Combat Table in use I believe to be good. In my play I have noticed about a 5% to 15% drop in casualties from using these house rules, and I am forced to consider ammunition in a more important light. Give it a try and let the guys at The Gamers know what you think.