Several years ago, we started playing Clash of Arms' Campaigns of the ACW area movement series (which includes Mississippi Fortress, Marching through Georgia, and others). We found the rules quite hard to digest, but once playing, the hidden units, dummies and cavalry recons made for a lot of tension and an enjoyable game. However, we also soon noticed that the game system had a problem with reproducing history, and eventually traced this back to the fact that the combat system, under certain circumstances, favours the defender much more than it should. Since the combat system, with its separate map and multiple battle rounds, is quite intricate, a simple solution evaded us, but using the system as written we could not reproduce the historical choices for the players. So we stopped playing the games. Then last year Vae Victis produced a Gettysburg game that obviously possessed some similarities to the CoA series, in particular, having very similar unit ratings, roster sheets, and a point-to-point map analogous to the CoA area map. So it occurred to me that it might be possible to transplant that game's combat system to the CoA games. As it turned out, this is true. In discussing the problem, I have occasionally encountered comments that "the combat system does not matter. This is an operational game, not a tactical one, and manoeuvre is the thing." Of course this misses the point. The details of combat may be unimportant but having a sensible range of outcomes is all-important or we could simply flip a coin and eliminate the losing army instead of going to all this nasty CRT and DRM and Column shift stuff. And of course manoeuvre is important in an operational game, but if combat is ahistorical, then so will your manoeuvres be, since they will be aimed to produce or avoid combat depending on which conditions make it favourable. The following is a detailed description of the possible battle outcomes using the two systems. MISSISSIPPI FORTRESS The MF historical notes point out that the Confederates had 20,000 men engaged at Champion Hill, of which 3,900 became casualties. The Union had 30,000 men, of which 2,400 became casualties. In game terms, the CSA had 32 infantry and 8 artillery points, the Union 35 and 8, respectively. The apparent discrepancy between those numbers appears to be due to the fact that Union and CSA strength points are valued slightly differently; also, the 20,000 figure does not include M.L.Smith's division which was kept in reserve until late in the battle and would give the CSA 28 points instead. (As we will see, it's not really relevant for the battle whether he is included or not.) I did not find any mention of scale in the rules, but will use a rough approximation of 1 strength point corresponding to 700 men in infantry units to translate game casualties back into real world terms (in examining the units I seemed to find that it was 800 for some, so we'll look at this briefly at the end). Union strength is roughly evenly divided between XVII and XIII Corps. The CSA has a 1-2 leader (Pemberton - in this battle only the 2 will be relevant as he is defending), the Union has a 3-2 leader (Grant), while one Corps has a 2-rated leader. ORIGINAL COMBAT SYSTEM To play the battle according to the original MF rules, we will make the following assumptions: The CSA will take as many infantry losses as possible (since in the defensible terrain of the Champion Hill area, artillery gets a multiplier and losing artillery therefore would reduce strength more quickly). Also, a quick look at the combat tables will make it obvious that the CSA will gain nothing at all from using a Counterattack order: it gets a weaker leader, worse odds, and the terrain benefits are negated. Since the point of giving battle at Champion Hill was to stop Grant, the defensive order that remains for the Confederates is Stand in all combat rounds. (The semi-official CoA reaction to the results given below is that the effects can be reproduced in the game by giving both sides weaker orders and letting Pemberton retreat of his own free will so the Union cannot simply march past him to Vicksburg by another route on the next turn. But of course these decisions bear no resemblance to what happened historically, where [as even the historical article included with the game states] Pemberton decided to make a stand, chose a quite sensible spot for it, and was forcibly swept off the field, losing a major part of his army in the process and being driven back to Vicksburg in a near rout. Thus, Stand it is.) On the Union side, either Assault or Advance is possible. We start with Assault. 1. Union uses Assault orders. Setup: The CSA sets up in one wing, to maximize strength. (All units are from the same formation, so all benefits accrue.) In defensible terrain, we get a strength of 32 + 3*8 = 56 points. The Union could set up either in one or two wings. One wing means a negative modifier since two corps are mixed, so we will try a two-wing setup first. XVII corps gets 26 strength points, XIII corps gets 25 (artillery doubled for Assault). For the sake of brevity I will not list the individual strength modifiers and column shifts (leader, terrain, ...) for each round. ROUND 1. On CIC B we get intensity 3 for Assault/Stand. There are two separate combats, one for each Union corps since it is a separate wing. These occur at 1:3 odds due to the various column shifts, resulting in 2/- losses in both cases. (Note that this result is not dependent on a dieroll!) On the FCRT, each wing gets to fire once (giving a slight advantage to the Union since ist two corps can fire twice on the CSA wing). All wings fire on the rightmost column. On the average, the CSA will cause 1 loss to one of the Union corps (we choose XVII Corps here). Each of the Union corps will cause 1.24 losses on the average to the CSA. So, after one round of combat, we have the following total losses over CIC B and FCRT: Union, on the average 5 (3 for XVII Corps and 2 for XIII Corps), CSA, 2.5 on the average. Note that the FCRT dierolls will lead to very little variation from this result - 80% of the Union losses are from the invariant CIC B. ROUND 2 AND END OF BATTLE Combat outcomes are unchanged from the first round, since odds and strength columns are the same. (However, usually the Union would slip off the rightmost FCRT columns first since its corps are smaller.) The battle thus ends, assuming average dierolls, with 10 Union losses (7,000 men) versus 5 CSA (3,500 men). This is closer to Cold Harbor than Champion Hill. 2. Union Advance orders. Next, I tried giving the Union Advance orders in both rounds instead of Assault. This has the effect of reducing some losses and the artillery modifiers. In both rounds, CSA losses will be 2 on the average and Union losses 3. The final outcome will be 6 losses for the Union (4,000 men) and 4 for the CSA (2,800 men). While the bloodletting is less, the outcome is still clearly in favor of the CSA, with FCRT dierolling making no big difference. In both cases, leaving out M.L.Smith's division will not alter the combat outcomes at all. 3. Single Union wing. As a second alternative, I set up the Union in a single wing opposing the single Confederate wing. That hurts the Union since the two corps are mixed, so I also put M.L.Smith in reserve on the CSA side to counteract this at least a bit. Together with the defensive modifier for CSA artillery in defensible terrain, this was still not quite enough to give the Union 1:1 odds (51:52), but I tried this as a variant where I simply assumed the Confederates were short one point. Using the actual 1:2 odds with Union assault orders, the average losses over two rounds of combat were: Union 6 (4200 men), CSA slightly below 2 (1400 men). With Union advance orders: Union 4 (2800 men), CSA 4/3 (900). Assuming that original numeric odds were 1:1, the losses with Union assault were Union 6 (4,200 men), CSA slightly below 4 (2,500). With Union advance, Union 4 (2,800 men), CSA again 4/3 (900). Pemberton, the Man of Iron... In summary, whichever type orders was given and even with assumptions that clearly favoured the CSA over the actual situation (and over any decisions a player would make from the game's point of view), the Union always suffered drastically compared to the CSA and except for the most beneficial assumptions always suffered far more than historically. Not only was the historical outcome improbable, it was effectively impossible. In other words, forget it. USING THE VAE VICTIS COMBAT SYSTEM To adopt the Vae Victis combat system, some alterations are necessary. In the Vae Victis game, leaders are not rated for attack and defense, but have a strategic value and a separate tactical bonus. Units have a morale value (e.g., 1 for the Union XI Corps and 4 for the Union I Corps at Gettysburg). Since such a value is neither given nor considered in the MF system, I simply ignored it. For leader ratings, I used the difference between the attacking leader's attack rating and the defending leader's defense rating. The morale rating is diced against to determine if one side retreats from battle early or which side retreats after the battle. The roll is only necessary for a side if it lost at least 20% of its initial strength. In MF, it might make sense to use a basic rating of 3 modified by the leader value difference as above, but I did not examine this closely as I did not need it for the example. The system itself (for those who don't know it) lets each side roll on the CRT to cause losses to the other side. The column is determined by the strength of the firing side. As in the CoA game, each side can choose orders before the battle (type of attack/defense). These orders determine strength and dieroll modifiers as well as whether the battle runs for 1 or 2 rounds and a casualty modifier. (For example, an Assault against a defense with Stand order will result in doubled losses and two rounds of combat unless one side is forced to retreat after the first round.) 1. Assault orders. For the CSA, I assumed a command of Stand (Tenir), for the Union, Assault (Assaut General). With a +1 leader mod (for Grant's 3 vs Pemberton's 2), results in average Union losses of 11 (7,700 men) and 12 (8,400 men) for the CSA. If we use the +2 flank modifier available in the VV game (since XIII Corps historically outflanked the main CSA line of defense and would gain the benefit if played according to the VV rules), losses are Union 11, CSA 16 (11,400 men). So the battle would be extremely bloody although it already approximates the historical loss *ratio* far better than the MF system. 2. Advance orders. Concluding that the historical battle was not an all-out assault in Vae Victis terms, I chose Advance (Assaut limite) for the Union. Using the flank modifier, this gives on average 5 1/3 losses for the Union (3600 men) and 6 (4,200) for the CSA. Lo and behold, the actual historical outcome is achievable by assuming Grant rolled well and Pemberton somewhat less well. 3. Stronger leader influence. I then tried a stronger leader modifier: - The DRM is modified for both sides by double the leader difference. However, the difference is limited to the value of the better leader. (Example: Grant (rated 3) gets a +2 over a '2' leader, a +3 over a '0' or '1' leader. Pemberton (2) gets 2 over a '0' or '1'. A '1' leader only gets +1 when facing a '0'.) In the example battle, with Grant (3) against Pemberton (2), it means that the Union gets a +2 and the CSA a -2 (double the leader value difference, and Grant has rating 3 so the +/-2 does not reach the limit). Given this rule and the flank modifier, the outcome with a Union Advance is: Union 2500, CSA 5000 on average. This seems to fit the historical outcome pretty well. If one assumes one strength point is 800 men not 700 (as seems to be the case for some units), the overall outcome is 2800/5900, bloody but bearable and the ratio still fits. Of course, a single battle does not make history, but assuming the Vae Victis system also works for Gettysburg, the battle it was after all designed for (and the first day of Gettysburg is presented as an example of the combat system in the game rules), that is already a fairly reassuring state of things. Since Then Since coming up with that adaptation last year, we have played a scenario and campaign of Marching through Georgia and a scenario of Autumn of Glory using the VV combat system and are quite pleased by the results. As is wont to happen when some major problem is removed, previously hidden minor problems become obvious in its wake. In Marching through Georgia this was the realisation that the campaign still developed in a strongly ahistorical manner, partly because the movement rules prevent achieving the historical marching speeds, but mostly because due to the high victory points assigned to putting the other side out of supply. Both sides would engage in huge cavalry raiding movements while the infantry is mostly busy protecting the railway back to the friendly map-edge. (This will send the Confederates racing backwards from the beginning of the game just to prevent being cut off from home by the Union cavalry, since they start with the much longer and more vulnerable supply line.) Ironically the Clash of Arms newsletter once printed an optional rule that showed how the Union guarded against such raids without pulling all its major units out of the front line (which you'd otherwise have to do in the game), but no such rule for the South. Historically the Confederates did not need to worry about this since neither side tried large cavalry raids until the frontline was close to Atlanta. CoA's response basically was that yes, they didn't but were stupid not to have done it so why not do it in the game. However, to produce a more historical course for the campaign, Stephen Rawling kindly provided the following optional rule: "While Johnston is CO, the rebel player must keep his cavalry units within 3 or less areas of some other friendly Confederate infantry or artillery unit". (This will prevent raids, but not sending mixed force detachments to try a flanking move.) This restriction is lifted if Hood becomes CO. Similarly the Union player must keep his cavalry units within 3 or less areas of some other friendly Union infantry or artillery unit until the Confederate player initiates the first use free of the restriction." Our next project in the series will be tackling the Autumn of Glory campaign. Since quite a few of the special rules for that game deal with both side's command structure, adding details to the original tactical system that are hard to replicate using the wing-less Vae Victis system, we will probably try to use a less radical adaptation in this case, replacing the FCRT/CIT combination with the Vae Victis CRT using appropriate modifiers, but retaining the subdivided battle board. We shall see how well it works. Back to Perfidious Albion #99 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com