1st time starting in April question...

[ajarnlance]

This is my first time starting in April and I have a very basic question... how do the rebels take Fort Sumter??

[havi]

they attack in it!

[Mickey3D]

Use one of the brigades in Fort Johnson to assault the fort (red offensive posture).

You can move from Fort Johnson to Fort Sumter without using riverine movement. If you want to be sure to storm the fort before end of turn one you can use riverine movement but this might give the opportunity to the defender to fire on you before the assault.

[ajarnlance]

Use one of the brigades in Fort Johnson to assault the fort (red offensive posture).

You can move from Fort Johnson to Fort Sumter without using riverine movement. If you want to be sure to storm the fort before end of turn one you can use riverine movement but this might give the opportunity to the defender to fire on you before the assault.

I tried assaulting Sumter with the entire force under Beauregard from Johnston (using normal movement NOT riverine). I was DEFEATED, I received heavy casualties. I tried your suggestion of just using one brigade and it worked. Don't know why there is such a difference but anyway, now I know how to do it. Although IRL Sumter fell in 36 hours to a simple artillery bombardment...

[ohms_law]

Command points make quite a difference.
The weather can make a hell of a difference too, so you have to be careful.

Personally, I've never been terribly happy with the way that it's implemented. I always thought that it should just be an event, basically.
Oh well.

[Captain_Orso]

Use one of the brigades in Fort Johnson to assault the fort (red offensive posture).

You can move from Fort Johnson to Fort Sumter without using riverine movement. If you want to be sure to storm the fort before end of turn one you can use riverine movement but this might give the opportunity to the defender to fire on you before the assault.

Only if the battery is placed outside the fort. Only then it will they fire on the troops while they are landing and force the the invasion and beach penalties on the invading troops. Don't forget to set them to Hold-at-all-Cost, or else they will retreat almost immediately.

I tried assaulting Sumter with the entire force under Beauregard from Johnston (using normal movement NOT riverine). I was DEFEATED, I received heavy casualties. I tried your suggestion of just using one brigade and it worked. Don't know why there is such a difference but anyway, now I know how to do it. Although IRL Sumter fell in 36 hours to a simple artillery bombardment...

Because your command penalties are so high. Command penalties do not affect just the troops added to a stack that cause the stack to be under-comanded. The affect ALL the units of the stack.

So you can either have 1 unit being well lead and fighting well, or 10 units, each of which the command hardly has good control and all of which fight poorly.

Then depending on the terrain, if there is very small frontage, the one defending unit can knock over the horribly commanded attackers one at a time.

Command points make quite a difference.
The weather can make a hell of a difference too, so you have to be careful.

Also, just luck can play a role. If the attacker had a lot bad luck the first rounds of battle, the troops fighting later will suffer from it. IIRC the morale of the entire force can drop if enough losses are take from even just a few units.

Personally, I've never been terribly happy with the way that it's implemented. I always thought that it should just be an event, basically.
Oh well.

What, and spoil the CS player's one great joy of the game?

Personally I feel there should be some very special rules for Sumter.

Bombardment should be possible between Sumter and all it's adjacent regions, which would make retaking Sumter later in the game a bit of a proposition.

Sumter should be in the middle of the bay and not accessible directly from a coastal region. Now you can land on it from the coastal region without the other forts firing on the invasion force. That was impossible in reality.

[ajarnlance]

Personally, I've never been terribly happy with the way that it's implemented. I always thought that it should just be an event, basically.
Oh well.

I agree. Given the limitations of the engine the initial taking of Ft. Sumter should just be an event.