Entrenchment

[BattleVonWar]

I read a thread here mentioning Entrenchment here from last year and that in places in history it was historical. Lee was always digging in and that the game engine takes into account that you will use natural terrain as a form of entrenchment. Although in the Civil War the use of entrenchment varied greatly. It seems that the entrenchment in our game post '61 is universal and intense.

I don't know if I am wrong but all the major Eastern Theater Battles used terrain more often until very late in the war? We have some fairly heavy entrenchment bonuses and maybe for good measure. Do you figure this balances the tactical aspects of this game or do you think it's overkill?

Also it favors the Union later due to it's artillery edge a great deal. Meanwhile Artillery proven in through WW1 to be effective in deciding tench warfare? Not really IMHO... It was more wear and tear, shock and awe.

Perhaps an RGD like: Over The Top or Elite Flank the Enemy to reduce entrenchment value on a limited basis to represent tactical brilliance by a General or a General with a capability to do this himself would benefit the game play and make things more mobile. Vicksburg in 63 looks right and proper but to me it seems we're getting the feel of trench warfare a year early. Any agree?

[Gray Fox]

I suppose that everyone tries to visualize what is going on in the game in real terms. I know that I do. World War I burnt the most vivid pictures into our mind's eye of trench warfare. So what are CW trenches like in the game? Entrenchments defeat 9% of the hits a unit would be taking for each level from 1-4 (level 5-8 entrenchments only add to the accuracy of artillery). Then a level 1 entrenchment shields an average 9% of a soldier's body (or half of the soldiers found 18% protection, etc.). One can imagine that in your defensive position, some of the men get to stand behind a boulder or an occasional tree or perhaps a garden fence. At higher entrenchment levels, perhaps a road was "cut" into an elevation creating a protective berm or a stone fence's "bloody angle" may prove useful. At level 4, only 36% of the hits are blocked. By comparison, a breastwork would shield a soldier's body up to his breast (where his musket is employed), which is clearly more than one third protection. So the max protection from entrenchment possible in the game is much less than a breastwork. These further levels of defensive works would be lumped together in the game as stockades, forts and redoubts. Thus, as troublesome as a line of entrenched Corps might be, they are hardly creating a Verdun.

[BattleVonWar]

About the Math I figured Mr. Fox. However you forget some basic items about the Civil War. I have been out on these fields. You aren't getting much more than you're giving. I might find that boulder, fence, natural height before you do. In fact seizing the initiative may in fact give me a dug in position before you.(it doesn't take months to build hellish trenches) In fact it's a matter of the leader, men, situation, luck. Whatever... Armies moved during the Civil War... I have had Armies stationary in game for 2 years. That's a mirror of WW1. That didn't even happen then. That shouldn't be happening now. I go behind your line in an area as large as Tennessee and seize your roads/communication lines you will abandon these so called entrenchments. If we meet in the field during the Civil War and I find my ideal location it's chance. Level 4 entrenchment doesn't depend on time, there are other factors involved. Primarily luck. Gettysburg, luck. Had the right man been forward he would have marched up on those heights and that would have been different scenario.

~You are right though on that redoubts, forts, breastworks..boy they are deadly, just in WW1 they had some massive armies in small places. Mobile warfare kills Trench Warfare. = WW2 and most of the Civil War Battles early on were more mobile than this game is early on




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dVTm_4fg2A ~Cold Mountain in French Petersburg Trench Warfare


Quoting Out With The Old In With The New: The Civil War switch from Napoleonic to Trench Warfare
But in '63 more so
"Among these tactics was one that Mahan had advocated for some years earlier:trench warfare. One of the quickest to catch on to this new style of fighting was Ulysses S.Grant.
31
During his masterful siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, Grant exhibited this new style of trench warfare masterfully. In the final battle of the wildly important Vicksburg campaign thateffectively cut the South in half upon completion, Grant took his Army of the Tennessee andsurrounded the city of Vicksburg on May 18, 1863.
32
Both the Confederate and Union forces began to dig earthworks around the city, not wanting to engage in Napoleonic era tactics for risk of heavy casualties"