The CSA Navy

[BattleVonWar]

My very last game for the first time ever I used The Confederate Navy to actually do something. I sent Brigs to the coast of New Jersey and New York to spy on Union shipping and troop deployment. I had intentions of doing a great deal more perhaps sailing up to Maine and attacking the Union(which with brigs and cheap transport plus good Admirals) is a slight possibility.

Anyone ever taken this a step further. It also seems not just viable but powerful(of course leaving may be a different story)

[FightingBuckeye]

This is something I've considered from time to time, but like you said, trying to extract a force might get tricky. Plus the Union's got good rail lines going North and they can get up there pretty fast. So it's always something I shelve as fantasy. The South can't really afford the force size it'd it'd take, both longterm if they're caught and wiped as well as short term losing that much strength from their defensive lines.

BUT if you really want to do it, why not try California instead? Lots of gold and some production out there. Plus it's a little harder for the North to get a timely response if you drop a large force out there. Taking Sacramento and/or San Fran would probably hurt the Union the most. The big cities such as Boston, New York, or Philly all have decent garrisons. But their biggest defense is that any naval invasion would have to run multiple forts/garrisons and that's asking for trouble with a brig/transport navy. The garrisons at either big California city are larger than what most NE cities can boast, but you wouldn't have to run any forts to get at them.

[DrPostman]

I put together at least a dozen Frigate Squadrons along with
what you get through the war. Ahistorical, I know, but it was
fun to have a fleet that was big enough to take on an invasion
force Athena sent South. Wrecked the hell out of it. My land
armies suffered for the lack of troops though

[Captain_Orso]

If you try to invade as the South someplace way up north on the Atlantic coast, the first issue you will have is not getting any supplies --the South does not get to use Naval Supply. It would be like the Union taking NO before capturing any of the nearby forts. You will only have the supplies you bring with you or that you capture.

Trying to invade the California coast would be the same issue with one further issue; the trip to California takes so long that transports carrying troops will have used up much of the supply they are carrying; plus the troops will arrive with very low cohesion after the long trip. I tried sending a small reinforcement force to California once as the Union -- quoth the raven...

[BattleVonWar]

Captain Orso,

the concept of where supply would come from just totally escaped me. Including along the New England coast where I am certain there is little to live off. California would be very juicy and I didn't even guess this to be possible.

Probably easier to invade overland and supply through the New Mexico and Arizona territories than over sea.

[FightingBuckeye]

If you try to invade as the South someplace way up north on the Atlantic coast, the first issue you will have is not getting any supplies --the South does not get to use Naval Supply. It would be like the Union taking NO before capturing any of the nearby forts. You will only have the supplies you bring with you or that you capture.

Trying to invade the California coast would be the same issue with one further issue; the trip to California takes so long that transports carrying troops will have used up much of the supply they are carrying; plus the troops will arrive with very low cohesion after the long trip. I tried sending a small reinforcement force to California once as the Union -- quoth the raven...

Bring along a supply wagon or two, problem solved :-p

But in all seriousness, I have put some thought into this.

1. Be in a position as the CSA where you can let go of 1.5+ divisions for possibly the rest of the game.
2. Be in a position as the CSA where you can give up a number of brigs in the blockade or shipping boxes
3. Get eyes on your target, most likely Sacramento, by getting your loyalty above 50%
4. If the garrison is inside the structure, then the plan is a go. As mentioned, cohesion will be a problem so you don't want to force an amphibious landing on top of low cohesion.
5. Time the trip so you land on your target as early as possible in the turn. Loiter just out of Union LOS if needed.
6. Land early and recover cohesion for the rest of the turn. Helps if you have a hospital along, but you don't really need it if your NM is likely pretty high if you're even contemplating the move.
7. Recover cohesion for another turn if needed; use scorched earth if you really need to.
8. Assault before your supply runs out.

Sacramento will usually have a minimum of 300+ GS and produces a decent amount to augment that number. San Francisco will typically have thousands upon thousands of GS and produces all the GS you could want. Depending on the size of your force, you should be able to survive for a long time if not interminably in Sacramento and you shouldn't run out of GS if you took San Francisco first. I can't remember the 1* with the fast mover trait that CSA eventually gets (not any of the cavalry commanders, Jackson, or Lee). Put him in charge of your force and you should have a fair shot at taking both cities before the Union response arrives, they'll have to gather a force before they can even set off.

Depends on how soon Sacramento fell and how long you need to recover the battle hits. Then use the RR (bet some of you didn't know the West coast had 2 RR regions) to get back to Sacramento before the Union response arrives. Keep track of Union progress by staking some of your brigs along the route for an EW sysyem. And Nevada's there for the taking as well. Maybe send a brigade or two in that direction as you march on San Fran. If you brought along a mostly cavalry force, you could even keep going east with your cavalry forces and use your transports to withdraw any ground pounders. I like to have 2+ cavalry divisions as the South and their usefulness really takes a nosedive during the winter months. So maybe put them to use shipping out to California and then gallivanting out there for the winter months.

I think it's an interesting brain exercise, but it's really hard to justify giving up the ground & naval forces needed even when I'm winning as the CSA. I'd rather use those forces in a direct invasion (even a limited one) of Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, Mizzou, etc. I'm half hoping someone here reads this and implements it at some point. If that happens, I'd REALLY like a game file and possibly a mini-AAR on the move and how it didn't/did work.

[FightingBuckeye]

Captain Orso,

the concept of where supply would come from just totally escaped me. Including along the New England coast where I am certain there is little to live off. California would be very juicy and I didn't even guess this to be possible.

Probably easier to invade overland and supply through the New Mexico and Arizona territories than over sea.

The problem is the desert and the long travel times. By the time you get to the next territory, your cohesion will have suffered quite a bit. And all that travel time will mean the Union player will see it coming. If San Francisco was genuinely in danger, I would transport out a division to help stop the CSA invasion. That and burn the buildings behind me as I fell back. Supply (especially ammo) is always tricky out in the FW. While the Union player's logistics would improve the closer they got to the West Coast and whatever was transported in, the CSA logistics would be more and more strained the further they got from El Paso. Especially if they have a large enough force to seriously threaten the West Coast. If you really want California, it'd be better IMO to do it VIA a naval invasion and then take it one step further and take out Los Angeles and watch whatever Union forces were south of that city whither on the vine due to lack of supply.

[FightingBuckeye]

Oh, and check out any of the depot cities on the East coast. There will generally be 1K+ GS and plenty of ammo in just about every single depot along the coast. That's more then enough to subsist on considering a single division requires 30-35 GS/turn, especially if you were envisioning more of a temporary raid vs long term plans to stay. Even some of the larger cities that don't have depots will typically have a couple hundred GS AND ammo. As long as you take the target city, supply shouldn't be an issue as long as you can successfully extract the force within a turn or two before the Union response hammers them flat. The biggest problem IMO is you could easily be sending the force to their death and/or lose a good chunk of your navy.

[tripax]

Here is a counterpoint but I am very much not sure: doesn't supply decay when a depot has a lot of it? How much supply has to be in a depot for decay to occur?

If you have 1000 supply and you lose 5-10% a turn from decay until supply drops below 300, then you don't really have that much supply (note, I have no idea how much decay occurs, 5% seems high but plausible). Even with decay there is so much supply produced in the East coast that those depots will get well stocked when controlled by the Union, but a Confederate force in Boston won't get any from the surrounding cities and won't get much from a pro-Union Boston population, so you'll be eating stock that is also decaying - more like 15 turns worth of supply than 50 turns.

[FightingBuckeye]

I haven't heard about supply decay, could someone fill me in or confirm/deny? I know supply will drop if the depot loses a level or is destroyed, but that's the only way I know of supply levels dropping. And I would GLADLY sacrifice a division or two in order to hold Boston for 15 turns, we're talking 7.5 months of one of the biggest Union production cities out there. Even if the loyalty's not great, it's still a pretty good deal for the South. Especially if their NM is high enough to still get say 75% production out of the city.

Not that any competent Union player would let the South hold Boston or any other major Union city in the NE for that long with just a division or two. That's why I am advocating a strike to California IF a CSA naval invasion were to actually take place. Much better chance of actually holding San Fran & Sacramento and probably grabbing Nevada to boot when a Union force has to travel that far to get into that theater. Still, it's probably a pipe dream, but I'd like to see it happen sometime.

[Cardinal Ape]

I have captured California before in a PBEM. Though I can not say if it was a success since my opponent abandoned the game without a word on that turn. While I was waiting for his turn I spent a lot of time contemplating how it would play out. I was really not too confident that I could hold it in the long term. Nor did I think it was worth the cost. The cash would be nice, but there is little WS to be had out there. Not many conscripts either.

I fooled around with it a bit since then and I found that if you can get to Cali before the Union event that creates free garrisons across the map (Lincolns call for volunteers?) you stand a much better chance. Sadly, even if you build for it asap you arrive one turn too late. If only the naval seaman trait worked on a per turn basis instead of per region you could make it. In the end it is far more realistic to fight overland to Cali. Rangers can get from Santa Fe to the Nevada gold fields in two turns and then down to Cali in another.

Regardless it was a pretty fun 'what if' to play around with.

[tripax]

I haven't heard about supply decay...

Here is a discussion about it in PON. In that game it is in the GameLogic file, unless I'm mistaken I don't see it in the CW2 GameLogic file (I don't have any other ageod games installed). However, Captain_Orso mentions it in a CW2 forum here, so it might have been moved, removed, or who knows.

[Captain_Orso]

I cannot find any references to decay settings in any of the opt files. I also note that in none of the Host.log files I have from testing that the time it reports for doing decay calculations is 0 MS, so I suspect that it has either been turned off in CW2, whether accidentally or on purpose; probably on purpose since there are no settings for it anymore.