Tue Dec 29, 2015 5:39 pm
ACG, it's good to see empirical evidence that massed artillery does what it is supposed to do.
I've only ever used artillery loose in the stack or then in a Division after your post about the efficacy of an Artillery Division. Recapping, artillery are support units and get to fill the frontage allocated to those units no matter where they are in the stack. An artillery Division gets the advantages of a Division commander's bonus, which loose guns in the stack would not. Putting them in a Division by themselves leaves more room in the infantry Division for combat elements. They inflict a lot of damage but don't take much return fire, so the Arty commander is on the fast track to promotion. Athena doesn't form large artillery Divisions, so I get the advantage of massed 12 or 20 lbers vs. her mostly mixed Division 6-lbrs. Even if the overall effect was the same, I would do it so that my infantry Divisions had a quarter more slots for infantry.
The "shield" to my Eastern "sword" is a line of entrenched, mostly militia Divisions. I put one each in St. Louis, Cairo, Evansville, Lexington, Cincy, Ashland, Parkersburg, Wheeling and Pittsburgh. The starting force that McDowell commands becomes the reserve for this shield. I have a few stockades block MD off to protect D.C. Then Grant's Army can attack from a position of strength in the summer of 1862.
Every moving unit takes attrition. Even a token offensive force in MO or KY or an amphib assault force as a diversion, takes hits. If I want replacements for my main thrust, then I have to refill all of the depleted units, east and west. It just doesn't work out.
In a couple threads we've discussed the actual importance of the Mississippi river to the Union. Railroads had pretty much totally replaced it as a necessity for Midwest goods. Union ironclads moved captured cotton up the river after delivering reinforcements, but no real economic reason existed for its liberation. Union newspapers might proclaim that the Confederacy was split in two, but TX and AR did not surrender as a consequence. Lee's army did not starve because of the loss of longhorn steaks, but because of the loss of steam engines to pull cargo trains. We all know that taking Ol' Miss was part of the Anaconda Plan and we all equally know that Anaconda was not the plan. The simple fact is that Richmond is worth more than all the other strategic cities combined.
Strategically, VA sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. The one depot in Garysburg NC connects VA to the rest of the CSA. Even if a second line of depots is constructed (which I would advocate) a force in eastern KY can act against this. Also, partisans can destroy depots all over VA. The peninsula is vulnerable as well as Albemarle sound. A thrust from Williamsburg VA has a dry route to the capital with no rivers to cross. Power numbers don't mean much for me. The elite Union force I have above contains mostly line infantry that the CSA pool does not match. The command effect of Lee and Grant cancel out, but down where the rubber meets the road, good infantry and big guns will make the difference.
I'm the 51st shade of gray. Eat, pray, Charge!