Cavalry Brigades!

[pvt5thmn]

Can someone explain why they have never added the recruitment of cavalry brigades for either side? The small groups of mounted volunteers are a nice gesture but not really accurate.

[W.Barksdale]

There are a number of pre set cavalry bdes available. After they spawn replacements will give them their full number of elements. Besides these you could form ad-hoc bdes by combining, for example, three cavalry regiments and a battery of horse atillery into a single stack.

[Durk]

Exactly, cavalry are recruited, like most units North and South at the regimental level. From the regiments, brigades are formed. You never read Brigade histories, only regimental. But cavalry are not only mounted volunteers in the units available.

[Smitzer52]

Brigade level or regimental...for me problem is to actually use cavalry effectively.

[Gray Fox]

Traditionally, cavalry have three missions, recon/counter-recon, pursuit and screening. In addition, if your opponent is not careful, your cavalry on a deep recon can burn crops, twist up railroad lines and even destroy small depots.

Cavalry are better at recon missions than infantry because they are fast units with a good ability to evade the enemy. If you click on a stack or unit, then to the bottom right of the screen you are given a menu of information. In the bottom right corner of this menu is an icon that looks like a dot with a ring around it. When you cursor over this icon you get a report about an evasion number. An enemy stack will have a patrol number. The patrol number divided by the evasion number is the percentage chance to be "found" and attacked by the enemy. A large enemy stack may have a patrol value of several hundred, whereas a large friendly force will have an evasion value of only 1.

However, a small force of cavalry, say four regiments or less, may have an evasion value of 20+. If you form a Division, you can play around with the number of cav. elements to find the mix with the best evasion value. Also, if you use the terrain filter to choose the best path for your recon, you will get a report of the hide value of a region. This number gets added to the evasion number of a force in that terrain. So mountains or forest are easier to hide in than an open field. In addition, some of the Region Decision Cards will add to the evasion number, although your opponent can use cards to reduce the evasion number too.

So, a small, stealthy cavalry Division of only four regiments can quickly penetrate enemy lines and give you a more complete picture of what is going on. This Division usually has enough power to brush aside an auto-garrison and burn up a depot. The very presence of your cavalry will prevent the flow of supplies through a region. The ability of a force to rip up a rail line is a percentage chance of the unit strength divided by 100. Fortunately, your small cav. Division should have enough power to do this automatically by spending a few days in the region before they get out of Dodge. You could even have several small Cav. divisions infiltrate to one region and then reform into a full strength Division to cause some real problems. Just don't forget to feed everyone.

A careless opponent will be hampered by this, but a careful opponent will not. A few full strength cavalry Divisions in reserve will be able to rail in and hunt down the small cavalry recon Divisions and make life tough for them. So don't forget to have a counter-recon ability, or your offensive may find itself with no supply lines.

When a battle is fought, most often one side will withdraw orderly or even rout off the field. The side with the most cavalry get an advantage in this situation. If you are withdrawing, your cavalry form a screen of defenders to prevent the enemy from over-running your force and you take fewer hits. If you are chasing a withdrawing force, then your cavalry pursue and ride them down causing lots of extra hits. In addition, a large stack with more cavalry will get a better description of adjacent enemy stacks due to intrinsic recon ability.

[Merlin]

Brigade level or regimental...for me problem is to actually use cavalry effectively.

GF pretty much nails it for normal cav use.

A couple months ago I posted a primer for how I use cavalry, particularly as the Confederacy. Look for that and keep in mind a few things:
1) When raiding, never go where your opponent will expect you.
2) Use the Evade Combat special order. You can slip through a region held down by multiple enemy corps this way with leaders like Forrest.
3) Never set your ROE higher than green unless you're confident you won't get caught. Also, keep in mind that any force won't assault until it reaches its final destination unless set to R/R, so don't be afraid to do that if you're confident and you want your cav corps to kill every garrison along the way.

I'd love for a shake-up in brigade composition and recruitment. Neither side kept organic cavalry regiments after mid-1862, so I'd like to see them stripped from the recruitable brigades and sent to the cav recruitment pool. Currently, there's no possible way to simulate the rising Union cavalry competency from 1863 on.

[Smitzer52]

Ok that clarified few things.

So good use for cavalry is operating alone and use raid tactics etc., otherwise using them in the army is unwise or is only needed to fullfill some flanking tactics requirement?

For example I keep merging cav regiments with regular divisions/corps/armies so I can get cav % in a fight. (better comabt values no?) I like the way how the rangers operate or partisans...raiding specific but cavalry should be used in a similar fashion then?

[Merlin]

Ok that clarified few things.

So good use for cavalry is operating alone and use raid tactics etc., otherwise using them in the army is unwise or is only needed to fullfill some flanking tactics requirement?

For example I keep merging cav regiments with regular divisions/corps/armies so I can get cav % in a fight. (better comabt values no?) I like the way how the rangers operate or partisans...raiding specific but cavalry should be used in a similar fashion then?

Yes. Use your cav as raiders, since that's how they gain the most XP and do the most damage. Even the Union can do massive damage with cav divisions. I've even taken all of NC and GA with three Union cav divisions in 1864, just to give an example.

[ArmChairGeneral]

Cavalry have WORSE combat values during the fight. They can inflict a lot of extra damage to the enemy IF your side wins, and can somewhat mitigate the enemy's pursuit if you lose, but otherwise are inferior to infantry and artillery in battle. They do make it more likely that the stacks they are in can actually force slippery opponents (enemy scout and raiding stacks!) to battle. I tend to have at least a couple cav in every division just because a lot of brigades have them integrated, and find these to be plenty for most situations. The limited pool of independent cav elements is needed for scouting/raiding activities, and you can always add them to your divisions if you think a big battle is coming and need them for their pursuit effects.

To get an idea of what kind of damage cav can do in pursuit, 12 cav elements will regularly deal 30+ hits in pursuit against corps sized stacks (pursuit damage scales down by size: you won't deal 30 hits to a three element brigade, more like three or four.) The first round of a battle between forces that max out the frontage results in 30-60 hits to either side depending on artillery quantity and combat rolls, while subsequent rounds average 20-30 hits per side. Bring enough cav (12 is a little bit cav-heavy for a corps without a dedicated Cav division) and you basically get to inflict an entire extra round of damage for free if you win.

Partisans stack really well with scout/raiding cav, and if they are in a cav division are even somewhat protected in combat by the other troops around them. Rangers' best feature (besides speed of course, and the fact that they scrounge supplies off the land really well) is that they cost zero command points, which is a huge deal in the West.

[Gray Fox]

If you use historical attrition, then cavalry raiding is less appealing. Moving a large force through difficult terrain without a supply unit will cause a lot of hits to that force. You may do damage to the enemy, but this must be weighed against pumping out a lot of expensive cavalry replacement chips. Don't let the car drive you. Have a winning strategy that includes cavalry tactics, but don't forget to chain every cavalry mission to an overall goal. Don't end up as Lee at Gettysburg without J.E.B. Stewart.

[Merlin]

Raiding is the Confederate equivalent to coastal fort-busting. Heavy raiding gets me about three quarters of all my corps commanders.

[Smitzer52]

Yeah, the replacement factor is true enough. I play with full attrition and manual replacements and no easy supply. And cavalry raiding does take hits when all alone. Actually lone cavalry seems a lot less beneficial when you play like this. Supply is always problematic, 2-3 turns alone and cav. brigade is non-existant.

Still the speed and scouting outweights these cons slightly.

[Gray Fox]

Cavalry raiders are like the fighter pilots of World War I, dashing, daring and dauntless. Some people have fun with this aspect of the game...against rookie opponents or Athena. It's a tactic that works really well only when it works really well.

[pvt5thmn]

I don't mind early in the war the Union not being able to build cav brigades as they didn't start the reform of the cavalry command until just before Antietam. Perhaps a couple brigades at the start recruit able for the south and then the union get theirs later. Or just the ability to form them from the elements later might be a good way to make it realistic. Also the late cavalry units get a major combat advance so a solid corps of them for either side gets to be a legitamate force that can do some real damage to an enemy and they can move really quickly, like Wilson's late war campaigns

[Merlin]

I don't mind early in the war the Union not being able to build cav brigades as they didn't start the reform of the cavalry command until just before Antietam. Perhaps a couple brigades at the start recruit able for the south and then the union get theirs later. Or just the ability to form them from the elements later might be a good way to make it realistic. Also the late cavalry units get a major combat advance so a solid corps of them for either side gets to be a legitamate force that can do some real damage to an enemy and they can move really quickly, like Wilson's late war campaigns

That's kind of my thought as well. No integrated regiments and have Union cav come on line in recruitment slowly through '63-64.