Durk wrote:Where Rosecrans really gets overlooked, he pushed the CSA out of Kentucky and most of Tennessee without a fight.
For this, game designers rate him as very much less than competent. Not fair to the commander. Even Victory Games which designed great games got it wrong.
The opening line of the Wikipedia Tullahoma Campaign entry is "The Tullahoma Campaign (or Middle Tennessee Campaign) was a military operation conducted from June 24 to July 3, 1863, by the Union Army of the Cumberland under Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans, and
regarded as one of the most brilliant maneuvers of the American Civil War".
I think the quality of Rosecrans' march to Chattanooga is unquestionable. What happened at Chickamauga is another question. IIRC in the days before the battle, there were several tactical mistakes and some very dangerous situations avoided only by chance in which part of his army could have been attacked piecemeal in the narrow valleys of northern Georgia/southern Tennessee.
Regardless of how well the Tullahoma was planned and executed, once the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of Tennessee were standing face to face Rosecrans lost control of his army. By this I don't mean that command and control had completely dissolved, but he allowed things to happen which could have been prevented with a little more attention to detail. The removal of a an entire division (Thomas Wood) from the line of battle to send it to another section of the line while standing face-to-face with the enemy and in the midst of the battle, is a dangerous maneuver and should require the utmost caution and attention. But Rosecrans paid no greater attention to this. Thomas Wood's division pulled out of the battle-line, leaving a division sized gap, and about 30-60 minutes later Longstreet's column-assault hit the Union's right flank centered directly on the gap left by Wood's withdrawal from the line.
So, when he had time to plan, Rosecrans could put an excellent plan together and execute it successfully. But once the situation became fluid, he seems to have not had quite the command over his army as he should have. this might be represented in the game with some special rules, but we don't have these, nor do I expect to get them. Simply giving Rosecrans' reduced ratings in general is also not the solution. It requires a dynamic and not random characteristic. This might be one solution as an ability:
Excellent Strategist- If commanding a stack, if this leader remains stationary, on the completion of every 2nd turn, this leader's offensive and strategic values are both raised by 1 up to a maximum of +2.
Of course the time-period for Excellent Strategist could be higher or even lower. I'm not saying that 2 turns is in anyway absolutely correct, just demonstrative.
Also, on a side note, AFAIK George Thomas' holding the line at Chickamauga could nor really occur in the game. Basically, after taking hits in a round of battle, a unit makes a morale-check dr. The higher the number of hits, the greater chance of the unit going into retreat. The more units in retreat, the greater the chance the next uniting making a morale-check will also fail. Once enough units are in retreat, every morale-check will result in retreat, or all units are automatically put into retreat.
It would require some major changes to the battle engine but another ability might represent Thomas better than simply a huge defensive rating.
Tenacious Defender- If defending, the stack this leader commands does not retreat with other stacks, which fail their morale check. The Tenacious Defender's stack will remain and continue defending, after an automatic retreat has occurred.Stacks retreating, while the Tenacious Defender's stack defends are not subject to pursuit damage.
I'm not going to start in about supply movement etc, which played a huge role in Bragg's army retreating from Tennessee: that would be too much off-topic blah-blah.