No-Grant Union Two - Covid Boogaloo

[deguerra]

Ah dang Now what am I going to eagerly wait on new posts for?

Seriously though, very entertaining as always and thanks for brightening up my COVID lockdown.

It's interesting to me that you were able to weaken the "main" theatre in Virginia so greatly (until the end anyway) without suffering much for it. I suspect it was also a question of Murtagks' reaction - he committed just enough troops to your various alternate pushes that he couldn't devisively outnumber you in Virginia, but unfortunately (or rather no doubt also due to your skill) it was never quite enough troops to stop you pushing on. The amount of blue on the map for only mid 1863 is astonishing.

That said all that is no slight on Murtagks. Obviously we have a better view of your side, but I'm not sure what much I would have done differently in his place, and if he had indeed focused more on Virginia and less on the other theatres, it's very possible he would have had more armies breathing down his neck from the south earlier on.

One final question from a tactically very cautious player. I saw throughout the AAR many instances of attacks where the odds were less than 3-1 in favour of the attacker and sometimes less than 2-1. Many didn't succeed, but quite a few did. I always chicken out of such attacks, which renders my fronts too static for my liking. How do you determine an acceptable level of risk in order to make the decision to stage such an attack? Is it based purely on strength (i.e. the assumption that due to cohesion and/or supply losses the enemy strength is less than might be though based purely off the number of men) or also on extraneous cirumstances such as leader skill, terrain etc. I know all of these to be relevant, but as I said I always end up chickening out. Oh and there were several instances where you spoke of 'driving the enemy from their entrenchments' - by this do you mean you are willing to take a smaller defeat in order to move the enemy army from their fortified position? Does the enemy need to move out of the region for this to apply?

Thanks again to you both for this highly entertaining read!

-deguerra

[Naturamix]

Thanks for the reply, glad it was entertaining

Murtagks played very well and held off the Union for much longer than last time. I might have done a few things differently if I were him, but that's easy in hindsight.

On attacks at lower odds:
I think the ones that come to mind are Sherman's attacks on Price in Louisiana/Mississippi along with Lee against McClellan.

With Sherman I sometimes attacked out of necessity, because I felt the front was only going to get more difficult for me with time.
In '62-'63 the Union may be approaching a 2:1 advantage in power overall so it takes a serious effort to concentrate forces for a 3:1 advantage, and so sometimes attacks have to be made at 2:1 or below.

I feel that the general skill can make things more even (price isn't great), and when I know that there is probably a fair bit of militia in the stack I feel more confident attacking as they are more likely to run. When breaking entrenchments I also try to bring an artillery only division, which I think helps (not certain though).

On driving from entrenchments, yes I mean exactly what you said. You can get a victory once they no longer get the bonus for being entrenched.

For a stack to become un-entrenched they need to be given a move order (either deliberately, or from retreating from battle). It doesn't matter if they have reached a new province, they just need to have started moving (though if they are still in the same region, they could get merged into another stack if there is one that still has it's entrenchment)

[Bargus]

Really enjoyed reading this AAR! Hope to see more in the future

[Naturamix]

Thanks
Murtagks and I may do another as a rematch with me as the CSA and him as the USA

[Majorc28]

Very entertaining. I look forward to the future wars.

[Naturamix]

Thanks

[hojoos]

As we almost wasted 2020 for the quarantine, do you think we can expect new releases?