mikee64 wrote:Slightly off-topic, and bringing back up an old debate: (calling Jabber)
Even though the hits are highly unbalanced, who can more easily replace the losses from this naval encounter? Or maybe the question is who should be able to replace them more easily? Thinking historically, the ships could rotate away out of range when damaged, so the dispersion of hits makes sense. The batteries are always eventually toast given a large enough fleet. The AI did a pretty good job here IMO; it seems a human could do the same and follow up with amphibious assaults once the batteries are gone and the garrison weakened. This seems pretty historical to me?
So you're saying you have a problem with the expense of coastal batteries in comparison to ships? Possibly also with the fact that the originals are all locked? I have the same problems. Additional batteries were manufactured and emplaced around Charleston during the war, in response to the threat of naval action. Quite a few of Beauregard's papers from his time in command there deal with the subject. The one game where I found the exploit to unlock them all, and eliminated the minEntrench requirement (played against Athena and myself, alternating sides every couple of turns) was much more interesting from an amphibious POV than the vanilla scenarios. There was the possibility of capturing empty forts, but there was also always that possibility of an artillery ambush ...
I am not asking for a return to Iwo Jima. I think Jagger's numbers are good, but may go slightly too far in that direction. The compromise numbers that Runyan and I used in our PBEM worked pretty well, but might not have been enough of a correction. Runyan's ironclad fleet survived a run past several batteries between Columbus and the Tennessee River, but without completely destroying any batteries. I was able to destroy the batteries at Island 10 without losing ships, by buying every ironclad available in the West, splitting them into two fleets, and running both fleets past Island 10 on the same turn. Then I had to return half of them to Cairo (or my previously established advanced base at Bolivar)for a refit before tackling the batteries at Vicksburg. I think maybe somewhere between those numbers and Jagger's we could find optimal realism.
Unfortunately my oldest backup does not quite have the start of the debacle, but I do have Grant's (apparent) demise.
leure:
