Transports/Amphib Assaults

[GenJackson]

So, I'm considering attacking St. Louis in an amphib invasion and wanted some Transport 101 knowledge.

First, my understanding is that to "load" an Army onto transports, you simply merge the transports with the current stack. Is that right?

I'm also hazy on the weight issue - do transports carry just a set number of units or do you have to calculate the weight of the Army?

Lastly is what to do when the transports get to their target. Do you have to disembark from the transport first and THEN attack, or simply attack from the transport. Is that what Marines are for?

If I pull it off, it will be a great move - we will encircle Benjamin Butler and take St. Louis all in the same stroke!

[John Sedgwick]

Load an army by merging that stack with the transport stack, that is correct. If you don't have any transports handy, but you have some riverine transport capability, you can also assign the "move by river" order and the units will trace a path by river on their own (this is an abstraction, like rail transport - you can see how much you have by looking at the stats to the left of the ledger bar at the top of the screen)

As for weight, hover your mouse over the army/transport fleet. The tooltip will tell you the transport weight/capacity for those forces. So if you an army with "weight: 18", you need a transport flotilla with a carrying capacity of 18 or more.

To disembark, just drag and drop the transport fleet onto the land area, troops should disembark automatically. Assuming you have them on offensive posture and they have sufficient time to engage, and the enemy doesn't retreat beforehand, they should attack after they land.

[John Sedgwick]

By the way, the AACW wiki is a great resource, use the search function there or here in the forums and you'll probably find some helpful articles/posts, for example: http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/River_naval_strategy

As for marines, I believe they offer a bonus to naval/river crossings in terms of speed and reducing penalties to attack, but they attack like any other unit (i.e., only after they land). As far as I know amphibious assaults against defended coasts simply did not happen in the ACW - they would've been disastrous if they were attempted. Amphib operations are extremely difficult to pull off successfully.

Let us know how your operation goes. Remember to keep your units in supply after they land! I think you can do this by keeping some fully supplied river transports adjacent to them.

[Carrington]

By the way, the AACW wiki is a great resource, use the search function there or here in the forums and you'll probably find some helpful articles/posts, for example: http://www.ageod.net/aacwwiki/River_naval_strategy

As for marines, I believe they offer a bonus to naval/river crossings in terms of speed and reducing penalties to attack, but they attack like any other unit (i.e., only after they land). As far as I know amphibious assaults against defended coasts simply did not happen in the ACW - they would've been disastrous if they were attempted. Amphib operations are extremely difficult to pull off successfully.

Let us know how your operation goes. Remember to keep your units in supply after they land! I think you can do this by keeping some fully supplied river transports adjacent to them.

Part of it being that the force to space ratios were still too small to defend that much of a stretch of coastline.

[Ace]

As for marines, I believe they offer a bonus to naval/river crossings in terms of speed and reducing penalties to attack, but they attack like any other unit (i.e., only after they land). As far as I know amphibious assaults against defended coasts simply did not happen in the ACW - they would've been disastrous if they were attempted. Amphib operations are extremely difficult to pull off successfully.

But they happened on a small scale. CSA Atlantic coast forts were attacked by amphibious operations from the sea.