Taking California

[Longshanks]

The "Arizona Division" was reduced in force by about 40%, with those units heading into MO.

Most of you regulars players know (and I know now) that the Union gets a substantial garrison in Frisco around turn 4 or 5. Once it appears, you're reduced to a siege mode.

I think taking Frisco is still an option, but it would involve a fair amount of building in Texas, which, of course, depletes the war elsewhere. Still, taking away all that money is going to be noticable, and the reb gets to add it to his total, so it's a double whammy.

Seems like I read in other posts that somebody did it once. I'll continue to tinker with the idea.

Yeh, once the game was over, there was no reason to stay 9-10 months behind on the posts, so I pretty much put them all up within 24 hrs.

That's a post from my first PBEM game and an AAR that can be found in the AAR forum. In that game, I moved the S. Carolina units to Texas, with the idea that they'd join up with a couple of TX boys and a supply unit and head to Frisco. Didn't work, but I never gave up on the idea.

So, I thought I'd tell you the latest attempt, in a current game vs GraniteStater.

I decided that the key was moving fast, so in very late 62, I moved Stuart and some units across the map to Arizona. He had some cavalry, Mahone's Brigade, a 20 lb and 10 lb arty, with some irregulars and Indians. Altogether around 340 PWR. He picked up a SU along the way and started marching in E March 63. The game showed him to be 28 days away, so I was very optimistic.

Well, as you know the weather out there is a bit different. The snows came back in, and then the mud. I don't think it all cleared until late June or so. I finally got into place in mid-summer, behind schedule, but at least I was there. It took a couple of turns to restore cohesion, during which time he was not under siege. I learned it's better to strip off a single unit and leave that in B/O mode to start the siege up.

By September or so, I had the walls down, but his power was around 300, while mine was hovering a bit lower. I kept doing "hits" on him, but it didn't really affect his strength.

Finally, in late December I got PWR superiority and took a shot. Here's the battle:



Not horrible, but the game kicked me all the way back to Arizona, so I think that's it for this attempt.

A word about supply... I took an SU with me. Sometimes it'd get drained and then suddenly it'd be back at 80 again. The nearest depot was probably Houston. I got nervous about starving Stuart, so I sent another SU into Arizona, with the idea that I'd try to keep one moving into CA with new supplies. Interestingly, the mere presence of the two supply units seemed to do the trick. I didn't have any more shortages after that. Even if the SU went "empty" for a turn, Stuart's units would have two turns of supply on them, and then the next turn the SU would recharge.

My best guess is that around 450 PWR would be needed to have a legit shot. Notice the ships seem to help out. We'll have to ask GS if his supply ever got tight. He made no attempt to relieve San Francisco, so my guess is that he was never really worried about it.

It was fun trying though!

[OneArmedMexican]

I can understand that California is tempting but if you weigh cost+risk against the possible gain it is simply not worth it.

The money one could gain from CA is tempting, but it would also take a lot to succeed:

1) A force of 2 divisions (> 800 pw) + a first rate general with fast mover trait. Why? Even with such a general your combat strength will suffer a lot until you reach the Pacific. If you are lucky your 800 pw force will be 250 pw strong when you arrive at the Pacific.

2) Your opponent has to leave his troops inside the city. If he leaves them outside, is well entrenched and has hold at all cost, he will most likely defeat you on arrival; you won't have the time to recover your strength during a siege but will rather end up in Arizona after an ugly defeat. Perhaps attack at all cost may break the 300 pw stack the Union usually has there but I doubt it.

3) Your opponent also has to ignore the early warning signs: he will see your forces at least two turns before they arrive: enough time for him to strengthen his defense with quickly built militia and get one or two generals to CA.

Two divisions out of combat for half a year (that is about the time this operations takes) only gives you a slim chance of success. This is just not worth it! Leave those troops as a mobile reserve or strengthen your main front lines.

In my humble opinion, Southern offensives should be few in number and limited in time and scale. Strike fast and return to defense quickly. The CSA wins if it makes good guesses where your enemy will attack next, enabling it to win defensive victories.

My five cents. Perhaps someone has actually succeeded in a move on California in a PBEM and proves me wrong.

Good luck with your PBEM Longshanks and thanks for sharing your experience, it reaffirmed my opinion on the matter.

[Longshanks]

Heh, I can't claim it makes any sense. I just want to do it!

Most likely, I'll devote a game vs the AI on it someday.

[Pat "Stonewall" Cleburne]

I captured everything as the CSA once. I took Boston before I could get California. The marching distances are ridiculous.

[Ol' Choctaw]

The only way to reach California in good order is by sea and naturally it takes a strong fleet.

If you invest that much into taking it you may as well use an army command.

From Galveston it usually takes about 40 days to get there.

Playing the AI, I will often keep going after I have won but while I am still trying to win I hold on to Arizona but don’t push on to Cal. It won’t win the game for you. Better to just build more blockade runners.

[aariediger]

I took it once in a play by email game. New Orleans was under siege, so I sent a force to relive it. Anyway, they ended up abandoning the seige, and now I had a division clear down in Louisana, and no real need for it else where (the war in the east was a stalemate, and they had just lost an entire corps when an amphibious assult on Willimington failed.) So I went for it. They showed up and trounced about half the forces that were outside the city, and then beseiged it until I had a few breaches, and then took the city by storm. I ended up with a bunch of cash, but didn't really have anything to spendit on, since this was late '64/65. Also, the city wasn't worth any National Morale, so I don't think it was worth all the trouble in hindsight.

[Captain_Orso]

I've never attacked California as the CS, but I always pull the troops from the west coast into Missouri through Denver. In good weather with 100% cohesion the projected move takes 28 days from both Oregon and California. Once they get to marching and losing cohesion the time goes up to between 3 and 4 turns for infantry, slightly longer for artillery, and a bit quicker for cavalry. I've gone to setting the troops to Passive Posture for the entire move as I find that they retain cohesion the best like this. Actually I think they regain a little on the march. As long as they haven't arrived in Denver they are considered to be in their region of origin and thus there is no chance of them being attacked during this move.

For the CS moving from Tucson the situation is different. The Union could push troops into Tucson and attack the marching invaders -- although they've been moving already for weeks -- but if Tucson is garrisoned well enough they should not be affected.

A depot in Tucson will not only enhance it's defense, but also keep the invaders supplied. Also, once California has fallen it will build the conduit for siphoning off the supplies produced in California.

New Siege rules should make it easier to besiege San Fransisco.

I'm a bit at a loss, Longshanks, as to how your assaulting troops got kicked out of the region after losing the assault. They might get started on their way, but they should still be in the region and you should be able to cancel their retreat-plotted move, thus leaving them in California, although it will be difficult for them to regain cohesion again, but depot in Laredo will help by keeping them supplied.

BTW San Fransisco will always get supplies by sea if the harbor isn't blockaded, which is not feasible for the CS Navy to do.

If you haven't seen it yet, the new map Ageod American Civil War 2! has all of Texas and most of New Mexico on it with more Off-Map-Boxes, so moving in the far West will become more fluid, but also make invading troops more vulnerable with more locations to be defended and a supply line that can be attacked in a number of locations.

You win some and you lose some I guess

[Gen. Monkey-Bear]

Being from California myself, and from the general San Francisco Bay area, I find the thought that the war can extend all the way to California both fascinating and terrifying. In real life, there were some extremely small battles in the area but these were mostly among local militia and impassioned citizens, not regular troops. Hopefully the new map will allow all the Far Western campaigns (including California).

In fact I don't know of any major battles ever fought in the state of California.

[Boomer]

In the early days of ACW (before all the great patches) it wasn't hard to pull a rebel invasion of California or other far western territories. I remember having one game where I had General Lee sitting pretty in D.C., General Joe Johnston besieging New York city, and another mixed force that rammed up the entire length of the Ohio valley and made its way to the great lakes, splitting the north into three sections with three different rebel armies. That sort of thing certainly ended with the added patches. Kinda miss those days, really. Nothing like aiming rebel 12 pounders at ships in Boston harbor before the victory screen pops up.