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How can I move Ironclads to the Gulf from the Northeast without getting them beat-up by every fort they pass?? I made sure the fleet was not set to bombard, but still the forts fire on them. That seems a bit excessive. Gun's at this time had limited range and a ironclad should be able to navigate the coast area without being fired at. Should I select the avoid combat button?

Hi Capt Cliff!

Let's proceed step by step.

First, ironclads are a kind of naval units which move through shallow waters and coastal waters so you can not move them by the ocean in order to avoid the firing of forts' guns.

Second, although your fleet was not set to bombard, it doesn't mean that forts can not open fire against your ships, i.e., there is no relation between both things.

Third, the evade combat order button is used to try to avoid or evade the enemy naval patrols in the seas and rivers traveled, while your vessels are moving, therefore I'm not sure that it also can avoid the forts shoot you. For that purpose, put in command of your fleet to a good admiral and with a high strategic value or with "fort runner" ability.

I hope that I have helped you.

Enjoy playing!

Even then you are probably better off just making river ironclads in the Midwest; even if you get past some forts, there are a lot(!) of forts that you have to run by. If you want some protection storming NO for ex I believe there are some ironclad frigates (as in has an iron band, rather than the full armor of the monitors and such.)

Make sure to select the Evade Combat button as well as placing the Ironclads in Passive mode. Also, as von Sachsen points out, the oceangoing Armored Frigates are really the best bets if you're looking to put together a fleet for support in making a long-range amphibious operation like taking New Orleans.

Also, one thing to consider is making sure to take plenty of stopover locations all along the southern coast, Ft. Pulaski is a good spot to take for this purpose and of course the North Carolina forts as well- remember, actual history is always a good guide for playing this game, there's a good reason why those places were among the earliest Union targets. Just make sure to reinforce whatever you take, the CSA AI will always focus on any coastal forts/locations you take, even to the detriment of reinforcing the main front areas (especially the Tennessee/Kentucky frontline).

In a recent game, I managed to get the two CSA ironclads that show up as reinforcements late in the game at Wilmington NC all the way to the gulf side of Florida by putting them on G/G and running like H E double hockey sticks!

So, it can be done ....

I've never played, the union, but what do you need to do to build clads in a souther state as the union. Is it take over the capital and a harbor?

Or, am I thinking of a different game.....

Charles

I don't think you can, border states excepted. You have to ship them there from up north.

charlesonmission wrote:I've never played, the union, but what do you need to do to build clads in a souther state as the union. Is it take over the capital and a harbor?

Or, am I thinking of a different game.....

Charles

You can't, you can't build any units in any state that belongs to the other side no matter how much of the state you control. Both sides can build in Missouri and Kentucky.

But not Maryland and Deleware?

I know that the CSA does get a Maryland line brigade.

Charles

wsatterwhite wrote:You can't, you can't build any units in any state that belongs to the other side no matter how much of the state you control. Both sides can build in Missouri and Kentucky.

charlesonmission wrote:But not Maryland and Deleware?

I know that the CSA does get a Maryland line brigade.

Charles

One thing is that you get a brigade from Maryland and another one that you can build units in that State as CSA player. Playing as USA player, you also get a brigade from Tennessee (for example) altough you can not build units in this State. Wsatterwhite is right.

Longshanks wrote:In a recent game, I managed to get the two CSA ironclads that show up as reinforcements late in the game at Wilmington NC all the way to the gulf side of Florida by putting them on G/G and running like H E double hockey sticks!

So, it can be done ....

I think it's too difficult to cross in front of so many forts and get to avoid all guns. Maybe you can avoid one or two forts but to avoid all those enemy forts you will need a divine help.

In my case, I was playing the CONFEDERATES, not the Union, so I only had to run those forts owned by the Union at the start of the 1862 scenario... about 2 or 3 of them. Risky, but not impossible. Running all the confederate forts with a UNION ironclad... that would be nearly impossible.

Longshanks wrote:Running all the confederate forts with a UNION ironclad... that would be nearly impossible.

Exactly! I meant this precisely.

Regards!

Yes, this is a silly feature of the game, unfortunately. The USA did use monitors throughout the coastal war, towing them from place to place. A few were lost at sea (including USS Monitor) in storms, but never by CSA gunfire.

In game terms, if you want heavy armored ships for coastal campaigns, build armored frigates.

It's not too silly, again, it pushes a Union player to do exactly what the Union did historically and take as many coastal forts as possible so that your Monitors (if you choose to use them in that way) don't have to make suicide runs along the coast but rather move from station to station.

I agree with TheDoctorKing I also think the best thing you can do is to build armored frigates if you want to use armored ships for coastal operations and fights against forts as they are good at defense and with a great offensive power.

Capt Cliff wrote:How can I move Ironclads to the Gulf from the Northeast without getting them beat-up by every fort they pass?? I made sure the fleet was not set to bombard, but still the forts fire on them. That seems a bit excessive. Gun's at this time had limited range and a ironclad should be able to navigate the coast area without being fired at. Should I select the avoid combat button?

I won't ask why you want them in the Gulf but you can get them there much easier by moving them to Chicago and down the river than clearing out all of the forts.

From New York to Chicago takes about a month with good weather and about another month to month and a half, perhaps two, down to New Orleans.

Of course there are still the fort at Island 10 and guns at Memphis and Vicksburg to get past. But it is not the dozen or so you have to pass to round the Florida Keys.

Ol' Choctaw wrote:I won't ask why you want them in the Gulf but you can get them there much easier by moving them to Chicago and down the river than clearing out all of the forts.

From New York to Chicago takes about a month with good weather and about another month to month and a half, perhaps two, down to New Orleans.

Of course there are still the fort at Island 10 and guns at Memphis and Vicksburg to get past. But it is not the dozen or so you have to pass to round the Florida Keys.

New Orleans. My first attempt at taking New Orleans I ran into 3 ironclads at the river mouth. They in turn ran rough shod over my invasion fleet pushing it up the river to Baton Rouge. I had at least 2 armored frigates with Farragut and other warships. It seems to me if you hit the avoid battle button you should not engage the forts along the coast. The range of gun in those days was 2 or 3 miles, but accuracy was the most important attribute.

Ironclads trump every other ship type, seemingly. If you don’t have any and the enemy dose you can forget about invading.

Armored Frigates are no use against them, either.

Ol' Choctaw wrote:Ironclads trump every other ship type, seemingly. If you don’t have any and the enemy dose you can forget about invading.

Armored Frigates are no use against them, either.

This is a game changer!! If this is true then there needs a way to skirt forts with Union ironclads, the avoid combat button is ideal. I still say you can be in a coastal area and NOT be in range of a fort. I just finished reading Lincoln's Admirals and the Federals used ironclads up and down the east coast. I don't think they battled every fort the passed by.

Capt Cliff wrote:New Orleans. My first attempt at taking New Orleans I ran into 3 ironclads at the river mouth. They in turn ran rough shod over my invasion fleet pushing it up the river to Baton Rouge. I had at least 2 armored frigates with Farragut and other warships. It seems to me if you hit the avoid battle button you should not engage the forts along the coast. The range of gun in those days was 2 or 3 miles, but accuracy was the most important attribute.

I think you just got unlucky. Being in evade mode doesn't mean you WILL miss the enemy, it just increases the odds. I've run Farragut past many forts in G/G mode: he usually doesn't get hit, but sometimes he does. Same deal with enemy ships.

Capt Cliff wrote:This is a game changer!! If this is true then there needs a way to skirt forts with Union ironclads, the avoid combat button is ideal. I still say you can be in a coastal area and NOT be in range of a fort. I just finished reading Lincoln's Admirals and the Federals used ironclads up and down the east coast. I don't think they battled every fort the passed by.

True, but the current situation is how the game is designed. Maybe for AACW 2, there should be coastal regions not next to the fort (so that the ships must get right up next to the fort to go to the river behind, but this way they can sail past the forts if they so desire. The designers could split each coastal region to allow movement past the forts (this would involve a serious map change).

Jim-NC wrote:True, but the current situation is how the game is designed. Maybe for AACW 2, there should be coastal regions not next to the fort (so that the ships must get right up next to the fort to go to the river behind, but this way they can sail past the forts if they so desire. The designers could split each coastal region to allow movement past the forts (this would involve a serious map change).

Even so, you will get situations like the one I just got playing the CSA in a pbem game. Feb '62 a fleet of some 12 union ironclads AND transports sails up the James, on evade obviously, and evade they did--some 56 guns in Norfolk and another 40 on the north shore of the James. This union fleet then proceeded to land a brigade with Hooker which was chased off into the swamp, then re-boarding its transports to sit out in the James with the ironclads, still apparently evading confederate cannon fire from both shores, plus a sortie by CSS Fredericksburg. I can understand the ironclad fleet getting off with no serious loss, but those (wooden-sided I assume?) transports should have been flotsam on the tides by now.
Just unlucky--or is this to be expected? I don't have enough of an understanding of the bombardment dynamics yet.

I will be moving in some coastal artillery for the south shore to beef things up--will this make a difference? Does this radically decrease (as it should) the likelihood of enemy naval evade succeeding?

Now that it is there it will not be bombarded until it moves unless he selects bombard for his fleet.

Bombardment on the James is also kind of bugged. I usually only works against the CSA but it will sometimes work when Union ships move east out of the river.

Ol' Choctaw wrote:Now that it is there it will not be bombarded until it moves unless he selects bombard for his fleet.

Bombardment on the James is also kind of bugged. I usually only works against the CSA but it will sometimes work when Union ships move east out of the river.

I assumed the "double adjacency" rule was kicking in, rather than bombardment being bugged. Such manuvers as Hooker did are common, in my experience, against PBEMers.

I've noticed it's important to double check that the bombard button is pushed. It seems to deselect itself after some turns. I use the E and R method to quickly go through to check before ending the turn.

Ol' Choctaw wrote:Now that it is there it will not be bombarded until it moves unless he selects bombard for his fleet.

Bombardment on the James is also kind of bugged. I usually only works against the CSA but it will sometimes work when Union ships move east out of the river.

Longshanks wrote:I assumed the "double adjacency" rule was kicking in, rather than bombardment being bugged. Such manuvers as Hooker did are common, in my experience, against PBEMers.

Whether I play Union or CSA it makes little difference in how it works. It is not the double adjacency. I can move from New York to the upper James without fear. It is only when you try to leave that there is ever the chance to be shot at. With the CSA even having Ft. Monroe it is the same. The only way to get a shot at a Yankee is to put a fort on Cape Charles.

Whenever I played the Union in PBEM I never played the blue or brown water game. Its just to easy to win as the Union if you employ the Anaconda plan or anything similar. The naval game has always been the weakest part of AACW and really screws any chance of a Confederate victory. Its a local house rule I always employed

Edited for typo errors

Only just got to late '62 in my game and just realised the difficulty getting Monitors to the Gulf coast. Such a shame we can't easily re-enact the attack on Mobile etc

Also finding the attrition is pretty bad for monitors, cohesion drop even going from Annapolis to Ft Monroe in fair weather is pretty harsh in latest beta patch.

Has anyone ever got a monitor to Ft Pickens?

Chuske wrote:Only just got to late '62 in my game and just realised the difficulty getting Monitors to the Gulf coast. Such a shame we can't easily re-enact the attack on Mobile etc

Also finding the attrition is pretty bad for monitors, cohesion going from Annapolis to Ft Monroe in fair weather is pretty harsh in latest beta patch.

Has anyone ever got a monitor to Ft Pickens?

This needs to be corrected in a patch. I think the difficulty sending ironclads long distance around Florida should be entirely weather related. In other words, given their limited freeboard and atrocious handling in any sort of strong sea, it should be almost suicide to send them in winter. Most of the ironclad monitors assembled for the Mobile attack (Mahhattan, Winnebago, Chickasaw, Tecumseh) were sent around in July. In fact the entire assault was delayed because the Tecumseh was late in arriving and didnt get there until Aug. 4th. 'Nuff said--the dates say it all. Movement from one coastal waters to another should have a survivability roll depending on month of the year, ranging from 10% (Dec) to 85% (July).