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After reading the post on 'Best Cannon' I got to thinking about how much I really DON'T know about the Artillery in this game.

I reread the manual and checked the posts but this newbie question has eluded me and I guess I have been just guessing.

On the 'Replacement Screen' which Cannons are considered 'HEAVY'? I have always thought they where the Siege Guns but now I'm not so sure.

And as long as I am showing how ignorant I am on the art in this game could someone tell me what is considered 'Field Art' and 'Light Art'.

I actually (sigh) DO know what 'Horse Art' is.

I guess I have always just been makong sure I had at least 1 of each in the Replacement screen and guessing which was which.

So, if some kind soul could set me straight on this I would appreciate it (and so would my troops I would suppose).

Thanks

Better post that in the other thread instead of starting a new one!

GrudgeBringer wrote:After reading the post on 'Best Cannon' I got to thinking about how much I really DON'T know about the Artillery in this game.

I reread the manual and checked the posts but this newbie question has eluded me and I guess I have been just guessing.

On the 'Replacement Screen' which Cannons are considered 'HEAVY'? I have always thought they where the Siege Guns but now I'm not so sure.

And as long as I am showing how ignorant I am on the art in this game could someone tell me what is considered 'Field Art' and 'Light Art'.

I actually (sigh) DO know what 'Horse Art' is.

I guess I have always just been makong sure I had at least 1 of each in the Replacement screen and guessing which was which.

So, if some kind soul could set me straight on this I would appreciate it (and so would my troops I would suppose).

Thanks

Heavy -> Siege Arty (A dot with a small mark) & all the coastal Arty.
Light -> Just the small guns with a "L" marked in the NATO symbol - It is marked as Power 14 in the Reinforcement
Horse Arty -> Well you know this! --- This is also Light Arty for replacement purposes (I´m nearly sure of this)
Field Arty -> the normal NATO arty symbol (A single dot) -- All the others --- Columbiad included

On the CSA side, I think I am correct in thinking, you can check yourself. That on the unit picture alone, the gold/bronze coloured guns are usally light guns. And the Silver/grey coloured guns are the medium Field artillery.

stars&bars wrote:On the CSA side, I think I am correct in thinking, you can check yourself. That on the unit picture alone, the gold/bronze coloured guns are usally light guns. And the Silver/grey coloured guns are the medium Field artillery.

Not exactly. The colours show the (more or less historic) material used for building the cannons. Usually bronze for the smoothbores and iron for the rifled guns.
The 12 lb Napoleons (medium field guns) are golden as they were made of bronze.
The parrots 10 and 20 lb are black as they were made of iron. The same than the bigger columbiads, Rodmans and the like which are heavy guns
On the light guns you have bronze (golden) for the 6 lb and black (iron) for the horse arty which used to be 3 inches guns.
I learned all this last week on this cool wiki article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Artillery_in_the_American_Civil_War

Regards!

stars&bars wrote:On the CSA side, I think I am correct in thinking, you can check yourself. That on the unit picture alone, the gold/bronze coloured guns are usally light guns. And the Silver/grey coloured guns are the medium Field artillery.

I had a look at the picture and I am not sure you're right ... unless you consider a 20-pounder Parrot a light gun!

Anyway I would have expected the silver ones to represent the rifled pieces, since they were made of steel, while the smoothbores should be bronze-colored, since that's what they were made of. But it appears that's not true either ...

Interesting read on wiki, about those cannons. Its nice to know what they actually look like, and they're purpose.

No suprises the South were at another disadvantage when i came to cannons leure:

It's not that simple. As far as I read the pre-war smoothbore was devestating at short ranges, and this mattered more than the theoretic range advantage of the modern rifled cannons. Because usually battles were won by the defender, and fought at short range.

This is actually reflected by the stats. If you look closely, you will find that defensively, the 12lber smoothbore is the best "bang for the buck".

GlobalExplorer wrote:It's not that simple. As far as I read the pre-war smoothbore was devestating at short ranges.

Definitely. That's the reason why quite a number of armies, including the Prussian (!), kept the smoothbore 12-pounder in their arsenals long after reliable rifled breechloaders were available.

A smoothbore muzzleloader is more quickly reloaded, which is a major bonus at short ranges. Plus it's hard to fire canister effectively from a rifle. The balls don't spread out so quickly and nicely as with a smoothbore, thus spoiling the shotgun effect. In short, for artillery to defend a line (and itself) effectively, smoothbores are far superior. And the 12-pounder packs quite a punch.