Stauffenberg wrote:I would like to come at this issue from another angle, one that does not at all argue against any of the specific points you make regarding cohesion recovery and replacements (fortunately for me!
).
Rereading my initial post I realize I didn’t emphasize enough that I was out to talk about “Command Points”, or something like them, in conjunction with new supply depot dynamics. As things stand there is far too much leniency in what larger formations and stacks are actually able to do, and the penalties for doing the improbable are too light.
I think the best example I can give is Grant’s Richmond-Petersburg “siege” from June ’64 to late March ’65. Grant wanted to get at Richmond and cut Lee off from Richmond somehow and force him to battle. In his memoirs he states that his first idea was to have ten days of supplies in wagons and to cut loose from his main supply line and depots, moving down east of the Blue Ridge to the west of Lee. He would then swing to the East, moving to cut Lee off from Richmond. The most interesting thing he has to say here is that he
would have done it if he had experience with the Army of the Potomac, but that in early 1864 there was no time for the command relationship to develop: he didn't know the AoP, and the AoP didn't know him.
That to me directly raises the issue of command initiative which I think could be effectively (and without massive complexity) be detailed as Command Points, or call it a given general's Command Initiative Rating, one that is always either increasing or decreasing turn by turn depending upon his activity or inactivity.
As it turned out Grant moved SE across the James after a series of battles, lured by the instant availability of a massive supply boost shipped in on the James to an upgraded harbour depot at City Point. The game really does model the superiority of river supply over RR and land very well. But then note how the campaign developed in this “siege” of Richmond-Petersburg.
[ATTACH]22986[/ATTACH]
In the first instance it was not a classic “siege” as the attached map shows: Lee and his positions were never surrounded. What we end up with is a massively fortified arc of positions from the north of Richmond to the south of Petersburg, a large inverted *C* some 50 miles long. Question: why didn’t Grant, with greatly superior forces and two entire Army commands north and south of the James attempt this? Clearly, all he had to do was effectively cut both the Southside RR into Petersburg, and the Richmond & Danville Line into Richmond, for Lee's entire position to become untenable. Grant knew this, but would not or could not do it and one has to wonder why. The answer is that his supply situation would degenerate drastically the further he got from his main supply head on the James, and that developing a major new supplyhead from Fredericksburg to the north would take too much time or was otherwise not feasible.
In game terms this situation is unlikely to occur as armies and their subordinate corps are only limited by a possible inactive stack, as the need for a developed and dedicated supply line to supply head is not articulated strongly enough. It is an immediate flaw I noticed from my first pbems: the skilled Union player will usually use a sort of “pawn-storm” offense with numerous mutually supporting corps stacks (with a supply wagon each of course) advancing and occupying large swathes of Virginia and certainly able to surround CSA positions in a manner that Grant himself was unable to do late in the war. There are various methods the CSA player can employ to thwart or even defeat this approach but the point I think is that the lack of CPs and more realistic supply constraints is at the root of the problem. Armies stayed as close to depots as they could get away with… or else they now and then loaded up with supplies and cut loose, but this was relatively rare, and it did not involve large constellations of corps churning on into enemy territory (Sherman's March to the Sea an exception). It also required an army commander-army relationship built up over time to allow for such an initiative.
A nice way to deal with this it seems to me is to have every Army Command (hereafter AC) generating CPs at a rate directly proportional to the strategic value of the general (obvious candidates for the fastest CP generation Lee, Jackson, Forrest, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan etc.). Move the general to a new army or corps command and it is set to zero. ACs generate CPs in regions with depots or adjacent to regions with major depots (built on top of regular depots at for the same cost—4 more supply elements). Once you move the AC, engage in combat, or if any of its elements does MTSG, there is a CP cost. AC’s with zero CPs can still move attack and defend but all factors are reduced—in particular attack strengths are halved. Something like that.
Back to my example of Grant and the “siege” of Richmond-Petersburg, there would be compelling reasons for the Union player to have his two ACs adjacent to the major supply depot in City Point harbour on the James, but with loaded up supply wagons and CPs independent commands could be sent around both flanks in an attempt to surround Lee. As it stands now you just load up a corps with some supply wagons… and you are good to go.
I also raised the issue of developing some sort of “interception movement” on the part of ACs but will leave that for another post.
,
ompom:
[/CENTER]