some CSA strategy questions

[DirkX]

-Fort Monroe
How to deal with that Thorn ?
i sent a corps against Monroe with 1 unit siege artillery and some field artillery, but couldnt even hit a breach, i now abandoned the siege and let the Fort be.
What do you recommend ? take it at all costs or ignore it ?
(and how to take it ? build more siege artillery?)

-Jackson
Should i give him an army ? imo hes more usefull as corps commander , hes commanding the largest corps of the entire CSA and is unbeatable on the field.

-Forrest and Stuart
Use them as raiders or attach them to corps as divisional commanders ?
both got heavily beaten on the field because sooner or later they bump into large union forces ( so happened to me) and lose, Stuart lost his entire force and is now recovering. Forrest is a better raider of course with the raider ability. How do you use them ?

-Combined Arms or specialized Divisions
should i create my divisions with combined arms (as i do now) or does creating artillery or cavalry divisions give an advantage ?

[TreyFL3]

Hey Dirk -

Just some thoughts from my experience. I'm about halfway through the war as the Confederates, doing well, and things are looking up. Just continuing to fight where necessary, not get into scrapes with ridiculous amounts of Union troops, and being very cautious about invading the North. Of course, I can do that now that Kentucky has seceeded and Missouri is on the way!

I had Longstreet and a Division seige Ft. Monroe for almost a full year. Took forever! But just took it down the other night. It's probably worth it - but now I have to take back Norfolk! leure:

Jackson's awesome...he's my best corps commander, too. I plan on keeping him that way.

On Forrest and Stuart - I put Stuart with Lee (who's in Kentucky and West Virginia kicking Union butt) and branch him out to conduct raids on occasion. Forrest has been aced a few times and it is frustrating when he does. I guess I've got to learn that he needs to not be in the thick of things!

On your combined arms, I think mixing it up is always better.

Good luck.

[Jabberwock]

I learned the hard way with artillery. My artillery division was a waste. The concept is 'frontage' i.e. only a certain number of units of each type can be engaged in a battle at one time.

However, medium sized cavalry divisons with a cavalry leader are very useful. I currently aim for about eight regiments cavalry with three or four horse artillery (until I learn the exact mechanics better, and can optimize these numbers).

Early in the war, Forrest and Stuart are both division leaders; I usually promote Stuart to corps command when I have one or two other cavalry leaders in the east. I haven't had a game last long enough yet with the right circumstances to promote Forrest .

[Jabberwock]

-Jackson
Should i give him an army ? imo hes more usefull as corps commander , hes commanding the largest corps of the entire CSA and is unbeatable on the field.

Depends on how many corps you can incorporate to receive his bonuses, and how fast his seniority went up (what's the cost in NM?).

[KillCalvalry]

I am a Noob, so wondering myself....

On Ft. Monroe, if you are playing a human, I would think that taking it can't happen as CSA. First, the Union is likely to reinforce it, because a mobile force there would force you to garrision Hampton Roads and the vicinity. If it was beseiged, a human would find a brigade or two and get it down there pretty quick. Second, if you do take it, a USN fleet can come by and pound your guys to dust. This happened to me against the AI, Magruder took it, and his command was devastated by the USN. Against an actual human, it's probably alot worse.

In my PBEM I did hold it the entire war, and it did prove very useful. I just don't think against a human it's even feasible.

I still haven't figured out the best use of cavalry. Single Regt. suicide raids are good for cutting railroads, but the independent divisions sooner or later seem to get squashed. Most cavalry formations seem to die sooner or later. The most effective use was in Missouri, where there are wide-open spaces and not alot of large infantry formations. A 4-Regt "Brigade" with McCulloch did alot of damage.

[Nial]

On Cav.
I sent Stuarts div. north from Harpers ferry with T. Jacksons division following on what I call a raid in force. Jackson stopped at Harrisburg, but Stuart, being the kind of vain, publicity hound he is went all the way around the Union army and captured Wilmington. Tore up the RR and burned the anything he couldn't carry. Both are now in the process of moving back to Harpers ferry. A Cav div. can be very usefull if used judiciously.

As a side: Both forces are severly depleted due to lack of effective supply. Both will need several turns to get back to fighting trim. However, I think it was well worth it. There is not a working RR within 5 provinces of Washington north of Manassas. I temp control at least 4 towns. Willmington was only mine for 1 turn. The chaos in their rear alone is worth what it cost in men.

P.S. Good idea to have a rescue force sitting around incase they try to cut off your raid. Losing some men is one thing. Having a Div. of both Inf. and Cav. wiped out is quite another.

Nial

[blackbellamy]

-Fort Monroe
How to deal with that Thorn ?
i sent a corps against Monroe with 1 unit siege artillery and some field artillery, but couldnt even hit a breach, i now abandoned the siege and let the Fort be.
What do you recommend ? take it at all costs or ignore it ?
(and how to take it ? build more siege artillery?)

I leave it alone. The Union can take any of your coastal forts whenever it wants to and Norfolk sits less than one turn away from Union embark points. If something marches out of Norfolk, that's free morale points for you.

-Jackson
Should i give him an army ? imo hes more usefull as corps commander , hes commanding the largest corps of the entire CSA and is unbeatable on the field.

Lee needs good Corps commanders and Jackson is one of the best. I load up his Corps to the max.

-Forrest and Stuart
Use them as raiders or attach them to corps as divisional commanders ?
both got heavily beaten on the field because sooner or later they bump into large union forces ( so happened to me) and lose, Stuart lost his entire force and is now recovering. Forrest is a better raider of course with the raider ability. How do you use them ?

I form each as a division with 13 cavalry and 4 horse artillery. They either raid or stomp on raiders. If I can promote them to Corps I do but the makeup stays the same. My cavalry divisions are always set to Avoid Combat unless I'm pursuing a particular unit.

-Combined Arms or specialized Divisions
should i create my divisions with combined arms (as i do now) or does creating artillery or cavalry divisions give an advantage ?

I try to build all my divisions with 11 assorted infantry, 1 sharpshooter, 1 cavalry, and 4 artillery. If I wanted to build the "Grande Batterie" it would make my regular divisions less flexible (what if I have to detach a division? now it has no artillery because all the tubes are tied up in the Grande Batterie. Plus god forbid your Grande Batterie division gets caught alone.)

[KillCalvalry]

Great discussion, and that brings up another Noob question, probably more of a US strategy question, but CSA has to think about it....

On the AAR's, I notice hardly any invasions by Sea for the Union. Though they can take a fort anytime they want to, and move LOTS of troops just about anywhere, I see hardly any Ocean invasions (I am talking PBEM here, NOT against AI). Is that because of the risks involved for the Union in the whole force being wiped out?

I also see a couple possible variations on this:

1. SEA RAIDS: You can do quick hits againts places like New Bern or Galveston or other cities fairly quickly, tear up some tracks, and get back to the boats before the CSA reacts in force. Does anyone do this strategy?
2. MAJOR INVASION: To sustain a strategy, it seems to me you basically need to get an Army somewhere over the Ocean. If you go through all that trouble, it probably has to be a good target, like New Orleans.

It seems like as USA, if you DO try this, target #1 should be New Orleans. That would cause the greatest economic harm to the CSA, and is easier to defend then other coastal cities like Charleston or Mobile. Any troops the CSA commits down there is going to be a ways away from the action.

Any thoughts on Seaborne invasions, and the steps the CSA should take as precautions? (like, a strong garrison in NO)

[Jagger]

On the AAR's, I notice hardly any invasions by Sea for the Union. Though they can take a fort anytime they want to, and move LOTS of troops just about anywhere, I see hardly any Ocean invasions (I am talking PBEM here, NOT against AI). Is that because of the risks involved for the Union in the whole force being wiped out?

I also see a couple possible variations on this:

1. SEA RAIDS: You can do quick hits againts places like New Bern or Galveston or other cities fairly quickly, tear up some tracks, and get back to the boats before the CSA reacts in force. Does anyone do this strategy?
2. MAJOR INVASION: To sustain a strategy, it seems to me you basically need to get an Army somewhere over the Ocean. If you go through all that trouble, it probably has to be a good target, like New Orleans.

It seems like as USA, if you DO try this, target #1 should be New Orleans. That would cause the greatest economic harm to the CSA, and is easier to defend then other coastal cities like Charleston or Mobile. Any troops the CSA commits down there is going to be a ways away from the action.

Any thoughts on Seaborne invasions, and the steps the CSA should take as precautions? (like, a strong garrison in NO)

In my experience, the Union lacks the leadership to make effective sea invasions. What good does it do to land a corps by itself with command leadership of 2. They have zero capability to do anything except defend and poorly at that. And what happens if you land and the leadership doesn't activate for 2,3, 4 turns? They can't even attack to take a single objective.

The poor Union leader combat values also makes them very vulnerable to counterattacks which can destroy the entire force. Sea invasions are a big gamble unless the Union is able to commit good leadership to an invasion. They are fun but I am not convinced they are the best use of manpower till good leadership is available

New Orleans is a potentially decent target early in the war if weakly defended. Once taken, simply dig in and hope your troops hold against any significant counterattack.

Small raids with good leadership might be useful. Although tearing up railroads is not very productive. They will need to occupy VP locations and hopefully escape before caught and destroyed.

One other factor in PBEMs is that the Rebels max out conscription, volunteers and money at the beginning of the war. If you compare Union and rebel buildup capabilities, they are very similiar at the beginning of the war. With the entire rebel buildup devoted to troops, the Union needs to do the same and make any navy buildup at the lowest priority. Otherwise the Union can actually find itself outnumbered as well as outgeneraled and very possibly lose the game early. (I know...ahistorical as hell but it is a game and the strategy does require a newbie Union opponent.) So IMO the Union should ignore the sea at the beginning of the war and ensure at least parity in armies first and a stable Eastern front. Late 1861, place some focus on blue/brown water navies and perhaps sometime in mid or late 1862, the Union can consider sea invasions as better leadership becomes available.

[KPatton]

I have as the Union, taken both Galveston and I think it was Corpus. In one game I just held onto Galveston the the AI sent attack after attack down from Houston but never made a dent. But I figured it tied up forces from Texas that could have been put to use elsewhere. I lost the lodgement in Corpus but held on to Galveston. Eventually staged another landing southwest of N.Orleans created a depot and moved north to capture West Baton Rouge. This again tied up a lot of Confederate forces. If done early enough one can run the forts south of N. Orleans and capture the city. This forces the Rebs to stack units in the fort situated to the east directly across the bay. I counted up to 12 units at one time. I then captured lodgements on the Mississippi coastline to isolate this fort and moved north to sever the railroads. I limited my penetrations and when I did move inland, I stationed one regiment in each zone in order to increase control so supplies would move inland from the depots I created either from wagons transported along with the invading troops or transports. Eventually I moved a 3 star down along with an army and corps commanders. In the same game I created lodgements along the N. and S. Carolina and Georgia coasts. This frees up a lot of brown water blockade shipping and ties up a lot of Johnny Rebs from moving north. Eventually the loss of cities, manpower and supplies, caused a continual retreat of Confederate forces from N. Virginia into the Carolinas where they were faced with the forces I had built up in my coastal lodgements moving inland and threatening Atlanta in Georgia, and Raleigh in N. Carolina. I never captured the length of the Mississippi, but had captured Memphis and pushed down a bit farther than Corinth inland. This all gave me a victory in mid 1864.

A caveat. Don't push forward or inland too fast from you lodgements. Before I fully understood the supply mechanics I had Buell in charge of an army with attached corps in Galveston. I moved him out and had soon captured Beaumont and West Baton Rouge having moved north west from Galveston. I sent out divisions and had captured Houston, Dallas and most all of Texas. My push into Louisiana turned out to be a disaster. Bobby Lee met me at East Baton Rouge. The UI had build up quite a force in N. Orleans. Buell pressed forward but was rebuffed. Mr. Lee then pressed his advantage attacking again and again, depleting my tenuously supplied army. Buell not having sufficient control of the surrounding zones, found his army annihlated when trying to retreat into the deadly "Red Zone" that surrounded him. Next turn I found Buell hiding in a corn crib in Shreveport. The whole of his Army of South was history.
The only good thing was the UI failed to move to recapture Houston, but held tight to East Baton Rouge leaving me in control of Texas. That game ended in a stalemate. Once I learned to use the logistics rules things changed quite a bit.

As they say "Amateurs speak of tactics, Professionals speak of logistics."

[Jabberwock]

This one can be run almost like a chess opening.

1. Use one turn's worth of early draft or volunteers to build bunches of calvalry, sharpshooters, marines/sailors, and some militia in Boston and New York, along with two transports, and two or three artillery.

2. Tranfer one or two decent *s to Boston. Create a division using most of the available cavalry there, one sharpshooter, one sailor. Create another one unit division with the other leader. If the primary division doesn't activate, troops can be transfered.

3. New York transport to White Lake. Boston transport to Biloxi Bay. Maybe make a stop at Ft Pickens or in the Keys to reorganize and ensure simultaneous arrival.

4. (East - from Biloxi Bay) Divisions cross Duras and take New Orleans. One Marine to Mississippi City. One militia to Shieldsboro (via MC - not amphibious).

4 (West - White Lake) One militia to Berwick. One Cavalry each (via riverine transport) to Springfield, Port Hudson, Natchez, St Joseph Harrisonburg. If you have the force available to take Baton Rouge and make one swell foop out of the eastern bank, do it (maybe you made another division?). Otherwise, move the rest of your forces to WBR (Pierre) and start digging in. If you dedicated one cavalry to assault WBR and stop there, you can avoid destroying supplies as the rest sweep through the area.

5. Transports to WBR (the eastern one circles around through White Lake, still avoiding the forts) and build a depot.

6. Dig in, blow up some railroads, reinforce (bring in some engineers if available), bring in the navy to patrol the river. Use the artillery to support the navy at WBR & NO.

7. Do the whole thing again on a smaller scale in Texas, with support from this area.

Objectives by priority:

New Orleans
West Baton Rouge (the heart of Louisiana, if you dont manage to take NO, retreat here)
Springfield (protects NO)
Berwick (so supplies get to WBR)
Baton Rouge (if possible)
St Joseph (deep raiders from Tennessee/Arkansas can use river moves to resupply here, and reinforce this area - threatens Vicksburg / Jackson)
Mississippi City (threatens Mobile)
Natchez - (threatens Vicksburg / Jackson)
Shieldsboro & Harrisonburg.
Opelousas, Alexandria, Shreveport, Milan & Monroe can be taken in any order.

The trick to this is doing it fast. Don't let your opponent prepare anything.

Baton Rouge is often the trouble spot. It is hard to reach early in force, well supplied, and a natural assembly point for the Louisiana rebs.

Now you have undercut the whole Trans-Mississippi. Troops moving down from Missouri/Illinois take Arkansas and western Tennessee. Grant/Sherman have plenty of options for taking Vicksburg. By the end of 1862, you can have the entire area, with no chance of it being retaken. You have shortened your front incredibly, although it does the same for the rebs.

Disadvantages: It is a major diversion of resources. You expect it is a major diversion for your opponent. If successful, you will have to garrison all of Kirby Smithdom, to avoid partisan uprisings.

I've run this twice in PBEM, improving it along the way. I'm happy with the results.