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Shooting at units in close combat


Galverizer

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There is friendly fire.  Next time you have your own troops put a volley into the backs of a melee ball, watch the casualty rate for your men before, during, and after.  The rate at which you're losing men will rose considerably for the duration of the volley.  More often than not, this is what causes your men to Rout in melee.

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7 minutes ago, sonnypemberton said:

I just noticed this yesterday - friendly fire is a thing. I had melee Calvary attacking enemy units backed up with some mounted skirmishers and noticed that every time I fired, my melee took several hits. Is this a new addition? I hadn't noticed FF before...

It's probably been there for a while now.  Just no one really noticed.

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the firing into the melee cluster**** is to counter the fact that melee charges are incredibly potent for both the player and the AI. By that I mean that cover is overemphasized, so charging an enemy en masse is often far easier than trying to dislodge them by firing in the open. 

So it goes: cover needs to be powerful to make certain ground worth defending-> attacking cover is difficult, so charging is better-> charging exploits are annoying, so firing into melee is acceptable despite being ahistorical->friendly fire is a thing to balance this (though nowhere close to as damaging as it is to the enemy). 

As you can see, there are a lot of things to consider when one comments on how one element in this chain is unfair. 

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If I recall correctly, close combat during Civil war was 90% shooting and 10% actual melee combat... same as in Napoleonic wars - only very determined soldiers (on both sides) would actually wait for enemy to get close to fight with bayonets...

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11 hours ago, JaM said:

If I recall correctly, close combat during Civil war was 90% shooting and 10% actual melee combat... same as in Napoleonic wars - only very determined soldiers (on both sides) would actually wait for enemy to get close to fight with bayonets...

In the peninsular campaign and later battles like Waterloo it's true, but earlier in the period infantry shock formations had a somewhat bigger role. But overall the point remains, Usually once a infantry unit charged another one with bayonets, at the moment of contact one was already about to break, so the shock combat didn't last long nor cause that many casualties, but it did cause units shattering as we would say in game term, whereas fire phase could have lasted a while longer.

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17 hours ago, JaM said:

If I recall correctly, close combat during Civil war was 90% shooting and 10% actual melee combat... same as in Napoleonic wars - only very determined soldiers (on both sides) would actually wait for enemy to get close to fight with bayonets...

And actual melee combat is more a locked pushing match than a free-for-all bayonetfest. That is why a charge/assault order is always to take a position, never to run after enemy like it was agame of tag.

 

 

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i think actual close combat should be portrayed as a very chaotic situation where some soldiers are charging, some firing some running away, while both units get disoriented by it.. It shouldn't be a synchronized event, where both sides fire salvo and then engage each other in bayonet fencing.. as that actually never happened in history...

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