Dr Meat

Generals and Creators of UG, In the real Civil War a great many units were composed of mixed arms. Read the detail at artillery at Gettysburg for example, there you will find it very common, and probably in the vast majority, to have artillery battalions composed of some parrots, some Napoleons and even a howitzer. This was on both sides. Just go to a web site and search for a list of the markers on the battlefield today that describe in detail what the artillery was composed of. Even in the infantry, at the regimental level let alone the brigades, some unites were composed of a mix of smoothbore 69s and rifled 58s. This could be reflected in a patch that would allow us to mix our batteries. Say in the case of artillery, our Parrots or Ordinance rifles would fire at their long range while our Napoleons and Field Howitzers stayed silent waiting to repel a counterattack. It seems to me it would not be a great technical challenge for the Gods of UG to patch this. I often have many cannon in the 'bank' so to speak that I cannot use because of mismatch of type. Same could be said of muskets and rifles.

General Hannibalbarca, Your legal analysis is well taken. Some New England States had once threatened succession early on in the 1800's. It was far from clear id a State could legally leave the Union. If the South had taken a legal approach through the courts to succession rather than leaving ad hoc with little preparation for war, including munitions and military manufacturing and build up of supplies of steel, bronze and such, then and only then might they have had a chance. A legal succession sanctioned by the Supreme Court of the time would have tied Lincoln's hands behind his back. Attacking Fort Sumter was the stupidest way to leave for it gave a perfect legal excuse for Lincoln to put down "certain combinations of men" as he termed the rebel traitors. One has to almost look at Jeff Davis and his cronies as out of touch with reality as the leader of North Korea and his generals are today.

Generals Faithful to our Sacred Union, Should we win this war and see the traitors run, ought we hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, after a fair trial of course, or just throw him in the brig for a long time? Our Presidnet Lincoln is looking for Generals to be on a Commission of Military Justice and solicits your response one way or the other.

General Econ21, I do hope and pray that you are a supporter of our Union under President Lincoln as I share my answer with you. Previous posts have started to circle in on the truth about the efficacy of the smoothbore musket with a 69 cal ball and three buckshot versus the rifled single Minie ball. At far range over 100 yards the rifle was definitely superior say at a shooting range, although the typical soldier was not trained to be a marksman at 300-500 yards. In addition the vast clouds of black powder smoke would obscure a target on a still or day with low wind. The 69 cal came onto its own in the melee as described, not so much due to the weight of the ball, but the three buckshot. In addition, regardless of the game, the rate of fire was slightly faster as the ball either fell to the bottom of the barrel or required a gentle ramrod to get it there. This is in contrast to the tight fitting Minie ball requiring much more effort to seat the projectile on the powder, sometimes requiring a rock on the ramrod to hammer it home after many rounds were fired. I experienced this myself in live fire at the target range. This is documented. Also is the fact that the smoothbore 69 cal could be loaded easily with two balls and six or more bucks. This was done by a Union Regiment at the upper stone wall at Pickett's Charge although the Rebs did not close to a melee. I believe extra boxes of buckshot was opened and laying around. to just add more in. So ultimately, I use the smoothbore for charges of trenches and shock trooper stuff, whereas the rifles for longer range decimation of the traitors. I believe in a real battle I would prefer a smoothbore as a attacker trying to take a trench or fort, and a rifle as a defender generally speaking. Please do not share this information with any of Jeff Davis's Generals, and Goodspeed to you General Econ21 in your advance onto Richmond. -Gen Dr Meat

Generals, throughout the game as well as at the end our medals we have gained are deployed on a screen. Now, maybe you - but not I - am technically proficient enough to print them out. What we need from UG is a simple way to print out our medals and ribbons as we are awarded them. By the way, we ought to also have the ability to design a monument to ourselves and have UG place them in a collection.

General Bolkonsky, I did not intend to mislead you. In UG you CANNOT insert the color, symbol etc into your brigade name. That was only in what is called 'real life' back then. But it would make for an interesting mod for our game. Remember, General, our mission from President Lincoln. Defeat the combinations of rebels in our southern States and do it as quickly as possible. A simple naming system of brigades would be S, M and L for type of musket/rifle. Perrhaps Corps and Division numbers are irrelevant to us. S = the 69 cal, M = 58 cal but the 400 range which would be the L's. This Short, Medium and long contains all the basic info at a glance on the battlefield to make tactical decisions. Godspeed to you and onward to Richmond! ---Gen Meat

Union Generals, I am concerned that we have spies in our midst. General Hannibalbarca may indeed be one and certainly General Albert Sidney Johnston is one. If you catch them or any of their employees around your camps, then hang them from a sour apple tree next to Jeff Davis. Long live the Union and our beloved President Abraham Lincoln.

Too much too little too late. Majority of rebs can't read anyway. Long Live the UNION and President Lincoln.

General, get with it. Belly up! General US Grant did not complain as much as you do. Just follow the wisdom of Sun Tzo: When you are 10-1 attack, when you are 1-1 defend; when you are 1-10 retreat. Try to attack a trench from the edge of the board, only a fool attacks headlong into a wde killing field. Use terrain. Use forest to advance 58 cal rifles, then at close range melee with 69. They are your trench taking storm troopers. Then hurry Napoleon cannon into the breach. Think Blitzkriek General. Lincoln will be proud of you. Long Live the Union. Long Live President Lincoln. Hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree!

General Hannibalbarca, I did not factor range into my rifle analysis. It is a puzzlement to do so. The 69ers will not hit anything at 400 yards, In reality any musket or rifle probably has declining accuracy at increasing range, from say 100% accuracy at 1 yard to low accuracy at 400+ yards. Each will tail off at its own rate. So it is difficult to value. In my analysis I ignore range letting the final Effective Lethality and $ Cost Lethality be at the assumed stated ranges. So as such it is a general prediction and better than nothing. General, Godspeed onward to your next victory. Long Live President Lincoln. ---Gen Meat

General Hannibalbarca, here is an example of my math for two rifles. 1842 Palmetto 69 Cal: Damage(18) X Rate of Fire (40) = Potential Lethality of 720. Multiply 720 by Accuracy of 0.135 to get Effective Lethality of 97.2 , I assume perfect accuracy is 100 (100% hits) or 1.0 , and then no accuracy at all is 0.0 , or 0%. So when you divide accuracy by 100 you are then converting accuracy to percentage of hits. Then you divide the Effective Lethality ( 97.2 here) by the $ cost of 13 for this smoothbore musket to get 7.5 for a Effective Lethality per $ dollar spent. In the case of the 1853 Enfield 58 Cal rifle then we have Damage (12.5) X Rate (48) = 600 Potential Lethality. Then that 600 X 0.67 for Accuracy = 402 for Effective Lethality. Then divide Effective Lethality of 402 by $ cost of 29 to yield a Effective Lethality per $ spent of 13.9 and this weapon has the bonus of the 340 range opposed to the Palmetto at only 250. I did not factor range into my analysis quantitativly. Now the Enfield has only a melee value of 65 opposed to the Palmetto at 91. You could do a dollar cost analysis on that as well. But we do not know how the algorithms used in Ultimate General factor in rate and accuracy in a melee. Remember the 58 will only shoot 1 minie ball at a time while the smoothbore 69 shoot 3 buck and 1 ball at a time. They are probably more lethal or damage causing at very short range hence their superior melee. General H, I hope this explains and helps you defeat the cursed rebels trying to destroy our Union. God save President Lincoln and his Grand Armies.

Generals, After the battle of Chickamauga I came up with a different labeling system for my units. Gone is the Trefoil, the Crescent moon and others with the red, white and blue representing divisions. Gone also is my system of numbering a unit such as 2-2-3 58 S 55 to designate a second corp, second division and third brigade armed with 58 cal Springfields made in 1855. Better and easier to use on the battlefield is simply the caliber, 69 ; this can be further defined by F, RBF or 69 S or 69 P for the various high melee units. (F = Farmer). Then label the 58 calibers as 58 S, 58 M or 58 L for their range from 300-400 yards. Then at a glance you can decide which unit goes where in a battle quickly and which to use in a charge and which for defense. Onwards Generals, Godspeed to you in driving the rebels into oblivion and freeing the enslaved Americans.

Generals, our brave Irish Brigade was issued buck & ball 69ers, preferred specifically by Brig Gen Thomas F Meagher their leader. They did excellent close in work enfilading the rebs at the Sunken Road at Antietam. Remember each weapon has a specific purpose, there is no perfect rifle.

Generals, my report is confidential, do not let the reb traitors get a hold of it. I analysed the available infantry weapons by putting all the data on Damage, Range, Fire Rate, Accuracy, Melee and $ cost into a table. Then I took each weapon and applied the following analysis: Damage X Rate = Potential Lethality; Then that X accuracy (divided by 100) to generate Effective Lethality; then that divided by cost $ to produce Efficiency. You should do this too the Quartermaster general recommends. Some things become obvious. In melee it is obvious that the 69 cal muskets, especially the Farmer, are superior to the longer range 50 cal rifles. Don't sell off those Farmers, rebored Farmers or Springfield 69's late in the war. They can be reissued to crack 3* troops to replace some 58 cal for storm trooper capacity when charging a fort around Richmond. The 50's can provide supporting fire (peel off skirmishers to confuse the rebs with a plethora of targets but keep your 69ers intact for a melee charge. The advantage of an average 69 musket in melee is 32% ofve all 58's and 54% more than Springfields of '61 and '63 vintage. whileFarmers themselves carry an advantage of 69%. Versus the '53 Enfield their advantage is 46%, and against the CS Richmond it is still 17% and the rebs are sure to have plenty of each. As far as costs $ go, our Quartermaster General looks at $ Efficiency. that is explained above. For all 60 caliber weapons it is about 8, while for all 58's it averages 11. For the special Lorenz from Austria design, it is almost 16. They are expensive at face value but apparently worth it due to high accuracy. Work the numbers out for yourself and see. Now the Rapid Fires (Cold, Henry and Spencer) are amoung the lowest at $ efficiency at 7 average. I doubt they are worth what our manufacturers want for them. Make a table of 58's from 300 yards range to 400 yard range, interesting.the sweet spot of cost efficiency seems to be the '53 Enfield, the '55 Harpers Ferry and the '55 Springfield, all lethal out to the mid 300 yards. This is not to say the longer range rifles ought to be ignored, for each type of rifle has its purpose. With a 400 yard lethality you can defend well from an entrenched position that has a clear field ahead. It will be hard for the enemy to get close and if they do make a breech in a charge, send in that reserve of 60 cal to charge and melee the breech. Clearly keep a 69 cal in each division of your army, along with an artillery and every two have a cavalry for scouting and raiding for a supply wagon. Don't be afraid as entrenched defenses are increasingly encountered later in the war to reissue the 69's for storming forts and trenches. DO NOT sell them off. Support them with the long range 58's. Onward to Richmond Generals, I return now to the front. Let's end this uprising and restore our Union under Lincoln. ---General Meat

Fellow Generals, between battles I was ordered by our President Lincoln to report to Washington for a special assignment of rifle analysis. He wants all his Generals to read and interpret and use the results in this topic. Long live the Union.