Best cavalry carbine for Confederates

[JochenHeiden]

Heading thr advice of many I have removed my melee cavalry units and converted them to carbides. right now I have them all armed with the Pattern 1861 Enfield because I feel it gives them better standoff range. In your opinion is there a better choice?  I have a large number of captured Smith .50 and Wesson .44 carbines but their range seems very short. What is a great all-around and affordable carbine to equip Confederate cavalry units?

[The Soldier]

Smith carbines are the poor man's M1859 Sharps.  They're decent, but have unusually high ammunition consumption.  The Frank Wesson is a very, very good carbine - that 75 accuracy is damn good.  Reserve those for your best unit of mounted infantry, absolutely deadly.

But of course, the best carbine is the Spencer.  Get all the Spencers.

[JochenHeiden]

I also did capture some 1859 Sharps. Are those worth using?  Up to this pint I have accumulated TONS of 1852 Sharps but have been selling them because they don't seem great.  

So get rid of the smiths, keep the Wessons, and get Spencer's.  any words of wisdom on the Enfields I have been using up to now?

[The Soldier]

M1855 Sharps are mediocre at best, but far better than the other two starting carbines.  Smith carbines are of course better than that, so keep a stockpile around unless you've got another stockpile of other weapons large enough to equip a new unit should the need arise.  The 1859 Sharps carbines are solid weapons with good accuracy and rate of fire.  Of course, you can't stand off with infantry as well as you can with Enfields, but why try to improve what Cavalry can't do?  Use a unit with M1859 Sharps as flankers to harrass enemy units while they engage the main line and use them to riddle the enemy Artillery if given the chance.

Also, I should mention that Maynard carbines are good as well.

I personally find Enfields to be lacking because of their low rate of fire and low accuracy (worse than that of the M1859 Sharps).  Sure, they have range, but that doesn't matter much since you still have to trade volleys with line infantry unless you flank them - in which case, it's better to use a weapon with a faster rate of fire.

[JochenHeiden]

I see where you're going with this. You're valuing rate of fire over range which makes sense. So will start phasing out the Enfields in favor of higher ROF weapons. 

One thing, I find that when I commit my cavalry to attack, they move in, fire one volley and fall back... like a lot. How do I getthese guys to stay and trade a few volleys before they move off?  For example, I sent a unit in to fire on an artillery unit, which they did and they routed it. I had to move to another part of the map real quick to turn a flank and when I come back to the cavalry unit it has moved off nearly 1000 yards from the enemy artillery unit which had since reestablished and unlimbedd making a further attack costly. I neede these dudes to stay in and shoot it out a bit more. 

[The Soldier]

If the unit isn't being actively targeted by anything, the Cavalry unit, even while mounted, will stand and deliver.  The instant it gets targeted by something though, it'll Fall Back while reloading (goes for both Carbine Cavalry, mounted and dismounted, and Detached and Camp-made Skirmishers).  Though a new bit of behavior is that they'll return to shoot at the unit once they finish reloading (but it does take twice the time since they have to cover the ground they just retreated across while reloading), which eases some stuff.

If you do want to get them to stand and deliver, dismount them and order them to Hold.  They'll stand still and pour fire in.

Yeah, I learned to value rate of fire over range because, if you think about it, all the mid-level Cavalry carbines already have around 260 range - 300 range isn't much of a bump up on the Enfield.  Even the Spencer, the fastest firing gun in the West, has 280 range.

[Hitorishizuka]

Just to put in the second opinion--ROF > all, then accuracy/range but generally just take only the high ROF carbines. Two quick volleys to start triggering routs is more important than one accurate slow one.