[Confederates Still Hugely Overpowered]

Corrections: Auerstadt, Jena. Twin battles. Napoleon won the first and Davout the other. There were also Saxons and Brunswickers involved. Generally speaking, the Prussians were never a match for Napoleon's troops for the whole of the Napoleonic Wars, cavalry or infantry or artillery. Even as late as Waterloo, two battalions of Old Guard routed 14 Prussian battalions at Plancenoit. The ascent of the Prusso-German army began after 1815 and occurred as a result of being on the winning side. Later, their needle-rifles defeated the Austro-Hungarians in 1866, and their Krupp artillery the French in 1870.

In my view, Napoleon was arguably the greatest European general of all time (even though he lost some battles), although Alexander the Great is certainly a contender for that title, and with Frederick the Great in third place. Someone like Robert E. Lee is not even the equal of Wellington who had a near-perfect record. Wellington himself said that 'Napoleon's hat' was worth 40,000 men on the field--as was proven at Waterloo, where only the intervention of 40,000 Prussians saved Welligton's bacon, and even then it was a near-run thing. I doubt that Lee would even come up to Davout's standard. Maybe, Lee could be regarded as good as some of Napoleon's other Marshals, (but not Lannes).

As to the quality of the men, well, men fight better under good leaders and with good equipment and training. At about the same time, Garibaldi's Italians defeated other Italians under the Bourbon flag. Italians were defeated in the Western Desert in 1940, only to become the bulk of Rommel's forces and to defeat the British and Empire troops in 1941 to late 1942.

If ACW Americans were trained and led in the European style, they would have performed commensurably. The argument that Europe is older and therefore battle-wiser because of some ancestral line is spurious: European Americans were European.

Lee defeated the Union army at Chacellorsville of approximately 120,000 with an army half that size. He did the same thing at Wilderness and Spotsylvania. I think you sell the man a little short.

[Confederates Still Hugely Overpowered]

There is other kind of experience besides fighting battles,  Europe had fought 2 000 years, they knew how to get soldiers into army, how to feed them and equip them, they had traditions, how to mobilise them cuickly. They had officer schools where they learned from generals like Napoleon I more than elsewhere perhaps. Etc. Their countries had shaped during thousands of years of fighting, while for example USA was just formed almost from scratch, copied from Europeans (English to be precise). One good example of this is Prussian infantry in Napoleonic wars, they were obsolete, trained after model of Frederic the Great, yet they could easily match and beat French infantry sent against them. Rest of the army however, was also shaped after Frederic the great, resulting in huge losses. But like i said, their infantry was still formidable foe, not to be taken lightly. Unless you want to use word "lightly" literally, becouse French light infantry played great role in defeating them. 

If you look at famous formations, you notice that 11th Airbone division was good division during WW2, and it still is today, desbite being jsut regular unit, it is still slightly better than average unit. Why? Becouse teachers have learned what they teach from their teachers, who learned from their teachers... etc....who learned from Julius Caesar.(same applies to kids learning from parents) French were aggressive already during Napoleonic wars, and today their infantry still has that aggressive Elan. But again, Americans started almost from scratch, they had to build their army and entire nation in period of few hundred years as opposed to thousands of years, foreign advicors can do just that, advice, but nothing more, becouse each nation is different. 

It is same troughout history, Byzantine Empire`s greatest weapon in medieval era was their cavalry, yet, they relied on infantry, like their ancient Roman ancestors 2 000 years ago.  

And Swiss have always been ultra-loyal mercenaries, as long as they got paid. 

Etc, which is btw one my most used words so i don`t have to write history book from year 1 000BC to 2014.

 

It is fascinating how humans don`t change even when everything else changes. 

You are mistaken on where the American military copied its military manuals. We did not copy the Brits, the US Army manuals from Scott's all the way through Hardee's manuals were almost entirely copied from the French. I also think you sell the US a little short on logistics. The CS had definite issues but that was mainly due to the naval blockade and the fact that the south used rivers more than rail for transportation of goods. The union gunboats took away alot of that. In Europe, the logistic supply lines would be considerably shorter than they were in America simply due to the size comparison between Europe and America.

 

The US also had several high quality military leadership schools. Maybe you have heard of a few? West Point, Virginia Military Institute, The Citadel? The war in the US was also unlike any the Europeans would have been familiar with when you consider that the landscape was mostly undeveloped wilderness whereas the armies in Europe would have been operating in more developed landscapes.

[Battle Continuity from day to day]

I had some similar issues with my recent game as the Confederates. I had a very successful 1st day where I was able to drive the Union troops off the high ground at Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill. I decided to choose the "Crush the Yankee's" scenario to prevent them from regrouping against me. When the battle began, I noticed I had gained Anderson's division from the 3rd Corps but I was missing all the brigades from Heth's division. This was irritating for me because I had held Pettigrew's brigade back to use as a sledgehammer to break the yanks.

 

The battle itself was incredibly fun, I was only reenforced by Hood's division from 1st Corps while the Union kept getting division's streaming in constantly. The battle seesawed back and forth around the wheatfield and devil's den for most of the morning then once I determined the union troops were exhausted, i made a heavy push up both Round Tops. At the same time I was pushing them off the hills, they made a heavy push against my center and left flank just south of Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill. It was touch and go for awhile before I was able to get some stabilization to my lines but I managed to hold the hills and stopped the union push at the base of Cemetery Ridge.

 

So after that scenario, I am thinking I am in pretty good shape. I hold all the good ground and I still have McLaw's and Pickett's divisions yet to arrive  (and maybe Heth's division will show back up?) while the Union is down to only VI Corps left as reenforcements. The rest of them are pretty chewed up with the exception of V Corps.

 

So I load the next battle up and I am only given one choice. It is a Union counterattack on Seminary Ridge! All my troops have been placed either on Seminary Ridge or north of Gettysburg in the open fields. I was a little frustrated so I stopped playing but I do intend to finish it since it should be a huge challenge to take back all that ground in the condition my army is in after that rough morning on the 2nd day.