'Cosmetic' Suggestions

[David Fair]

JaM #6

 

One of the themes of the site is that combined are were forgotten during the ACW.  This is not true.  The force composition of 18th & 19th Century European armies was about 30% cavalry.  

 

At the time of the Civil War there were about 3.2 million horses/mules in the North and another 1.8 million in the South.  It is estimated that about 3 million animals served in the war and that 1.7 million were casualties.  There simply wasn't enough horseflesh to mount 60,000 cavalry in the U.S. in the 1860's.

 

When the force composition was "Napoleonic", as at 3rd Winchester the results on the cavalry were catastrophic.  Napoleonic cavalry charged at about 200 yards.  During the ACW a man on a horse was a large target.  Individual officers riding horses were consistently dismounted as demonstrated by the few CSA officers that rode horses at Gettysburg during Longstreet's Charge of July 3.  Cavalry formations were even larger targets.

 

At Winchester 40,000 Union troops faced off against 12,000 rebels.  About 8,000 men participated in a cavalry charge on the rebels.  The result of the battle was 3,000 CSA casualties, the rest of the army escaped.  The Union suffered 5,000 casualties.  About 3,000 were from the cavalry.  The cavalry was too blown to pursue the rebels.

 

There is a good reason Judson "Kill Cavalry" Kilpatrick earned his nom de guerre.  He believed, like johnshistory that cavalry still had shock value in 1860.  There are many civil war references laughing that, "did you every see a dead cavalry trooper".  The point was that they couldn't safely stay on the battlefield so they avoided battles.  East Cavalry Field at Gettysburg is 3 miles from the battlefield for a good reason.  

 

Dismounted cavalry became the standard tactical formation of cavalry during the war.  Farnsworth and others demonstrated that cavalry charges were foolhardy in the extreme during the ACW.

 

Finally, Fort Sill's museum states that the ACW was an infantry war [Ft. Sill is the U.S. Army Artillery School].  The professionals at Ft. Sill acknowledge that the role of artillery in the ACW was moral rather than physical.  The data from the hospitals, ordnance records and even Paddy Griffin all line up around low casualty infliction rates for artillery.  

 

In my opinion johnsmilitary.com is not a credible source to demonstrate that he has unique insights into a more accurate interpretation of the data.

[JaM]

yet still, you didnt replied on the fact i was mentioning Shrapnell bullets to be hard to identify and easy to confuse with the musket wounds.. similarly in Napoleonic times, canister bullets were also causing wounds very hard to distinguish from musket wounds. statistics during Napoleonic times were based on medical records made by surgeons in the field, who determined the wound by sight. 

 

So, yes, you can clearly tell what is wound caused by solid shot or shells, but it would be impossible to tell a casualty made from musket fire to a casualty caused by Shrapnell round (the one which explodes in the air and kills target with a cloud of bullets) or canister...

 

 

the only way how to identify those would be after operation with bullet removed, but medical statistics were usually made from data given by medical examiner, who filtered wounded with a chance to survive and those who couldnt survive the operation. (at least that was a practice set up by Napoleonic surgeons)

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

I've having trouble verifying the use of lead balls in manufacturing Case ammunition (which you are calling Shrapnel).  

 

Please confirm your terminology.

 

Below is a link from the U.S. Army ordnance department that states that the Case round was manufactured with "iron balls".  I've never heard of lead balls being used in the manufacturing of Case.

 

I've been looking for a reference to lead as an alternative and haven't found any yet.

 

Please shoot me a link to a credible site that Case ammunition was manufactured with lead balls.  

 

I'd think that the lead would deform/fragment significantly when the round detonated.  This would dramatically decrease the impact of the projectile on the target.  I'd need to do some of the math to verify my hunch or see something more reliable than your last link.

 

http://www.goordnance.army.mil/history/Staff%20Ride/STAND%203%20ARTILLERY%20AND%20SMALL%20ARMS/ARTILLERY%20IN%20THE%20CIVIL%20WAR.pdf

 

Please also note the statement on the above link that Artillery ammunition in the Civil War was "notoriously unreliable".  "Duds were common, sometimes as high as 50% failures.  Powder used was the old black type, producing immense clouds of sulfur smoke, blotting out targets and irritating gunners and supporting infantry alike."

 

I'm very open to change my mind - but as a professional data analyst I'm just letting you know that with the original data sets we have from the Civil War that the data lines up at about 5% casualties.  If you have another data set I'd love to add that into my research.  Please let me know what additional data you have to share and where it can be accessed.

 

Please note I take my research time seriously.  

 

Please respect that I don't want to waste my time with links to inaccurate information from poorly researched links.  

 

If you have something real please share it.

 

If you don't have reliable sources then lets just agree to disagree and move on.

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

Consider this - if artillery was such an effective combat arm why didn't the North sweep the South off the field?

 

Throughout the war the Union had a significant edge in artillery - particularly early in the war.

 

During the Peninsular Campaign the Army of the Potomac included "...92 batteries of 520 guns, 12,500 men and 11,000 horses, fully equipped and in readiness for active field service."  (Tidball p.6)  

 

Lee's army, including Jackson's recently arrived from the Shenandoah, had about 190 field guns (Tidball p. 42).  Many of these pieces were obsolete howitzers and 6 lbers.  (See OOB for the Peninsular Campaign).  McClellan brought 346 with him on campaign leaving 174 guns in the vicinity of Washington.

 

Why couldn't the federal army just blast its way into Richmond?   The AoP had almost a 2:1 advantage in artillery in 1862.  

 

Despite the Union advantage in guns - and the availability of fully equipped batteries in reserve - it took four years to defeat the South.

 

The data, ordnance reports, hospital data, and a reasonable interpretation of the battlefields all suggest that the artillery was not the decisive combat arm of the Civil War.  This is also the position taken by every military professional that has studied the Civil War - and the museums of the U.S. Army including Ft.Sill - confirm this basic truth.  Even at Gettysburg the museum states that artillery contributed less than 8% of the casualties.

 

If I could find anything to support a higher percentage I'd embrace the data.  But I don't think data supporting higher numbers exists.

 

I don't believe the world is flat.  I don't believe the Earth is the center of our solar system.  Absent primary data to argue that artillery was more effective than the professionals who have examined the performance of Civil War artillery you can't convince me that you have anything more to contribute on the topic.

 

For some artillery is a religion.  For me artillery  is about correctly interpreting and correlating the primary data to see if we can make an argument that something doesn't line up correctly.  Unfortunately the data does line up and it lines up precisely from multiple vectors.

 

I'm not a data contortionist.  I don't look for mysterious interpretations that obviate primary data.  I do look for bias, skew, and statistical error in data collection to try to reasonably interpret the available data.  

 

If artillery for you is religion then bravo!  

 

 

UGG seriously nerfs the infantry because the artillery is overpowered and the Union had a 100 gun edge at Gettysburg.  Relatively CSA infantry is overpowered and Union infantry is underpowered.  It was the only way to balance the gun problem.  The game designers thought this would make a better game.  But a game is not a reasonable basis for altering historical fact or obviating primary data.

[MikeK]

Put a tooltip or note on "randomize" to say what it does, which is stated in the guide as randomly reducing some attributes and  randomizing positions (which I assume is not a random scramble, but random choice of various setup schemes).

 

A user will soon find that it does not pick a random battle the way opponent selection chooses a random opponent, but without further clues it's just a guess at what it does. 

[JaM]

please dont go there.. dont change the course of discussion by marking me as some religionist. I have stated im no expert on Civil War, i have specialized myself on Napoleonic warfare, and i mentioned the fact of common misidentification of battlefield wounds, because it was common during Napoleonic times. if you want to discard any possibility of such, and want to completely believe those data, im fine with it. It is your choice. I just find quite interesting that CW produced completely different results than wars waged in Europe of the same Era, with similar/same technology. (French vs Prussians, Austrians vs Prussians etc)

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

I'm confused.  Are you saying that the French, Austrians, and Prussians used lead as artillery projectiles in their post 1860's wars (Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and Franco-Prussian War of 1870?

 

I've never looked into the projectiles used in Shrapnel's shell during the Napoleonic Wars - it never occurred to me that they might be lead.  I'd think the British would figure out the problems with a lead projectile in a gun fairly quickly.  Particularly if they were using Shrapnel as described below as "rotten shot".  

 

Very interesting.

 

I did check some original orders from the War Department and they are uniformly requiring steel for case rounds.  If you have a reference for lead I'd be interested.

 

Note that it is possible that a fraudulent contractors might substitute lead for iron balls but I don't think you can build an argument that this was done on a scale that would impact the casualty figures substantially.  

 

I'm skeptical of the lead because Case shot was often used as "rotten shot".  When all of a batteries canister rounds had been expended the crew would puncture the Case round and jam it down the barrel without a fuze.  The gun needed to be hot enough that when the vent hole was exposed to the open air the round would spontaneously combust blasting the 72 projectiles out the barrel as short-range canister; effective to about 200 yards.  

 

Lead projectiles would not have withstood the force of the powder discharge and the barrel friction would have fragmented the lead seriously.  The combination of these forces would have reduced the effective range dramatically.  Additionally, these shards of lead would not be mortally effective.  Tremendously unpleasant and inflicting wounds - absolutely.  At about 100 -150 yards you'd really piss guys off peppering them with hot lead shards.

 

Additionally, the instant a crew fired "rotten shot" they'd know something was seriously wrong with their ammunition.  The ping of steel against the tube would not be the same as the sound that lead shards.  

 

Please let me know if you have a source for taking a look at the Shrapnel shells for the Napoleonic Wars.  The idea of lead projectiles never occurred to me.

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

Also do you have the muzzle velocities for the guns you are talking about?  Muzzle velocity is important to understand the physics on lead.

 

Thanks,

 

DF

[JaM]

no i was refering more to the fact that European battles of the same era were a lot more decisive, battles were not of inconclusive line agaisnt line shootouts where commanders soon lost the control of the unit. Instead, Prussians set the base for the modern infantry fighting in open order, something Napoleonic Light Infantry was predating but was unable to use it as a main doctrine due to insuficient firepower of muzzle loaded muskets.

 

As i said, im no expert on ACW, but in Napoleonic times, aritllery created in average about 10-15% casualties, but it greatly depends on particular use in battle (Check battle of Friedland or Borodino, where artillery were actually a main killers) Musketry was always random for plethora of reasons, actual weapon innacuracy practically didnt played any significant role.. more important was the fact that majority of men didnt even aimed their weapons at enemy, or fired into couds of smoke blindly...  advantage of rifles during Napoleonic times was minimal during large scale battles because of the same reasons... once battlefield is obscured, actual point accuracy goes out of window. add stress, lack of training, poor command and control, and you end up with completely random musket fire. What actually changed the battlefield was smokeless powder, open "skirmish" order and actual proper command and control for infantry, which was used by Prussians and later Germans in WW1.

 

and about case shot, it really doesnt matter if bullet is made of steel,iron or lead. human body is soft, armor was not in use.. question is how much different it would be from minie hit, and how easily could medical examiner identify the entry wound to be able to say what was caused by minie bullet and what was caused by case shot bullet. Especially when these statistics were made shortly after battle with hundreds of wounded and dieing men being moved to field hospitals. Were there any medical examinations made on dead bodies? Data from Napoleonic times were made only from wounded, not from dead (there was no time to examine dead and make statistics of it)

[David Fair]

JaM, 

 

Regarding data collection.  In the AoP alone more than 12,000 doctors and 30,000 nurses served during the war.  There is no doubt that the data is fraught with errors.  But as a general statement the people who served did so loyally and competently to the best of their ability.  

 

I'm sure injuries were not classified correctly - but usually in a data set unintended errors balance themselves out.  

 

I don't believe there was a data collection conspiracy of the 40,000 medical attendants to make ACW artillery "look bad".  

 

It is unusual in victorious armies for the men of their combat arm to write an apology for the performance of their combat arm during the war.  Yet, that is precisely what John C. Tidball did.  

 

Tidball was a career artillery officer who served with the AoP through the Civil War.  He was the Superintendent of Artillery Instruction at the U.S. Army Artillery School from 1874 through 1881.  His work recently published under the title, "The Artillery Service in the War of the Rebellion 1861-65" is a 400 page diatribe against the War Department, Infantry Officers, and the Command Chain of the U.S. Army.  His basic theme is that artillery is incorrectly organized, as demonstrated by the American Civil War.  He states that artillery should be organized for mass effect.  To achieve this end the artillery needed to have a competent officer corps of trained artillery officers.  

 

Basically, Tidball is arguing for Napoleonic Corps-level artillery organization with a strong artillery reserve.  While his point(s) are correct he was completely ineffective at convincing the War Department or the Infantry-officer-dominated U.S. Military establishment that he was correct.  These were the same arguments that Hunt pushed during the war - with some effect in regards to the Artillery Reserve of the AoP.  However, the Reserve was never deployed as a grand battery as Napoleon had done.  The closest example during the American Civil War was the 60 guns of the Reserve that joined the action on Malvern Hill during the Peninsular Campaign.

 

Tidball can be pretty fast and loose with facts - which, I suspect, is part of why the battery remained the largest artillery organization in the U.S. Army through the First World War.

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

It takes about 2 years to train an artillerist.  During the ACW batteries were often trained on Gibbon's "Artillerist Manual 1861".  When these batteries attained the status as trained they were then sent into combat.  

 

Tidball P. 6 “…after the battle of Bull Run, its [AoP] artillery consisted of nine imperfectly equipped batteries of 39 guns, 650 men, and about 400 horses.  By the following March these numbers had swelled to 92 batteries of 520 guns, 12,500 men and 11,000 horses, fully equipped and in readiness for active field service.  Of this force 30 batteries were regulars and 62 volunteers.”

 

Given this substantial increase it is difficult to see where America could have attained enough trained artillerists for so many guns.  

 

p. 87 Tidball explains, "The officials in the War Office, looking over the [state volunteer] returns, found batteries here and there at places in the North, apparently available for service at the front, and these were accordingly ordered to join the expedition forthwith.  But, when they reported it was discovered that they had neigher guns, horses, nor other equipments of batteries ready for the field, only the officers and men: batteries only in name.  There was no chief of artillery with a bureau in Washington to regulate such matters and it was partly to supply this deficiency that the temporary office of inspector was credited.

 

Also note that ammunition shortages precluded live fire training for the first two years of the war.  Artillerists were sent into combat with no practical experience.  

 

So yes, I am stating the America's volunteer armies were a radical departure from the European armies of the same era.  While the Prussian Army of the Franco-Prussian War was conscripted the artillery arm was effectively established and maintained in peace time.

 

It was not until 1862 that any American army in history every brought 100 guns to the field of battle.  In fact, prior to the outbreak of the ACW America had about 4,000 pieces of artillery.  On 163 of the pieces were field guns.  The balance were static Seacoast defensive guns.  Artillerymen often served as infantry in the pre-war years because the guns were insufficiently mobile to be used with effect against elusive American Indians.

[David Fair]

Can you please define "the same era".  

 

Are we talking about the Napoleonic Wars or the post 1860's wars (Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and Franco-Prussian War of 1870?

 

The Napoleonic, ACW, and post 1860's European Was are very different.  Over this period of time smoothbore muskets were replaced by rifled musket.  The Chassepot was also a significant step forward in small arms technology.  Additionally, the introduction of reduced barrel weight, larger diameter wheels on the artillery equipment, breech loading artillery, and percussion fuzes all contributed to significant differences over this era.

[David Fair]

JaM,

 

Do you actually mean "lead" or do you mean "iron" rather than steel?

 

Lead is really soft and unless it was some kind of lead alloy you are talking about I'm really struggling with lead as an artillery projectile.

 

I'll try to find some information on Shrapnel's invention to see if we can understand this better.

[David Fair]

Hi JaM,

 

Mystery solved.  The shell was a hollow cast iron sphere with a mixture of balls and powder.  The powder for the detonation was small enough to burst the casing with minimal impact on the projectiles.  This would transfer the higher ballistic coefficent of the cast iron sphere to the projectiles.  

 

Thus lead or iron could be used.  

 

It does not look like "rotten shot" of the Civil War would be an option for the design of the Napoleonic era projectile.  I'll need to look at this some more - but I think that's the answer.  

 

"Initial designs suffered from the potentially catastrophic problem that friction between the shot and black powder during the high acceleration down the gun bore could sometimes cause premature ignition of the powder.  Various solutions were tried, with limited success."

 

It is not clear if artillery crews could intentionally detonate a premature ignition in the gun barrel to substitute shrapnel for canister if one's canister supply ran short.

 

Also, thanks for the Napoleonic casualty figures from artillery - this lines up with my data as well.

 

I'm writing an article on comparing Napoleonic vs. ACW artillery effectiveness.  It has been under initial peer review and I have more work to do.  I have enough data for a book on the topic.

[David Fair]

If you are interested the projectile energy of 58 foot-pounds force (60-foot-pounds force British calculation) are required to disable a soldier.  Lead projectiles from a gun would fragment under the stress and fall far below these minimal force requirements.

[MikeK]

Also "cosmetic" but it really does matter to me is discerning division and corps structure and regrouping divisions and corps.  

 

Seeing easily which are which is cosmetic. Tending to regroup units into closer proximity in between engagements would be more than cosmetic, but is the kind of regrouping I would expect if the interval between successive scenarios is a few hours or more (with exceptions where that is impractical, such as both sides settled in positions in close proximity. 

[David Fair]

MikeK,

 

I've suggested that UGG highlight all of the brigades in the division when one of them is clicked as part of the command and control system.

 

Darth says it would be too difficult.

[Cherrybark]

At the end of a battle, when the game announces the Sons of the South are again victorious over those Damn Yankees, it would be nice to have a chance to explore the battlefield map before moving to the next battle.

 

As an aside, I am brand new to the game and am having a great time.  Rather than rushing through the campaign, I've spend the last few evenings replaying the first couple of battles.  It's not  fair to the AI I suppose, but it's a great way to learn the various units.

 

Thanks for this great game at a great price!

[RichardMcCor]

Cherrybark - try to beat the AI by grouping your units and then only giving group commands. See if you can win a scenario in the fewest clicks possible. I used to be able to get a major CSA victory in the opening scenario in 9 clicks but the developers have made the AI much smarter now so thats no longer possible. I'll try again and see how few clicks i can win with

 

My grouping that used to work:

 

Scenario 1 - Me as CSA

Group 1 - Arty and Heth

Group 2 - Davis and Archer

Group 3 - The Arty that comes on later

Group 4 - Petigrew, Scales and Brockenburg