Corps design

[Keepbro]

Curious on how people arrange their corps and divisions?

Do you balance them out with inf cav and arty or do you put them all together in divisions? 

I personally go for balance with a couple of inf, some cav or skirmishers and finally some arty. 

Have people experimented and what have they found to work?

I am slightly curious about making a bandito division made up of cavalry all armed with as many repeaters and pistols as I can steal, requisition and buy but have the feeling that this force will be completely useless. 

[Perkon]

My was as following. I dont plan to be changing it, it works as I expect, fits my play style, nothing really to show, since I didnt progress much in the game, and Im not planning to at the moment.

Infantry 1500, Cavalry 400 [equipment for distance shooting + melee, I hardly use them for a distance fighting though, mostly to cut down retreating units, attack skirmishers or artillery], Artillery 6 [rather long range support]. No skirmishers at all, I dont find them usefull. If anything, with more divisions and corps, more cavalry, and artillery would be field, I guess having 4 Divisions one extra artillery and cavalry would be added. I would still put the most to emphasis on infantry.

1 Corps.

1 Division - Infantry, infantry, cavalry, artillery.

2. Division - Infantry, infantry, infantry, infantry.

3. Division - Infantry, infantry, infantry, infantry

[Hitorishizuka]

2 hours ago, Keepbro said:

Curious on how people arrange their corps and divisions?

Do you balance them out with inf cav and arty or do you put them all together in divisions? 

I personally go for balance with a couple of inf, some cav or skirmishers and finally some arty. 

Have people experimented and what have they found to work?

I am slightly curious about making a bandito division made up of cavalry all armed with as many repeaters and pistols as I can steal, requisition and buy but have the feeling that this force will be completely useless. 

An all cavalry division or even Corps can actually be useful if you set them in the Reinforcements slot or on certain divisions of your required Corps that don't actually see battle normally because of distance with their speed actually letting them contribute but it requires intimate map knowledge of when and where such a thing would be useful.

On my most recently Union playthrough this is what I had the most success with:

Division 1: Green infantry x3-4, Melee cavalry x1, Artillery x1-2

Division 2: Regular infantry x3-4, Melee cavalry x1, Artillery x1-2

Division 3: Iron infantry x3-4, Ranged cavalry x1, Artillery x1-2

Division 4: Iron infantry x3-4, Sniper Skirmishers x1, Artillery x1-2

 

Artillery down to 1 on offense, 2 on defense. Some maps I may move the Ranged cavalry up to Division 2 also if I feel the early phase supports their usage better than keeping them back. The Green infantry may also not be that Green any more but just haven't taken casualties, it's really just the most recent cycle of the guys I'm currently training up.

[KaleRaven]

I have three divisions with 3-4x infantry and 1x artillery each. The fourth division is for support and has 2x artillery, 1-2x cavalry, and 1-2x sharpshooters. For battles where you can't choose your deployments I will swap units as needed for the mission. I find this structure is very useful in large battles as it lets me quickly deploy infantry lines with artillery support.

[Jamesk2]

Tssk. You guys areall wrong with the mixing of artillery-infantry-cavalry. It's good in military and realistic to do, but in this game remember that each DIVISION COMMANDER has a choice between improving the performance of each of the three branch, and that the whole Corps would be deployed all together, not each Division to their own, so it's best just go all in with some Infantry Division, then an Artillery Division (which may have some Inf brigades, but this is where you put all your arty) and a similar Cavalry Division.

[KaleRaven]

Division commanders don't have the bonus traits, corps commanders do. So you would have to have separate infantry, cavalry, and artillery corps, which can't be deployed together in most battles...

[A. P. Hill]

Somehow, I'd rather start at the regiment level and then venture up from there.  So what you now see as "Divisions" in game, I prefer to think of as Brigades with each of the units shown under the brigade as actual regiments of said brigade.

In essence, we need one more level to group.  If we apply my approach, we are missing what is supposedly depicted as division level now.    

[Hitorishizuka]

2 hours ago, Jamesk2 said:

Tssk. You guys areall wrong with the mixing of artillery-infantry-cavalry. It's good in military and realistic to do, but in this game remember that each DIVISION COMMANDER has a choice between improving the performance of each of the three branch, and that the whole Corps would be deployed all together, not each Division to their own, so it's best just go all in with some Infantry Division, then an Artillery Division (which may have some Inf brigades, but this is where you put all your arty) and a similar Cavalry Division.

Um, no, this is completely backwards. Division commanders have no bonuses, only Corps commanders do. Further, in many battles you do get only a 1-2 Divisions forward deployed, so if you specialized a Division, then you'd be lacking some key element of combined arms for the duration of that phase.

[Keepbro]

Has anyone experimented with making a division of Banditos? All cavalry with rapid firing shooters?

[A. P. Hill]

6 hours ago, Jamesk2 said:

Tssk. You guys areall wrong with the mixing of artillery-infantry-cavalry. ...

I agree with you up to this point.  In the actual militaries that we're trying to represent in this game, during real life, the only organizations that comprised of mixed arms were the physical armies. Regiments, Brigades, and Divisions did not mix arms within any of the afore mentioned units.  If you had a regiment of cavalry, it was all cavalry. If you had a regiment of Artillery, it was all artillery, and etc.  Even with Brigades and Divisions.  That's not to say that those Divisions and Brigades did not have separate brigades of other arms, as they did.  Any order of battle that you can find on the ACW ... you will not find any of these organizations sub army level composed of mixed arms.

That said, yes, I realize that there is a level of organization missing in game that I'd like to see as I mentioned above two posts ago.   And in the very beginning of the ACW, it's true there were organizations called Legions, but these were local militia and once they were attached to the official provincial armies, they were split up and each branch was relocated with other arms of that same type.

And early on both armies had Brigades that had artillery and cavalry attached to infantry, but later around 1862 after experimenting with that organization both militaries determined it would be better to reorganize where artillery and cavalry were attached to Divisions and not Brigades.

[Don't Escrow Taxes]

four div per core, 5 brigades per div 

Div 1-3:  1 regular brigade (lorenz, m1841, etc. rifles with strong melee) 2 shooting brigades (m1855, enfield, etc) 1 volunteer brigades (cheap muskets, bullet catchers, 1 battery of napoleons 

 

Napoleon batteries are increased in size as efficiency warrants - i.e., how big can you make the battery without harming efficiency

 

Div 4:  5 artillery batters.  1 10lb counter battery, 1 whitworth, 1 Tregdar, 1 24 lb howitzer, and then 10lb ordinance or whatever else is laying around for the other two.  

 

I don't use cavalry or skirmishers but i should really start experimenting

[A. P. Hill]

I don't use "Skirmishers" as an organization that can be created obviously in the camp.  But I have gotten in the habit of once on the field, of clicking units and then splitting skirmishers from them on the field.

[Hitorishizuka]

Sniper skirmishers are basically about as effective as artillery in general casualties while on the offensive and far easier to bring in for flank shots. They're also very good at picking off enemy artillery between their brigades while you're still trying to push their infantry blockers out. Haven't tried the high reload dedicated skirmishers much yet but if micro'd successfully I imagine they could do some really good damage just based on how effective detached skirmishers can be at that role.

[Bill the Bold]

As of Fredricksberg my union corps were 4 divisions of 5 brigands (2500 max).  The first 3 divisions get 4 inf and 1 battery of napoleons each with as many guns per battery as I can equally spread among the corps.  The 4th div get a raw inf, 2 batteries of 10pdr ordnance, each battery as big as reasonable efficiency and availabilty allow, a brigade of 400ish carbine cavalry and 1 of 300-400 skirmishers armed with Sharps rifles.  The first div of each corps has the best veteran units followed by 2nd division with the next best veterans, all armed with either the 1855 or 1853 enfields.  3rd div is the raw recruits, full strength units with 1842s.   All three corps are laid out in a similar fashion and are virtually interchangeable except that 1st corps has more higher level veterans while 2nd and 3rd corps I spread the veterans roughly evenly between the first two divisions of each.

 

 

[Wandering1]

As far as skirmishers go, in my Union campaign, I've noticed you basically had to buy every single TS scope rifle to have enough rifles to outfit a full skirmisher brigade with them by Antietam. Around basically 100 per major battle, so you have to save before 1st Bull Run, Shiloh, Gaines Mill, Malvern, and 2nd Bull Run. And this assumes basically no casualties in the squad, since you have relatively little room for replacing the TS's. Sharps are a lot more common, but have less room for error in terms of not getting canistered while sniping enemy artillery batteries.

This is reversed for CSA, because you get the Whitworth TS's in bulk from reputation relatively early on. I had two full skirmisher squads filled with Whitworth TS's by Fredericksburg. Which if you let your snipers hit the battlefield for most of the minor battles to level up, they'll easily hit 100 firearms by Fredericksburg to dish out damage while using a fraction of the supply that artillery use.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

7 hours ago, A. P. Hill said:

I agree with you up to this point.  In the actual militaries that we're trying to represent in this game, during real life, the only organizations that comprised of mixed arms were the physical armies. Regiments, Brigades, and Divisions did not mix arms within any of the afore mentioned units.  If you had a regiment of cavalry, it was all cavalry. If you had a regiment of Artillery, it was all artillery, and etc.  Even with Brigades and Divisions.  That's not to say that those Divisions and Brigades did not have separate brigades of other arms, as they did.  Any order of battle that you can find on the ACW ... you will not find any of these organizations sub army level composed of mixed arms.

That said, yes, I realize that there is a level of organization missing in game that I'd like to see as I mentioned above two posts ago.   And in the very beginning of the ACW, it's true there were organizations called Legions, but these were local militia and once they were attached to the official provincial armies, they were split up and each branch was relocated with other arms of that same type.

And early on both armies had Brigades that had artillery and cavalry attached to infantry, but later around 1862 after experimenting with that organization both militaries determined it would be better to reorganize where artillery and cavalry were attached to Divisions and not Brigades.

Agreed. Best example is the disposition of artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia: Longstreet, usually the anvil, kept his artillery at the corps level; Jackson, the hammer and always on the move, kept his artillery at the division level where local commanders could bring their guns to bear more effectively. Both answers are right, it depends on your mission assignment how you want things laid out to your advantage. 

Edited December 31, 2016 by Andre Bolkonsky

[Aetius]

I build 2-3 divisions comprised of 3-4 infantry brigades, and one division per corps that contains snipers, artillery, and cavalry (split evenly between shock and ranged). If I'm far enough along, each type gets a dedicated division. Sometimes I'll build a shock division - melee-specced infantry and cavalry. Adjust as necessary to bring the forces you want to a particular scenario.

The reason I do this is because I tend to maneuver at the division level - this provides better line organization and reduces the irritating tendency of units to ignore orders and wander off when things get tight. It also means the divisions tend to stay together, which makes combining easier in the face of casualties.