Can more experienced and expert heads tell me if ammunition exhaustion was a factor needing to be considered? I do know it was a big thing in Crimea and in the Scramble for Africa, but my knowledge of American history is rather less extensive (as, of course, is American history itself).
At Second Manassass some Confederate units were reduced to hurling rocks at the attacking Federals. Old Glory even had a couple of 15mm Confederates figures armed with rocks.
I certainly think so and have factored it in. Fire and Fury has a 'Low on ammo' result as one outcome of firing.
For all my games I use a dial counter for artillery ammunition, usually starting with 8 or 10 rounds per battery. That greatly reduces the speculative firing that players otherwise indulge in, on the off-chance of rolling high.
Henry Hunt the AoP Chief of Artillery was concerned at long-range fire which wasted ammo, and constantly nagged his battery commanders to remember how much an artillery round cost. The Confederate artillery ammunition supply was quite a lot worse. Recall Alexander at Gettysburg telling Longstreet that he had better get going as ammo was running low.
Small arms ammo appears to have been less of a problem. Running low on ammo usually meant that fire was reduced while ammo was redistributed. But it was still a factor.
OK, I'll leave it in my rules then. ty.
While on the subject of artillery, I have a bee in my bonnet about Sets of Rules that allow batteries that are separated from one another to concentrate their fire on a single target, apparently by using telepathy, since radios weren't available. In our games we only allow separated batteries to concentrate their fire on a single target if that target is the only one available.
Where several batteries are deployed together under the command of an artillery brigade or battalion commander, we allow him to direct the fire onto a single target, but with one battery in the first turn, then a second and then a third. More than three batteries onto onre target seems unlikely to me due to the smoke that would be involved.
FOB2 deals with this nicely under the 'Grand Battery' rules.
Coupled with low on ammo would be the fouling of muzzle-loaders which also reduced down rate of fire.
First volley or two were the best, if that did not break the enemy battles tended to default to "firefight" mode of slow firing, lots of men seeking cover and lots of haranguing by officers to keep up the firing. Neither side now unable to break the enemy settled down to a slow often desultory exchange of fire that could last hours. Probably accounts for why it was important to have to have follow up units to freshen the combat line - press on through or better still try and deliver fire or even an attack from a new angle of approach.
For artillery the instruction was to preserve rounds for targets in effective range rather than long range firing with little effect. With raw troops it was often felt that a battery should be attached to each brigade to give moral support to pepper the enemy directly opposite. Later when brigades/battalions of artillery of a number of batteries were introduced the emphasis was on husbanding the deployment of batteries until a good target was found - thus at Malvern Hill the Union massed their artillery as the terrain was like a glacis and perfect for the gunners. As Holdfast has said the rebel powder was poor and had fewer rounds and so at Gettysburg the Rebel battery was not able to deliver sufficient weight of fire to force the Union to ground and the howitzer batteries which were supposed to have supported Pickett did not seem to be committed - The Union guns now no longer under fire soon began playing on Pickett and the rest is history
I would argue that that may be important in an individual piece in a skirmish level game, but in a battle, where one model may represent anything from a four gun battery to several batteries, then the effectiveness of the battery does tend to be written into the rules based on the type of gun(s) it is composed of. In the FPW most rules make the French 4pdr much less effective than the Krupp guns based on its type (muzzle loader), ammunition (timed air burst) and artillery doctrine of the French army. Most ACW battle rules do the same sort of thing, e.g. Confederate batteries usually had fewer guns, poorer ammunition, mixed guns in a battery and so on.
Units actually very rarely run low on ammunition. The issue is that actual rates of fire were very low. Perhaps a round a minute of aimed fire. The folks who might get through their ammo are the chaps with breech loaders or repeaters. They have means of getting through it much quicker. Glory Hallelujah! (the BP supplement) allows troops with these weapons to run low, but then they simply resort to "normal fire".
Skipping back a couple of centuries, I've seen ECW regulations threatening punishment for infantrymen caught throwing away their shot to create an excuse to leave the field because they were out of ammo. Forward a bit, Prussian foot were accompanied by ammo carts because it was recognised they'd need the resupply, which suggests that other SYW troops must have run low at times. And as I mentioned earlier, it was certainly a problem at Inkerman, and very likely at Ishlandwana. Scattered evidence, but the problem clearly existed.
Come to think of it, Cresson (was it?) saw crusader crossbowmen cut short a necessary supporting fire action because they'd shot off all their bolts.
I'd be interested to see what 'Units very rarely run low on ammunition' is based on. Fire discipline was an issue throughout the ACW. Lee was opposed to the introduction of breech-loaders for that very reason. Running low on ammo and the unit on the flanks giving way were two commonly quoted reasons for retiring in unit reports in the Official Records.
There was a lot of questions asked before THe US government agreed to supply the Army with the Garand rifle in the 1930's as they thought the average infantryman would shoot all his ammo very quickly.
That always comes up - see the SLR and autofire capability argument... or the Prussians with the Needlegun and other European armies scoffing at it as the troops would blaze off their ammo then be defenceless...
I'm sure it probably got argued over by Roman Centurions about Pila or darts or...
An Interesting discussion (and it seems to have moved from artillary to infantry weapons). I think ammunition expenditure (be it M1 clips to darts) is an underappreciated factor in wargaming. Leman may be correct that it is a much more critical consideration in skirmish games but depending on the time and place (FK gave some examples) and entire force might be affected.
Montrose (1644 particularly) had constant problems with the supply of powder, match or ball. At Tippermuir his force was said to have had only one round per man and at least one of his elements resorted to throwing rocks at the approaching enemy horse.
I greatly appreciate rules that allow for ammunition use and supply. Currently experimenting with Simon Miller's To the Strongest which make them integral to the game.
@ Dr. Dave - when you wrote about "one aimed round per minute", was this artillary? That seems a tad low even for a rifled musket but not my period.
I like the way BBB (and it's similar in ethos sets counts it) - roll particularly well, run low on ammo. Retire for a move, replenish - don't retire and fire at half effect (or worse).
It does discourage speculative shooting quite well, and so long as the random factor is set about right gets the right feel without meaning you need to track a shed load of extra info...
Again, To the Strongest seems to be a unit game where the unit is roughly equivalent to a battalion, or ACW regiment. Consequently the unit is likely to be using its ammo at roughly the same rate from one end of the unit to the other. This would be a similar situation to F&F Regimental rules, but I don't think the same can be said of F&F Brigade rules, Altar of Freedom or BBB. One of the "problems" I have come across with many wargamers is their difficulty in viewing any level of game other than at battalion level, and insisting on rules being included which are just not relevant at the higher level, and anyway slow down and diminish the enjoyment of the game at divisional or corps level. An example being one player who could not understand why there wasn't a rule for turning a chariot model 90 degrees to launch javelins, then 90 degrees again to move away. when it was gently explained that the model represented a number of chariots and that manoeuvre was abstracted into the rules his response was that this was unrealistic and made no sense.......... ah well. :(
Of course that leads onto the question of dice and random factors... depending on scale/level of game, perhaps your shoddy dice rolls that turn represent the troops running low on ammo - not "how did I miss at that range!" or similar. How deep a simulation do you want, and what do you deem important enough to disrupt the normal game function over, and what can effectively be rolled into the random factors?
I suppose I have horrific memories of the ultra-realism of a set of ACW rules produced in the early 70s by a London group. They were definitely designed to make your brain implode. Has anyone ever tried Johnny Reb 1 or 2, e.g. does the unit actually have bayonets? Did sergeant Jedediah Hobson remember to re-do his flies after taking a leak? Did Captain Merryweather get his Weetabix for breakfast?
100% agreement from me, Leman! Keep it simple, keep it generating the right overall result, don't bog down in minutely exact subsystems that take ages and produce duff results (if they even manage to produce any result at all!).
Quote from: Leman on 16 August 2017, 03:09:10 PM
I suppose I have horrific memories of the ultra-realism of a set of ACW rules produced in the early 70s by a London group. They were definitely designed to make your brain implode. Has anyone ever tried Johnny Reb 1 or 2, e.g. does the unit actually have bayonets? Did sergeant Jedediah Hobson remember to re-do his flies after taking a leak? Did Captain Merryweather get his Weetabix for breakfast?
;D ;D
I will confess that the ridiculous detail of the rules that covered EVERYTHING in the late 1970's and early 80's was one factor in my long wargaming hiatus (I had not the time for that level of detail and much of the joy was sucked out of the thing). I game at the battalion level and below, but even there too much detail can occur. It's just figuring out what is historically important (and even then a good deal of editing is required).
Quote from: toxicpixie on 16 August 2017, 03:00:44 PM
How deep a simulation do you want, and what do you deem important enough to disrupt the normal game function over, and what can effectively be rolled into the random factors?
Yup.
Is it a fair statement to say that logistics (at any level) really only becomes important in campaign games?
As a separate function, as opposed to rolling it into the game rules on other actions? Ehhhhh, mebbe. Rules limiting road movement, or artillery fire missions, or how many LAW's a squad has might all be needed from skirmish up, but it depends on what you want I guess? Which is the hard part :D
What can you "roll in" so it doesn't detract focus, and when do you want to MAKE IT the focus?
I'm not sure "normal" wargame players want to be playing "Logistics Commander" but all the tactical acumen in the world is wasted if you don't have the guns or the ammo or the communications or hot meal and boots etc etc.
Hmmm. My thought (for what it's worth) is that it depends on the level you're fighting.
I would postulate that if you're fighting a skirmish game, you would have each character fire no more than 5-6 shots anyway. the fun bit would be limiting ammo.
At company/bttn level, you're probably going to be aping a firefight which is of relatively short duration, and if one assumes that troops go into combat with full ammo pouches, then in a brisk firefight they're not going to run dry.
At brig/div level, you're likley emulating an action of several hours. This is when one would consider ammunition supply. Then again, at that sort of level, troop fatigue, supply, and communications eficiency become most important.
"The tactics...no, amateurs discuss tactics,.... Professional soldiers study logistics." – Tom Clancy
Pixie, I had separate function in mind. I haven't looked but does "Logistics Commander" actual exist and, if so, how many copies has it sold? I might actually buy it! :)
A further confession - sometimes, after I have had all the joy of setting everything up, all the terrain done, all the figures in place, I have an impulse toward the ultimate abstraction: Roll a 1d6, odd, side A wins, even, side B. In my solo (and very much peripheral world) this would almost be acceptable. In the real gaming world it would become, best 2 out of 3 ...with suitable modifies. The entire battle could be the one fought over modifiers. :D
I liked the Tom Clancy quote, fsn. It occurs to me that many of us might in actuality be much more adept at logistics than to leading troops in the field (and here I mean no disrespect, particularly to those here who have actually done the latter).
The older I get, the more inclined I am to let die rolls cover the vagaries of chance and the inevitable quirks of military endeavour. Tracking the number of arrows fired, panzefausts issued, bowls of breakfast porridge consumed is best left to computer games IMHO.
I shudder at the memory of the board game "Campaign for North Africa", which tracked things in such detail that Italian troops needed to be supplied with more water than British ones because pasta requires more water to make than bread!!
KISS
The tactics/logistics quite is Napoleon originally, isnt it?
Although it's technically at least as old as Sun-Tzu - "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war." :)
Actually a well thought out logistics game would probably be rocking. Maybe too board game-y for minis on the table top but well good fun.
At a session on the Eastern Front in Carlisle Pennsylvania, run by the incomparable David Glantz in 1985, I think, the German Eastern Front Veteran dragged in for the occasion said that as a brigade commander he put his best officer in charge of logistics because without that everything else fell apart.
So there.
Sensible chap. Must have borne fruit, if he was alive and well and in the 'States forty years later.
Quote from: d_Guy on 16 August 2017, 02:41:38 PM
@ Dr. Dave - when you wrote about "one aimed round per minute", was this artillary? That seems a tad low even for a rifled musket but not my period.
Small arms fire.
I think it's in Griffith's "Rally once again" where he cites several cases of units expending x rounds in N minutes and the reposts are surprisingly low. There's a cavalry unit (dismounted) on the skirmish line for several hours and (iirc)'they fired 18 rounds per man.
The key thing to bear in mind as well is whilst it may be a nice to have, how will you represent it in the game - what is the game impact, slight or huge? Will it be irksome paperwork to keep track of. What happens if the "low" unit moves over the old position of a routed enemy. Can the pick any useful rounds - are they using the same guns? It's all relevant, but more a low level better suited to a skirmish game I think.
Careful the tail doesn't wag the dog.
The original Fire and Fury rules had a system that if you threw an unmodified 10 on firing (which was the best you could do) you became low on ammo. You then had to retire out of musket range to replenish, or fire at half effect
I have found this works well no book keeping, just a marker on the units that run low. It sometimes had an effect on the battles and sometimes not.
@ Dr. Dave. Thanks for that data. I have seen a good deal on flintlock smoothbore parade ground firing which was around three round per minute (of course the data also suggests that the hit rate at effective range was rather low).
Agree with probably not trying to do a round by round accounting (that would be truly gastly). Except in very small skirmish games the time intervals in a game represent some indeterminate amount of shooting so a good deal of abstraction in ammunition supply needs to be done.
Incidently in the ECW period standard calibers were only starting to come into practice. In the worst case scenario each man had to cast his own shot. IIRC in the ~1750 - 1820 period the French used .69 caliber Charleville's and the British .75 caliber Tower's. British could fire French loads but not the reverse (of course the powder and flit would be interchangable). My point is a whole new layer of complication is added that only a chartered accountant would probably want to keep track of :)
So yes, the tail could easily wag the dog.
@ Orcs I like those types of implementations as well. One Hour Wargames Musket and Pike does not allow a M&P unit to initiate close combat until they are out of ammo. Each time a unit fires it has a 1/3 chance of running out. There is no way to replenish. It is a very simple and playable adaptation.