Artillery Men!

[Hancock the Superb]

I am hoping that in this release we will be able to have more than 15 men per gun without having two guns? Because most artillery units had over 100 men for 6 guns, which means more than 15 men a gun.

[Jim]

We actually use the number of men to set the total ammo loadout per gun. Adding men would raise the rounds per gun to un-historical levels. It would be a good refinement for the future to disentangle the functions.

-Jim

[Hancock the Superb]

That's weird, is it the same way with infantry regiments - the Irish Brigade would get 5 ammo per person and one of the new regiments (141 NY?) gets 100?

[estabu2]

Infantry have the standard 60 rounds per man.

[Chamberlain]

estabu2 wrote:

Infantry have the standard 60 rounds per man.

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain:This is sloping ground, it's good ground. If you have any breakthroughs, if you have men wounded, if you have a hole in the line, you plug it with the reserve. How are we fixed for ammunition?
Capt. Ellis Spear: Sir, I think about 60 rounds per man.
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: That's good. 60 rounds. I think - I... yes, that's adequate. Any questions?

:woohoo: :woohoo:

Chamberlain

[Hancock the Superb]

What about for a Sandbox battle? Most of the time regiments carried 40 while marching, then once they reached the destination, wagons would come to the front and pass out ammo, then they go into combat.

[Kerflumoxed]

According to the manuals of the day, each "piece" was serviced by 9 cannoneers in mounted artillery (11 in horse artillery) called the "gun detachment." (Gilham's Manual for Volunteers and Militia - p. 491). Rather than increasing the numbers of men per gun, perhaps the use of the caisson to resupply at the front by removing an ammunition chest from the caisson as was actually done.

I would also like to see the rate of fire for artillery increased as well to be more in line with actual wartime practice.

Thanks

Jack Hanger
Fremont, NE

[Kerflumoxed]

As I have noted previously, the artillery functions of TC2M seem to be out of "sync" with the concept of "real time" (which, otherwise, I really enjoy). While searching the web for "rate of fire" during the Civil War I happened upon this statement: "An efficient gun crew could load and fire up to three rounds per minute." at this site: http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/soldier ... illery.htm

This is from the National Park Service at Gettysburg and titled: "THE CIVIL WAR SOLDIER
"Forward into battery! March!"

Hopefully, this will shed some new light on the rate of fire in the new game.

Thanks to the DEV team for all their efforts!

Jack Hanger
Fremont, NE

[bedbug]

....unfortunately they leave "aim" out of the equation :laugh:
Somewhat more difficult with a cannon.

[Kerflumoxed]

bedbug wrote:

....unfortunately they leave "aim" out of the equation :laugh:
Somewhat more difficult with a cannon.

Now as to "sighting" a long-range gun, you are certainly correct! Cutting the Bormann fuse, judging the distance, elevation, et.al. would certainly slow down firing procedure for "explosive" shells. I believe this long-distance firing is fairly well represented in TC2M (other than constanly moving the gun carriage after every shot - it was usually put into "battery" and then rolled forward after the recoil) with an appropriate amount of time.

However, I would suspect that when a howling mob of infantry is bearing down upon you, "aiming" is the least of your concerns, other then pointing in the general direction which entails nothing more than moving the hand-spike left or right and, perhaps, a minor adjustment of the elevating screw! "Load - cannister" or "Load - Double canister" with the 4.62 bore of the Nap would be sufficient "aiming." :woohoo: With the traditional "shotgun" effect of cannister precise attempts at aiming would worthless.

Another way to expedite the firing was to eliminate the usually necessary step of "sponging" the bore. Many accounts relate that the gun crews would purposefully not sponge the bore to speed up the time used between rounds (not something that was recommended in any manual that I have studied),again, especially against against advancing infantry.

Here are a couple of nice site that provides accurate, concise information on CW artillery: http://www.cwartillery.com/FA/FA.html
http://civilwartalk.com/plugins/p2_news ... icleid=288

Hopefully, at some point in time in the development of the game or in the post-war future, these time factors may be included. (I know, picky, picky, picky! :laugh:

Jack Hanger
Fremont, NE