Scourge of War Boards

Marching Thru Georgia wrote:

I vote yes for all three.

I hope that for #2 the guns will not instantly limber, but will spend time doing so. I would also add a #4. Where the player can man the captured guns, ask him if he would like to do so or just spike them, (they raise the white flag and disappear).

Another thing to consider for your #4. If you capture the gun you must also capture the limber otherwise you have a 2400 lb paperweight. The ammo for the gun is on the limber and it's much easier to move by hand then the gun. Without the limber you have no ammo or fuses for the guns so they are useless for the current fight. And without at least some artillerists to guide the infantry you want to man the gum, most wouldn't know what to do anyway. Loading and firing a CW cannon isn't anything like loading and firing the rifle musket and most infantry would probably miss some important steps, like poking the friction primer through the powder bag to ensure the burning primer touched off the powder charge. or covering the touch hole while swabbing so that no air gets to the burning embers when swabbing out the barrel before putting a new charge in. Is bad if you don't have all those embers out and shoving in a bag of black powder that explodes because of them, it could really ruin the day of the person ramming the charge home.

Greetings

If anything we can agree to disagree.

I don't think you are able to create a game that will satisfy both camps, What needs to be done is to optimize the game for, those who play AI and those who play Head to Head. In effect 2 seperate games.

BOSTON wrote:

If I may add, historically, seldom was a gun captured and immediately manned, because the gun crews generally ran off with all the tools of gun loading. In essence, disabling the gun. This was opted by most battery commanders over spiking so the possibly of getting their gun back was still available. Plus, it was faster.

So, with this thread, we're really talking gameplay, and what seems to be more realistic.

So what would prevent the other side from capturing/spiking the gun? The tools would not do them much good then.

A captured gun was a valuable prize for unit commanders, great fodder for promotions. Guns that were intact but unable to be manned, were tediously rolled back, MANually, to friendly lines. Spiking was always the last option considered.

Shirkon wrote:

Marching Thru Georgia wrote:

I vote yes for all three.

I hope that for #2 the guns will not instantly limber, but will spend time doing so. I would also add a #4. Where the player can man the captured guns, ask him if he would like to do so or just spike them, (they raise the white flag and disappear).

Another thing to consider for your #4. If you capture the gun you must also capture the limber otherwise you have a 2400 lb paperweight. The ammo for the gun is on the limber and it's much easier to move by hand then the gun. Without the limber you have no ammo or fuses for the guns so they are useless for the current fight. And without at least some artillerists to guide the infantry you want to man the gum, most wouldn't know what to do anyway. Loading and firing a CW cannon isn't anything like loading and firing the rifle musket and most infantry would probably miss some important steps, like poking the friction primer through the powder bag to ensure the burning primer touched off the powder charge. or covering the touch hole while swabbing so that no air gets to the burning embers when swabbing out the barrel before putting a new charge in. Is bad if you don't have all those embers out and shoving in a bag of black powder that explodes because of them, it could really ruin the day of the person ramming the charge home.

Acually, the friction primer was not used to "prick" the powderbag. Rather, they were issued a "Priming Wire" (an .8 diameter piece of steel with a sharpened point on one end and a loop for the middle finger on the other to aid in extracting from the vent) to open the bag through the vent. After being "pricked" the Friction Primer was inserted. Also, the Friction Primer was not long enough to reach the powder bag.

J