CDZ Should I have two games or one ?

[william the wie]

My basic Civil War premise is that the Union had bad leadership and the CSA had even worse. This is based on the premise proven by Kutuzev and Wellington half a century earlier against Napoleon. In a defensive war using spoiling attacks and only advancing into a military vacuum is a huge force multiplier of at least 3 to 1, often rising to 10-1 or higher. The defending side having a 1.5 kill ratio as the south did have in the Civil War is barely idiotic leadership.

Even with really good leadership on military R&D and production of weapons and munitions only a 5 to 1 kill ratio would be pushing it. I am assuming that bad political and military operational leadership will still demonstrate that even a gimme is not always good enough. Powered but unmanned glider area bombardment of Washington City causes a Union "relocation" of the federal government and Davis accepting truce talks with Lincoln on the Mason-Dixon line.

Continuous R&D combined with the replacement of military incompetents during the two year hiatus will precede the second phase of the war.

 

[jwoodie]

There was an interesting Civil War game published by Life Magazine, I believe, around 1965.

 

[william the wie]

What strikes me as bizarre is that using known military technology, much of which was centuries old, would have raised Union costs and casualties to unsustainable levels. Easy loading volley guns, a hundred years war European use of a Sino-Indian weapon would have made Union advances effectively impossible.

 

[usmbguest5318]

One, specifically the better executed one of the two you have in works.

 

[Toronado3800]

What strikes me as bizarre is that using known military technology, much of which was centuries old, would have raised Union costs and casualties to unsustainable levels. Easy loading volley guns, a hundred years war European use of a Sino-Indian weapon would have made Union advances effectively impossible.

A valid point about the defenders having the advantage. Tactics of the day were a strange hybrid of the colonial era and WWI.

Any studies on what percentage of human brains which could have invented this or that in the south were in the heads of enslaved black folks who probably did not want to help the slavers?

 

[william the wie]

One, specifically the better executed one of the two you have in works.

True but I'm not sure which is which.

 

[william the wie]

What strikes me as bizarre is that using known military technology, much of which was centuries old, would have raised Union costs and casualties to unsustainable levels. Easy loading volley guns, a hundred years war European use of a Sino-Indian weapon would have made Union advances effectively impossible.

A valid point about the defenders having the advantage. Tactics of the day were a strange hybrid of the colonial era and WWI.

Any studies on what percentage of human brains which could have invented this or that in the south were in the heads of enslaved black folks who probably did not want to help the slavers?

Actual invention was probably unneeded. Use of the pre-existing weapons and development of semi-competent doctrine was notable for its absence. The use of catapult and crossbow bolts to deliver caltrops/incendiary loads would have improved Confederate effectiveness tremendously. The invention of extremely marginal aircraft is simply a way of getting some R&D going.

 

[IsaacNewton]

Defenders almost always have the advantage. They dig fortifications, traps, barriers, killing zones. Look at football, it requires a lot more energy for a defensive lineman to try to overcome an offensive lineman and get to the quarterback than it does for an offensive lineman to simply step back a step or two and resist the energy pushing against them. Castles were built to withstand great amounts of energy leveled at them to gain access and it took great sacrifices of men to do so. Before cannon a thick tall wall was an incredible defense, why else would China build one at gigantic expense along it's western border.

Modern artillery has rendered conventional defenses breach-able so people started using tunnels to avoid bombardment. Iwo Jima and other Japanese entrenchments during WW2 are a perfect example. Iwo was bombarded relentlessly but the Japanese had dug tunnels everywhere, even large enough to conceal their artillery pieces. And when the troops came ashore they rolled their cannons forward and wreaked havoc on troops and ships.

For the US Civil War the South could not have won. The entire economy of the South was a quarter the size of New York state by itself. The best they could hope for was to hold out for a year or two until the North tired of the war and quit. But the North had vast resources to pour into R & D and developed the repeating rifle. While the South limped along with older tech. The die was cast though from the start.

Why would anyone not just develop a game using factual technology available at the time and in the quantity and date of development as it actually happened.

 

[Picaro]

I don't buy the 'worse leadership' in the south premise; they held out a relatively long time against 5+ to 1 odds and a huge economic engine, so their 'leadership' was obviously of a higher quality than the north's was. It was their reliance on what was essentially a mono-economy that beat them, a free market style economy where all capital chases solely after the highest returns with no concerns about anything else, like diversification and industrial development, i.e. just mindless greed among its political elites. If that is the leadership you're referring to, then yes, they had poor leadership. The northern army should have rolled over the south in about 6 months, given their advantages, but instead it took them 4 years or so, hardly a display of competence and leadership.

They had iron mines and other areas they could have developed a lot earlier, like merchant sea trade of their own instead of letting the northern ports have a monopoly on coastal and overseas trade, but as I've said before as have others mass slavery makes societies weak and stagnant, and so does reliance on cheap and massive immigrant labor.

 

[Syriusly]

What strikes me as bizarre is that using known military technology, much of which was centuries old, would have raised Union costs and casualties to unsustainable levels. Easy loading volley guns, a hundred years war European use of a Sino-Indian weapon would have made Union advances effectively impossible.

Reading the histories of war, and weapons development there are always technologies that are overlooked and developed too late for a specific war.

The Union managed to delay the effective deployment of the repeating rifle- the Spencer and the Henry- which would have been a complete game changer. Same with the Gatling gun.

Good for you for trying to put together a game- is this going to be a board and paper game, or a computer game?