Civil War Bull Run Demo -- New

[Red Harvest]

MMG has released a demo of Civil War Bull Run. You can grab it at their website here. It is a nice little game for $20. You will find the AI much more challenging than RTW...

[Divine Wind]

Downloading the demo now, thanks Red Harvest.

[SpencerH]

Did you ever play the Sid Meier civil war games?

[The Scourge]

Agh! Just ordered the full game a few days ago.
Oh well ,pretty sure I won't regret it.


SpencerH .Played Gettys Burg all the time ,and it's still one of my all time favorite war games.
And everything I've read about Bull Run ,makes it sound even better.

[SpencerH]

Yeah I thought it was a good game that seems to be very overlooked.

[Gregoshi]

Okay, I played some of the demo and I'm impressed. Pretty cool, but for a demo I was surprised at how much marching along the road through the woods there was - it really slowed things down, but the fighting was pretty good. I'll play a little more of the demo to be sure, but it hardly seems like you can go wrong for $20. I like it so far.

[Red Harvest]

Did you ever play the Sid Meier civil war games?

Yep, unfortunately XP SP2 effectively kills both Gettysburg and Antietam. I enjoyed both of them. I think CWBR is considerably tougher.

There are some facets of the CWBR game that are going to need some adjustment for the next in the series, but they have made a very good start.

[CBR]

There is no campaign as it only focuses on the battle/scenarios. We can just hope they eventually will make it MP.

But I do find US Civil War tactics to be pretty boring compared to Napoleonic warfare. But its definitely a good game considering it was made by two guys in their spare time.


CBR

[CBR]

Oh yes they just never had the good quality cavalry for the shock action plus the terrain was not always suited for the cavalry. That and the tendency to dig in whenever they could which you rarely saw in earlier times.

But apart from that it was still very Napoleonic in its basics.


CBR

[Quietus]

There is no campaign as it only focuses on the battle/scenarios.

It cost half that of RTW but no campaign or replayability? I reckon only two factions and not a lot of unit variety. And the graphics look MTW-ish.

On the scale of 1 to 5 how would you guys rate this game?

[IceTorque]

I give it a 4/5.

I particularly like the GUI it gives it that sense of realism
give the orders and wait.

CBR i heard you were off playing Silent Hunter III,
is it as good as the mags say it is ?

[CBR]

CBR i heard you were off playing Silent Hunter III,
is it as good as the mags say it is ?

I have played a bit of MP but I dont think its very suited for that. The campaign on the other hand is very good IMO.


CBR

[CBR]

An interesting subject and one I've been trying to come to grips with for some time. I'm not as familiar with Napoleonic cavalry as I would like to be, but in most cases, cavalry of the pre-ACW period seems to be overrated or remembered for a few dashing moments such as dealing the coup de grace to a wavering foe. They were certainly difficult to maintain with real quality.

Cavalry was certainly expensive but definitely worth it. Napoleon actually changed the way it was used and formed whole divisons of cavalry and Im pretty sure some of the largest cavalry charges in Western history happened during these years.

A bit of info on it here:

http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...n/c_eylau.html

The problem is that the type of cavalry you describe was obsolete, as were most Napoleonic tactics by the end of the American Civil War. Entrenchment became common because of improved rifles and artillery--these forced the infantry to dig in.

AFAIK this book did dispell some of the myths about the US Civil War: Battle Tactics of the American Civil War by Paddy Griffith. Just using my (perhaps) corrupted memory right now:

Cavalry that could make fast maneuvers to outflank enemy infantry and rout them quickly was by no means obsolete. It was used in the Franco-Prussian war too. The frontal assault might have been made slightly more difficult but was not easy during Napoleonic times anyways. There was just no large numbers of cavalry nor was it trained for such attacks (being used more as mounted infantry) and the terrain didnt help on it either.

The doctrine about digging in started before artillery and rifles changed any tactics. The main reason for it was that the Americans saw their militia infantry to be not as strong as regular infantry so fortifications were a must to bolster the defense.

Most artillery were 12 pounder muzzleloaders and in the beginning of the war a lot of infantry still used smoothbore muskets too as well as getting nearly no proper traning to use their weapons. Collected data on average ranges for musket/rifle engagements suggests a small increase in the later years but nowhere near the potiential the rifle had compared to the musket. And overall the ranges doesnt seem to be much different than what was seen during Napoleonic times. The main explanation for that would be the lack of training and the general confusion during a engagement meant that soldiers didnt aim very well, so the rifle's potiential was more or less wasted.

The last stage of the war there as some aggressive use of cavalry (more or less the first time IIRC) which showed how good cavalry was, instead of just doing raids and recon. In most occasions it was used dismounted but IIRC at one point cavalry frontally attacked some trenches.

I cannot comment on how logistics in USA would have made it worse for cavalry compared to say Europe but that is a local thing and nothing to do with technology and tactics. But that along with the terrain might have given ACW shock cavalry some problems. But nonetheless it still took nearly 4 years IIRC before we see some good battlefield use of cavalry (actions leading up to Appomattox). Cavalry was always good at pursuing and enhancing an enemy rout but was simply not present at all and that IMO made way too many battles indecisive.


CBR

[CBR]

A good amount of Civil War fighting was done in forests, on steep slopes (also usually forrested) and in marshland. So while Cavalry could have some value in out-manuevring your enemy in, say, the battlefields of Europe (which were by no means just plain open fields, but far more so than the battlefields of the ACW), it's really hard to outflank your enemy with cavalry in a swamp.

No doubt about that. But I really wish I had a few good regiments of Cuirassiers when playing CWBR


CBR

[econ21]

The doctrine about digging in started before artillery and rifles changed any tactics. The main reason for it was that the Americans saw their militia infantry to be not as strong as regular infantry so fortifications were a must to bolster the defense.

That may be so, but it has always puzzled me why Napoleonic era generals did not dig in more[1]. The fact that you can get your regulars to line up close together and get shot does not necessarily mean it's the smart thing to have done. Reflecting on the dominating effect of, say, Hougomont at Waterloo or even the redoubts at Borodino, I can't help feeling the American "militia" generals could have taught the Europeans a thing or two. Actually, I guess they tried to at Bunker Hill. I read an interesting account of how a British flanking attack there was thwarted because overnight the Americans constructed a wall (!) that blocked its intended path. Indeed, I am not sure it was a one-off - I recall there being a pretty impressive line of fortified defences at Saratoga, although Benedict Arnold showed that the Americans did not need them.

[1]This is frighteningly demonstrated in the computer wargame Age of Rifles. There are a lot of great Napoleonic scenarios available on the web, but they are ruined as simulations if you order your men to dig in - the battles will degenerate into a series of Hougomonts.

[CBR]

Well that is a good question. At several battles one side had lots of time to do some kind of fortification.

One reason for it, would be that it does take a certain amount of work to get a fortification that will actually do anything good:

A foxhole might be nice in modern warfare but wouldn't do a damn thing 200 years ago. Same thing with a trench. If you want to stop an enemy attack you need concentrated firepower from a 2-3 rank line or have some kind of fortification that will help you stop the enemy from reaching you or at least give you some kind of advantage like the big redoubts at Borodino. That and having a ordered line of infantry that are ready to counter attack.

In the ACW you see lots of trench lines and infantry digging foxholes whenever they could, so why would that have helped them at all?

My bet is that the US generals were right when they spotted the weaknesses of their militia infantry. Sure they could drill them well to do the maneuvers needed but they couldn't expect them to do the things regular infantry could do like a proper assault. Lots of attacks stalled during Napoleonic times and ended in a missile fight at 100-200 yards so I would expect ACW infantry to do the same or perhaps be even more inclined to stop before being able to charge in.

If the tendency for infantry was to engage in missile fights and rarely go in for the assault then it makes sense with trenches and foxholes. There are actually a few example of regiments where the officer managed to get his troop to just fire one salvo only and then charge but it does seem to be very rare. And these attacks were actually successful.

The book mentions some of the troop density of defensive lines to be very weak but the enemy still didnt even try to attack. How to explain that? The attacker didnt rush the defenses because he had a good reason of course. With the statistics we have of firerate as well as length of engagements compared to losses etc there is nothing the suggests that missile fire was that strong to justify such a weak line holding. So it can only be explained by the troops not going in even when facing relative weak enemy fire, and perhaps looking at that enemy fortification just added to the fear so troops preferred to fight at a "safe" distance.

From what I have read on the ACW it was more the uniqueness of the situation in USA: rapid and large buildup of the army added to the doctrine of protection/fortification and defensive terrain that made the tactics of the war and not new techology.


CBR