Reply To: Different Mechanics for Dealing with Longer-Term Attrition

[McLaddie]

Over the years, I have seen the attrition caused by artillery handled in the following ways–in some form. Without looking up the specific rules…which I can do if you want, they are:

1. Cut up the movement process into small movement/fire phases so that incremental damage can be tracked.

2. Have moves cover large amounts of time and one fire sequence does all the ‘attritional’ damage.

3. Have fire ‘zones of control’ where units suffer morale and/or movement loss while in the zone.

4. Have units suffer negative infantry or cavalry close combat modifiers if under artillery fire before entering combat

Many players like aiming and firing their cannon at specific targets, though actual commanders rarely took the opportunity to direct artillery so specifically. They generally gave them responsibilities to support or areas to defend and the artillerists decided when to fire at whom.

Firing artillery at specific targets over about 600 yards was difficult. Visually, a column at that range was the size of a pinhead. [Hughes has some photos showing this at various ranges] Taking account of smoke and several cannon firing, it was difficult to tell if the target was being hit…  At that range, random fire, creating areas of interdiction with bounce-through was a tactic.  Clausewitz describes going through these artillery ‘zones’ where as a courier, he could tell how close he was to the front lines by the quality of the artillery fire.  This is the kind of thing you see a Waterloo where the French fire over the slope into the British troops on the other side, creating real havoc on targets they couldn’t see: Random fire.

Skirmishing is tougher because it requires  close contact between the skirmishers and enemy units over time. It is also not random fire, but aimed at officers, artillerists etc.