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- Jim Voege
Garrison battle at Guadeloupe
February 4, 2010 - 10:23pm — William L. Orange
Garrison battle at Guadeloupe
Engaged: BR1HA (400), BR2HA (400), BR3HA (400), BR4HA (400), BR5HA (400), BR6HA (400), BR7HA (400), BR8HA (400), BR9HA (400), BR10HA (400), BR19IN (2500), FR49IN (4000), FR53IN (4000)
Strengths: 13300 French and 37490 British
British win the battle.
BR1HA loses 96 men.
BR2HA loses 44 men.
BR3HA loses 94 men.
BR4HA loses 96 men.
BR5HA loses 45 men.
BR6HA loses 47 men.
BR7HA loses 67 men.
BR8HA loses 86 men.
BR9HA loses 54 men.
BR10HA loses 33 men.
BR19IN loses 140 men.
FR49IN loses 2255 men and surrenders.
FR53IN loses 2223 men and surrenders.
British captures Guadeloupe!
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Need to re-reexamine HA in garrison combat
This battle reiterates the need to carefully examine how HA works in garrison combat in future NWOLs.
My first recommendation would be to have different strength rating for attackers and defenders. An emplaced HA firing on disembarking infantry can do a lot of damage. A 4000 pound HA trying to be unloaded from a boat without any port facilities to assist it, not quite as effective. That is why the attacking forces tended to not have any separate artillery forces, only the infantry guns attached to the regiments.
To compensate the attackers should be able to use their SOLs to support the attack, assuming they can get past the coastal defenses.
-nick
The coastal defences never
The coastal defences never come into play. The attack is not made in the harbour.
But it would be a good thing if we could add hundreds of massed 18, 24 and 32 pdr artillery support into the mix.
Jim
Jim Voege
Chicken vrs egg
Jim,
The coastal defenses currently have no role, because SOLs currently have no role in an attack on the colony.
The overall situation is that NWOL land combat in the Caribbean has almost nothing in common with actual combat in the Caribbean in the 18th century and Napoleonic wars. We are simulating month sieges in one turn, which is going to have problems by its very nature.
I am pretty sure Steve isn't going to want a major overhaul, so we need to find small tweaks if we want this to look more realistic.
-nick
There is nothing in the game
There is nothing in the game that is more abstracted than island combat in PATE. There are vastly more important things needed in PATE than making more real an aspect of the game that was intentionally left abstract and simple. I can certainly match you tweak for tweak. But where will it end?
Essentially, this is all about the unreality of employing massed artillery in these circumstances. However, during the Spring Games it was possible to use *only* artillery in these landings. Steve imposed and publicized a fix before the game started and we have strictly complied with the requirements of that fix and based our strategy on it.
Essentially this is just about applying heavy combat power against the two garrison units at Guadeloupe. If we had landed, as we could have done, 10 brigades of infantry to achieve the same result nobody would have complained. So what's the difference? The only difference is that this way is cheaper in TR costs. So what this complaint is really all about is that we were able to save some money -- a drop in the bucket compared to the deficiencies in Britain's financial set up.
Still, in this little thing we have discovered a truly remarkable thing -- a problem in PATE that actually inures to Britain's benefit. ;-)
Jim
Jim Voege
Transport capacity
Jim,
You used a poorly thought out rule to your advantage. That is good. My interest is getting the poor rule corrected for the next game.
The problem is that a weapons this is in reality essentially useless in this situation is actually the most effective weapon. I'm fine with abstraction, but that is simply silly.
I think the real problem is not with the combat power of the HA, but rather with how much space they take up on transports. The notion that man for man an artillery unit takes up less space than a cavalry unit does not seem right. A battery of artillery needs a couple hundred horses to carry the guns and ammunition, plus you have to account for the guns and ammunition wagons. LA of course would also need an additional horse for each crewman.
I think making artillery take up 4 or even 5 spaces of transport per man would be more accurate and make infantry the best choice for amphibious assault, like it should be.
-nick
space used by artillery and cavalry
I am not trying to argue one way or the other regarding that artillery should take up more transport space but I think that an artillery unit of 300 or 400 men with guns and horses will still be smaller than a full brigade of cavarly that has over 1000 men and horses and their supplies.
Graf Ferdinand von Funck
Adjutant General to Elector of Sachsen,
Generalleutnant (Sachsen), Generalmajor (Österreich),
Knight of St George, Order of the Iron Crown,
Knight Companion of the Order of the Teutonic Knights (Reformed).
Nick, I'd agree entirely that
Nick,
I'd agree entirely that the matter should be looked at as part of a general revamping of PATE for next game. However, assessing the value of heavy artillery in amphibious operations is not a simple matter. For example, look at Nelson's operations on Corsica where on his own initiative he hauled ships guns up cliffs to get them in position for a very effective bombardment. And the TR cost was nil because these were naval guns taken off warships. Things like that have to be talked about and taken into account.
Jim Voege
role of artillery
I'm not saying that there is no role for artillery, but rather that it shouldn't have the leading role.
I agree that there is plenty that needs to be talked about. Including the ability to dismount guns and marines.
Another is should you be allowed to land troops without having to destroy the shore batteries first.
-nick
Guadeloupe
Regarding " should you be allowed to land troops without having to destroy the shore batteries first"
I am not sure about the history of Guadeloupe, but Fort Royal in Grenada has an interesting history.
The following are pieces cut out of http://www.forts.org/history.htm
Fort Royal (is) built at the entrance to the harbour which it defends. It is of an irregular figure with Four bastions & a kind of horn work toward the Country(,) the Curtain of which is covered by a Ravelin. The whole mounted with thirty seven pieces of Canon.
The Toulon fleet under Vice-Admiral the Count Charles-Henri d’Estaing departed for the American theatre of war. And d’Estaing did come to Grenada. His fleet of 24 ships of the line, a dozen frigates plus auxiliaries, with over 1,300 troops arrived off the coast on 2 July, 1779.
The French landing force, composed of Dillon’s Regiment, detachments from the Auxerrois, Martinique, Cambresis and Foix regiments and the 1st Legion Volontaires-étrangers de la Marine; along with the grenadiers of the Viennois and Hanault regiments and the chasseur companies of the Champagne regiment, landed north and west of Fort Royal (out of range of the fort’s guns) on 3 July, 1779.
The fort was subsequently captured by these forces placed ashore and the 24 French SL where not used in the assault.
Not sure if this was the case generally - but harbor forts seemed vulnerable from the rear to troops landing outside of the anchorage. I was in Grenada recently, and although the fort seems to dominate the anchorage, from the land side you can almost walk into it.
John Vanvark
PATE improvement
I was recently discussing PATE with someone else this very week. I agree with the point but there are more important things that need to be improved (not fixed) in PATE.
The main thing, to me, is that a good General can win a GITM battle against superior/better forces if he is good enough, i.e. by enticing the enemy to fight on bad terrain, hiding reserves behind the main line, using cavalry to cut supply lines before the battle and retreat routes after it, etc.. We have seen it many times.
PATE, however, allows for very few tricks. I look forward to the day in which a good/creative Spanish or French Admiral wins the day against a bad Royal Navy Admiral. Pls correct me if I am wrong, but my guess is that a UK Admiral who does not scr... up orders will always win unless seriously outnumbered (i.e. 2:1 or worse).
This is not to be condescendent to the very capable Royal Navy officers here, just to give a shot to the French in the next game. And I would like to reinforce IN THE NEXT GAME ( - :
Marcelo
Marcelo, It's certainly
Marcelo,
It's certainly possible. However, it has to be recognized that PATE is not really played at the tactical level. The real trick is getting more combat power than the enemy into the same place and time and in circumstances where the enemy cannot avoid combat. Basically, the tactical aspects of PATE are merely intended, with some element of change and opportunity for error, to confirm who has done the better job at following Bedford Forrest's dictum to get there first with the most.
In this context, as was the case historically, the Royal Navy has manifest advantages in the long run -- principally due to its ability to build a large navy because of its being able to get away with a small army.
Still, in the short(er) run it is entirely possible for other states to play hell with Britain. For example, in one beta, primarily for PATE, the French and Sardinian navies kicked the crap out of the combined fleets of Britain, Holland, Spain and Russia. In NWOL I the French navy ran the British and Dutch ragged in the Caribbean with massed frigates.
So there are lots of tricks that can be played in PATE. Just not at the tactical level.
BTW, Nelson estimated that a British ship was worth 2 French or Spanish. Naval battles in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic era tended to confirm this. In PATE the qualitative differential is not nearly that great. So you generally don't need anywhere near a 2:1 numerical advantage for an even fight.
Jim
Jim Voege
HA transport
Being new to this simulation, I learn something new every day. The units moved in this attack do not even come close to anything that would have been seen in an actual attack. Transporting that much HA over infrantry brigades isn't even close to realistic. I think a slight modification of the rules would be reasonable to make this situation impossible in future rollouts of this simulation.
Carl
Garrison battle
As a French commander what amazed me was that 8000 of my best troops watch for days as they rowed gun after gun to shore than hauled them across the island into position to fire. At least after taking a few rounds they dutifully surrendered. I thought sure they were better trained than that!
Berthier
interesting news...
...but this place doesn't appear on any of my maps. Is this one of those islands the British find valuable?
Graf Ferdinand von Funck
Adjutant General to Elector of Sachsen,
Generalleutnant (Sachsen), Generalmajor (Österreich),
Knight of St George, Order of the Iron Crown,
Knight Companion of the Order of the Teutonic Knights (Reformed).