Supply raid as the Union, run up to Chancelorville.

[luckymarine]

How is this meant to happen?

I dislike cav at the best of time, in my eyes they're a luxury not worth having when I can have 2500 men in their place, who will follow orders and hold a place in the line. They can just about be trusted to capture suply wagons and that's about it.

But this mission tho...

Attacking the Confederates in a defensive location with cav units that are half the strength of their infantry units, hell even the skirmisher units are routing the union cav units.

[Norakai]

You need to learn how cavallery works. You can unmount them to get a good defense line and attack their flanks with your mounted ones. Mount and Unmount is the key of good cavallery usage.

[BigJKU316]

Skrimisher cavalry is great and I love it, especially with higher end carbines. It's hard to employ well.

The key for me with it is to remember the horses are just there to help them move around. You don't hardly ever fight mounted. Once dismounted make liberal use of the hold command at about half the range arc. Grab cover if you can as their skrimisher status gives them a big bonus there. If you get close their rate of fire will devastate people. Move close, hit hold and surround people. Don't take both VP's until you have cleared out the Northern defenses so you can use them to hold off Stuart.

You need to learn this skill for Gettysburg. Buford's division, well employed, can really spare you a ton of losses. I tend to be able to pull it off North of town and slash in at the CSA flank as they try to force their way South. I have broken multiple units with controlled counter attacks and then pulled off to do it again. Usually this can buy you 2-3 attacks broken to give you ample time to fall back South of town. Then the division can be used to hold the CSA up badly coming through town. Finally if you can extract it you can work it around behind your lines and deploy it on the west side of the ridge to get at CSA gun deployments as they move to attack your final positions.

Full disclosure I don't buy it much as the Union early but not because I don't like it. I don't want to manage it in packets of one or two brigades but not knowing exactly when it may show up in many battles means I don't want it in my main corps. It's the firs division of my 4th corps. It's massively useful on the last days of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and at times during the Overland campaign and beyond. I have occasionally made good use of it at Stone's River and I am contemplating using a couple brigades next time I play Gains Mill.

[Wright29]

Thing is the enemy is fortified and doesn't adjust to your movements too well until the enemy reinforcements arrive. So gang up on individual units and flank them til they rout.

[Marcomies]

In supply raid mission the enemy guarding the depot is really easy to rout and it should be easy to just push your dismounted veteran cavalry to the flag. After the reinforcements arrive just keep pushing your guys to the flag and keep manning the defensive positions and buildings for as long as the mission demands. They aren't your guys so losses aren't an issue.

Carbine cavalry should be dismounted most of the time, the horses are mainly transports for them. I have found dragoons to be some of the most versatile units in the game and have one or two 500 man brigades in every Corps. Among other things I use them as mobile scouts, fast reserve units and for flanking fire (their agility and rate of fire really make them deadly at that).

They are like carbine skirmishers but come in larger groups, have better mobility and can charge artillery and supply wagons if necessary. Never let them fight regular infantry 1v1 in the open though.

[luckymarine]

Turns out the best way to use cav is to not use cav...

Getting them all off their horses did the trick, the improved fire rate of the cav carbines ripped though the enemy so long as it was at least 2 v 1.

Tears though their ammunition pretty quick though, probably why the game gives you 2 supply wagons.

Still dont like cav but am warming to the idea of fast reloading carbine cav roaming around behind enemy lines dismounting to pick off the odd cannon here and there or capturing supplies.

(Still think you should be given the option to burn the suipplies once caught, or at least disable the wagon...)

[Simple As]

I dissagree on Cavalry being a luxury, I built up my own Division of 750 horse brigades and took them to 2nd Bull Run. With the help of two small infantry brigades to act as cover I charged into Jackson's centre and split his army up!

[Americus Wickey]

Just fought this again on BG level, and followed someone's advice on another thread: kept all my units mounted. I began attacking immediately, kept them moving at all times with new targets, charged the fortified points from several angles, kept the general close for morale boost, and used the two arty units to pound whichever Reb infantry bdes needed pounding.

Amazed at the results! Knocked the Rebs back on their heels - even Stuart's units couldn't handle being double/triple-teamed, and were frequently routed. As long as I kept my units swirling around, attacking any Reb units getting close to the VP, I was routing Reb units right and left and maintaining control of the center. As time ran out, the Union had the best field control I've ever seen, after fighting this battle 4-5 times (dismounted) with great difficulty.

[[TFM]bobcat]

Cav Are far from a luxury and I have wone supply raid many times on MG without ever dismounting my cav. The trick in supply raid is to bunch up your cav into a huge amss and just focus fire every cav unit on one enemy unit at a time, with the higher rate of fire for cav, you can wipe out the rebel infantry and the rebel cav that shows up later very easily. As for using cav in more general settings, they can be very effective tools and can wipe out entire infantry brigades in battles... provided they are used properly and not by somone who tries to use them like they are infantry.

[Ninjasquirrel]

I think we focus too much on kill count sometimes and not enough on how to bring down morale. Feel like a lot of people talk about how ineffective arty or cav or skirmishers are, they are not thinking about how effective these troops are at destroying morale.

[Chip Chipperson]

Originally posted by Ninjasquirrel:

I think we focus too much on kill count sometimes and not enough on how to bring down morale. Feel like a lot of people talk about how ineffective arty or cav or skirmishers are, they are not thinking about how effective these troops are at destroying morale.

My favorite tactic is to use sniper skirmishers in conjunction with skirmisher cav. I employ these on flanks whether attacking or defending (where practical) and keep chipping away at the edges.
I have 1 cav and the skirmisher brigade flank from the side and behind until the unit routs, then use the 2nd cav to chase them and inflict more damage and make sure they aren’t coming back any time soon.