Forrest's Tiny Elite Brigade

[pfcjking]

Nathan Bedford Forrest and his tiny band of 300 3-star elite troopers are a reward you get for beating the yankees at Shiloh. While thankful for this treat, which is the only one of it's kind, I believe, it presents somewhat of a problem for me every time.
At 300 strong, they are somewhat useless, so they need to be augmented. But, you cannot do this without ruining their novelty as a 3-star elite unit. Literally, you can watch their rating drop significantly with every added rookie. By the time you are up to 350, it's a 2-star. Adding veterans is pricey as hell. I think I saw that it cost over $200 per veteran. At that rate, you'd spend $60,000 just to make a 600 man cavalry outfit. I tend to be reckless with my cavalry, so that is a no go.
I finally came to a solution.... turn them into an elite sniper battalion.
I wait until I have 0 recruits left, then I disband them. I acquire 300 sniper rifles, preferrable scoped whitworths, and I reconstitute them as a skirmisher unit, 3-stars with all their attributes focused on stealth and accuracy. Let me tell you, when used properly, that is one deadly little unit. So far, after 4 battles, they routinely kill 600 to 850 enemy in exchange for 10 or 12 casualties, and those are from artillery. You have to be careful about when and where you use them, but they are worth their weight in gold. Every volley drops 20 to 50 enemy, and some enemy units just sit and absorb 10 or so volleys before they react. usually, their reaction is to route.

[CrashToDesktop]

I generally don't have the weapons or the army space to deplete all my rookies to make just this trick. I just fill Forrest's unit up tp 750 with rookies and veterans, enough to just keep it at Vet 2. His stats hover around 60 at that point, which is good enough for me.

[pfcjking]

I usually start building my 2nd corps after Shiloh, so having the extra space has never been a problem. I forgot to mention, I reassign Forrest to a full infantry or cavalry brigade as well. Twice already, he has ended up as a corps commander for me at Washington. If you can keep him alive, he ranks up pretty good.

[von_Manstein]

Same problem for me on the other side . You get the Iron Bde. for the Yanks. Let me tell you, They Live Up to Their name! But,,, re-enforcing them is tricky. Still working on it. Rotated them to my 4th Corps where I send badly beat-up units to rebuild. Since I rarely need the 4th, I can take a litttle time with them. I just replace them with a rookie Bde from the 4th for experience.

Like I said though, still working on the system. Sometimes the rookies get Stonewalled (pun intended) :) their 1st time out and have to be re-built themselves. a Generals work is never done.

[cromagnonman2k]

I’ve read about people who do the same on the Union side, breaking up the 960-strong Iron Brigade into 3 3-star 12-gun artillery units.

[mhenry_101381]

Originally posted by pfcjking:

Nathan Bedford Forrest and his tiny band of 300 3-star elite troopers are a reward you get for beating the yankees at Shiloh. While thankful for this treat, which is the only one of it's kind, I believe, it presents somewhat of a problem for me every time.
At 300 strong, they are somewhat useless, so they need to be augmented. But, you cannot do this without ruining their novelty as a 3-star elite unit. Literally, you can watch their rating drop significantly with every added rookie. By the time you are up to 350, it's a 2-star. Adding veterans is pricey as hell. I think I saw that it cost over $200 per veteran. At that rate, you'd spend $60,000 just to make a 600 man cavalry outfit. I tend to be reckless with my cavalry, so that is a no go.
I finally came to a solution.... turn them into an elite sniper battalion.
I wait until I have 0 recruits left, then I disband them. I acquire 300 sniper rifles, preferrable scoped whitworths, and I reconstitute them as a skirmisher unit, 3-stars with all their attributes focused on stealth and accuracy. Let me tell you, when used properly, that is one deadly little unit. So far, after 4 battles, they routinely kill 600 to 850 enemy in exchange for 10 or 12 casualties, and those are from artillery. You have to be careful about when and where you use them, but they are worth their weight in gold. Every volley drops 20 to 50 enemy, and some enemy units just sit and absorb 10 or so volleys before they react. usually, their reaction is to route.

Originally posted by cromagnonman2k:

I’ve read about people who do the same on the Union side, breaking up the 960-strong Iron Brigade into 3 3-star 12-gun artillery units.

Thanks for the ideas, never thought of it. I wonder what we can do with Southern leaders. You have Lee, A.S.J., Jackson, Longstreet, Forrest, maybe Stuart, then you have the others that come along. At times, it's hard to decide where to put whom. You only have so many Corps slots and you don't want to risk Longstreet, Jackson, or Lee in a division command because you don't have room at the Corps command.

[pfcjking]

In the same vein of thinking, I took my biggest 3 star brigade (2,500) and disbanded it making 1 - 1,700 man brigade with 3 stars armed with muskets, and then 1 - 800 man 3 star brigade armed with Henrys. I used that Henry brigade carefully, and around the flanks only. I literally tried to avoid letting them take a volley from any sizable enemy. It worked fantastic, but I had to monitor them carefully on every field. I had so much money tied up in them, I was very cautious with them. The range on the henry is very short, so they had to get in close. But when they could sit and eat away at a flank without return fire, they would mow anybody down. It's like 4 volleys to 1 from muskets.
eventually I had to sell the henrys to buy more standard weapons prior to washington. Not wanting to leave any men at the depot for that last fight, I arm some even with farmers muskets so long as they are on the field.

[diegrndrst73041]

How is this possible?

Originally posted by cromagnonman2k:

I’ve read about people who do the same on the Union side, breaking up the 960-strong Iron Brigade into 3 3-star 12-gun artillery units.

[CrashToDesktop]

Originally posted by diegrndrst73041:

How is this possible?

Deplete your Recruit pool by making dummy brigades and then Disband the brigade you want to remake. Then make however many brigades you want out of those, they'll have the same stats as the brigade you just disbanded.

[cromagnonman2k]

Originally posted by diegrndrst73041:

How is this possible?

Originally posted by cromagnonman2k:

I’ve read about people who do the same on the Union side, breaking up the 960-strong Iron Brigade into 3 3-star 12-gun artillery units.

Disbanded units return their men to the recruit pool; if those men have a lot of experience, they cause the average recruit’s experience level to increase. If you deplete your recruit pool close to zero before disbanding a 3-star units, you will now have a recruit pool of those highly-experienced men. Building new units with them will result in high XP units.

[[__h.stickeye_]]

i suicided that stupid unit first chance i got, i see cav as absolutely atrocious and probably they actually were historically useless, relics of a bygone era and all.

[pfcjking]

Tell Forrest, Sheridan, Lee, Custer and Stuart they were useless. Their roles changed, but they were still vital. Eyes and ears. Screening your army.
Even today, the US army employs cavalry scouts. 19D MOS, I believe. In an age of satellites and silent drones, the best info still comes from a man with his boots on the ground and a radio in his hand.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Originally posted by __h.stickeye_:

i suicided that stupid unit first chance i got, i see cav as absolutely atrocious and probably they actually were historically useless, relics of a bygone era and all.

You would be entirely wrong. Yes, their role changed, but cavalry was invaluable in the war, invaluable during the Indan Wars, and invaluable in this game

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Originally posted by pfcjking:

Tell Forrest, Sheridan, Lee, Custer and Stuart they were useless. Their roles changed, but they were still vital. Eyes and ears. Screening your army.
Even today, the US army employs cavalry scouts. 19D MOS, I believe. In an age of satellites and silent drones, the best info still comes from a man with his boots on the ground and a radio in his hand.

There is actual horse cavalry in Afghanistan, there are places a horse can go no vehicle can. Granted, the soldiers riding the horses wear green berets and not sabers, but the horse still has great value.

[Caramirdan]

Originally posted by Andre Bolkonsky:

Originally posted by pfcjking:

Tell Forrest, Sheridan, Lee, Custer and Stuart they were useless. Their roles changed, but they were still vital. Eyes and ears. Screening your army.
Even today, the US army employs cavalry scouts. 19D MOS, I believe. In an age of satellites and silent drones, the best info still comes from a man with his boots on the ground and a radio in his hand.

There is actual horse cavalry in Afghanistan, there are places a horse can go no vehicle can. Granted, the soldiers riding the horses wear green berets and not sabers, but the horse still has great value.

LOL they don't actually wear green berets, but beards and turbans, and might just carry a saber for effect. ;-)
(I treated one of these guys, I had to do a double take when he entered the tent, holding out his ID and speaking with a slight Southern drawl lol)

[pfcjking]

Originally posted by Caramirdan:

Originally posted by Andre Bolkonsky:

There is actual horse cavalry in Afghanistan, there are places a horse can go no vehicle can. Granted, the soldiers riding the horses wear green berets and not sabers, but the horse still has great value.

LOL they don't actually wear green berets, but beards and turbans, and might just carry a saber for effect. ;-)
(I treated one of these guys, I had to do a double take when he entered the tent, holding out his ID and speaking with a slight Southern drawl lol)

LOL..
My buddy did a tour in Afghanistan, and he got his doctorate in military science upon his return. He did his thesis on the use of horses in modern warfare, and he interviewed several old mounted veterans of the Soviet invasion and the fight against the Taliban as part of it. He wasn't a bearded green beret though.