Ammo repeating rifles

[jasonwill20]

For the group and developers, should there be a modification or increase in ammo for units that have rapid firing rifles. For example, right now fitting a unit with Henry, Sharp and or Spencer rifles has a major drawback by expending its ammo fairly quickly. Is this historically accurate and or does this frustrate gameplay?

[GrayGhost]

Well the Henry you could fire 16 shots in 10 seconds 1 in the chamber and 15 in the tube ready to go and the spencer had a 7 round tube and could unleash carnage very deadly in under a minute so yes this is historically accurate plus they were mainly used for skirmishing/cav action

[M_Castello]

this is one of the reasons that the federal government was hesitant to supply infantry with repeaters./breechloaders, they were concerned that the men would run though ammo too fast and it would cost too much to keep up with the use

[Waxolm5]

It does run out quicker than expected. I had a whole division of repeaters that ran out of ammo about 2 hours into the battle, or so, in intense combat. They also did little damage considering they had sharps rifles, which were very accurate for the day.

I suspect brigades with repeating rifles typically got over 60 rounds per man, and so I had the same concern, which I almost posted a few days back. I didn't look up historically how much they would have received, but it's still a legitimate thought.

[bradhunter]

I just bumped my Small Arms post...

[bradhunter]

The other issue with ammo depletion is range. Civil War initial engagements took place in the 50-200 yard range, and the average ammo expenditure for a man, in one one-day battle, was from 3 to 20 rounds. IMHO, there should be a big hit in accuracy after the "Medium" range, to incentivize the player to keep their small arms ranges at medium range. Try leaving all of your rifle-armed troops at "Medium Range" - you don't have the ammo depletion issues any more.

Also, the Sharps wasn't the big issue - it was a breech-loader that used linen cartridges with a percussion cap. The Spencer, on the other hand, used metal cartridges in reloadable tubes. the trooper would have a loaded gun with 7 rounds, and an additional 10 tubes, for a total of 77 rounds. The RoF, non-mounted, was 28 r/m.

[jasonwill20]

Team
Good discussion, the ammo limitations do force the player to think how one aligns your combat firepower. For example, I did assign Henry rifles to one division but then they run through their ammo and become combat ineffective towards mid afternoon. Now I assign repeating rifles to one BDE per division to use as a reserve / flanking force and micromanage to an extent. That said, I am starting to use cavalry more often as mobile infantry and a screening force with repeaters.

[Waxolm5]

Originally posted by bradhunter:

The other issue with ammo depletion is range. Civil War initial engagements took place in the 50-200 yard range, and the average ammo expenditure for a man, in one one-day battle, was from 3 to 20 rounds. IMHO, there should be a big hit in accuracy after the "Medium" range, to incentivize the player to keep their small arms ranges at medium range. Try leaving all of your rifle-armed troops at "Medium Range" - you don't have the ammo depletion issues any more.

Also, the Sharps wasn't the big issue - it was a breech-loader that used linen cartridges with a percussion cap. The Spencer, on the other hand, used metal cartridges in reloadable tubes. the trooper would have a loaded gun with 7 rounds, and an additional 10 tubes, for a total of 77 rounds. The RoF, non-mounted, was 28 r/m.

That's true. But my guys ran out of ammo after 2-3 hours using sharps at medium range. It surprised me too. Spencer is far worse, obviously, and should probably only be equipped with cavalry.

EDIT: I left it on default, which I thought was medium range.

[Luunyrkki]

Originally posted by GrayGhost:

Well the Henry you could fire 16 shots in 10 seconds 1 in the chamber and 15 in the tube ready to go and the spencer had a 7 round tube and could unleash carnage very deadly in under a minute so yes this is historically accurate plus they were mainly used for skirmishing/cav action

Modern assault rifles can pump out 10 rounds per second, but obviously they aren't used that way. I don't know how Henry rifle was used, or was it ever used in lieu muskets. It seems more like a skirmish weapon, so obviously it's not going to be represented well with the infantry brigades etc in the game.

You have to remember that the line tactics were developed around muskets and their restrictions. One of the major one was how long it took to reload. But even if you remove that, it doesn't mean the other "bottlenecks" are removed. For example how long did it take to aim and prepare for a volley? All those other bottlenecks were worked on the next fifty years, and the result was no more line battles.

If you take WW1 bolt-action rifles as a basis, a realistic rate for aimed shots was 10 per minute. So how fast could an infantry brigade armed with Henrys fire? Certainly not as fast as the theoretical speed would suggest.

[Zipuli]

Accuracy in the game is not linear. At very close range it's high, then it sharply drops with range until about medium range, and after that all fire is basically inaccurate. Especially if the troops are green, tired and the unit has lost its cohesion. Engagements from long range are mostly for the sound effects and ammo consumption.

[化身盒子行刺天海春香]

But AI prefer long range shot, so like csa 1864 campaign, when you upgraded some units with sharps, you have no idea but to volley back with long range.

[Rygoat]

Is there a way to use the different ammo types? I.e. cannon have 3 types, perhaps having infantry and cavalry use two types (for breach loaders/repeaters vs musket/rifled musket).

[Zipuli]

Originally posted by Rygoat:

Is there a way to use the different ammo types? I.e. cannon have 3 types, perhaps having infantry and cavalry use two types (for breach loaders/repeaters vs musket/rifled musket).

This is already done so behind the scenes. For example Springfield muskets have higher lethality than rifles, as it fires buck & ball, and so on. Though each inf/cav weapon has only 1 ammo type.

[crono900]

Originally posted by Rygoat:

Is there a way to use the different ammo types? I.e. cannon have 3 types, perhaps having infantry and cavalry use two types (for breach loaders/repeaters vs musket/rifled musket).

In the game there are three types for cannon ammo. I tend to modify the ammo capacity so an artillery battery has 288 solid shot , 96 shells, and 96 canister round. This is the amount a typical union battery had for mounted artillery. They also carried 288 Spherical case Shot, but the game doesn't have a slot for that. I guess I could add it to the shell-shot because they too explode. The horse artillery carried fewer rounds in the civil war so they could move faster but I don't know if I can modify their ammo.

these numbers are according to wikipedia and may not be 100% accurate. I'm doing more research into this.

[Zipuli]

Actually the number of ammo is per gun. So the amount 96 canister rounds for a battery of 6 guns = 16 in game -- which is the amount we currently use.

Also we've bunched all exploding type rounds in one ammo type. Basically the numbers per ammo type we use are exactly the ones you are stating here, except per gun, not per battery.

PS. When in game 1 round of ammo is consumed, each gun in the unit has fired once.

[crono900]

Ok, makes sense, thanks. I was thinking it was by each brigade/battalion.