Siege blues

[bgt0990]

I have been sieging Washington for over 6 months including the port (the icon shows it's blockaded). The problem is that the defenders have not lost one man by attrition if anything they have grown. I have 100% MC in every region around and many troops right in the washington region. Also all the surronding armies have siege guns and I have set them for 'Land Bombardment' you would think I would do 'some' damage.

[Jim D Burns]

The thing that is probably the culprit here is an improper river blockade. Check the river blockade by holding the mouse over the river region. It will tell you if the river is successfully blockaded, if not it will tell you how many more combat ship elements are needed. Non-combat element ships are not counted for blockades, you must have combat vessel elements.

Setting units to bombard only tells them to bombard passing ships. The siege part of combat occurs automatically each turn, if you are not gaining any breaches then chances are the defenders have some good fort defender leaders and possibly units that help them with siege rolls as well. Try bringing in some siege specialist leaders of your own.

Finally Washington probably has thousands of supplies on hand, so it will take a long time for units inside the city to slowly reduce those stockpiles. Don’t assume you can starve out a city with 2000+ supplies in just a few months. I think causing breach hits to the defenders hits supplies as well as the troops and can help chew up a huge stockpile, but I'm not sure.

Finally only units in the actual region with the city count for siege combat rolls. Adjacent regions have no effect on siege determination. Also make sure you outnumber the defenders by a good percentage. I doubt you will cause many if any siege hits if you don't outnumber the troops inside the city.

Jim

[Davekhps]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

The thing that is probably the culprit here is an improper river blockade. Check the river blockade by holding the mouse over the river region. It will tell you if the river is successfully blockaded, if not it will tell you how many more combat ship elements are needed. Non-combat element ships are not counted for blockades, you must have combat vessel elements.

As I noted in another thread when *I* encountered this exact same problem: unlike an ocean port, as a matter of geography it's ludicrous to have to blockade a river port under siege. A Civil War-era army strong enough to lay siege to Washington D.C. would have had more than enough guns to prevent traffic down the Potomac. Heck, ten guns down at Mt. Vernon or Ft. Washington and you're sinking anything short of an ironclad.

[bgt0990]

Now at 1.5 yrs of siege. The river & Port has been blockaded the whole time. Every turn I get the msg that wash is under siege but nothing has changed. I may only have 1.75 times as many troops as attackers than the defenders but HOW do the defenders grow? Shouldnt they at least be static if not declining?

[willgamer]

Just to add to Jim's excellent list-

Training could allow a defender to grow.

Actual transports could bring in supply and/or reinforcement; just reaching the level to block automatic supply phase distribution may not be sufficient.

Analogous to blockade running, using on-map transport actually creates a decent chance of getting thru regions where your opponent only have "just enough" ships on interdiction duty.

FWIW, I've never experienced an isolated defender with more than 6 months of supplies.

[Jim D Burns]

Willgamer is right, a blockading fleet set to defend will only interdict automatic supplies, it will not intercept moving ships. The blockading fleets need to be in attack posture to roll for interception vs. moving ships. So reinforcements and supplies may be coming in via fleets entering the port.

One big question is have you not created any breaches in the 1.5 years? That seems off, especially if you have siege guns in the region. You should have been creating breaches and causing hits to the defenders and by now I'd think at least one or two assaults should have been possible due to breached walls.

Jim

[bgt0990]

No breaches during that time. I finally tried using the 'Land Mine' and after 8-10 tries it finally blew and took down all defenses. I lost R.E. Lee and PGT Beauregard in subsequent assaults. The game seems overly hard on 3 star army commanders. Very non-historical.

[Ace1_slith]

You 've been just very unlucky(:

[bgt0990]

Actually there is not one example of a 3 star Army commander being killed in combat in any American conflict. The closest comparisons would be Yamamoto (but that was an assassination) or Horatio Nelson and one Roman emperor whose name I have forgotten. Not unlucky, gamed.

[Ace1_slith]

You are forgoting A.S.Johnston.

[elxaime]

ORIGINAL: bgt0990

Actually there is not one example of a 3 star Army commander being killed in combat in any American conflict.

Three-star US Army Lt. General Leslie McNair was killed July 25, 1944, during the Normandy Campaign. It was part of the short-fall US carpet bombing so it was "friendly fire," but I would argue he was in combat. He didn't have a field army command. But he was the General in command of all Army Ground forces. So I guess it depends on how thin you slice the onion, but arguably he qualifies.

[Capt Henry_MatrixForum]

I'm not sure that a lack of historical three star generals being killed is an apples to apples comparison for determining if the game is gamey (Isn't the three star rank part of structuring the game more than recreating history?). After all, how many Union three star generals saw combat in the Civil War? My recollection is one, Grant. A Confederate three star general might command a corps as well as an army. Joe Johnston was seriously wounded and that allowed Lee to take command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Hooker had a near miss at Chancellorsville, Meade had to move his headquarters at Gettysburg because cannon fire was so heavy. Joe Johnston was standing very near Bishop Polk when he was killed near Marietta, Jackson and Longstreet were both shot leading corps larger than many armies, James McPherson was killed at Atlanta, Reynolds was in command of the field at Gettysburg, Sedgewick was not in command at Spotsylvania but certainly thought he was safe, Stuart was in command of the field at Yellow Tavern, Lee could very easily have been captured at the Wilderness when Federal troops appeared at his headquarters with no Confederate troops present. There were also a few instances of "Lee to the rear" late in the war to keep him safe. I suspect there are more I'm not thinking about.

Other senior generals being killed/wounded in American wars would include Benedict Arnold, Robert Ross, Edward Pakenham, Richard Montgomery.

Add to that the fact that you are making an assault of a type never actually made during the war (the DC fortifications would have been pretty stout and, even destroyed, fortifications tend to provide cover for troops) and its hard to know what the result should be. I do agree that it's at least very back luck, if not more, to lose two generals over a short period of time. I know I was unhappy when, in my game, Grant died in his first battle.