[Consim-l] Stonewall at Cedar Mountain (was: At all Hazards)

[bieksza at erols.com]

On 14 Feb 2007 at 14:50, Markus Stumptner wrote:

> Very interesting (no, really :-).  Can you explain the problems in more 
> detail?

For example, an order to Advance requires that "the division 
commander must move all his infantry brigades at least 1 hex 
towards the enemy Leader or the enemy's side of the map," and 
similarly an order to Retreat requires that "the division commander 
must move all his infantry brigades at least 1 hex towards the 
friendly edge of the map."  Here's some situations that struck me as 
odd, copied from my solitaire notebooks:

1) "Eventually Williams took position on the division's right and 
Augur on the left.  Against such a defense the South decided to wait 
for Hill.  A 'hold' order went to Winder to establish a position around 
objective B and a 'retreat' order to Ewell in order to move to Cedar 
Mountain and capture objective D."

2) "Two optional rules were in effect for this game, a bonus for 
artillery fire into the target's flank (which never occurred) and the 
requirement for a routed unit which failed to rally to retreat. . . . The 
other side of the coin was that repeated failures would sent the unit 
out of command control range.  This also put Williams' Division in a 
dilemma:  one brigade occupied a key position in the front lines and 
the other rallied well to the rear.  An 'advance' order for the benefit 
of the latter would have required the former to stick its neck out!"

3) "Once Ewell had seized objective C it let Hill's Division continue 
the pressure on the Bluecoats, aiming instead for objective D.  That 
was a tricky maneuver.  First Ewell had to use a 'retreat' order to 
reach the South Fork.  Then, because Bayard's cavalry occupied 
the objective, it had to switch to an 'attack' order.  But the Bayard 
chit was pulled first, and the horsemen retired to the other side of 
the mountain.  That meant the 'attack' order would have to be 
treated as an 'advance' order and the division would have to head 
northwards!  However, Gen. Ewell was able to roll his initiative and 
the objective was captured after all."