Chaos, Confusion, and Casualties - Artillery Fire

One of the hardest thing to do when developing a war game is to determine the effectiveness of artillery fire. From what I have been told, in most ACW battles, the artillery accounted for 5% to 10% of the casualties. In this entry I will break down the mechanics of using artillery in this rules set.

A Federal gun crew has zeroed in on a small Confederate infantry regiment of 200 men. The green disc indicates that the gun is loaded with spherical case - an explosive round filled with 72 .58 caliber musket balls.

The accuracy of the shot depends upon the roll of the dice as established in the firing chart on the previous blog entry. The artillerists have a clear line of sight with no obstructions and the round, with the fuse set is ready to fire.

The  D20 determines whether the round is short, long or on target. In this case, the "19" indicates that it has gone long 5 inches, according to the D6. Had it been on target ("3" - "18"), the player would have ignored the D6.

The D12 indicates with the "11" that it has burst on center as shown with the black circle on the white D6. The red D3 does not matter because the whit die did not show an "L" or an "R". Otherwise the round would have burst 1 inch in the direction indicated.

The small D6 marks where the projectile exploded, above and behind the officer, therefore he remains uninjured.

The crew fires a second case round as shown by the second green disc. Note the smoke at the muzzle. The gun recoils and is rolled back into the line and the gunner has  decided to fire fast rather then wait a turn to let the smoke clear. That decision will affect the piece's accuracy.

He has to estimate the range and roll a different group of dice to reflect the difficulty in hitting the target through the smoke. He has estimates the range at 30 inches.

The "12" on the D12 indicates a burst. The "S" on the green D6  shows that is has exploded short, 2 inches (white D6). The black dot on the white D6 is on target and the red D3 gets ignored.

With exploding rounds all "0"s and the high numbers (8s on D10) get set aside. The remaining three D10s are three hits for a loss of 15 men to the regiment as indicated by the Sudoku number.. The smaller D6 was left in the photo by mistake.

Upon measuring the shot the player discovers it has burst 2 inches short of 30 and above the Confederates. With a blast range of 2 inches, the line has come under fire. A "30" would also have put it just in front of the line.

The opposing player rolls a D20 to see if the officer got hit. 1 - 5 is a miss. 6-10 is 1 hit. 11-15 is 2 hits. 16 -20 the officer is removed. If he gets eliminated the regiment must follow the artillery reaction die unless the officer gets replaced, which I shall explain later. In this case the 5 saved the officer.

The green D6 is marked with 1 - "P" for prone. 1 - "N" for no reaction. 2 -"R"s for retreat and 2 "W"s for withdraw. In this case the regiment will go prone and stay that way unless the officer rallies them. 
The officer rolls a red and a blue D10. The red represents the men and the blue the officer. The higher number settles the matter. In this case the men will not go prone and the green D6 gets removed.

The following entries will concern infantry reaction fire, charges and hand to hand combat, panics, officer recovery and other miscellaneous topics.

I would appreciate any constructive comments.