Topic: For The People Material
More or less...
I can gather it is a sociological inferation circa 1861-65, that the CSA Army cutting off Illinois, Indiana and Ohio would be a more economic negative substantial effect, as opposed to Union occupation of Georgia, Virginia and Tennesee in terms of SPs according to your data.
To some degree this is an apples and oranges comparison. All is not always equal when it comes to production. The two sides use different recruitment models using the same factors.
The rail line discussion got me to go back into my notes (over a decade old) on this topic and see what data I had used for the recruitment model that generates SPs during the reinforcement phase. FTP is looking at frontline strength based on a soldiers on the rolls with some factors thrown in for frontline strength versus logistic troops. The overall analysis shows that once you get into mid 62 until almost the end of the war, the amount of men for each side hit a steady state that averaged around 48 (plus or minus 4) for the USA and 34 (plus or minus 3) for the CSA.
Remember, the historical model is based on the historical actions, so if the Union doesn't spend sufficient effort to shut down a blockade zone with amphibious forces or succeeds in accomplishing the capture of TN early in the war, etc. then the generalized model will produce different results.
When it comes to the overall model of what makes an SP it is a blend of Administration, People, and Ordnance. At all times there was some set of factors that limited output with the 1863 period being the one most in balance. So early in the war there was a surplus of people (recruitment enthusiasm), but a deficiency in administrative acumen and ordnance. Late in the war there was greater administrative efficiency and more available ordnance, but a deficiency in people (conscription difficulties due to going to war not being that attractive any longer). It is this deficiency that drove the Union to incorporate colored soldiers and the South to consider conscripting slaves into the army. When it comes to the Union, approximately 2/3rd of the SPs are being produced on the map and 1/3rd are being produced north of the map, so on a normal Union turn 12 SPs are produced on the map and 6 SPs are produced north of the map. I chose to consider Union State Capitals as key locations that impacted Union production as they were the administrative and production centers (ordnance and armories). My basic premise is if an administrative center is occupied it reduces the potential SPs available due to administrative and production losses. I viewed cutting railroads as disrupting production. I viewed DC as a major administrative center whose loss or isolation (loss of telegraphic communication) would create inefficiencies in SP production akin to when the Federal government shut down recruiting for a short time in 1863. There is also the Union Governor reaction effect whereby some amount of state troops would be held back akin to the National Guard of today.
Rolling back to a Confederate force operating across the three Western states would represent the disruption not only of state ordnance production, but occupation of the means to move people around. It also is severing the links to states like Michigan and Wisconsin (note that portions of the Great Lakes are just off the northern edge of the map). Perhaps more importantly is the Union states are not producing SPs equally. On the map IL, IN, OH, PA, and NJ are producing more than their share with NY, WI, MI, and MA the major contributors north of the map. So, in the aggregate the railline cutting rules are trying to capture an impact that taking out three major production centers and isolating them from the broader grid is taking out about 2/3rd of Union recruitment capability.
The southern model uses the same factors but behaves differently. The production centers are the resource spaces and the values represent their historical output normalized on 100 percent. New Orleans was always a problem as its potential production was never fully developed before it was captured, so I chose to model that blockade zone differently (takes only two to shut down) to account for this factor. The South was also dependent on finished ordnance and critical metals to maintain their production base, which is all tied into the blockade model. The issue with the south was the stronger state control over local production and recruitment. The Southern railroads could not support the Union industrial model making it far more local in nature. So although TN and VA were the major production centers the people were more distributed than they were in the north (New Orleans was the only major American city that went with the South). Consequently the Southern recruitment model is more resilient, but more vulnerable on the SW side if you were to lose both TN and VA (57 SW points).
So, different views of the same recruitment model. Now back to Riku's gambit. Quite frankly I put the rail cutting option into the game with a severe penalty with the knowledge that a Union player would do what it takes to stop it. The question on the table for me is whether this is a trick that cannot be stopped or just another historic vulnerability that has to be paid attention to. As far as whether it can or cannot be stopped, I submit that can be stopped without significant resources as per Riku's earlier comment. Columbus OH is the key coupled with effective use of strategic movement of reinforcements. Effectively if the CSA is threatening an invasion north of the Ohio, the Union has to have some rear area garrisons to limit Southern options.
Mark
Posted by markherman
at 9:39 AM EDT
Updated: Saturday, 23 May 2009 9:59 AM EDT
