"Does ACW Cavalry pull its own wargaming weight?" Topic

No, hadn't given it much thought actually. But now that you mention it I probably wouldn't want to being hanging around a rifle-armed firing line if I only had a pistol or saber.

But if they were there that would give 418 casualties out of apx 2800, just about 15%. Significant casualties for a cavalry unit. So who knows? I do know however that my curiosity has been satisfied…so I'm tappin' out.

Don't forget that one in four men acted as horse-holders when the cavalry fought dismounted.

FWIW.

B

In gaming the battle of Mansfield, LA in the Red River campaign, the Reb dismounted cavalry are key to the battle, and there are a lot of them, a whole Division in small regiments. In Regimental Fire & Fury rules it takes some finessing to use them effectively, but it is do-able and fun.

Most of my figures in 28mm are cavalry because I use them to fight actions during cavalry raids. For 'normal' ACW I use 15mm.
I use 8-12 mounted figures as a unit, with about 75% dismounted substitutes and a horse holder stand. There are no dedicated rules for this sort of action AFAIK (Sharp Practice 2 a partial exception).
I confess that The Outlaw Josey Wales and Ride with the Devil have been big influences. But I do have quite a lot of books dealing with cavalry raiding too.

Only just spotted this thread. The statistics on numbers of carbines per regiment are really interesting. A couple of thoughts occurred to me in looking at the data. Of the manpower returns how many officers are included? I assume that they wouldn't carry carbines as they have no role in the firing line other than to exert command and control. The same probably goes for senior NCOs.

So although the percentages are correct they don't fully reflect the difference in firepower between dismounted cavalry and infantry. Looking at an equivalent number of infantry and cavalry. Assuming the same ratio of officers and senior NCOs who are not laying down fire the difference to be looked at is men in the firing line which is lower for the cavalry due to horse holders and any mounted reserve. Then the question is how are those BL or repeating carbines distributed. If we assume (and it's probably never going to be an accurate link that a smart commander is going to allocate carbine armed troopers to the firing line it is possible that a much larger percentage of the cavalry firing line have BL or repeating carbines than the raw data suggests.

So if 100 cavalry are deployed against 100 infantry, they loose between one in four to one in six as horse holders plus a mounted reserve. If we say that one troop is held back in reserve in a full regiment then in our sample we will loose something like 10% to the reserve. So ninety troopers are left, they are reduced by the need to have horse holders. Let's call it one in six (for easy calculation) so that removes a further 15 troopers leaving 75 men but some of those are the officers and NCOs. Let's call that 5 men. So based on those very rough and ready numbers around 70% of the force is available to lay down carbine fire. That's the number (or the accurate version of it any way) is the one to compare to the percentages of issued carbines.

The infantry meanwhile only loose the five officers/NCOs and deploy 95 men into the firing line. However, they have muzzle loaders with a lower rate of fire of around 3 – 4 rounds a minute. Calling that four rpm means they are throwing 380 rounds per minute down range. The cavalry meanwhile with BL carbines are capable of 8 – 10 rpm. For the moment assume all 70 have BL carbines that are managing 8 rpm. They are throwing 560 rpm in the opposite direction. Even if only 50% of the dismounted troopers have BL Carbines (so 35 carbines brought to bear) they are almost matching the infantry's firepower, with 280 rpm. Lastly there is the hit rate being scored, most firefights were at close ranges well within a carbines maximum range. The infantry are more likely to be a standing (so bigger) target while the cavalry are able to go prone or kneel and maintain their rate of fire.

Overall I'd say that an equal number of cavalry and infantry would be fairly well matched in terms of the ability to lay down effective fire. Rules should reflect those numbers.

I like Elendirel's thinking but would suggest a slower rate of loading muzzle loading carbines and rifled-muskets: 2 to 3 rounds a minute at most, and more officers and senior NCO's who would not be carrying carbines. One per eight counting 1 captain, 1 lieutenant and 1 first-sergeant per 25 man company. Of course, those figures apply to infantry and dismounted cavalry companies.