"Reloading in TSATF?" Topic

All,
I'm using TSATF for my French Revolution/Anglo-French in the Wesr Indies games. Looking at both The Sword in the Forest and a napoleonic variant, I see no mention of black powder weapons needing to reload. I know Larry wanted to keep the game simple, but do any of you require troops to reload?

In my Darkest Africa games, I would require black powder muzzle loaders to reload. It was a house rule to differentiate between modern weapons and antiques.

So what rule do you use?

In some TSATF games I have run in the past, I represented muzzle-loaders by simply allowing one shot per two figures firing (round up). Nothing to remember from turn to turn.

For my FIW and AWI variants, I don't worry about a reloading rule, since it's the same for all the contestants.

I only worry about that when one side has "modern" weapons and one has black powder.

Eric

I like what Eumelus proposes, but like epturner I would only worry about it in games where one side has a substantial advantage in quality firearms.

Thanks for the input gentlemen.

The unit gets to fire, some cotton smoke balls are placed nearby it to signify it needs to reload. One turn spent reloading and they can fire on the following turn.

This prevents black powder weapons from exchanging volleys with modern firearm equipped troops and encourages troops to get into hand to hand or shoot and scoot tactics.

The problem with allowing half the unit to fire is the first turn volley from an ambush, in theory all the guns would be loaded.

In some games where the native player is firearm poor, I will reinforce units with spear carrying men to pick up the musket if the unit takes casualties.

But as others have pointed out your chosen period this should not be a problem, all are armed the same.

I made up a table that included all 19th century weapons, based on the 'norm' which would be a Martini Henry (breechloading rifle) being 6 to hit at 24" (class 1 target)
So:
High Powered rile 8/30"
Magazine rifle 7/24"
Breechloading rifle 6/24"
Percussion rifle 5/24"
Flintlock rifle 4/24"
Percussion musket 5/18"
Flintlock musket 4/18"
-1 to hit per class above 1, etc.
Hope that makes sense. The table is an excel spreadsheet, I'd share it if I could.

Like Eumelus said – notably when it is breach loaders versus muskets

Sir Gawaine,

I've played TSATF off and on since it came out forty years ago. The question was simply based on the period I'll be using the rules for. I've used it with Scruby colonials, Ral Parthas, Frontier, Old Glory, and Eureka ToyTown minis. Among others.

Hi Nick, IMHO regulars and well trained troops should be allowed to fire 100% of the eligible figures every turn as that is what they were trained to do. Then for militia allow 75% and untrained troops maybe allow 50% of eligible figures to fire. There really is no need to complicate it more, but as always with TSATF, change it and play it how you want. That's what Larry would say.

PS, I'd love to see your variants when done.

Cheers,
JB

I agree with the notion that, when all units are armed with muzzle loaders, no need to pay attention to reloading. That's how I use TSATF for my Indian Mutiny games.

Alright, I'm going to be contrarian here. Is it not the case that closing to combat is riskier and will probably incur more casualties from fire against an enemy armed with breechloaders? Presumably men weren't slower in the muzzle-loading era, so an attacking unit spent less time in the fire-swept zone when charging. TSATF distinguishes between thrown spears and firearms – why wouldn't it distinguish between muzzle-loading weapons and those which shoot, conservatively, three times faster?