Battle of Antietam Corps Disposition

[kjchan]

Finished 2nd Bull Run, and ultimately chose to go with the far left sweep.  Lots of folks who called the fortifications weak were right.  I was surprised how easily the first two sections on the far left fell.  I believe it was Aetius who said that going from the bottom of the map to the top would sap condition...that was spot on, and my poor boys finished the battle with their tongues lolling.

So on Antietam, I notice that the deployment calls for 3 Corps, but somebody in one of my threads said that you only needed 2.  How's that?  I was also wondering if I needed to fully flesh out my so far lagging 3rd Corps and get crosslevel some of my veteran brigades into my 3rd Corps from my 2 stronger Corps.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

I fought this battle with my 3rd Corps consisting entirely of fresh recruits with captured guns as support. They mainly distracted so my my elite 1st Corps and Veteran 2nd Corps could encircle and destroy the entire enemy army. They took heavy losses, but held their ground until being reinforced by the other Corps'. It was close, though. You should set them to spawn in the south, the 1st (Elite) Corps should spawn in the northwest (first one to attack, and you WILL need your elite units there!) and 2nd Corps should take the center. Depending on difficulty setting (mine was brigadier) I would recommend a Major General as commanding officer of 3rd Corps and at least one veteran division to hold the line.

[Hitorishizuka]

You can do it with a skeleton force in your 3rd Corps (1-2 divisions only) as if you play the battle well by the time they even hit the field everything's over. A long sweep along the forest and fortifications and you race ahead to pocket and pin them against the river on the east side. 3rd Corps only really shows up to contest the southern reaches which aren't even necessary if you've already taken all the VPs up north.

[maniacalpenny]

If I recall, you only need a handful of veteran troops for the first part of the battle. I send my initial forces to the right and take the church from the woods, while deploying the vets I brought in the treeline to defend against reinforcements from the southwest. you can route the artillery at dunker church and all of the troops in fortifications from the flank even with 1842's. I also brought artillery and more rookies that appeared in my second wave from the north to catch the Confeds in the crossfire. The toughest part of the battle iirc is the sunken road, and your best forces should end up on the Confederate left flank in order to support the attack and hopefully enact a surround, although being too slow means that Sharpsburg will open up and expose your encirclement to Confederate reinforcements.

I personally made a lot of mistakes in the middle part of this battle and it resulted in me taking significant casualties, but I can say the approach on Dunker church was a smashing success with only moderate casualties to my 1842 rookies and almost nothing to my veterans. Perhaps a more aggressive encirclement strategy at Dunker church, which naturally would be aided strongly by a larger force of veterans, would a superior strategy overall though, as it could lessen the difficulty of taking the sunken road.