1776 - Does the game feel right to you?

[2-81 Armor]

A few things here.  This has long been a complaint in all the blackpowder games, but part of it is that "losses" represents a bit of everything.  Not only KIA and WIA, but even those who just become combat ineffective and become a straggler or the like.  That can tend to exaggerate the numbers.

Also, in regards to

All that shooting was really about closing and attacking with the bayonet back then.

That's not exactly correct.  Infantry almost never got to bayonet point in that era, at least not in open terrain. (In woods or towns, it's a whole different process, and bayonets and clubbed muskets were very much in play.)

Certainly, the doctrine of some nations (for instance, the British) called for prepatory musket fire to disorder their enemy (others like the French would more often just go to close).  However, the different sides almost never actually made it to contact.  The attackers would advance, the defenders would try to shoot them up, and then one side or the other would have their morale slip, and either the defenders would start falling back, or the attackers would lose momentum and halt (and then fall back.)  It was all an enormous game of applied psychology. Whose nerve broke first?

So, even in what we think of as the "melee phase", in open terrain, the losses are really just more musket fire the vast majority of time.

Note: all of the above applies to infantry melee.  Cavalry of course is looking to use their sabers in melee.

Point well taken. I was just thinking about my original post and was considering editing it a little....in a convoluted way what I was trying to say is that to me it sometimes seems as though the defense is overall too strong and the odds are really stacked against the attacker. I'm not saying this isn't the way it should be, but sometimes defenders appear to be made of steel and stand up to a lot of fire without wavering. 

The OP makes the point that the casualty count seems low...I understand that KIA/WIA/MIA issues are as old as warfare itself, and that some reports might exaggerate the casualties. I still agree though, that it just doesn't "feel" right. I will also admit that "feel" is not the same as hard statistical data. I think the issue is one of immersion, where you feel more like you're commanding in an 18th or 19th Century battle than watching a statistical analysis.

Still, the JTS system is best I've seen for operational combat in this time period. I might nit-pick, but really that's what editors are for. Too bad the Black Powder games force editing by hand using things like Notepad. I've always wondered why when series like PzC have built in editing for everything but the maps.