That one unit that I was able to give rifles to had the Springfield M1855s. It's hard to tell if it was the rifles that were lackluster or their positioning was unfortunate. They were on the far edge of one of my flanks and had contact early on but for most of the fight didn't do anything (I don't know if the AI adjusts where it wants to push or has a preset spot it focuses on... and I had no idea where they may go). Their kill count was decent by the end of day 1 but they also ended up farming a lot of kills off a lone CS inf unit that was out there before time ran out. Meanwhile, a fresh unit with the basic muskets that was at the center of the main late CS push performed just as well. They had the ultimate positioning going for them, though (top of a hill in full forest coverage).
One area where equipment has been very noticeable is artillery. The basic 6pdr Field sucks. All the smoothbores seem worthless (one of the supporting Union artillery had the 12pdr Napoleon and despite good positioning didn't do much either). The rifled ones, specifically the 10pdr Ordnance, are amazing*. About half my artillery has that and across the board got twice the kills or more compared to my 6pdr equipped units. I'd have swapped all my units over to the 10pdr but there simply aren't enough in the pipeline to support that**. That may also be why CS artillery doesn't seem that bad. I've only ever captured smoothbores off them (IF you were to put enough points into Recon you can tell during a fight what the enemy is equipped with but it seems a waste of points to get that high).
*Looking closer at kills listed on my units at the start of day 2 the disparity in my artillery from my original division drives home the point. One is a 9-gun 6pdr-equipped brigade that finished day 1 with just 700 kills. The other is a 6-gun 10pdr-equipped brigade that finished with over twice the kills. Both were effectively in the same spot all day and saw a lot of contact early on in the fight.
**A cool addition to the Reputation mechanic would be having the option to spend those points to increase the rate at which certain equipment, like the 10pdr in my case, are produced. It'd be a way to model the troops up front saying "screw those other guns, THIS IS THE ONE WE WANT!" and the subsequent response by the industrial base to support that.
Edited by Skywalkre, 21 March 2018 - 0859 AM.