Thoughts About the Horse and Musket Period

The period from ~1700 to ~1848 is known to wargamers as the Horse and Musket period. Some use a single set of rules for this period, since infantry use muskets with bayonets, cavalry uses sabers and lance, and black powder artillery looks pretty similar. Tactics, drill, weapons and even logistics slowly evolved during the period.  The advent of widely used rifled small arms and artillery, railroads and steamships spelled the end of this period. 

 

The period begins with the invention of socket bayonets, which gave the musketeer a cold steel defense when unloaded. The use of pikes faded, though the Swedes continued to equip up to a third of their infantry with pikes at the start of the period. Their aggressive Gå På doctrine, close range fire followed by a cold steel charge made them the terror of the Baltic region. The Russians finally stopped them at Poltava with masses of artillery and infantry. But the Swedes are outliers in this period.

 

Most troops used musket fire and artillery to wear down the enemy before closing with cold steel. Cavalry tended to use pistols at close range before resorting to sabers. Cartridge boxes carried perhaps 26 to 29 rounds. Extra cartridges had to be carried in soldiers’ pockets. I recall old rules where musket fire was based on 2 or 3 rounds per minute. At 3 rounds per minute, an 8 or 9 minute fire fight would see ammo exhausted. There seems to have been a bit less firing than the maximum rate of fire indicates. This holds true today. If infantry just blazed away as fast as possible, they would likely run low in a little over 5 minutes. At the 1777 Battle of Hubbardton, one Continental unit reported firing about 20 rounds per soldier during a hotly contested two hour fight. This indicates sharp encounters separated by lulls in the action.

 

Flintlock weapons might misfire as often as one shot in seven. Drawing a live round from a muzzle-loader is tense work even when no one is shooting at you. I can testify. Towards the end of the period percussion cap locks would see a slight increase in rate of fire and a decrease in misfires. A prolonged firefight would see barrels fouled by black powder residue. This would continue past the period into the American Civil War and beyond until smokeless powder dominated the battlefield.

 

Rate of infantry fire was slowed by wooden ramrods at the start of this period. Load too fast and they break. Prussian infantry used steel ramrods, less likely to break. Constant practice allowed them to fire up to 5 rounds a minute. A minute or two of this would often convince the other side to back off. As the war went on and attrition told, new recruits usually could not keep up with this rate of fire. Again, the cartridge boxes would empty even sooner. We see a gradual increase in infantry firepower due to metal ramrods and improved musket drill. According to Dominic Lieven, the British historian descended from a Napoleonic Russian General, Russian infantry firepower suffered from the inferior paper their cartridges were made with. Minor details can have major results.

 

During the War of the Spanish Succession, infantry formed 3 to 4 ranks deep depending on national doctrine. Infantry companies were administrative organizations, not tactical units. Infantry battalions were divided into 4 equal divisions on an as-needed basis, regardless of the number of companies. These divisions were how the battalion maneuvered from column of march into line.

 

The Prussians used strict discipline to constantly drill their troops until they could form line faster than opposing infantry. Marshal de Broglie figured he couldn’t get his French to match this. His solution was to break his infantry line into 4 divisions, like those of the infantry battalion. By having all four deploy at the same time they could be safely in line by the time the Prussians finished their deploying from a single column. This was the genesis of permanent divisions, which in time led to the formation of permanent corps. Before this, divisions above the battalion level and corps had tended to be ad hoc and basically interchangeable.

 

The Revolutionary and then Napoleonic French developed faster drill methods making formation changes yet faster. At the end of the period chasseur and zouave drill became even faster, as rifled weapons began to make close-order formations more vulnerable to fire. Drill evolved during the period, making trained infantry more flexible.

 

As firepower increased, infantry formations became shallower. Most nations went to three ranks. Britain and the nascent U.S. went to two ranks. Note that Wellington, after seeing the trouble caused by French cavalry in the open terrain at Quatre Bras, went to 4 ranks deep at Waterloo. Rules giving  a firing bonus for two-rank formation need to be adjusted for that famous battle.

 

At the start of the period, some armies had light infantry (notably the Austrian Grenzers) who fought in loose order, often used in broken terrain and specializing in raids and such. By the French Revolution the practice of screening formed troops with skirmishers became widespread. These troops harassed the enemy, functioning as early warning and advanced guards.

 

So far, we have seen a change in infantry firepower, drill and organization. As the industrial revolution spread, weapons and supplies changed from artisanal goods to factory produced. While some artisanal products may have been finer, factories produced more, enabling armies to grow in size. The evolution of advanced capitalist economies made financing larger armies possible. Increased population from improved agriculture provided the basic raw material, live bodies.

 

And now for the evolution of artillery. Artillery was extremely heavy in 1700. The horse teams needed to move these behemoths were privately owned. The owners were eager to get themselves and their valuable horses out of harm’s way when the lead started flying. The Austrians were the first to use military personnel to draw the guns. They would not start the battle by running away. Metallurgy improved, making weapons lighter and gradually more accurate. Consider the following weights of artillery pieces.

 

M1707 Prussian 3-pounder	826 lbs.
M1707 Prussian 12-pounder	3,471 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 8-pounder	2,137 lbs.
1st Empire (Gribeauval system) 12-pounder	4,364 lbs.
M1857 U.S 12-pounder Napoleon gun-howitzer	1,227 lbs.

 

As the period ended, the M1857 gun had the hitting power of the earlier 12-pounder guns and yet weighed substantially less than the French medium gun, less than a third of the French 12-pounder. Lighter guns were more mobile and lessened the burden of gun crews operating the guns. Before the days of hydraulic recoil mechanisms, guns rolled back with each shot (one of the correct things in that recent Napoleon film). The crews had to wrestle these heavy guns back into place after each shot. About the time they ran out of ammo, the crews would be physically exhausted. Again, rules based on maximum rate of fire deserve a wary eye. John Gibbon, the Civil War Union artillery expert, considered that a gun crew should fire one well-aimed shot every two minutes. If they were being directly attacked, the rate might well go up. Or they should limber up and escape.

 

We have dealt with how infantry slowly increased firepower and flexibility, and was covered by skirmishers at the end of the period. There was a slight bit about increased supplies, and now lighter, more mobile artillery. We come to the cavalry. I don’t have nearly as much to report here. There wasn’t much change in horseflesh or troopers. The increase of infantry and artillery firepower was not matched by horseback shooting. Better cavalry now tried to close with cold steel before their foes could get more shots in. irregular cavalry instead opted for raids rather than battlefield heroics.

 

Battles of this period look similar save for uniform fashions. But the pace and interaction of the different arms evolved during the time, tending towards more firepower, flexibility, mobility and increased organization at higher levels, like division and corps.

 

A digression: when American Civil War officers talked about Napoleonic tactics, they weren’t talking about Napoleon I. They were talking about then current French tactics of Napoleon III’s army. Chasseur tactics and zouave drill were all the rage. The French army was the leading army in Europe, having bested the Austrians in 1859 and suppressed the locals in North Africa. The kepi was based on their uniforms, as were the various zouave units. The Napoleon gun-howitzer was named for Napoleon III. None of them knew that the emperor and his army were headed for a big fall.

Further: I was going to post some photos but Google Blogger suddenly is giving me grief about posting photos. Sigh. Maybe the heat got to them.

Käthe Kollwitz and Two Photos of Flanders Fields

I accompanied my wife today on a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see several shows, one on the work of Käthe Kollwitz, the artist-activist (1867-1945).  

Self portrait 

She went from fine art to black and white work (easiest to reproduce in quantity) that supported her socialist views. Like many other socialists, she was inflamed by nationalism and supported the Army at the start of the Great War, soon dispelled when her 18-year-old son Peter was killed at the front in October 1914. Poorly trained young troops of Reserve corps were thrown into attacks at the first battle of Ypres. The photos below are likely of that battle. The first photo is a true rarity, showing both defenders and attackers in the same shot. Looking at the attackers in the distance, you can see that one of them is mounted, an officer, no doubt. In the foreground the British Expeditionary Force riflemen wait for the word to open fire. Note the dense formation of the attackers. This photo is from John Keegan’s Face of Battle.

The second photo shows what I believe to be the aftermath of that same attack, from Volume 1 number 8 issue of Purnell’s History of the Great War. Note the dead horse and officer, along with a number of dead infantrymen. If I’m right, the photographer had moved to his right after the attack was repulsed to get closer to the center of the action. It is likely that Käthe’s son was killed during such an action. The lack of shell holes indicates there was not a preliminary bombardment worthy of the name.

 

Käthe Kollwitz narrowly avoided being sent to a concentration camp during WWII, in part due to her international reputation. She died shortly before the war was over, having fled bombed-out Berlin for Saxony. She outlived her husband Karl who died of disease in 1940 and her grandson Peter who was killed in combat in 1942.

Sometimes I struggle with the background colors. This is one of those times. Sigh. 

Camden solo test with Valour & Fortitude, no mods

After coming up with (untested) AWI period modifications for V&F, I decided to run a solo test game with RAW (rules as written), no mods. I intend to run a face-to-face game this coming Saturday adding in a few of my mods. Camden is my go-to test game for the American Revolution. Horatio Gates’ historical deployment should lead to a British victory, barring foolish mistakes. I once binned a set I was designing when the militia easily routed the British early in the game. 

 

I have most of the correct units for this, except not quite enough militia. Some Rhode Island Continentals are mixed with some Loyalist militia, and British Light Dragoons stand in for Tarleton’s horse. They’re closer than my mounted militia in rifle smocks. The 1^st Maryland Brigade (a battalion-sized unit) is rated as state troops since they were newly raised. The Continental Light Infantry is down-rated to state troops and Armand’s horse are down-rated to militia since both had been roughly handled in the preceding nighttime clash with Tarleton that saw Porterfield, the Light Infantry CO, killed.

 

V&F are true fast play rules. Many make that claim, few deliver. Valour tests are unit morale tests. Fail one, the unit is gone. Fortitude tests are brigade level morale tests, fail and bad things happen. But none of the latter were triggered in this game, in part because all the actual brigades (i.e., De Kalb’s division) are fairly small. V&F has card play, with cards giving special events of varying importance. I didn’t use them as I find it one detail too far when playing solo. It’s enough to take photos and note how much time elapsed. I think you should be able to follow the action entirely from the photos below. As always, click on any for a larger image. 

I first had Tarleton's Dragoons beat the NC Militia and force them back. Checking the rules, I saw the Militia should rout. The headstrong Dragoons then had to charge into the American camp, 

I’m not going to use all of my suggested mods in the next game, just a few. I noted that militia really can’t maneuver well at all, a good thing. Firing, melee and Valour modifiers are all adding or subtracting dice, with 4+ being a success. Activation and Fortitude modifiers are to the number needed on the single die rolled. I got a little confused before the game on this. Organizing a force using the points system, the only artillery I would get is light. If you aren’t planning to sit off and bombard, having artillery that can fire canister and move in the same turn is priceless. Perhaps there should be a limitation on how much movement they have. Perhaps there is and I haven’t noticed it. Wouldn’t be the first time.

 

Being a solo game, it was broken up by lunch and several visits to the building laundry room. Playing 9 turns in ~142  minutes is quite good. The last-man-standing thing is partially a product of my scenario. It needs a couple tweaks. But the game rocked along just fine.

Chaos on the Battlefield vs. Our Perfect Knowledge

In our games, command and control (hereafter C&C) rules are used to lessen the effect of the all-knowing, 100-foot tall telepathic general. In real life C&C is about alleviating the confusion on the battlefield.

 

Some players dislike C&C rules; each to their own. If you have more than two players per side, you don’t need C&C rules because any plan other than attacking all along the line will soon go down the drain. (This is the advised plan for convention games.) Players aren’t interested in watching others play. They want to roll dice and cause mayhem. More than once I’ve seen players in strong defensive positions leave them to attack. Long-range artillery fire was boring. Bayonets!

 

In smaller games I find C&C rules important. The Fencibles are a small club. These days it is a stretch get 4 players together.

 

In our games, we usually have perfect knowledge of our own forces and the enemy too. We know how many they have and what sort too. Look, across the table, it’s the Aquitanian Arquebusiers; we know how tough they are.

 

Poniatowski at Borodino saw 10,000 troops through the smoke massed on the next hill. Unlike us, he didn’t know they were just Moscow militia, mostly armed with pikes. Even his exhausted troops might have seen them off.

 

Without C&C a player will not suffer the indignity of units failing to move when desired, unlike actual battles. At Gettysburg, Colonel Porter Alexander was tasked with coordinating the preliminary bombardment of Union lines before Pickett’s charge. He managed to borrow nine (some sources say a dozen) howitzers from A. P. Hill’s corps. 

They formed up behind Pickett’s division, intended to follow the attack in support. Alexander then went off to tend to some other business while the barrage continued. Upon returning, the howitzers were gone, no idea where they went. Colonel Alexander was outranked by Pickett and his three brigadiers, and by the Army Artillery commander, Brigadier General Pendleton. Any of them, unaware of the plan, could have ordered the howitzers to go elsewhere. No one informed Alexander.

 

I don’t think this was critical to the failure of the attack. If they had gone forward behind the infantry, the most likely effect would have been more Confederate casualties as they got hit by shots that sailed just over the infantry. A moderate sized artillery force, for all practical purposes, just disappeared. It does demonstrate what groups of real, non-telepathic people do.

 

On the second day of the battle of Chickamauga, Confederate General Braxton Bragg had ordered an attack at dawn by his right wing. After hours of silence, he rode that way to find the wing commander, Lt. General Polk, eating breakfast while reading a paper. Polk blamed the inaction on Lt. General D. H. Hill. A combination of truly inept staff work and touchy relations among the generals had resulted in the attack orders failing to get to Hill. Neither liked or respected Bragg. The cool relations between Polk and the prickly Hill didn’t help much. An early attack in strength might well have cut the Union army’s line of retreat. The battle would have gone from a severe Union defeat to a first-rate disaster.

 

I prefer simple C&C rules and chaos in the games. I think profiling the command environment of the armies portrayed is as necessary as getting the numbers of troops and their weapons right. Bring on the chaos and the petty feuds among the generals.

Huzzah 2024

I attended the Huzzah convention in South Portland Maine for the first time since the plague. The computer-moderated game (by Carnage & Glory) of the battle of Freeman’s Farm was a lot of fun, but the high point was meeting fellow bloggers and kindred spirits Ed M and Mark Nichipor. We’ve been reading each other’s posts for years but finally got to meet in person. Check the right margin for links to their blogs. Mark's is My Brave Fusiliers.

                   Photo of the Bloggers Three By Ed M. Mark is in the middle, me on the right. 

Sitting in the middle seat on the American side of the table got me command of Morgan’s Rifles and Dearborn’s Light Infantry along with Morgan, Arnold and Gates. Gates was along in case Arnold got killed, since C&G has serious morale penalties if the C-in-C is hit. And one of the American goals was to get Arnold killed, preferably late in the game so he would go down in history as a hero, rather than a scoundrel. Nice idea, worth nicking. I kept Gates far from the flying lead. He’d been shot once at the Monongahela and didn’t relish a repeat.

 

Game Master Rich Wallace had a gorgeous table and lovely 28mm figures as seen below. I stopped taking pictures after the second turn. Riedesel’s Brunswick troops would arrive on the third turn from the east table edge, at the arrow on the last photo.

 

Casualties are by actual troops, rather than figures. The game started like the actual battle. Morgan and Dearborn moved to within medium range of the Piquets, who were some 90 strong. The 800 Americans caused over 50 hits between them and the British fled the field after causing a few hits back. The American lights traded some fire with Hamilton’s regulars as they deployed and then lit out for the rear. Morgan’s boys kept rallying but then refusing to advance for most of the game. The Loyalists on the other side had a similar problem. We joked that both units would convene at a tavern after the battle and trade tales of evading the fight over tankards of ale.

Much of the game saw fairly long range firefights across the creek in the  middle of the table. 15 hits from a battalion were pretty good, sometimes hits were in the single digits. The British artillery was causing a lot of damage. Then Hamilton’s guns became exhausted. They limbered up and fell back, to our relief.

Learned’s Brigade on my right was holding their fire, refusing to shoot at long range. His right flank battalion finally gave way under fire and quit the field. The Brunswick  troops arrived but didn’t have much space to deploy in. Most of them deployed behind Hamilton. The Jaegers crossed the creek and threatened our right flank, occupying Freeman’s Farm house and barn. Rich informed us that the British were winning a major victory by that time since American losses were substantially higher than British, and the Farm had been seized. A large Brunswick battalion passed through Hamilton’s line and crossed the creek, into point blank range in our center. Poor’s right flank battalion fired into them, causing 19 hits or so. Learned’s left flank battalion hadn’t fired yet. Their first volley fired at 50 paces scored 57 hits, a staggering blow. I guessed that the British major victory had just been demoted to a minor one. We played to the end of the turn and my guess was right.

 

The table was beautiful, as were the figures. I enjoyed some aspects of C&G while others had me wondering. There are two morale phases at the end of each turn. Morgan’s Rifles would rally in the first phase and then refuse to advance in the second. Why not do it all in one phase? Late in the game the British declared a series of charges along their line. All units refused to charge. But most of them then advanced within 50 paces of our line. One thinks troops refusing to charge would also shy away from getting into close range. But those are questions for Nigel Marsh, the game designer, not Rich, the game master. A nice touch: militia units open fire anytime enemy troops are in range.

 

After the game I hopped in the car and drove an hour north where my wife’s savory beef stew was waiting. All in all, a very good day.

Edit: I do think cotton smoke would enhance the look and make it clear what units have already fired this turn. After the third hour of play that sort of thing is helpful. Plus I like the look.

Working part-time at SPI, in a far-away galaxy, a long time ago.

I mentioned in another post somewhere that I once did some work for SPI. SPI (Simulations Publications Inc.) was the original publisher of Strategy and Tactics magazine. At least one person expressed interest online in hearing more about this, so here goes. 

 

Back in the 70’s I had a part-time gig at SPI, mostly as a game tester and partially doing stuff for Redmond Simonson, their graphics chief.  

The head game designer was James Dunnigan, who had come up with the heretical notion that different board games required different systems.

(Early Avalon Hill games used identical CRTs (Combat Results Tables). Battle of the Bulge was the first to have different results on the CRT.) The work I did for Redmond is done with a mouse and a PC these days.

 

I recall testing John Young’s Year of the Rat, a game of the 1972 NVA offensive.

I had the ARVN and John the NVA. His units operated hidden, upside down. He was beating the crap out of me. Then I found a flaw. Air strikes could immobilize an NVA unit. If my ARVN ground units could manage to get a retreat result on an immobilized enemy unit it would be eliminated. While unable to come back from the initial shellacking, knocking out several NVA divisions took some wind out of his sails.  

 

I tested one scenario of the WWII Pacific surface combat game CA, the battle of Tassafaronga, when Tanaka’s destroyers did extensive damage to the intercepting USN cruisers off Guadalcanal. As Tanaka, I ran my tin cans down, dropped the oil drums packed with supplies off the Japanese-held beach and ran back north. The intercepting cruisers blew me out of the water at long range. My torpedoes took out the leading US destroyer. We went to meet Dunnigan. Hearing that the Japanese had been wiped out, Dunnigan asked the full-time tester if I’d screwed up. The tester said not as far as he could see. Dunnigan went into his office and came out with a paperback bio of Tanaka, Japanese Destroyer Captain. Finding we used daylight sighting, he consulted the book. He said use night sighting since it was a night action. I was relieved, figuring the problem was solved. I bought a copy of CA when it was published. With night sighting rules, the USN had to get within range of Japanese Long Lance torpedoes and was crucified, making that scenario a forgone conclusion. Historical result, not much fun. Otherwise, I found CA too basic for my taste. Ships were OK, damaged or sunk. There was no further granularity.

If you read or watched Winds of War, Tassafaronga is where Tug had to abandon ship when his heavy cruiser was torpedoed. 

 

One of my favorite  SPI games was John's Musket and Pike. I recall having worked on the graphics. Another player surprised me a decade or so back by saying I had a design credit for the game. Digging out my old copy from the closet revealed it was so. I have no recollection of testing the game. It was long ago and I’m long in the tooth. The game has a number of inaccuracies, since-debunked myths and the like. Super Swedish cavalry hit harder and moved faster (8 strength – 8 movement) than normal heavy cavalry (5-6). The complete lack of command control enabled all the musketeers in one’s army to rush to one spot or another at will. Actual musketeers had some flexibility within the battalion but not much otherwise beyond deployment. Units had three states: OK, disordered or dead. This worked better when there were a lot of units, instead of a few ships per side as in CA. The Lutzen scenario had the Swedes go berserk whenever their first cavalry unit was disordered, simulating the death of Gustavus. After that, Swedish units ignored disorder results. It was hard to  eliminate any of them. The usual way to knock out units was disordering already disordered units. This was based on the since discredited story that the Swedes went berserk and routed the Imperialists. Gustavus’s death was kept quiet and the Swedes eked out a marginal win in the real battle.

 

That said, Musket & Pike was a blast to play, if Lutzen was ignored. It played quickly. Many of the scenarios had great replay value, if sometimes dodgy OBs. I played many games of this. Perhaps some scenarios from it can be used in different periods. One that comes to mind is Szent Gotthard, a town in Hungary. A small, regular imperial force on a hill is beset by a larger Ottoman force, half levy troops and half regulars (Janissaries). Badly outnumbered, they must hold on desperately while a large force of regular mercenaries appears behind the Ottomans. The Ottomans need to clear the hill so they can then use the slopes to defend against the new arrivals. Great game, no idea how close it is to the actual battle.

 

I have fond memories of SPI. John Young passed away way too soon. Redmond should have been around longer too.

Camden, 1780 Redux

We played my in-process Camden scenario again Saturday, with a few tweaks to simplify the game. Rules are the in-process AWI mods to the Bloody Big Battle rules. I took the part of Horatio Gates, commanding all the militia and a couple fragile Continental units. Carl played De Kalb (who is rated as a hero) with two Continental "brigades", one of veteran Maryland and Delaware troops. Andrew was Cornwallis, commanding Webster’s right flank brigade of aggressive, veteran troops and the reserve of the 71^st Highlanders and Tarleton’s dragoons. The Rebel militia starts the game disrupted due to the order for them to attack the redcoats having been very poorly received. Per  usual BBB, Gates didn't rate being represented since he was so uninspiring at this battle. 

Purists will note that Tarleton’s horse are actually British Light Dragoons. All I can say is the manufacturer (Frying Pan & Blanket) didn’t make Tarleton’s lads. There are other substitutions, though the 23^rd, 33^rd and 71^st and some American units are all proper. Yes, the 23^rd are wearing their bearskin hats in the deep South summer. They’re my toys. If I hit the lottery, I’ll do the set over in 15mm with Blue Moon figures. The odds are about the same as being hit by lightning while attacked by a shark.

Webster (Andrew) charged, being met by my truly wimpy defensive fire dice. The 23^rd Foot defeated the Virginia militia opposing them and then exploited and beat the light infantry. The caption on the photo below is incomplete. The 33^rd charged and shoved the other Virginia militia back. Rawdon (Jay) on the Crown left fell back, razzed by Cornwallis (Andrew). Jay had played De Kalb in the previous game and had a healthy respect for veteran Continentals led by a hero.

The Light Infantry rallied and returned to trade fire with the regulars. The North Carolina militia advanced, pouring withering into the 71^st, getting two hits and going low on ammo. The British grasshopper guns silenced their American counterparts. Armand’s dragoons went on a long loop around the British right and seem to have got lost for a couple turns after that. The North Carolina militia, low on ammo, charged the shot-up 71^st and managed to get a tie. Each side lost a stand. Any unit reduced to a single stand is removed, and so the 71^st disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in the British center.  

(That's not VA militia below, that's the beat-up Light Infantry)

Tarleton charged, riding down the silenced light guns. The 33^rd charged, defeating the Virginia militia before them. The 23^rd stalled, engaged in an indecisive firefight with the militia opposite them. Rawdon’s troops formed an inverted V shape, with field guns at the apex. It was designed to get flanking fire on at least one of the enemy units that advanced into it. It worked.

Both North Carolina militia units got decent movement rolls and advanced into the gap in the British lines. One flanked Tarleton and the other flanked Rawdon’s force. Effective fire decimated the dragoons. Rawdon took hits too.

The 33^rd foot beat the remains of the Virginia militia facing them and chased them off the table. They exploited into the American baggage, looted it and then set it afire. Armand’s dragoons awaked from their slumber, tentatively threatening the rear of the 23^rd, who were still engaged in a desultory firefight with the thoroughly trashed Light Infantry. On the other flank, the trained 2^nd Maryland brigade dissolved under fire. The veteran 1^st was about to go under too. But Rawdon’s Irish Volunteers were spent, hiding behind the Loyalist North Carolina militia, who melted away under flanking fire. Since there’s no breaking point on these armies, it looked like we could go on to the last man standing. We’d played four turns in a tad over two hours. And decided to call it a game. There had been a bit of trash-talking. Entertaining but slow.

My revised, simplified victory conditions had each stand a spent unit started with count one victory point to the enemy, two if the unit was removed from the table. So a 5-base spent unit would count 5 points, 10 if off the table. Yes, militia counted the same as veterans. Obviously, room for improvement here. The British won 57 points to 29, a substantial victory, almost decisive (2-1). If the hole hadn’t been exploited it would likely have been decisive. Or if Tarleton’s dragoons hadn’t been taking selfies or whatever they doing around the captured guns. On the one hand, the British beat the Yanks handily, which is what I figure should be the result of this battle given the historical deployment on the veteran British right facing the large but unsteady Rebel left. I still think the militia was too resilient. The thinking cap needs to be put on again. That’s it for Fencible games for a while as I head up north with my wife for a month. Any further posts in that time, if any, will be historical pondering but no after-action-reports. May all your wars be little ones. Stay away from the real ones.

Crossfire AAR, Small Threat to the Flank

The Victrix 12mm 1/144 figures got to see the elephant Saturday. Carl commanded the Soviets on the defense and I took the Germans. Last time we played this my attack stalled and the clock wound down.

 

He deployed his first and second platoon hidden, and his understrength third platoon in view. My first two platoons faced his, my third faced their opposite number. Among the rules mistakes:  we played that an anti-tank shot that hit and didn’t kill the target kept the initiative. Wrong, but it didn’t make a big difference. Likewise, I forgot that tanks in woods, field and rough terrain lose their +3 close combat bonus. As will be seen, it didn’t matter either. I can easily find the pertinent rules after the game is over, rarely during the game.

 

First I sent my PZ III with the main group out on my left flank. A Soviet squad in a house opened up with an AT rifle and rolled boxcars. Forgetting that’s an automatic kill, I checked the charts. It was indeed a hit and a kill. I suggested the shot had gone through a view slit, Carl said Hans didn’t close the hatch after coming back from a toilet break.

 

Fire was traded across the valley. I used up all 4 heavy artillery fire missions and couldn’t get more than a pin on the enemy machine gun. The 50mm mortar did better dropping smoke in front of the MG. After the game I noticed how big the heavy smoke screen is. Next time…

Carl was advancing the clock every initiative to start, until suddenly his dice went cold. The clock stuck at 5:30 for almost the rest of the game. A smokescreen from the 75mm kept the 3^rd Soviet Platoon out of the picture and my 2^nd platoon advanced, ending up mostly pinned but with almost all the Soviets going no-fire. Perhaps guns jammed, ammo ran out, solders decided to take a smoke break, whatever. The one squad from my 1^st platoon able to move advanced and was pinned, drawing some more no-fire results in the process. With all facing me in the center no-fire, I pulled my unengaged 3^rd platoon back, sent it around the rear to my left and across the river. All three squads and their Platoon Commander (sergeant Steiner?) hit the first farmhouse and cleaned out the enemy machine gun. They advanced up the hill and attacked the T-26, which had the benefit of the +3 close combat modifier in error. The first roll was a tie. Steiner, atop the tank, had trouble getting the hatch open. He won the re-roll and shoved a grenade into the hatch. Scratch one T-26. 

 

Cheering, the platoon cleaned out the 50mm mortar and charged up to the objective house. A die roll of 1 looked bad, but the Soviets matched it; the house fell in a rain of grenades. Steiner moved to his right and caught the first squad of the enemy 2^nd platoon, wiping it out. On a tear, he then assaulted the 2nd squad. We both thought the game was just about over. I rolled a 1. Proletarian hero Maxim brained Steiner with the butt of his submachinegun and proceeded to shoot the rest of the platoon. Carl asked if they were all dead. Ah, yes. 

 

Both sides were pretty badly shot up. My PZ IV traded fire with the enemy T-34 76 for a while, both sides failing to get a kill. Then my dice heated up; the suppressed machinegun rallied and hosed down the Soviet 2^nd platoon, killing both squads, including Maxim. His Hero of the Soviet Union award was posthumous. But his next of kin would be able to cut in at the head of the food lines in later years.

 

The game took 2 hours, 20 minutes to play. Both of us found Steiner’s mad dash highly entertaining, all in one initiative.  Losses on each side were over 50%. I am aware that shifting a platoon from one flank to the other would be highly unlikely in a real combat situation.

 

Next game in a couple weeks will be set in 1780 South Carolina via the time travel portal.

NY-NJ Earthquake

 The strongest earthquake in this region in 140 years (says the NY Times), 4.8 struck this morning.

We will rebuild.