ACW Positional Defence (2)

This is the after action report (AAR) from an American Civil War (ACW) wargame we played near the end of 2016 before various business trips, Christmas and so on intervened (hence the long gap since I last posted here).

The aim was to playtest the Principles of War 2nd edition rules (POW2) I'd had on the shelf for about 10 years.  From reading through the rules I liked their apparent simplicity as well as the interesting command and control mechanism, so I wanted to see how they would play out under stress of battle.  I'd also wanted to find an alternative to Neil Thomas' nineteenth century rules we'd tried earlier in the year which we found too simple.

Positional Defence (2).  Confederate attack.

Alert readers will know that this scenario comes from Charles S Grant's excellent book "Scenarios for Wargames", which we have used a few times in recent years. In fact the first AAR I ever posted on this blog was Positional Defence (1), which coincidentally was also an ACW game.  In the intervening years all of our ACW figures have been rebased (as recounted in detail elsewhere on this blog).  As you will see these are the classic 20mm Airfix figures that we've had for nearly forty years, and still going strong.

Union starting positions

The scenario has the "Red Force", in this case the Confederates, attacking a smaller Union force in a defensive position on high ground with a village at the centre. The forces were adapted from the scenario in the book so the Confederates had seven infantry regiments and three guns, with the Union side having four regiments and two guns.  As you can see from the map, the Union forces were spread thinly with one regiment and gun on each hill, one in the village and one regiment out of sight in reserve behind the village.

Confederate attack on left flank develops

The Confederate plan was quite simple: to wear down the defenders with artillery fire whilst the infantry advanced on both flanks across the open ground towards the objectives.  Initial bombardment was on the infantry in the village, which despite being in hard cover, were rapidly forced out of the houses by incessant artillery fire (and rubbish die throwing).  This allowed the rebels to move forward quickly with few casualties.

Confederate attack on Union right

The lack of effective defence in the centre meant that the rebels could bring up their guns and after a short exchange the Union regiment on the right-hand hill started to withdraw.

Right flank falling back, artillery about to be destroyed

Furthermore, despite some spirited firing, the artillery on the right was worn down rapidly and destroyed, leaving the right flank practically open.

Union forces pushed off hill on the right with reserves trying to move up

Meanwhile, on the left, the rebels were using the woods as cover and were moving up rapidly.

Situation on the left

The battery on the left was mainly engaged in long range counter battery fire but was quickly weakened.

Rebels in the woods

The rebels continued to push hard on the left and the incessant bombardment meant that the Union's last remaining battery's strength was reduced to zero.

Not looking good for the Union

The rebels then moved into the contact against the isolated Union regiment on the left whilst the Confederates climbed the hill on the right.

Confederates capture hill on right, attack hill on left

On the left the sole remaining Union regiment was attacked frontally whilst another rebel regiment contacted it in the flank.

Union regiment outnumbered

However, the Union regiment was able to defeat the rebels to the front and then turn its attention to the flanking force.

Rebels run away.  Right, who's next?

Union regiment combats flanking force

Amazingly the flanking rebel regiment was also repulsed.

Ha!  Take that!

Unfortunately this success was only temporary as the rebels in the woods moved up and attacked again.

Persistent Rebels

However, by now it was all over for the Union as the Confederates controlled the right hand hill and the scenario's main objective, the village.

Rebels to the right of me, Confederates on the left... here I am...

So at that point we called it a day.  The Union side was comprehensively beaten and it appeared that very little could be done to stop the Confederates advancing to contact, sweeping the weaker Union forces away.

As with all of CS Grant's ideas, the scenario was pretty good but perhaps the forces could have been slightly better balanced to make more of a fight of it, although that might have been more to do with how we chose forces rather than the scenario itself.

As for the POW2 rules they worked fine and were easy to follow.  Unlike some sets of rules they don't bother with a lot of 'fluff' but get straight to the point in a structured way, even laying out the rules in the same order as the move sequence, which some well known sets of rules don't seem to bother with.

However, there was something slightly 'flat' about them and I certainly felt that the rules did not give the defenders the expected tactical advantages from cover or elevation that would enable them to even slow the enemy, let alone stop them as they advanced inexorably in the open to contact.

That said the POW2 rules certainly performed better than the very simple nineteenth century Neil Thomas rules so I haven't given up on them just yet.