Next week Chris & I are heading to the USA. We're flying to Houston then driving a hire car through the battlefields of the Civil War - basic plan: Vicksburg, Shiloh, Fort Donaldson, Murfeesborough, Chattanooga, Shenandoah & on to Richmond. I have designed a portable wargame system we can take with us so we can fight the battles we visit as we go.
Champion Hill near Vicksburg is one of the first battlefields we will be visiting & Chris I used it to play test our portable wargaming system.
The battlefield is a paper map drawn with highlight pens to a scale appropriate to the battle we are simulating. We will buy paper over there to make disposable battlefields. The units are 50mm x17mm counters designed on excel, printed on paper, gluing to 2mm card & cutting it up. The rules are basically Hail Mt Lincoln, but modified to facilitate bigger battles with more units than we usually have fought at a much smaller scale.
Chris is commanding the three Union columns approaching the outnumbered Rebs on a heavily wooded battlefield. This battlefield is drawn at a scale of 6"=km (the squares are 250mm=1 mile). At this scale the units represent demi-brigades of 2 battalions.
The Union left is pinning down the Rebel right as Grant outflanks the Reb's left on Champion Hill.
The Rebel line is holding well on their right & centre, but superior numbers are telling in the Union attack on Champion Hill on their left flank.
The Union left & centre has failed to break through & is pulling back, but Grant's attack on Champion Hill is grinding on.
The Rebel left had finally broken & though they have held off the attacks on the right & centre, the Rebs have no choice but to withdraw to Vickburg while they can.
The system lacks some of the visual appeal of minatures, but the game rattles along quickly & it makes doing battle simulations very easy. We expect it will help us get a better understanding of the battles we visit as well as giving us a mobile wargames fix.
3 comments:
Sounds like a great plan! You are visiting mostly the "Western" battlefields, none of which I have been too. I had family in Virginia, so I have been to Harper's Ferry, New Market/Shenandoah, Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, The Wilderness, and Richmond.
I hope you have a wonderful trip!
Peter
As the Union seem to have made a solid line against the Rebs it looks like you didn't make those woods across the Reb front very hard going.
It will be very interesting to see what the actual terrain looks like when we get there in a few days time.
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