Wargaming Shiloh on the road

Before we set off I made set of counters to allow us to play wargames on the road while memories of battles visited were fresh.  Before we left we did Champion Hill to test the system (see below).   Two days after we visited Shiloh we set it up as a wargame. The first thing that stood out was that Shiloh was actually a very small battlefield for over 40,000 men a side.  At a scale of 6"=1km Champion Hill covered two A1 sheets: 8km x 5m.  Shiloh fits in a 5km square.  The green wrapping paper I got at Dollar General was 750mm wide so perfect.  But Shiloh had over 42,000 men a side while Champion Hill had 22,000 Rebs & 32,000 Union.  To make the Shiloh simulation practical I had to make the units brigades of 1,600 men rather than demi-brigades of 800 as at Champion Hill.  Thus the units represented 2 lines of regiments not one.  This works as the counters are to scale with the ground scale in frontage, but way too deep.

I didn't try to put the intricate pattern of open fields on the map - too hard without my big screen PC & a printer.  But at this scale minor tactics is not the main game.  Pittsburg Landing is in the corner near my cold tea.  We simulated the surprise by saying the Union were Disordered for the first two turns.

The Rebs have mixed success along the line, generating a jagged front line & opportunities for flanking attacks. 

Some Reb units break , but many more Union have done so.  Normally we remove broken units.  We do this for two reasons: 1) It is arguable that in most periods troops that break seldom comer back. 2) It shortens the game - allowing a decision with an prolonged end game that can get tedious.  But clearly at Shiloh broken troops did rally & return to the fight.  So we said that broken units fell back to a rally point. 

The gains of the Rebs in first shock were never got back & more & more Union units broke & ran back to their rally line.  As did a few Reb units.

 Things just got worse & worse for the Union.

Almost all the Union units have now broken & fallen back.  The Rebs have only lost a few units broken, but many of their units are shaken or nearly so.  By now it was judged to be nightfall.  The Rebs have taken the ground fought over, though not their objective, Pittsburg Landing.  By our normal rules it is a clear Confederate victory.  But when Sherman said to Grant.  "They've whipped us today Sam." Grant replied.  "We'll whip them tomorrow." 

We didn't continue the battle the next day, but the Union would have rallied their units, plus received reinforcements so a repetition of the historical result looks pretty sure.

It is clear that for a valid simulation of a large ACW battle rules must allow broken units & formations to rally.  Otherwise our Mini Hail Mr Lincoln works pretty well.  As we travel we are also debating issues regarding command & control in the densely wooded terrain of the western battlefields.