The Battle of Shiloh 6th April 1862 - an AAR

Jonathan of Palouse Wargaming Journal graciously hosted his Battle of Shiloh for the Rejects.

Ray and Steve commanded the Confederate attackers while Lee and I controlled the surprised Union troops.

For the background to his excellent and challenging scenario follow the link to the post "my-god-we-are-attacked".

What follows is a quick round up... probably largely representing the Federal view of events.

The starting positions.

I took command of the two brigades on the right of the line - Buckland and McDowell.  Lee had command of the left of the road with Hildebrand and Raith's brigade which were unable to activate until either turn 5 or in sight of the enemy.

The rebels started by occupying the creek facing the Federal right and destroying Hildebrand's 53rd Ohio that were taken by surprise on the wrong side of the creek on the left.

As the Confederates begin to mass against the Yankee right, McDowell and Buckland push units off the hill to contest any free movement out of the creek.  The aim being to delay and then have the space to give up and trade for time.

The Confederates continue to mass their troops on the right, whilst slow movement is occurring on their right.  They seemed to be struggling to bring on all their reinforcements in a speedy and effective manner.

The Rebels with a yell launched themselves out of the creek...

... McDowell's lead units on the Union far right are beaten back from the creek with heavy losses.

Keeping up the pressure, the Confederates hurl Buckland's boys in blue back to the hill. 

The Rebels have a foot hold on the Union side of the creek.  The blue line is starting to look thin as Buckland pulls a regiment away from Shiloh Church to reinforce the right.

With the Rebs swarming over the creek, McDowell's and Buckland's brigades takes a pounding.  Even McDowell is killed in the thick of the action.

The pressure is relentless on the Union right.  Meanwhile Raith's brigade stands unable to activate.  On the left the Confederates are slowly getting their forces together, though their progress there and in bringing forward their reserves is slower than they might wish.

The Federal right is all but broken.  McDowell is dead and only one skeleton regiment is left of that brigade.  Buckland survives, but only one regiment holds.  It's not looking good!!! Which is a gross understatement.

The odd Rebel unit stops to pillage and loot the Union camps... but not nearly enough of them.  However, Raith is now alert to the danger and moves forward on the Federal left to counter the Confederate troops now massing to cross.

The Rebels surge across.  However, they break against Raith's stubborn defence.

Meanwhile on the right, the Rebels complete the annihilation of McDowell's and Buckland's brigades.

With the Union right completely open and the plodding Rebel reinforcements now in a position to move over the bridge, the Union concede and leave the field of battle to the Confederates.

Conclusion

What a great and challenging game.  Confederate numbers really told.  But the most devastating was Steve's dice rolling.  The Union right scored plenty of hits against the attackers only to see the vast majority of them being saved.

I think that moving to the creek to impede their easy crossing was the right thing to do.  This was always going to be a fighting withdrawal.  My view was that I needed to move into the space in order to make every hex a contested hex.  I will now ponder on the wisdom of this decision.  Lee did well on the left.  Thankfully the Confederates struggled to bring all their troops to bear in a speedy manner.  Nonetheless, they had enough.

A really enjoyable game.  Thanks to Jon and the players.

Tally-Ho Over The Channel

After being given some trainee pilot homework to do in the week preceding, a number of Rejects donned their goggles, gloves and parachutes to fly their Spitfires and Bf109s in the shed of war.

Dan, David and Stuart manned their Spitfire Mark 1a for RAF Fighter Command.

Lee, Steve and Surjit, still fresh from their victories over France, climbed into their 109Es to further the glory of the Luftwaffe.

The models were 1/285 scale from Heroics and Ros.

The rules used were my own.

The aim of the day was to establish a national winner, but more importantly the Ace in the pack.  To do this a number of scenarios were played out.  All pilots started as "officer" (from lowest to highest: sprog, officer, veteran and ace) and had to achieve kills, cause critical damage, earn points from a pilot test and improve their rank.

The first scenario saw an RAF section scrambled to intercept a formation over the Channel.  Each player had one aircraft to pilot.

To start the 109s are closest and to the right.  The Spitfires are furthest away and to the top left.

The 109s with their pilot cards at the start of the game.

The dials on the plane stands turn and show the aircrafts' current altitude.

There is one pilot card for each plane.  These hold vital information such as top speed (in hex), pilot skill (officers have a value of 1, veteran 2 etc.), minimum turning circle, climb and dive information.

On the Spitfire below the starting speed is 4, and the dial is at an altitude level of twelve.

The Spitfires and their pilot cards.

Both sides initially jockeyed for height and position.  They quickly realised that they had to find a balance between speed and manoeuvrability.  Pilots can tighten their turning circles by reducing speed, but can sacrifice height for speed.

Once engaged, my camera work reduced as the need for game flow and umpiring became the imperative... so pictures become few and far between.

The RAF soon let rip with their guns.  However, they seemed unable to do anything more than pepper wings and fuselage with holes.  Meanwhile, Dan found himself suffering engine damage that forced him to turn for home.  Anyone who gets shot down "respawns" as a sprog pilot.  

Dan's crippled plane.  He managed to limp home.  Fortunately, he had sufficient altitude to burn in order to build speed and escape.

With other critical damage suffered, the RAF were deemed to have lost this engagement.  However, no kills could be credited.

Between games all pilots had to take a test based on the homework they were given. This consisted of distance and aim of fire for pilots.  The Luftwaffe scored better than the RAF and Steve achieved the best individual total.

After lunch was scenario two.  Some cotton wool was laid down to represent clouds.  Altitude was assigned to them.  No spotted planes were on the table.  Each players' aircraft was represented by two blinds with the real one needed to be spotted before action could be taken towards it.

Most planes were quickly spotted.  Stuart, flying over a cloud, quickly come unstuck when targeted by Steve's 109.  Accurate and prolonged bursts damaged the fuel tank and set the Spitfire alight.  Stuart successfully bailed out to fly another day.

Stuart's plane ablaze and going down!

The aircraft were more scattered than in the first game.

This proved to be a very different game from the first.  The pilots played a cagey game of cat and mouse using the clouds to get out of trouble when threatened.

Lee taking his camera out for the action.  He has just found himself being tailed.

Throughout the day, the RAF enjoyed accurate firing but were unable to draw critical damage.

Lee's 109 being tailed by Dan's Spitfire.  Lee is desperately diving into the nearest cloud to get out of trouble as tracers flash past his cockpit.  Lee enjoyed incredible luck in surviving a number of encounters... he should be called "the cat" for all the lives he's used up.

Poor Dan then got into trouble himself as a bandit bounced his Spitfire, causing the tank to rupture.  Fortunately, he managed to bail out before being engulfed in the flames.

Dan's Spitfire ablaze.

Lee, then found himself the victim of Stuart's Spitfire, whose accuracy produced an explosive end to Lee's 109.  I have no photo of this as Lee rapidly removed the evidence, and the game ended at that point.

I had fun putting on and umpiring the games.  The clouds made the second game very different and more tactical.  It was pleasing to see how quickly all players used the tactics of the day - like dashing for safety in the clouds, seeking height for advantage, burning height to quickly build speed.

There was plenty of action.  Action Cards were used to spice up the game.  This enhanced the drama and led to some exciting exchanges as player sought to out do player in gaining or neutralising advantage.

The tally for the day was that the Luftwaffe had the best of both encounters.  It was not that they scored more hits it was that with good use of cards and some luck caused more critical damage and two kills.  The Ace of the day went to Steve with one kill, the most damage caused and points from the test.  Well done Steve.

I had a splendid day.  So much thinking, fun and decision making with so few models.

A Little "Light" Reading

I have to confess to not really feeling the wargaming hobby vibe this summer.  Hopefully, this is just due to holidays and a lack of games, and will be cured by a return to Postie's Shed of War next week.

In the meantime, I have been reading this hefty tome that fellow Reject Steve lent me.  Given the current events in that part of the world, it seemed an apt moment to learn a little.

I have read previous books written by the author, Simon Sebag Montefiore, and always found them easy to read.  This history of Jerusalem was no different.

The book takes Jerusalem from its very earliest biblical times right through to the Six Days War.  Probably a reasonable decision from an historian's perspective.  Others may consider that potential controversy was dodged by not bringing it more up to date, it was published in 2011.

Considering that the city has been and is a holy site for a number of faiths and denominations, it appears that disappointingly few of the rulers of Jerusalem acted in a manner consistent with their faiths.  The city sits on layers of blood, intolerance, slaughter and destruction.

Sebag Montefiore includes much needed maps of the region and of the city at different points in time. Plus, some genealogies of important families and dynasties.  The narrative is not dry, but contains very human accounts.  The author is detailed without being overwhelming.  He has the knack of communicating what is important and knowing what to leave out.  He calls on archaeological evidence to help with the history.  However, he is open in accepting the ambiguities of the evidence and other possible interpretations. 

My favourite part of the book was that which covered the Crusades.  Possibly a bias from my point of view, as I used to teach this topic to A level History students (17-18 year olds).

At 628 pages it is an investment in time.  However, I would recommend this book if you have an interest in knowing something about the city specifically, and the context in which it is placed.

Whilst reading the sections on the Crusades, I was reminded of an excellent book (in my opinion) on the Crusades by Thomas Asbridge.  This marvellously well written history tells the story from both sides and weaves together a thoroughly entertaining and incredibly informative narrative and analysis of events.  Quite unusually, I found this a page turner... not something one can often say about volumes of historical writing.

As you have probably guessed, I thoroughly recommend Asbridge.

Fingers crossed, my wargaming mojo gets a kick start next week.