Chickamauga 1863

 I've been having a tweak of my hex based version of Neil Thomas's ACW rules in light of the last playtest. Nothing too major, just tightening up and clarifying some things. I'm hoping to take the rules to COW in July, so it would be good to get them more polished.

Next up in my Western ACW campaign is Chickamauga, but rather than play the corresponding OHW scenario (Bridgehead), I instead ported the Volley and Bayonet scenario across. It is a fairly manageable battle, with approx 60,000 on each side, and by amalgamating a couple of the smaller units, I ended up with ten Divisions /Corps each, which seemed quite manageable. An interesting wrinkle is that this was a two day battle, so I used two hour turns (six turns a day) and borrowed the V&B ACW overnight rules, which translated across nicely.

Battlefield from the South, the Chickamauga creek meanders North to South. A key feature are the dense woods over the northern part of the battlefield, and the numerous hills. Rosencrans Army of the Cumberland is frantically trying to concentrate on the left after crossing the mountains south of Chattanooga, while Braggs Army of Tennessee has sized a central position on the right. 

Braggs Army, including Longstreets Corps from the Army of Virginia and Hoods Texans, ten Corps and Divisions overall. Braggs hoping to defeat Rosencrans scattered forces in detail. These troops are almost all seasoned or veteran, with just one green unit (one of the smaller Corps). 

Rosencrans Army. Nine infantry divisions and two cavalry brigades. These are more of a mixed bunch with one veteran division in XIV Corps but two green divisions. The cavalry only have four bases, but we're split into two widely separated brigades, so they have a pair of two base units. In an interesting development, they are armed with Spencer repeaters. 

The initial deployment, four Union infantry divisions (plus the cavalry) against most of Braggs army.  Bragg needs to capture the road exit points leading north and west, while exhausting the Union Army. 

Two of XIV Corps divisions on the heavily wooded ridge to the North. The veteran division is here. 

XXI Corps with two more divisions in the south, one of them is green. Wilders cavalry brigade in the centre. 

Four more Union divisions frantically marching to the sound of the guns. Two more divisions from XIV Corps and the whole of XX Corps.

Bragg  has seven divisions concentrated, four and in the centre (mainly Polk and Longstreets Corps) and three in the South (Buckners Corps). For some reason Polks Corp sis split in two with one division in each sector. Dimly visible is Mintys Union cavalry brigade screening the northern roads. 

Three more divisions moving up, these will arrive around dusk or overnight. 

At this point, I should have come up with an actual plan for Bragg. He has a number of options (left flanking, right flanking, centre etc) as although his forces are strong, they aren't overwhelming. At this point I hadn't appreciated how limiting the dense woods would be, a maximum of one hex move and half fire casualties made the entire action in the north rather slow motion. 

Instead, I decided to attack everywhere, with everyone. So let's see how that worked out. 

Buckners Corps marched straight forwards without even attempting to extend their line south, trying to bounce the river before reinforcements arrived. The hill has a good place for guns though. 

The Longstreet and Polk pushed forwards as best they could, Hoods Texans in the lead (with a red counter). They couldn't make much use of the roads due to the annoying cavalry and restrictions on road movement in proximity to the enemy. The plan here was to pin XIV Corps frontally in a firefight from the tree line, while out flanking them from the north. 

I sent one division north to brush away the cavalry, I'm sure that will be plenty.... 

In the South there was a fairly devastating exchange of fire and  one division lost a base (you can see the black puff), but their morale held.  Bragg set up his HQ in the hill, a good spot to keep most of his Army in command. The union very unfairly hid a green infantry unit behind the hill (yellow marker) while the cavalry ducked over the river and into the woods. 

My attempt to sweep away the cavalry met with disaster. The first volley of repeater fire inflicted two hits, my unit passed its charge test, lost two more casualties on the way in (so lost a base) and then lost the melee, despite outnumbering the cavalry 2:1! They ran away back down the road. 

In the south, the Buckner belatedly extended their line into the woods. This would give them cover from fire, and the a big advantage in  the firefight across the river. The other division forded the river and went up the hill. 

The Longstreet and Polk began to extend into line. I didn't want to expose them piecemeal, but the disaster in the North left them all bunched up in the centre, so it was taking ages to deploy. I should have sent two divisions North. 

The river assault didn't go very well, and intense Union fire caused enough losses to push them  back over the river again. The union also managed to inflict serious losses on the units in the woods, so much for cover! I can see that defending the reverse slope might catch on. 

There was a bit of a lull in the North as the CSA tried to deploy in the dense woodland. One of the divisions failed to activate. Perhaps Bragg should have stayed here to supervise things. Hood opened fire as he didn't have anything better to do. The two best CSA divisions (Hood and Cheatham) are basically sitting on their hands in the woods.

The shattered assault division fell back to HQ to rally, while it's friends opened up withering fire on the bridge, enough to kill a base but union morale held...

Which was a shame, as the rest of XIV Corps were marching North. A retreat result would have nicely blocked the road, and the CSA needed to be one hex closer to interdict road marches. Rosencrans HQ was behind the hill to keep the marching units in command, and having repulsed the initial assault in the south, the lead division was despatched to reinforce the isolated northern flank. 

XIV Corps took advantage of the slow CSA deployment to slip its reinforcements in to hold the southern end of the ridge, while the cavalry mounted up and galloped across the open ground in front of the ridge. The CSA were all still stuck in the woods. 

Longstreet and Polk finally rolled forwards en masse, but too late to stop the union redeployment. I've still only got one division fighting the cavalry, and once again one of Polks divisions got lost in the dense forest and failed to activate. I'd already loosened up the woods movement by now, originally units could advance one hex or turn, which was just far too slow. They can still only move one, but can turn as well. 

In the South both sides settled into the familiar pattern of firefight and trying to rally hits off badly damaged units. XXI Corps was starting to look a bit shaky now, but the reverse slope position was untouched.

While XIV Corps opened up against Longstreets and Polk in the treeline, and missed completely. Maybe woods do give cover after all. 

The union bridge defenders finally succumbed to the superior weight of fire and retreated with only one base left. Rosencrans put the newly arrived XX Corps in line one hex back from the stream to force a CSA advance. A bit of a gamble as there isn't really anywhere to retreat from here. 

Unbelievable. Minty's cavalry knock a base off one of Polks divisions, despite the woods. Those Spencers are really good, and once again I regret not sending more troops to eliminate the cavalry. I really need to open that flank up. 

The entire line settles down into one of those very noisy but ultimately not very effective ACW firefights. Evening is coming on and Bragg is thinking about tomorrow, and pulls Buckners battered divisions back to reorganise. 

Overnight three more CSA  divisions arrive. One is sent north to help push back the cavalry, while the rest go south to attack the more open ground. 

Meanwhile, Rosencrans plays his trump card. The entire Union line stays in place and digs rifle pits overnight. They only provide cover from fire, not assault, but that position in the south suddenly got a lot stronger. 

Both sides also recovered half their losses overnight. Bragg had managed this well by rallying as much as possible at dusk, so his divisions recovered all their bases and were just left with a few hits. XXI Corps wasn't so fortunate and was so smashed up that some of its bases were now permanently lost. 

At dawn Buckners reinforced Corps rolled forwards in the south. It was really quite impressive, four divisions in line and one in reserve. 

While in the North Longstreets kept XIV Corps pinned on the ridge while Polk tried to finally drive away Mintys cavalry. 

Numbers told, and the Union cavalry was finally defeated and pushed back to the road, having lost half its men. 

Now dug in, the Union line stood and fired for all it was worth. 

And pushed back two of Buckners divisions in the south. The force ratio isn't very favourable for an attack here now, but they can at least keep the Union forces in pinned while I try and collapse the right flank.

The more concentrated attack in the North was working. Polk closed in on Minty, and Wilder was also driven back by fire. XIV Corps northern flank was looking a bit shaky now. 

Buckner kept up the pressure in the south. I was mainly aiming to keep the defenders pinned in place here. The CSA surged forwards again. 

Now one of the XIV Corps divisions was forced off the ridge by fire. 

And naturally failed their activation roll in the dense woods to move back, so blocked the last Union division arriving from the north in a great big traffic jam.

In the South the Union fire forced back some of the attackers, but now all the the CSA had now made it to the river line. 

Time to attack in the North. Minty was surrounded by Polk, and Longstreet pushed a division forwards towards the ridge as the union troops milled around aimlessly in the forest. 

The CSA kept attacking in the south with heavy losses (all those black puffs), but their morale held and the relentless pressure pushed back another Union division in disorder. Bragg moved forward over the river to bolster the morale of the troops on the hill.

The entire line was blazing away now.

Polk surrounded Mintys brigade in the woods while the Union tried to sort out their traffic jam. More failed activation rolls and only Wilders cavalry managed to move forwards to confront Longstreet.

Disaster in the south. Buckners bridgehead came under concentric fire and Bragg managed to roll a '1' trying to rally the line. Down he goes.

At which point most of Buckners Corps fell back in disorder. The CSA has shot its bolt here, but it has kept over half the Union army pinned down.

Longstreet pushes a division up onto the ridge. Bairds Division is the only Union unit left on there and it is steadily being whittled down.

Minty is surrounded and completely destroyed by Polk, capturing two of the road exits in the process. All a bit too late I suspect.

Buckner makes one last push in the south to keep XX and XXI Corps pinned.

But up in the north Wilder opens fire into the right flank of Longstreet with those Spencer rifles and inflicts enough losses to push the CSA back off the ridge. The other Union divisions move to cover the roads leading north and west. 

It is pretty much game over at that point as their are only a few hours until dusk. Buckner pulls his battered divisions back in the south, and Longstreet pulls back in the north.

That all went pretty well in the end. It was good to give the bad terrain rules a go as I rapidly realised they were far too restrictive, and I was particularly pleased with the overnight phase. So many ACW battles are multi-day, and although they are pretty simple, they brought a nice ebb and flow to events.

The C3 rules worked fine, both sides had to decide where to put their HQs and both gravitated to the more mobile southern flank, leaving their poor mates to stumble around in the woods out of command range with obvious consequences. I had been tempted to revise them but I'll leave well alone.

My main regret was not coming up with a better plan for the Confederates as I wanted to push the toys around. Both sides have some critical decisions to make, but more so the CSA  as they very much dictate the pace and location of the action. If they are going for the south, they need to put some of Longstreets troops down there as the rapidly arriving Union reinforcements make that position strong very quickly. I actually think they are better off going for the northern flank in woods, which in turn would mean putting a whole Corps north to push back the cavalry and diverting some of Buckners. troops to the centre and keeping Bragg there. They don't need five divisions to just pin the Union in place in the south, and once the northern flank is turned, the south will collapse.

This is quite a complex scenario and I think when I try this out with the gang, I'll go with something simpler, possibly revisit Antietam as the terrain is a bit more forgiving.