AAR 3 - ACW Skirmish - Sixty-One Sixty-Five Rules

This fortnight we revisited Sixty-One Sixty-Five again, that's three sessions in a row!

The 7th New York Infantry Regiment stands firm as the Confederates of the 7th Virginia Infantry advance...

This time we’ve moved to scenario 2 in the rules where the Confederates are on the attack!

The Forces

CSA - Break Point 27

5 Veteran 7 man Squads

3 Volunteer 7 man Squads

USA - Break Point 23

1 Veteran 8 man Squads

5 Volunteer 8 man Squads

1 Artillery Piece with 4 man Crew (reinforcement)

The terrain is busy with buildings, fences and woods.

The CSA has the initiative at the beginning of each turn.

The objective of both sides is to break the opposition.

The AAR

Dave and Al commanded the Rebels and Stu and I lined up as the Northerners.

Everything started well for the Confederates they hardly missed an activation rapidly advancing and occupying the three buildings and one of the fenced enclosures. On the other hand each of the Federal units were averaging a single activation per unit and advanced slowly.

Turn 2 and first blood went to the Yankees taking out a pair of Rebel skirmishers advancing down the road but this did not stop the Southerners rushing forward!

Meanwhile the Yankees were hanging out for their artillery to deploy but poor activation rolls resulted in no sign of the gun (in fact it only deployed on turn 8, the last turn we played!).

Lacking their artillery and even though out numbered the desperate Federals went over to the attack! They pushed troops forward on both flanks engaging the Rebels and successfully slowed them down.

Firing along the entire line continued to inflict casualties on both sides. Soldiers in blue and grey fell at a steady rate and at this point that favoured the Confederates with their stronger force.

Under pressure the Federal skirmishers surged forward and worked hard on shaking several Southerners. This weakened a couple of Squads and follow up charges were launched against them which looked promising but were well held by the Rebs!

With the Union troops fully engaged and over extended the Confederates deployed one of their reserve Squads to their right while the other continued to threatened the Yankees thinly held centre staying adjacent to the road. Here the Union Commander was looking exposed with only a handful of Zouaves between him and a lot of grisly looking Virginians, lucky he was wearing his brown trousers!

At this point the Federals received their artillery. They girded up their loins, reinforced their centre, unlimbered their cannon and then...we ran out of time so called it a night... DOH!

Some pictures...

The Rebel left comprised of 4 veteran Squads advances rapidly!

Overview after turn 2 with the Federals to the left. Rebel skirmishers already occupy all 3 buildings!

Rebel Squads fire and leap frog each other as they advance down the road. This was an effective way to advance and in the end only a handful of Zouaves and a pair of skirmishers face off against them!

To take pressure off the centre and while awaiting their artillery the Federals start attacking the Rebel left flank...

...and in the top left of this picture the Federals also attacked the Rebels right flank.

The boys from the Syracuse Zouaves face off against Southerners!

The fighting intensifies on the Rebel left/Federal right.

Overview of the battlefield turn 6 from the Confederate side. 1 off the 2 Rebels reserve Squads behind the barn deploys to face the Zouaves the other is ready to advance down the road.

The Rebel reserve, the right hand Squad moves to face the Yankees!

The Federal Commander looking a little worried!

The Zouaves start to turn the Rebel right routing the troops facing them!

The Rebel left/Yankee right continue to slug it out casualties are being inflicted on both sides at a steady rate...at this point the Rebs can afford the attrition! Where is that Yankee artillery?

Turn 8 and the Federal artillery arrived and to support it they redeployed more troops to their centre and then...

we ran out of time!!!!

View of the centre at the end of the game from the Rebels side, 2 Squads with another in reserve face off against 3 Yankee Squads and the cannon...

The same scene from the Federals point of view the artillery has arrived...

Overall view of the game from the CSA right the Zouaves can be seen in force and the Rebels flank is looking exposed.

Overall view of the game from the CSA left here the Rebels are better placed the squads are evenly balanced but they have 4 skirmisher pairs available to the Federals 2..

At this stage the losses were pretty even...

USA Break Point 23 current casualties 13

CSA Break Point 27 current casualties 13 + 3 routed

I think this game could have gone either way at this point, the cannon certainly gave Stu and I some fresh 'bite' but Dave and Al still had the numbers in their favour and their foot soldiers were much more maneuvrable than our gun...

This game took longer than the previous ones and after 2.5 hours we hadn’t finished I believed we needed another 30 minutes but Dave and Al had to leave early.

Two points came up in our post game discussion.

Firstly Dave and Al rolled exceptionally well activating their units and over 8 turns they only conceded two initiative turn overs! It may be a valid to say as more Squads on each side become experienced therefore gaining the resolve activation benefit along with leadership bonuses their activation roll will require only 2 and above on the dice so a double 1 will be required for the 2 failures to pass over initiative. This can make the unit activation sequence each turn a little less fluid.

Secondly it was mentioned by that rolling a single die per squad for firing or close combat was leaving the rules open to unbalanced results. Twice in this game crucial close combats that could have swung the game were thwarted by the defender rolling a 6 and the ratio result that could have been 4 to 1 plus turned out to be barely 1 to 1 so a minor victory, I see that differently as with the vagaries of the die the next crucial combat the defender could easily roll a 1!

We’ll replay this scenario again down the track hopefully to get a full result! Then we’ll look at playing a game incorporating cavalry...

To boost our forces and add some more colour to the table Al has ordered some Perry Zouaves destined to become colourful Southerners and I’ve got some of the Union Infantry in sack coats on the way at least half of which will be painted up as green clad sharpshooters!

I just have one old AAR to catch up on now a Blucher game, the Battle of Piave!

Next fortnight we dial back a few years for some Napoleonic Lasalle action!