<b>Mar 1862</b>
March is still winter but it’s a hot time in the border states. Gen. Collins seems to be probing for weaknesses in the Virginia front and makes an all out assault in Kentucky. I’ll give a detail description of the Humbolt assault since it’s the first full battle. I turned back all the attacks but it fixed my units in place so that I couldn’t make any significant shift of troops. This is quite important in Kentucky/Tennessee are because the Union has concentrated huge armies there. About 80,000 men in Paducah and maybe 100,000 in Bowling Green. I don’t know why he made the smaller attack out of Paducah this turn. One of the problems with winter offensives is you can seldom move some of your poorer commanders even if they have initiative.
The Virginia probes were all small attacks against different areas of the state. Attacks were made on Norfolk, New Kent (next to Fort Monroe), and Manassas but none were overpowering and I easily had enough men with initiative to move substantial forces into each area. In Manassas I sent Jackson in, giving the force there 27,000 men against 6,000. I wanted to make sure Jackson got some points to his promotion. In New Kent I sent Longstreet who brought the numbers up to about 17,000 against 7,000 under Tyler. Here I won handily but at great cost. Longstreet is wounded and out of action for a while.
The Norfolk fight was peculiar because it involve ships and heavy artillery. The numbers were much closer too. Smith was sent by Beauregard with 18,000 men against an invasion force of 19,000 under McDowell. But Norfolk has 4 heavy artillery units (in game terms this is 80 guns) against the Yankee’s who sent three Fleets. The Fleets attack first damaging some of my artillery but my force easily wipes McDowell. Then follows something different. My Heavy Guns execute an attack against the ships after the main battle sinking two of them.
Naval forces have some unique operations when engaged in land support operations. They can bombard during the movement phase to attempt to destroy the artillery in forts. They can support the infantry attack with a bombardment phase during battle. And if they are still in the adjacent waters at the end of the turn they are subject to a bombardment from shore batteries.
Anyway all these Virginia battles ended up minor victories for me. Minor victories don’t generate as many Political Points as Major so only a small gain here. They do give the leaders a chance to improve though. The unusual thing about minor battles is both the winner and the loser can improve leaders. In major battles losing is always bad for leaders I think.
Now for the big battle in Humbolt. Gen. A. Johnson reacts to this one with everything he can get hold of. Unfortunately he didn’t get initiative but most of his subordinates did. In Reaction phase all you need is sufficient movement points so some units could make it without initiative but I had a few who couldn’t. This is where cavalry scouting is important. Since I had scouted Paducah I had spotted all the Union forces there so I had a pretty good idea of how many were attacking. The USA forces consisted of 17 Infantry, 7 Militia, 10 Field Guns, 2 Heavy Guns, and 2 Cavalry. To counter this invasion I was able to move 18 Infantry, 5 Militia, 7 Field Guns, 2 Heavy Guns, and 3 Cavalry into the region. Cavalry scouting yields another dividend in that units spotted don’t fight as goods as unspotted units. This is to simulate surprise.
Here is where a lot of things get iffy. One problem is using Heavy Guns. If you lose they are usually lost in the retreat. The other is our forces are very much the same size. Each infantry unit has about 2,000 men and each artillery unit is equivalent to 20 guns. The Union probably also has some gunboats that don’t show up. The good thing for me is most of my units are not spotted and its winter. Unspotted units get a bonus. Also the Union movement cost more and hopefully it is poorly commanded, Gen. Lyon being in overall command. In battles your troops are fed in slowly based on their Leader’s ability and how far they moved to get there. I hope I have the edge there.
The battle starts slowly with only about 6,000 on each side fighting and then begins building as more Leaders arrive with their troops. At its height the following forces are involved:
USA 52,400 men and 240 guns
CSA 53,800 men and 180 guns
But old Albert is a much better general than Lyon. He drives the Yankees off with heavy losses:
USA loses: 13,160 men and 30 guns
CSA loses: 7,660 men and 10 guns
And here is where the problem with heavy guns as well as the commande’rs ability to retreat come in. The final USA loses are 13,460 men and 60 guns. Your artillery takes a beating when you lose especially if you have heavy artillery with you.
The other big plus for winning a Major Victory is many of your officers get their command points improved and points to promotion. The important ones for me are Bragg to 16 and A. Johnston to 18 since I plan to make major changes to my command structure this turn. I will cover my leader selection in a separate post.
The down side of all this is my troops are now shifted out of place for what will come on the first summer turn of April. Most have used up their movement and can’t be shifted back to support positions for the coming attacks. All I can hope for is bad Union initiative to give me another turn to reorganize.
LG. Kennon Whitehead
Chatham Grays
1/1/III AoM (CSA)
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