Battle of Brandywine Part 1 : Chad’s Ford

We are upto September 1777 in our AWI campaign so some big battles to play over the next few months. Having read up quite a bit on Brandywine I decided to break it into three separate scenarios. It is quite a hard battle to break down as the danger is you create scenarios which are unbalanced. Anyway after a lot of ‘thinking’ we just got on with it.

The overall battle of Brandywine, generally regarded the largest battle in the AWI. The three separate scenarios are shown roughly in green. First up the Battle for Chads Ford.

This is a really tough one as historically Knyphausen was only ever ordered to demonstrate and tie down the Rebels so that Cornwallis could carry out his long flanking march north. As the British are hugely outnumbered we have tried to create some balance. I have assumed that some of the American forces have already been drawn away to hold the flank leaving three American brigades under Sullivan to hold Chad’s and Briton’s Fords. I also set the Americans back a bit.

The American defenders

The British/Hessian attackers

The American line along the high ground set back from the river, they will need to move forward or wait until the British start to cross ?

They chose to move forward, but open up with their artillery cleverly situated along the roads, the Americans do have one unit of light infantry positioned in the woods by the river

The British advance towards Brintons  Ford, the light infantry in the foreground have already been driven back !

Great force, two brigades heading for Chads Ford 

British artillery opens up to support the attack

The Riflemen (Green clad) open up an effective fire

Wet feet for the leading British infantry, but they come under tremendous fire from the defenders

Some of the Americans hold their fire whilst the militia are pushed forward !

Hessians approaching Chads Ford 

And push over the river in the face of the enemy

Things are looking hopeful at Brinton’s Ford as well ?

The defenders use the Hesssians as target practice 🙁

But despite massive losses the lead unit holds while others come up behind

A critical point with the fords breached all that need ps to happen is the follow up units to rush across…….You’ve got to be kidding snake eyes and the lead units retreats!

The British are over too but have less support

….and can’t get enough troops to the Ford 

Suddenly at Chad’s Ford there is a glimmer of light, the light infantry is driven back and two other defending units are wiped out, morale checks cause some of the defenders to waver a bit

The British now have the numbers

Still putting pressure on at Brintons  Ford 

And some of the defenders here see the writing on the wall and are forced back

Sullivan is looking nervous as his line thins all that remains is for the rallied Hessian unit to rush across the Ford !

NO WAY ! The same b….y unit and another snake eyes 🤬

The hessians do eventually get across the Ford, but the Americans somehow find some reserves who are brought up into the line

At Brintons Ford the river must be running red as the attackers have been pretty much wiped out. At this point we called it a day, after all the main battle is actually taking place about a mile to the NE where Cornwallis has caught Washington in the flank.

A fun battle very tough for Knyphausen to make progress and a lot of blood was spilt trying to force the crossings. The Americans were put under a lot of pressure and there really was a point where Chads Ford looked like it was going to fall. In hindsight I might change a couple of things in the scenario. We considered a clever rule to force the Americans to gradually draw off more troops as they did historically, one other option might be to force some of the Americans to start closer to the river where they would almost certainly have been destroyed by the advancing British. Possibly the Artillery was more effective than we had expected but this worked for both sides so balanced out. Looking forward to Birmingham Hill  the British attacking again but this time they outnumber the Rebels. 

A bit of painting this week….

These ‘Rangers’ had languished partly painted for several years but as I needed them to play as Riflemen they got completed. One thing I have noticed is that I am much quicker at painting now than 10 years ago.

The British also needed another artillery piece, and this was in the leadpile waiting.

That’s it for now two more games in the diary where we will be seeing the ACW collection on the table.

Then we are off on holiday the last couple of weeks in March. A slightly long story but we are visiting the Old Colonial lands of America and the trip will most likely involve visiting lots of historical sights and battlefields. Weather dependant I’m hoping to get to (not in order) Gettysburg, Princeton, Trenton, Brandywine, valley forge, Germantown, Monocacy and probably a bunch of other museums and historical locations.

Thanks as always for checking by

Matt❤️