Skirmish for the Pitzer’s Wood 2nd July 1863 ACW

Two battles so far this week with another in the diary for Saturday. First up another trip down to George to continue our Chain of Command campaign. If not ready I’m sure George will post on this battle so really just a couple of photos from me and the broad outline.

The British must try and blow the two fuel dumps next to the road using engineer teams. The Germans must stop them, not a very promising scenario setup for the Germans as they only get 3 points of support more than the British defenders and the way the patrol phase is set up the British are guaranteed the majority of the cover.

Anyway the Germans get stuck in as best they can, both sides have a tank and after many misses the the British A4 goes up in flames

The British in the orchard as the German attempt (foolishly) to approach across the open ground

The British manage to blow one fuel dump, in fact it turns into a very close battle, ruthless German shooting targeting the British commander who mistakenly found himself isolated and out in the open brings their morale right down to 1 giving them only 2 command die. The Germans are clinging on with a morale of 3, but in the end the British turn the tables killing a German senior leader and the rest of the Germans are forced to retreat. The butchers bill was high though with the British taking very heavy casualties we’ll find out soon what this means for the campaign ?

Next up another remote game with Jon, to mix things up I set up an ACW scenario using R&P. This is broadly based on the fight for the Pitzer Woods early on 2nd July at Gettysburg. The main reason for choosing this of course was I thought it would be fun to get my Berdan Sharpshooters onto the table in a skirmish game and with R&P it is easy to give them the appropriate stats.

I found this map on the internet and used it for the basis of the skirmish

My terrain, the Staub Farm to the right.

The 3rd Maine advance quickly to support the Sharpshooters, their objective is to scout five markers before they are beaten back.

They are up against the 10th  and 8th Alabama support by a strong screen of skirmishers

Initially all seems to go well for the Rebels who advance to shooting range and try to close the distance to negate the longer range of the Berdan sharpshooters.

The fire fight kicks off across the table and especially in the open ground

Forces trade colleges across the Staub farmstead where one of the objectives is situated

Somehow things gradually started to go wrong for the Rebels, initially they fail a couple of morale checks and a couple of units become disordered. But with the Union forces keep rolling above a average and suddenly the Rebels start to fail all their tests.

Things quickly go sideways and the whole rebel forces breaks and flees back to their main line.

A fun game despite the disappointing result for the rebels, I had thought it would be a tough ask for the Federals but in the end with the complete collapse of the rebel morale it was almost a walk over, I think I failed at least 6 morale tests rolling less than 3 on two dice ! So there is no scenario design that can cope with that.

As seems the trend we have been busy over the last couple of weeks …..

Berwick upon Tweed the beautiful 16th century defences around the town.

Plenty of cycling out in the lakes

Dunbar where the restored 18th Century gun bastion over looks the two historic harbours and the very dilapidated  Dunbar castle, seen here in the distance where the flag is.

More hot weather encouraged me to spend a day walk a chunk of Hadrians wall, luckily there was a nice breeze.

The views really were stunning.

Well that’s it for now, unfortunately since I started this post it looks like my battle tomorrow has been postponed, but another game is planned for Monday anyway. Then in a weeks time I’m off on my travels again across Europe gorging on military history.

Thanks for checking by

Matt 🙂