The whole Petersburg campaign (twice)

Well, those were two remarkable games! This is a long post but I'd like to think it's worthy of your attention.

I've been wrestling for months with trying to create a scenario for the siege of Petersburg during the American Civil War. I don't mean just the Battle of the Crater - I can't see much fun or edification to be had from that - but the whole dam' siege, all nine months or so of it. I'd done the reading, identified the major outlines, thought about how I'd tackle the particular scenario design challenges of a 9-month operation encompassing multiple actions of various sizes, drawn the map - just couldn't put fingertip to keyboard to turn my ideas into a tightly written scenario.

To force myself to crack it, I promised to host it as a game at my house. I set a date that gave me three weeks to knuckle down and write the thing. I drafted it, sent it out to my players, did a solo dry run, revised it and sent it out again.

The moment of truth arrived and so did old comrades Mark and Mike B plus a new recruit, Mike S. I was a bit apprehensive that Mike S's first game with us was this untested and radically unconventional scenario that might turn out to be a serious dud. I needn't have worried.

Let me expand on 'radically unconventional'. What struck me, having gamed the three major battles from the brief six weeks of Grant's intense and bloody Overland Campaign (the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor), was how much more cautious and measured he was around Petersburg. As he himself acknowledges in his memoirs, after Cold Harbor his army's morale was low and the Confederates' was high. The quality of the Army of the Potomac had been significantly diluted as well. Added to that, once Grant moved to face Petersburg, his line of communications ran through hostile territory and needed a lot of guarding. It is notable that the campaign mostly consisted of operations by just one or two corps, occasionally three; also notable that each US corps typically faced a Confederate division a third of its strength, yet often still came off worst.

I therefore introduced some limits on how many units the US can activate each turn and in the whole game. I also engineered the unit strengths and ratings to reproduce these results. 

I eliminated firing except at or by units assaulting or being assaulted.

I introduced logistics in the form of a US LOC line that is vulnerable to Confederate attack, constrains where US units can move, and gets extended at intervals.

I split it into three Phases with big operational lulls between them, in which fortifications get dug, LOC extended, reinforcements arrive and redeployments happen.

Once the attempt to take Petersburg by storm failed, it became a matter of the US trying to cut each of the major road or rail lines radiating from it in turn. I provided for immediate US victory if Petersburg fell, but of course the fortifications make this difficult. I gave the US victory points for cutting each of these lines by a certain turn and bonus VP for doing so earlier. Letting the Rebs cut the US LOC costs US VP.

This means there are two basic plans available to the US: swarming and storming the fortifications, or focusing on collecting VPs. Meanwhile the Confederates have incentive to launch judicious sorties against US LOC, as well as needing to manoeuvre to block those US line-cutting moves. When the Rebs do either of these things, they may open up opportunities for the US to respond to. Anyway, both sides have plenty of options and decisions.

And, yes, there's a special rule for The Crater!

As there isn't a huge number of units on either side and the number that can move each turn is limited, we were able to rock through the game twice in five hours and try both the possible US plans. There are some 20+ annotated photos below to talk you through the action, followed by reflections as usual. The Crater detonates in #7 ...

Let's start with the traditional plan view for orientation. The town of Petersburg is surrounded by fortifications, stylised as six individual forts. A quarter-circle of US entrenchments faces the east side of town. The wagon train running behind those is the US LOC. US units are limited to within 12" of their LOC in Phase I (which lasts 2-4 turns at US player's discretion). This is just enough to reach the Weldon railroad, marked with two white VP counters in the centre for reaching it by Turn 2 or Turn 4. Subsequent objectives are the Boydton Plank Road (two white counters left centre, T4-T6), White Oak Swamp Road (two white counters near left edge, T6-T8) and Southside Railroad (one white counter upper left, any turn).

Game will end after 9 turns, or total of 30 US corps activations, or fall of Petersburg - whichever comes first.

View from inside Petersburg at set-up. (I actually deleted two of those three CSA artillery units after my solo run.) Nice to have a rare chance to use all those wagons I painted when I was 17.

CSA units are divisions, each of 4 BBB 1"x1" bases. Some are Aggressive Veterans (2 flag bases), most are simple Trained (1 flag). The figures are ones I inherited from a friend who emigrated; I've never got round to rebasing them for BBB, hence the veteran cardboard sabots. Figures are Baccus 6mm. Forts are Peter Pig's 1/600 ACW Coastal Fort.

US units are Trained corps of 6 bases, which is only half their nominal strength, the rest assumed to be on rear area guard duty. Further Raw 6-base "LOC troops" units come into the line in Phases II and III.

 All units always operate In Depth in this scenario, no formation changes - another simplification to make way for more scenario-special complication.

The Union boys try assaulting a fort on Turn 1 just to see if they get lucky. They don't.

(White fluff = Disruption.)

Two US corps step out to the west from the end of their LOC (left of pic). Unfortunately one is a bit slow. The Rebs respond by sallying in force. One moves through a gap and parks on the end of the US LOC. All US units will be Passive while it's there, and they need to kick it off or lose a VP. A second Reb division has driven another US corps out of its entrenchments back behind the LOC. This attacker needs to be confronted as well. Furthermore, the unit forced to retire costs the US another activation against its total.

At this very early stage, the US players gave up on any hope of the left hook line-cutting option working and went all in on storming Petersburg. They quickly managed to take both forts in the first line on the east side (right edge and foreground). Bobby Lee is on his horse looking concerned behind the next fort to the left.

The corps that set out for the Weldon Railroad turned around to drive the Confederates off their LOC. As the CSA division in the foreground was outnumbered, outflanked, and had enemy in its rear, it was wiped out. The one behind it was driven back with loss. A weakened Rebel army was about to find it hard to defend the city against what were now even more superior numbers.

KABOOM! To take the second line fort, the US decided to blow The Crater. They got the best possible result, which helped them to maim another CSA division. Remarkably, this attack still ended up getting repulsed.

End of US Turn 2 (I think), with the Union firmly ensconced in both eastside forts and the defenders seriously depleted. 

A view from inside Petersburg after the CSA has rallied and reorganised its defenders. A lot of Union boys out there!

At this point the US had the option of calling the end of the Phase (in real world terms, a couple of months' lull) but understandably decided to press their advantage to the maximum before the Rebs could replace their losses.

On Turn 3, the US took a third fort on the south of town. Mike B felt he could not afford to let the US keep it. The Confederates sent two divisions in to counterattack, but got a calamitously bad result - both divisions lost a base and routed back through the town to rally in the top left corner of the photo. The door to Petersburg is open!

Grant therefore sends another two-corps attack against the rightmost attack, taking it this time, while a third feeds through the gap into the town - Petersburg has all but fallen! The Confederates must retake it in their half of the turn or lose the game immediately. One brave Rebel division charges, scorning superior numbers of bluebellies holed up in the cover of the buildings. Mike B's dice this time are as improbably good as his previous assault was disastrously bad - Petersburg is saved!

There were now two Confederate units in the town. The US had used a lot of activations in its repeated massed assaults on the fortifications. It had enough gas in the tank for just one attempt to expel both Rebel units, but failed. Grant's Petersburg campaign had come within an ace of victory but ran out of steam. So ended a close and exciting game that could hardly have been tighter.

OK, so US Plan A almost worked but didn't. Would Plan B go any better? We swapped sides, reset, and went at it again to find out.

Whereas Mark had only committed two corps to his left-hook effort in the first game, Mike and I thinned out our troops in the fortifications enough to free up a third. All three duly moved out to extend our line towards the Weldon Railroad objective. Two Confederate divisions responded by storming out against our corps at the hinge, covering the end of our LOC, but were repulsed - twice. So far so good.

A bit hard to see what's going on here (sun streams in at certain times of day to make photography rather difficult) but let me try to explain. The US got onto the Weldon Railroad by Turn 2 for the maximum 2 VP there. We therefore promptly called a new Phase so we could extend our LOC and reach for the next Objective, the Boydton Plank Road. At lower right edge you can just see the end of the extended Confederate fortifications. These didn't stop us beating and bypassing the CSA division beyond the end of that line, which you can see driven back to the upper left by our two corps now ensconced on the road, upper right. (Petersburg and everyone else out of shot to the right.) That's another 2 VP for us on Turn 4.

Audacious! As the Rebs stretched to keep us from the Boydton Plank Road, they left a gap in their line. We were able to launch a corps through it to raid across the Southside Railroad. That Confederate division top centre charged our corps and drove it back towards the Petersburg defences, causing heavy losses but unable to dislodge us from the railroad. Alarm and despondency in Richmond! And another VP to the US. (And then we pulled the raiding corps back in when the Phase ended.)

Meanwhile, mostly quiet around Petersburg itself, where the Confederates have seriously thinned out their defenders, while the US barely has enough men to guard the LOC, not enough to attempt a major assault.

The 5 VPs the US had garnered so far. The nominal target was 6 for a draw or 7 for a win. If we could keep our LOC intact, that would be one more. Victory had to be found on the White Oak Swamp Road!

So we called Phase III so that we could extend our LOC and redeploy in reach of the road Objective. Unfortunately, Confederate reinforcements arrived, including Wade Hampton's cavalry, and made sure to defend it in force (while still keeping Petersburg itself secure). Here's the Confederate view of the nut we had to crack: four whole divisions plus the cavalry ...

... and we didn't really have a big enough hammer to crack it with: three corps (one in centre of pic, two more top right) plus Sheridan's cavalry (bottom left. Still, if fortune favoured us, we had a chance.

All quiet on the eastern front - but we still have to guard that LOC.

No, fortune did not favour us. Our troops must have been exhausted (or unwilling to take any risks when they could see the war was nearly over) - our infantry pretty much failed to move, leaving Sheridan's cavalry to charge alone. They did drive the enemy back but not enough to matter. The cheeky Rebs even counterattacked to try to threaten our LOC! (But failed.)

One more turn's worth of activations left. We still have a chance, but these infantry assaults you see in the picture above will need to be outlandishly lucky - and will need the cavalry to be luckier still, whereas they failed even to rally. It doesn't happen. The US has fallen a bit short with its left hook, but an intact LOC should mean it still has a draw, unless ...

Just as virtually the last act of the campaign historically was Lee's abortive assault on Fort Stedman, so it was in our game, where we see a futile Confederate sortie in that exact spot.

LOC intact, 6 Objectives secured = a draw, but a tense and hard-fought one all the way.

Thus, in less than five hours of game time, we had fought this nine-month campaign to a finish twice. It produced two very different games, both very plausible, and both coming down to the wire.

Reflections

This was such a good day, I could enthuse and enthuse, but I'll discipline myself and just share three main thoughts.

Distilled Decisions. The relatively small number of units, the limit on how many the US could move, the dispensing with firing except in assaults: these all made for fast play as they forced us to focus on the few units that were actually important each move. This was helpful as it left brain room to attend to the scenario special rules and how those affected what was important. It all felt very clean and distilled. Hmm: maybe we should add pip dice for command points to BBB!

Tempo of Operations. In my reading, I was really struck by how the intensity of the six-week Overland Campaign was followed by this much lower-key period: lulls lasting weeks and months, punctuated by operations on limited scale for limited gains until the general advance at the end. I wanted the scenario to capture that. The constraints I put on the US seemed to have the desired effect. Giving the players some latitude over when to call an end to a Phase worked nicely too and it was easy to rationalise what a decision in game terms would have meant in real world terms. These two levels of tempo - constraints within turns, and constraints within Phases - meant we were conscious of it in a way that I don't often encounter in a game.

Resonating with History. Likewise, the elements of the scenario structure - both physical (troops and terrain) and regulatory (phases, LOCs, etc) - combined to produce player decisions and tabletop actions that really resonated with what I'd read. The Confederates sortied just as they did; significant actions happened in roughly the places and at roughly the intervals they did; the fortified lines and the action stretched out across the table as they did. I really couldn't have been happier with how it turned out.

This scenario is available in the files of the BBB io group (you have to join the group to get access).

Recommended reading: the scenario owes a lot to Noah Andre Trudeau's 'The Last Citadel: Petersburg, Virginia, June 1864-April 1865'.