General Lee was bashed at Gettysburg... at least that's what the movie indicated. And this was despite the constant pleas of the great-bearded Longstreet to let his corps outflank the southern end of the Union line. If you saw the movie, you saw the beard. What the movie didn't say was that it was Longstreet's beard that did it; Lee was too much of a gentleman to command Longstreet to shave it off. He only suggested it: "If you shave off that godawful beard, General Longstreet, I'll let you have Hood's division to strike out from the south." But Longstreet was stubbornly silent on the issue of his beard, and so Lee never did give him permission to let Hood's Division go in. If Longstreet was going to be stubborn, so was Lee... and that was why the frontal attacks at Gettysburg took place. The above historical vignette was researched by the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis. It wasn't even hinted at in the movie, and so it shows that even Ted Turner can make a mistake. But what if Longstreet had shaved off his beard? What would have happened if Hood had proceeded with a flank attack on the Union line to the south of the Roundtops? This was the scenario I set up with my 30mm ACW figures. The map shows the starting position of the opposing forces. It's pretty much the "Gettysburg standard", with lots of Union troops facing lots of Confederate troops along a north-south axis. But the key is the presence of Hood's division creeping north over the southern end of the Roundtops. Tony Figlia commanded the Yanks at the southern end of the Union line, which ended just short of, and to the north of, the Roundtops. For the first three turns, General Figlia's units were not to know of the Rebels to their south, i.e., not to react, unless he tossed the correct number on percentage dice. On the first turn, there was 20% chance that the Yanks became aware of the Southern advance; on the second, it was 40%, and on the third - at which time, in our battle, the Union finally woke up - it was 60%. The battle was played with an award winning* set of ACW rules, using a sequence originally developed by Gary Haggarty, a subscriber to the REVIEW. (* Awarded by the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis for most simulatorical, accuristical, and realisticatory ACW rules for 1994) The Haggerty version used a 52-card deck to determine who did what to whom; the current version uses a 20card deck. The 20 cards are numbered from 1 through 20; these numbers determine the priority status of the cards. In addition to its priority status, each card is also annotated with a number of actions, either 3, 4 or 5, which the units on a side can use for moving, firing, changing formation, etc. At the commencement of each bound, the sides each draw 4 cards. The sequence in the bound is then divided into 3 major phases: Phase 1. Each side selects one of its cards and plays it. The side with the highest priority number decides whether it or its opponent will go first - move, fire, etc. - as the active side. After the active side is finished, the opposing side goes. Each side discards the card it selected. Phase 2. Another "bid" phase. Again, cards are played and an active side goes first, followed by the opposing side. Both sides discard their selected cards. Phase 3. The third bid phase. Each side now has 2 cards remaining of the original 4; each side selects one of the 2 and plays it. The higher priority number is permitted to activate one brigade; it may move, fire, etc. On this phase, it's winner take all... the side losing the bid does nothing. Melee follows each of the three phases. There's a fourth phase, common to both sides, for rallying, setting out morale markers, etc., but the action is mainly confined to the first three. In our battle, Brian Dewitt and I handled the Confederates; I was in command of the 3-brigade division, AKA Hood's division, coming north across the Roundtops, hoping that General Figlia's Yankees wouldn't awaken too soon. I must note, however, that in our scenario, on Bound 2, we Rebels were suddenly faced with a situation never dreamt of by any of the historians who, for the past 130 years, have studied the Gettysburg battle... not even the staff of the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis anticipated the turn of events that occurred. For what we saw was the entire northern sector of the Union line suddenly surge forward, coming off Cemetery Ridge, abandoning its defensive stance, making its way directly west toward Seminary Ridge in a great counter-clockwise wheeling motion!! As I mentioned, General Figlia was in command of the southern portion of the Union line. To his right, to the north, his compadre was Bob Hurst, and it was General Bob, himself, who ordered the Yankee advance. General Bob had seen that the northern segment of the Confederate line was very lightly held, only two brigades in that area. "Go for it!", said General Bob to his troops, and they went for it. The reason for the Rebel weakness in the north sector was twofold: a. Yours truly had set up the battle, and thinking that the Union would have (should have?) a defensive mind set, I hadn't bothered to place too many Confederate troops in the northern part of the Rebel line. After all, it was the South that was supposed to do all the attacking, wasn't it? Well, wasn't it? b. Second, my Southern cohort, the Good General Dewitt, didn't help matters any when he focused the bulk of his Rebel troops directly to the east, at the point where the Roundtops joined Cemetery Ridge, in a sort of Pickett's charge. In truth, this didn't look bad at all, for with my division coming directly north along the Roundtops, and this other mass of Southern units pushing east to join me, it looked like we'd have an easy time rolling up the Union line. And so, there we were, our Southern banners flying, when suddenly, General Bob's men came off the ridge in the north and gave us the fright of our lives. Brian Dewitt was closer to the Hurstmen's advance than I was, and he remained less impressed than I, for he kept on with his big Pickett's charge. His lead units approached the Union line more rapidly than did my own, for my boys had to make their way across the wooded and rocky Roundtops, and stop and deploy prior to breaking out of the woods. As Brian's men came up to the defending Yanks, they opened fire. In the forefront of battle, holding the center of the Union line, was a smartly attired, nattily dressed, good-looking Zouave regiment named Simon's Rifles (they left this out of the movie). Simon's Rifles, today, were under Figlian command, determined not to budge. The on-coming Southern regiments, as all regiments, were composed of 4 stands, and each firing stand received a 10-sided die. To score a hit on the target unit, the die roll, plus its modifiers, had to total more than 10. The modifiers were two in number: +1 for every action (volley) devoted to fire. Thus with the action cards providing 3, 4, or 5 actions, a unit could issue a maximum of 5 volleys per turn, if it stood immobile and did nothing else but fire. Note that the advancing Rebel units could not devote all their actions to firing, while the defending Yanks could. As I've mentioned in the past, this is in keeping with the Simon philosophy that in the horse and musket era, a unit in a defensive posture should fire more often, more effectively, than one that's advancing, and can't devote as much time to loading and firing its weapons. -1 if the target was under cover. As Simon's Rifles took casualties, their data sheet was so annotated. Each brigade had its own sheet, which looked like: On the above charts, CV stands for "Combat Value", used in melee, while EM is the "Efficiency Multiplier", which, together with the Combat Value, gives the unit its percentage Morale Level: ML = CV x EM Each hit crosses out a number along the EM row. Note that the above units start out with 10 x 9, or a 90 percent Morale Level. After four hits, the Morale Level decreases to 9 x 9, or 81 percent. Simon's Rifles took 2 hits or so, and took a morale test at the 90 percent level. It boggles the mind, but these well trained men, these paragons of military stoicism, these fierce fighting men, these... Ah! Why go on!... they fled! This left a gap in the Union line, which the Figlian units tried to fill. One or two reserve units marched up and tried to deploy, but not all did so. Each action devoted to deploying from march column to line adds 25 percent chance to the chance that the unit completes its maneuver. I forget the exact number of actions these units had, but let's say it was 4. They marched forward for one action, and this left 3 for deploying. Three actions result in 3 x 25, or 75 percent chance to deploy. Most deployed, some didn't ... nobody's perfect. And now it was melee time, as the Dewittian Southerners charged up the slope into contact to cross bayonets with the defending yanks. Now the question became: which units would actually be involved in the melee? How many could each side bring in? Our award-winning rules provide for an award-winning procedure to determine which units will be scooped into the combat and take part. Incidentally, our award-winning rules are referred to as such because they have no name. We've been so busy perfecting the procedures at the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis that we haven't had time to name them. I had hoped to call them ARMANTI, but someone else beat me to it (does anyone -know what ARMATI means?). Back to the melee. Brian, as the attacker, tossed percentage dice to determine the Combat Radius... either zero inches, or ,.6 or 9 inches. Any deployed unit which has any men within the circle defined by the radius, is automatically swept up into the fight. The radius itself uses as a reference point the center of the line of contact of the two leading units. The toss was high, the radius was large, and, as I remember, 3 Southern regiments became involved against only 2 Yankee units. Simon's Rifles were nearby, within the circle, but they were still undeployed, in march column, and so couldn't. assist. Each regiment referred to its data sheet for its Combat Value (CV). This is a per-stand value, hence a 4-stand unit with a CV of 10 has a total of 4 x 10, or 40 combat points. The per-stand CV is augmented by such modifiers as: +5 if the unit is deployed in two ranks. +5 if the unit has an advantage (high ground) The defending Figlian Yanks, being up on the slope, added +5 to their CV value. Most of the . attacking Southern units were in 2 ranks, and they, too, added +5. When all was tallied, the totals were something like: Yanks... 116, and Confederates ... 156. Each side then added a percentage dice throw to its points. High total is defined as the winner. With a 40 point advantage, it was no wonder the South came out on top. The Rebels had broken through on, and now occupied, the ridge and the Roundtops. Even General Bob was impressed, and' he indicated that, despite his whirlwind Union advance from the north, things looked so bad for the Yanks, that all was lost. Brian and I, impartial to the last, had to agree with him. But I wonder... what if Simon's Rifles had held position? Back to PW Review October 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com