Elsewhere in this issue is the story of the re-creation of the battle at Quillford Courthouse, and this article continues the saga... another hitherto un-researched vignette of the ARW. Here, we will tell of the battle of Grillford Courthouseand its table-top depiction. It should be known that if these battles, fought so long ago, had turned out differently, we would still, this very day, be saying "Please, Mum!" and "Thank 'ee!" to the Queen Mother. Thanks to a generous grant from the Centre For Provocative Wargaming Analysis, the encounters at Guilford, Quillford and Grillford Courthouses can be compared and analyzed. For this, the Grillford battle, I set out my singly-mounted 35mm(?) figures... little pudgy, faceless fellas born in Hong Kong. Paul Koch had given me the first of these ARW figures many years ago... they were in plastic, and some superior Hong Kong cloning-sculptor had taken the Airfix ARW 20mm line and deftly enlarged them to 35mm size. I, in turn, popped the figures in a mold, and have turned out a quantity of cloned castings for my ARW games. As American commander, the Brits were directly to my north. Krask's Ridge dominated the battlefield, it ran east to west on the field, and the Krask Redoubt, high on the ridge, had an American battery in it. The other main terrain feature, Grillford Courthouse, was on the eastern side of the field; it, too, was held by the defending Americans. I was in charge of the American forces, which consisted of four regiments, each of three companies, plus three batteries. Reference to 'regiments' and 'companies' and 'batteries' is impressive, but in truth, there weren't that many figures on the table. An American company had four men (figures) in it, and a battery consisted of one gun model. Opposing me was General Fred Haub, commanding three British regiments, each with four companies. The major distinction between the British and American companies was that, initially, the Brits had 5 men per company, contrasted with the American 4. As the battle wore on, company strength could be augmented, as at the end of the bound, the sides diced for reinforcements. The maximum number of men-per-company was 6. Sequence The sequence for the half-bound consisted of 6 phases: First, the active side moved his men Second, there was a sort-of-simultaneous firing phase Third, close assault Fourth, the active side rallies his men Fifth, both sides see if reinforcements arrive Sixth, both sides collect victory points During the firing phase, I drew cards from a 10-card Fire Deck. Each card had an annotation similar to "1 unit on Side A can fire" or "3 units on Side B can fire" and so on. One of the cards was an "End phase" card... this terminated the firing phase. From the very first firing phase, my worth opponent, General Haub, evidenced an instinctive and intuitive dislike for the firing cards. This occurred for two reasons: First, the advancing Brits had their units in line, all awaiting their opportunity to fire. In addition to their infantry, the 3 British guns were also deployed, ready to fire. Hence, under most rules sets, the entire British force could fire when a fire phase occurred. The Fire Deck cards, however, prevented the British from bashing away on every fire phase simultaneously with their entire force... they fired in "bits and pieces", 1 to 3 units at a time. This meant, for example, that General Haub, faced with the decision to blast away with his attacking infantry or his guns, almost always chose his infantry... the British guns played a very little part in the battle. Second, whenever I drew a fire card, it seemed to say "Americans fire!", and BANG! one or more of my units would blaze away. A second card... BANG!, Americans fired again... and a third card... BANG! and the Americans fired again. I assured Genral Haub that I had constructed the deck with the same number of fire cards for both sides... that he was disadvantaged solely due to the luck of the draw... he refused to believe me, saying that he couldn't understand why his mens' Brown Bess muskets were being out-shot by my rapid-fire, breech-loading Kentucky rifles, firing the new NATO 7.62mm round. British Cavalry I forgot to mention there was a regiment of British cavalry on the field, who charged down the eastern side of the field. The cavalry proved extremely wimpy... almost every volley fired at them set one of their units running back. But while they were of no direct help in battle, they did manage to divert one of my 4 regiments, keeping it out of the main fight... preventing me from obtaining local superiority either at the Courthouse, or on Krask Ridge. When the active side moved, it drew a card from the Action Deck... obtaining either 3, 4 or 5 actions. Each action permitted all units on the side to move 3 inches. The Action Deck was also used during the fire phase... a fire card was drawn, indicating which side fired, and how many of its units fired, and then an Action card draw defined the number of volleys fired... either 3, or 4, or 5. Muskets had a 15-inch range... this included my breech-loading, 7.62mm-firing NATO weapons. The firing procedure sent men in the target unit to an off-board Rally Zone, where, later in the sequence, they could attempt to rejoin their units. When a unit fired: a. An Action card denoted the number of volleys fired. b. The target unit took a morale test, starting at a basic Morale Level (ML) of 80 c. The impact of the firing unit was deducted form the ML... the number of volleys was multiplied by the number of men firing; the resultant was subtracted from the ML d. The distance of the target unit from its regimental officer was also deducted. As an example, when one of my 4-man companies fired on the British cavalry, the cavalry started at an ML of 80. The number of volleys, as determined by an Action card, was "4", hence we subtracted (4-men-firing x 4-volleys), or 16 from the ML of 80. An additional deduction was the British cavalry commander's 14-inch distance from his unit (they had been so bold as to outrace the commander). And finally, we added a +5 modifier for British steadfastness. The resultant ML for the cavalry unit was (80 - 16 - 14 +5), or 55. The cavalry unit tossed percentage dice... they failed to throw under 55, and they fell back, sending one man to the Rally Zone. The attack by the British on Krask Ridge was a close thing... first the Americans fell back, then they counterattacked, then the British came on again. On top of the ridge was situated Captain Krask's Battery, and the crew did good work. At the beginning of the battle, we had diced for all our batteries, setting up their ammunition supplies (either 6, or 8, or 10 rounds). Krask's Battery had 10 rounds, and when the guns were finally taken, the crew had fired 7 of the 10 rounds. When a cannon fired, it did so with the equivalency of 4 men. Firing at the Brits coming into the gun redoubt, we had: a. The advancing British unit started out with an ML of 80 b. To this we added +5 for British steadfastness c. The Action card for the number of volleys fired was a "5", and we increased this to a "6" because of the close quarters canister effect... the fire effect on the British unit was, therefore, (4 men firing x 6 volleys) or a deduction of 24. d. The British regimental commander was 3 inches away, giving a deduction of 3 The total ML of the British unit was thus (80 + 5 -24 -3), or a ML of 58. This British unit couldn't pass its morale test, and back it went. In similar fashion, Lastarr's Battery, defending the Courthouse grounds, had 8 rounds, and fired 6 of them before the British swamped the Courthouse. Lastarr's Battery was, at first, bolstered by the American 201st Regiment, 3 companies worth. Or, perhaps, a better adjective would be "worthless", for the three companies folded immediately under British fire, failing their morale tests, and they fled the Courthouse, and left Lastarr and his men on their own. Rally At the end of each half-bound, a rally phase took place... the active side attempted to get all the men he had placed in the Rally Zone back on the field. Each man had a 50 percent chance of rejoining his unit. If he failed, he remained in the zone. Immediately following the rally phase, was a victory point (VP) phase. All men who had not rallied, contributed VP's to the opposition. Note that under these 'morale game' rules, no men "died"... the worst that could happen to them was to fail to rally and to remain in the Rally Zone, thus providing VP for the enemy, and making them subject to the catcalls of their fellow soldiers. At the end of Bound 3, the British had accumulated only 7 VP, the Americans 12. It appeared that quite a few British soldiers were shirking their duty, refusing to return to the field. The other factors in assessing victory were the geographical objectives. There was, first, a VP value of 15 for the side possessing the Courthouse, and second, a 5 VP value for the side possessing the Krask Redoubt. Bound 3 saw the Brits enter the Courthouse grounds... having driven the men of Lastarr's Battery out, and having caused the non-fighting American 201st regiment to withdraw. I should note that the triumphant British unit was the 111th Regiment, which had done so poorly at the battle of Quillford Courthouse, as described in the sister article in this issue. These men, the Duke of Drexel's Own North Castershire, Lummerly and Hetford Black-and-Buff Foot, had received quite a dressing down from the Duke after the Quillford battle... he had threatened to withdraw their grog rations, their health insurance, and their Saturday night movie privileges. It was no wonder that, faced with these awful potential penalties, they fought so fiercely. Up until Bound 3, General Haub had committed to battle two of his three infantry regiments, and his cavalry branch. In reserve was his 121st Regiment... the Cholsey, Oxford and Reading Fusiliers. As I mentioned before, the cavalry didn't do too much, except for tying up, and diverting from the main battle, one of the American regiments. But now the 121st Fusiliers were moving up. On previous turns, each half bound, during the reinforcement phase, we had diced to see if zero, or 1, or 2 men would show up per side. General Haub had used a few of his reinforcements to bolster up his front-line units, but the majority of his reinforcements were used to puff up the ranks of the 121st Fusiliers, held in reserve. The result was that all four of the 121st's companies were packed to the limit of 6 figures each... virtual behemoths compared to my own 4-man companies. The American 201st, having been driven dishonorably from the Courthouse, gave it one more try to win their honor back. Onto the Courthouse grounds they surged. The melee procedures followed those used in the firing phase... each unit deducted a number of combat points from the opposing unit. The melee followed along these lines: a. First, we drew from the Melee Deck. Note this was a third deck in use... the other two decks, the Action Deck and the Fire Deck, have been described previously. The Melee Deck had 5 cards... "Both attacker and defender will test morale", or "Defender will fire", and so on. These draws gave each side a last-minute chance to peck away at each other before actually closing to contact. There was an "End" card here, at which point, the firing stopped and the winner was determined as in the following steps. b. Each side tried to bring in one supporting unit. The support had to be deployed, be within 10 inches of the two leading units, and pass its own morale test. Here, each side managed to bring in a support. c. Looking at the British unit, it starts with its basic ML of 80. d. It adds +5 for British steadfastness. e. Its regimental officer is right there... no deduction for distance. f. Each side now deducted 5 combat points from the opposition's ML for every man it brought into combat, both the lead unit and the support. I had two American companies, 8 men, in the fight, therefore, the Brits deducted (8-men x 5 combat points), or 40. g. The resultant British total was (80 +5 -40) or 45. h. To this total was added a percentage dice throw... the British tossed a 81... their final total was 126. i. In contrast, my own unit's final total (including the dice throw) was about 96... the Brits won, and my 201st had failed in its attempt. I should note that this regiment was disbanded inmmediately after the Grillford Courthouse battle. George Washington could take only so much. Each lead unit that lost a melee immediately placed 3 men in the Rally Zone. Since most of my American units only had 4 men to begin with, a loss of 3 men in combat definitely put a crimp on my units whenever they were driven back. We fought on, even after the British had swept all American units from the Courthouse. They had entered the grounds on Bound 3, and it took most of Bound 4 before they really took control. Bound 4 was when the inglorious American 201st tried its comeback, and failed, ingloriously. Exploits I should note the exploits of one British company in the 131st Regiment, the King's Own Regiment... that of the Culberson Volunteers. Culberson's men stormed Krask Ridge in the face of the defending Krask Battery, passed all its morale tests under fire, passed its requisite morale test in combat, and, for a brief moment of glory, was the sole possesser of Krask Ridge... no other units were on the ridge. I countercharged Culberson's men with whatever units I could muster, and during the pre-melee draw of the Melee Deck cards, my unit (still firing their NATO 7.62mm rounds) caused Culberson's Volunteers to fail a morale test and drop back. Digression. I mention Culberson's Volunteers because they were newly arrived in my ARW army... they had been painted by Jack Culberson, currently residing in Georgia, and this encounter marked their debut on the field of battle. What was different between the Culberson unit and the rest of my force was that Jack had painted eyes and eyeballs on his men... my other men had only a swipe of flesh-colored paint for their faces.. blind as bats. For he who is interested, I have taken statistics on the topic, and discovered that little toy soldiers without eyes and eyeballs, fight just as well as those with them. End of digression. I should note that there were actually two methods of denoting casualties to a unit. First, there was the temporary removal of men to the Rally Zone, which I have previously discussed. Second, when a unit failed its morale test, we placed a casualty figure beside it... each casualty figure deducted -10 points from the unit's morale level during a morale test. On the rally phase, not only did a side attempt to bring back to the field all those men who had been placed in the Rally Zone, but it also attempted to get rid of its casualty figures. Each side's HQ had a number of staff officers... one could pick an officer, toss him back in the box, and then toss percentage dice to see how many casualty figures he was capable of removing... either 1, or 2, or 3. Bound 4 was when we Americans declared the entire affair to be hopeless and sued for peace. Over the course of the battle, I had collected around 30 VP (failure of the British troops to rally from thier Rally Zone), while the Brits had amassed over 40 VP. The deciding factor, however, was the 15 point VP for the Courthouse, which turned the British victory into a resounding defeat for the Americans. At this point in time, I spoke to General Haub, saying that now that I had lost, I would lay out the entire Fire Deck, and prove to him that the cards in the deck were evenly distributed... the same number for both British and Americans. And so I slowly counted out the cards... one for the Americans, one for the British, one for the Americans, one for the Americans, one for the Americans, another one for the Americans... something had gone radically wrong! I still don't know why, but when I drew up the deck, I had definitely given a firing advantage to the American forces... no wonder their rapid-fire, breech-loading rifles, firing the NATO 7.62mm round, so outgunned the British Brown Besses. Quite embarrased, but still the diplomatist, I pointed out to General Haub that his victory, wherein his men fought with weapons inferior to those possessed by the Americans, was all the more significant. He seemed to accept this argument, and we parted peacably. Back to PW Review October 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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