The Petersburg campaign in general with its precursory features of Word War One trench warfare and the Battle of the Crater, an engagement unique in the annals of military history in particular, have always fascinated me and when our wargaming group the Benedict Arnold Society, was engaged in refighting the land battles of the American Civil war chronologically using Paul Koch's On To Richmond rules, it seemed more logical to create a scenario encompassing several elements of this period of the war rather than design a "purist" Crater scenario. This scenario is based somewhat on a scenario from a book of wargaming scenarios by the late Charles Stewart Grant, and we have played this scenario several times and had interesting, fun and highly playable games. Having played so many O.T.R. games over the years has led us to adopt many of the optional rules featured in the rule book and also published in other wargaming magazines. To further complicate things, I mount my 25mm figures on bases (6 stands to a brigade) and then mount the six bases on a 6 inch plexiglass hex which are in turn, used on a 6 inch hexed wargames ping pong table. We indicate casualties and formations other than line by using grease pencils to write onto the hexes ( they wipe right off, Mom,), or boardgame counters. This scenario begins with the Union players placing three mines (we use poker chips), under the Confederate works in hopes that an explosion will breach the lines. Since the Crater requires an explosion, if all of the mines fail to detonate they must be reset until at least one of three goes off. All infantry brigades are 6 stands. U.S. Forces: 4 Divisions, 12 brigades. from Burnside's IX Corps Ledlie's Div.,:4 green Brdges. Ferraro's Div.: U.S. Colored Troops, 4 green brigdes. Wilcox's Div.: 4 regular brigades. Potter's.: 4 regular brigades. Officers: Ledlie, Ferarro, Poltroons, Wilcox, Potter, cautious. There is no Corps commander on the field. C.S. Forces: 7 infantry brigades., 2 battys. 1 mortar batty. 2 officers Elliott's Salient Garrison: Gen. Elliott (Aggressive), two battys, on rifled, one smoothbore, one offboard mortar batty. (fires as a rifled batty. at extreme range anywhere on the board), 3 infantry brigades, one each regular, veteran and green. Reinforcements: Gen. William Mahone (Firebrand), and 4 veteran brigades of infantry: Sanders, Weisiger, Harris, and Finnegan. Number of Players: 2-6 GAME TURNS: 7,8 or 9. At conclusion of game turn 6 one player will roll a D 10, a 0, 1, game ends at conclusion of turn 7: 2,3,4,5,6, game ends turn 8: a 7,8,9, games ends turn 9. VICTORY OBJECTIVES: U.S. forces must occupy (uncontested), his three key points or have destroyed them and have been the last to occupy them by conclusion of last game turn. C.S. forces must hold or recover their key points SET ON: Elliott's Garrison must occupy key points at game start; i.e., occupy key points A through E. Ledlie's Division will enter Turn I anywhere on south edge of table/board. 1. Union side determines where to place his three mines. write down location of each and do not disclose to enemy. 2. Each side selects key point objectives; -D: will always be one of the objectives for both sides to two more well have to be chosen. Write A,B,C,D, on slips of paper for each side and each side draw their own objectives from a hat. Thus each will have 3 objectives. 3. C.S. player deploys Elliott's Garrison in key points. 4. Union side rolls dice for officer and division arrival. Roll a die each for commanders Ledlie, Ferraro, Wilcox, and Potter and for the divisions of the last three commanders mentioned. Remember, turn 1, Ledlies Div. enters, but he must die roll for arrival as will his fellow officers thus a Div. and it's commander may enter on different turns. Roll die, An "even" number brings the officer or Div. in on TURN 2, an "odd" number in on Turn 3. All enter anywhere from south. 5. Dice roll for mine explosions: one Union and one Confederate player each roll a die (or each roll two dice), for each mine placed. The Union player can now place the chips to indicate mine location. Whichever side gets the highest die score for each mine (one roll for each), determined whether or not the m~ine explodes (Union high score) or if it has been snuffed to (Confederate high score). Any Confederate unit in a hex (6 inch radius), of an exploded mine will be destroyed as will any works contained therein. Remember a mine does not have to be placed in a key point, but may be anywhere along the works. The exploded area then becomes disruptive, ROUGH TERRAIN and consider it a 2 equivalent to moving through woods. Furthermore, any Confederate unit whose zone of control (within 2 inches), contained a mine explosion will receive a disorder marker and lose one stand. 6. All works are considered Rough Terrain (due to abatis, chevaux de frise to cross and are pure O.T.R. "Works". 7. Following explosion the Confederate player rolls one die for each of Mahone's brigades to determine arrival turn. Even roll will enter Turn 4, odd will enter Run S. Mahone enters turn 4 and all reinforcements enter from any north edge hex/table/board edge. Back to The Zouave Vol VI No. 2 Table of Contents Back to The Zouave List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1992 The American Civil War Society 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