Sharp Thwarted - A Peninsular War game using Sharp Practice

Carole Flint and I played a game of Sharp Practice using David Hunters' Cerro Manteca Campaign, in preparation for an event. [Carole is the author of the Hippolyta's Tiny Footsteps blog]. We fought the Escort Duty scenario with the British force trying to get an Exploring Officer (intelligence officer) past a French force.

We had 85 points each side. The British force contained 4 groups of Line infantry and 3 groups of Light skirmishers. They had 6 leaders. The French force contained 5 groups of Chasseurs and 3 groups of Voltigeurs. They had 4 leaders. Both sides had a Force Morale of 11.

In the Cerro Manteca campaign French Legere are superior to French Line and of a similar quality to British Line and Light. David encourages players to limit themselves to four leaders each. If one player has more than this then the relative probabilities of drawing of chits, to activate leaders, can jar with your expectations and appear unbalanced and frustrating. This was the case in this game.

The British Deploy | The 4 groups of Line infantry, with the Exploring Officer, advance in open column up the road with one group of skirmishers on the right flank and two groups on the left flank, by the river.

The French Appear and the British Respond | It was Turn 5 before the first French leader deployed: 2 groups of Voltigeurs appeared in the church in the centre of their position. The British reacted to this by forming their Line infantry in line in the centre of the table. One group of skirmishers occupied the house by the bridge. The other two groups of skirmishers crossed the stream and advanced.The French deployed 3 groups of Chasseurs, with their Level 3 leader, in a formation behind the church, out of musket range.

The French Deploy and the British React | The British sent the Exploring Officer across the steam to joint the skirmishers and the Line infantry resumed their march in column down the road. Once this column had crossed the bridge it formed into two lines. The group of skirmishers crossed the river and captured the French Deployment Point. It then joined the front line to attack the French flank. 

The French Level 3 leader was activated using 3 flags. One group of Chasseurs turned to face the British and, with the support of a group of Voltigeurs, delivered an effective volley that halted the British. The rear British line was shot at in the flank from the church. This formation was unable to advance and suffered casualties and significant shock.

After 15 Turns we stopped, as we had run out of time, and called the game. Casualties were light: the British lost 4 Line and 4 Light figures and had two Level 1 leaders wounded; the French lost 2 Chasseurs and 3 Voltigeurs and had one Level 1 leader wounded. Force Morale was still high: 10  for the British and 9 for the French. 

The Historians Speculate | Carole thought that the 2 groups of Light skirmishers would not be able to escort the Exploring Officer past the French right flank. They faced 3 groups of Chasseurs and 2 groups of Voltigeurs. The attempt by the 4 groups of Line infantry and 1 group of Light skirmishers to force the French to move groups to defend their left flank had failed. 

The British plan was based around using the fire power of their massed line infantry. Once they had committed them to the centre of the table, which was tactically unimportant, they surrendered the initiative to the French. 

It might have been better for the British to use their Line infantry to support the advance of their skirmishers, as the French did on their right flank. [Groups of skirmishers in Sharp Practice get a third, movement, activation each turn and can quickly move through terrain or around a position].

The Murat of Prospect Park ....

Bolt Action at Nu-Brand Gaming in Brooklyn in 2016.

Great days with Ade Sanya (left) and friends. 

I make myself the centre piece of the action in a way that Murat would have been proud of.

It should be the Murat of Green-Wood Cemetery but ...

A Review of The Spanish-American War by Albert Nofi

The Spanish-American War, 1898 by Albert Nofi (Combined Books, 1996)

An account of the Spanish-American War of 1898. This resulted in Spain losing its remaining colonies: Cuba, Puerto Rico and The Philippines and the United States becoming a global power. Cuba, Puerto Rico and The Philippines came under American occupation and administration. (The US also annexed Hawaii in 1897 following a popular revolt). Cuba and the Philippines became independent eventually (and Hawaii became American’s 50th State) but Puerto Rico remains, 120 years later, under US administration: neither independent nor incorporated into the USA.

A revolt, ‘The Ten Years War’, broke out in Cuba in 1868. The 19th Century Spanish Army had a lot of experience of dealing with insurgencies and the revolt was put down, but it did lead eventually to the abolition of slavery.

Cuban nationalists realise that US intervention was key to success. In American they organised themselves and influenced public opinion. Another revolt broke out in Cuba in 1895. The Cuban National Hero Jose Marti was one of its leaders and one of its early casualties. American public opinion supported the Cubans against Spanish and the ‘Yellow Top’ newspapers were full of (sometimes invented) stories of Spanish atrocities, although both sides had a policy of ruthlessly moving peasants into ‘safe areas’. 

Relations between the USA and Spain deteriorated. Efforts were made to improve these and as part of this the battleship USS Maine visited Cuba. The US and Spain were prepared to accept autonomy for Cuba but the insurgents would not. Then one night in February 1898 the USS Maine blew up and sank in Havana harbour. Two months later, after negotiations failed, the USA declared war on Spain.

Nofi’s book contains eight chapters, dealing with the main naval and military campaigns:

The naval campaign in the Philippines, the US mobilisation and expedition to Santiago de Cuba, the naval campaign in Cuba, the land campaign in Cuba, the land campaign in Puerto Rico and the land campaign in the Philippines (where the US found themselves fighting a native insurgency).

Each chapter contains numerous pictures and maps and a number of ‘sidebars’: short articles which describe the main characters, issues and events.

For example ‘Why did the USS Maine blow up? This has always been controversial. Nafi thinks is likely that it was sunk by a mine, as the contemporary official enquires concluded, rather than because a spontaneous fire in the coal bunker (common at the time) spread to the adjacent ammunition bunkers (a design fault in this class of warship). By who placed the mine? The US blamed the Spanish, who had the least to gain from it, but the Cuban insurgents had both the means and the motive to do it. [In modern Cuba it is claimed that US blew the Maine up themselves to justify taking control of Cuba].

The book also contains orders of battles for the armies and navies and tables of specifications, equipment, and performance for the navies.

The Spanish Pacific and Atlantic fleets were destroyed, at Manila and Santiago de Cuba respectively, with minimal lose to the US. Nafi describes this but also what the Spanish could have done differently to make the most of their resources.

The key decision of the war was when Admiral Cervera took the Spanish Altantic Fleet from Cadiz to Martinique and then to Santiago de Cuba where he was blockaded by the superior US Atlantic Fleet. Nafi states that Cervera’s best option would have been to be ‘a fleet in being’ off the Azores with the US forced to cover the potential threat to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the East Coast of the United States.

Nafi describes how the US expanded its small regular army, using the National Guard and volunteers. The problems of getting expeditionary forces to Santiago de Cuba, Puerto Rico and The Philippines are described. 

Nafi thinks that America’s great achievement was the rapid and effective expansion of its Army. Something it repeated in the First and Second World War. However logistics and medical services were a problem of the Americans. “The surrender of Santiago [on 17 July] probably saved the United States from a major military disaster.” The flow of food and medicine was improving but infections from yellow fever, malaria and dysentry (from bad food and water) were reaching epidemic proportions. A ‘Round Robin’ letter from officers and an even more strongly worded letter from Theodore Roosevelt critical of he solution proposed by War Secretary Alger were leaked to the American press and caused a public outcry.

This book is a model of military history writing.  It contains the information and descriptions needed to create games and scenarios from the war. My copy suffered from a problem that I find is common to American books: the binding broken while I was reading it.

Hippolyta's Tiny Footsteps

The blog of Carole who is my regular opponent at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society as we both appreciate Sharp Practice and Chain of Command and share a preference for 15mm scale.