Assaulting the Jailers….Game Number 76, Part 1

An early plan of the fort….

….and an aerial view - probably a drone shot methinks.

After having finished the C.S.S. Tennessee it would be somewhat churlish to not put her through her paces on the tabletop. Whilst I will refight Mobile Bay in due course (I will need to model Fort Morgan first) in the interim I will look to pit the Confederate ironclad against a monitor and a sloop, almost Hampton Roads like. It will also be a good way of testing a couple of the optional rules that will be appearing in the Portable Ironclads Wargame Revised and Expanded Edition.

The action will be fought using the revised firing arcs - this is a minor change fro the original rules and is the only one of any impact - and the optional rules will cover alternate movement and changes to the firing. I will not go into details here but I reckon that these will certainly add to the decision making!

This will be a simple battle but in my experience games involving fewer ships (or indeed any type of unit being represented) tend to focus the mind somewhat - at least that is my opinion!

In the meantime though, I will need to think about how best to model Fort Morgan. An idea I have been pondering is to make a baseline style model - David Manley suggested something similar to a DBA style camp or BUA (built up area) which seems like a good idea.

As far as this test action is concerned it will be the first time I have tried the optional rules so keeping it fairly simple seemed like a sensible approach. The plan is to fight the action over the coming weekend so I shall get the necessary paperwork ready over the next few days.

Looking forward to it!