Nos amis sous les sables (Our friends beneath the sands) - French North Africa, circa 1910.

The garrison of an isolated French outpost are getting increasingly desperate for relief. A courier has been dispatched to summon relief but the besieging tribesmen are gradually reducing the garrison and growing bolder.

Today’s game pits a French relief force of regular Legion infantry against assorted tribesmen, using ‘Fistful of Lead, Bigger Battles.’ The rules are card driven with some cards allowing extra actions.

Players are dealt a number of cards equal to the number of units, but choose which unit to assign their cards to. This allows some planning and requires best use of the extra actions, such as shock removal or the recovery of stragglers. There is still considerable friction though. Cards are played in strict sequence, which means the unit you’re saving the re-rolls card for may not be in a fit state by the time the card comes around.

Wargame Vault - Fistful of Lead, Bigger Battles Rulebook

The action started with two units of irregular riflemen sniping at the besieged fort at long range. The besieged garrison could just make out dust on the horizon beyond the ridge, hopefully the relief force rather than more enemies.

Enemies were quick in coming however, appearing on the ridge between the relief force and the fort. The tribesmen at the fort, after some unproductive sniping tried to rush the walls. The first two attempts were beaten back by rifle and machine gun fire, but with casualties also mounting within the fort.

On the horizon the first Legionnaires fought their way up the ridge, dislodging the riflemen on the crest. A fast moving dust cloud moving in from the East became discernible as a force of tribal cavalry. As a Legion unit cleared the riflemen from the ridge they were left exposed to the fast moving horsemen, who lost no time in charging home. The legionnaires were lucky to survive, but it fell to a supporting unit to disperse the horse.

All of this fighting at the ridge was imposing delay on the relief force. At the fort the garrison were struggling to repulse the third assault on the walls. The tribal riflemen were repeatedly scaling the walls, but being beaten back by rifle fire. The sick, lame and lazy had even been rousted out of their sick beds to repulse the waves of tribesmen.

By mid game, the Legion were roughly halfway to the fort, but had suffered about 30% casualties. More importantly the garrison was in dire straights. Tribal reinforcements were arriving continuously, increasing the pressure on the garrison and relief force. The machine gun had been silenced, the crew driven off the walls and tribesmen were on the walls. Only the tower was holding out. The arrival of a unit of Chasseurs d’Afrique in the distance gave little comfort to the hard pressed Legion. 

The relief force at this point threw caution to the wind and sent two units at the double to the fort. By the skin of their teeth, they made it to the gate, which was opened by the single survivor of the unit garrisoning the wall.

The action came down to the last turn of the cards, with the Legion just getting sufficient troops inside the fort to prevent it’s destruction. To do so, they’d left many friends beneath the sands.

The game was played in the usual excellent spirits by Rob and Steve leading the revolting tribesmen, Lawrence and Paul commanding the plodding Legionnaires.

Figures used were Airfix, Strelets, Caesar, Hat and Italeri for the Legion and Italeri and Strelets for the tribesmen. The fort is from Blotz, all other terrain scratch built.

The rules gave a good game with everyone fully involved and some interesting decisions and dilemmas given by the card play.

Sercey off Sumatra - Kiss Me Hardy

 

As part of my preparations for Clotted Lard next month, our annual club Lardy meeting, for which I have planned to run a Kiss Me Hardy game using the 1:700th collection of model ships, I have put together a scenario I have been working on recreating the action fought off the north coast of Sumatra in September 1796 between French Rear-admiral Sercey commanding a squadron of six frigates and a force of two British 74-gun ships of the line commanded by Commodore (Captain) Richard Lucas.

The approximate position for our action fought off the north coast of Sumatra 9th September 1796

Having already fought this scenario once and reported the AAR on JJ's Wargames, you can find a fuller historical outline for this particular battle in the link below, as outlined by Mr William James in is history, from which the basic parameters are drawn.

JJ's Wargames - All at Sea, Sercey off Sumatra

In the first game reported on JJ's, both players fought a more aggressive action than perhaps their historical predecessors intended and so it would be interesting to see if the chaps at club followed the same approach or took a more circumspect approach, particularly from the French, eager to drive off their British antagonists rather than be drawn into a hard fought engagement that would leave them little opportunity to continue their cruise against the rich East Indies merchant traffic, their principle goal.

The theatre of operations, showing the area of this little action after Sercey had led his force up the Malacca Straits taking the country ship Favourite, carrying rice and rum prior to being intercepted by Captain Lucas.

The set-up recreates the situation on the second day of the two forces coming into contact, with the French in line of battle, slightly staggered to allow Sercey to order his following three rearmost ships to potentially move out as a parallel line and double any corresponding line ahead attack from the two British 74's.

This scenario is one of fifty I have written up so far, complete with set up map, victory conditions and ship record cards, this being number 32.

Both sides are able to take advantage of a quartering wind, with the British upwind and able to determine how and when to press their attack.

The table is set up and ready to go .

As mentioned in my previous post on JJ's, one of the interesting anticipations of designing a scenario is that of seeing how the respective players will approach the situation presented and with the playing styles of the players together with the drivers the scenario presents making the likely response sometimes impossible to predict.

In the previous match up, two aggressive commanders went at it apace with the resultant smashed up and captured ships that followed, with neither commander giving or seeking quarter.

As we would see here in this match up, both commands came at the set up, somewhat more cautiously, but with David certainly looking to play to the strengths of the French crews under his command, that rewards their gunnery with extra dice when delivered at long and extreme range and aimed at the rigging, something French gunners were very happy to deliver.

This is a very well matched little action with neither side having a pronounced advantage either in ships or in the initial set up of the respective squadrons.

This formula in KMH means that, yes it is harder to cause hits on an enemy ship at the longer ranges, needing 6's at extreme and 5's and 6's at long range but with 6's always knocking out secondary speed boxes and critical hits aloft always giving the chance to knock out yet more of those secondary boxes and with a particularly well aimed broadside likely to take down a mast.

Sercey signals Régénérée to lead the rearmost three frigates in a doubling manoeuvre as the British three-deckers bear down.

Right from the get-go the French started to deliver this tactic in exemplary fashion, combining the fire of at least two ships against the same target perhaps giving them five dice from each and adding in at least another two or four dice for each firing ship at long or extreme range respectively, and constantly coming up with sixes and the odd critical hit to add to the misery.

  

The view from the British squadron with Arrogant leading Victorious, as the French rearmost ships detach and turn into wind.

Arrogant signals to her consort to prepare to engage the enemy.

As in the previous fight the French opted to split and attempt to catch the British between two groups of fire, only frustrated by the British out-sailing their opponents with some perfect tacking, but all the while being sniped at aloft and seeing their basic speed capability eroded.

Régénérée and Cybèle open fire at the British rigging as Prudente brings up the rear.

For the British, Steve and Ian, representing Captain's Lucas and Clark, were well aware that their best advantage lay in trying to attack the French in detail while their squadron was separated and to bring their enemy in to short and medium range as quickly as possible which would see the French dice benefits negated but in addition their own Jolly Jack Tar gunnery enhanced as the British crews took their revenge in fast and accurate broadsides delivered into much more fragile frigate timbers.

Battle is joined as Prudente at the rear joins her compatriots in firing at British 'sticks' as the two 74's return the salute. In the background Sercey has brought his three frigates onto a parallel course.  

The French tactics were consistent from the start of the action, looking to keep the British at extreme or long range and use their advantage in extra dice to blaze away at the British rigging, with unerring accuracy.

Thus it was that the first half of our game saw this ballet unfold as Rear Admiral Sercey managed to dance around the table like Muhammad Ali would around a  boxing ring, floating like the proverbial butterfly, and stinging like the proverbial bee.

Likewise just as Ali's continual barrage of stinging jabs would infuriate and tire his often heavier, sometimes harder hitting opponents, those opponents were so stung as to throw caution aside and look to move in close for those heavy thumping body shots with their opponent locked into a corner with nowhere to go.

David (Sercey) has a few issues sorting out the heading of his lead group of ships as they loose station and formation just as the British have tacked and come about in pursuit, with Victorious now in the lead and exchanging broadsides with Sercey's flagship Forte.

The result of the initial manoeuvres saw the British tack perfectly to alter course as the French struggled to reform their line to windward of the British, meanwhile keeping up a constant barrage of rigging shots.

As the French squadron circled around the British and rejoined their line on the opposite broadside, the British had taken a bit of a battering aloft and could definitely be described as carrying a cut above the left eye, but with plenty of fight left in them if only they could get close enough.

The new templates I recently acquired proved their worth as the players strove to get the maximum manoeuvres from their ships whilst sailing as close to the wind as they dared.

As the French join up, Victorious fires her four 9-pounder bow chasers to be returned by Forte's two 18-pounder stern chasers.

The stinging French fire had already caused both British ships to loose off frustrated broadsides at long and extreme ranges, that caused minimal damage to their opponents, and so were now determined to use what movement was left to them to get up close and personal and return some of the hurt in spades and try to take a prize to recompense them for their damage and bruised pride.

With the French line rejoined, and the British thoroughly annoyed by the constant sniping at their rigging, Victorious leads the charge to close the range on the three most rearward frigates.

The range is now down to medium and the British firing starts to take effect with the French no longer gaining any advantages and the British pounding on their hulls exposing the lighter ships weaknesses.

As the damage started to take effect and only increase as the range decreased, the drama of the chit draw activation in KMH started to add to the pleasure of this enthralling struggle as the importance of moving first and firing first gathered in intensity, with one side looking to evade the other and the other looking to prevent any such move whilst both hoped to further erode the will to resist in the other.

In an attempt to support his rearmost ships, Sercey brings his van around in support as he desperately looks to take advantage of the damage to British rigging by out sailing his now much slowed opponents.

With the ranges dropping, the firing became general with both sides mixing in stern and bow chaser fire where possible to support their main broadsides.

In addition to the sequence of events taking on an even greater consequence so to the dice rolled to establish what distance the individual vessels would travel during each move as the scores on the die were added to the basic speed which itself may have been reduced due to damage received in the previous exchanges of fire.

The damage aloft for the British would prove decisive in the attempt to close with the French line, as the frigates used their smaller turning radius mixed with their greater basic speed to extricate themselves from a possible close encounter of the 'third-rate' kind.

Seemingly unerringly the last two ships in the French line appeared to be evading the ever slowing British pursuit as the other supporting frigates poured on as much fire as they could between them to further damage the closing third rates still further.

In response the British focussed their attentions on the two most rearward frigates Cybèle  and Prudente who were both now in the medium damage rating, and should they survive in need of repairs back in Reunion, but more importantly likely to strike should they be forced to, by losing a mast or being raked, something that was becoming increasingly more likely as the two 74's closed in.

However Captain Lucas was determined to gain recompense for his efforts and lost spars, signalling the Victorious to be prepared to 'engage the enemy more closely', as the French line and the Prudente in particular sought to evade his oncoming rush. 

Then it happened, a combination of having the move chit out first combined with a particularly useful roll on the movement die saw the Victorious close in on the stern quarter of the Prudente and successfully grappling the small French frigate, as her compatriot ahead neatly side slipped the onrushing Arrogant that carried on to deliver a punishing close range broadside as the Frenchman limped away to join her consorts ahead, leaving the Prudente to her fate.

The Prudente was in a parlous state, the smallest of the French squadron and now very badly shot up having taken the brunt of British frustrations as several full broadsides of 32-pounder round shot crashed into her hull, just as grapples finally took hold from Victorious as Arrogant, having failed a similar attempt on the Cybèle moved in to secure the prize.

The lost Prudente and the badly damaged Cybèle next in line were the price for Sercey's well executed demonstration of damage limitation, leaving his other four vessels practically unscathed with light or no damage, something his ships carpenters would be able to remedy in the following days.

As Sercey wisely withdrew the rest of his squadron, not wishing to become further embroiled with two large British 74's barely scratched around their hulls and with still enough sail aloft to be able to bring their broadsides to bear if not to conduct a chase; the Arrogant seemingly decided not to waste time dealing with the little Prudente and passing in close to her bow delivered the coup de grace with another punishing larboard broadside that left the frigate in a sinking condition and her crew now British prisoners of war.

As always the numbers tell the story of our game in their own matter of fact way with the two British 74's seen below showing their shattered rigging but very much intact hulls and guns.

Captain Lucas may well have some explaining to do to any board of enquiry into his conduct and outcome, with no doubt much grumbling over the lost cordage and canvass to be replaced and the fact that his vessels would be off station whilst the repairs were carried out, but he had at least reduced Sercey's strength by a third with the loss of the Prudente and the badly damaged Cybèle.

The British secure their prize Prudente, which during the struggle to secure it saw the ship succumb and sink as the surviving crew were taken aboard the 74's as prisoners. The two British ships were shredded aloft and in no state to pursue the remaining French ships, with damage no-doubt requiring a return to Bombay or Madras to remedy before they could resume patrol duties

As with the British ship records, so to the French, seen here in sailing order with Sercey's lead four vessels getting away with light in the case of the Seine and Régénérée to no damage on the others, but with the likely need to scavenge guns and cordage from the Cybèle to offset the damaged guns and rigging of the Seine and Régénérée, with the the latter sent off for repairs.

A fascinating game with a classic display of French gunnery tactics from David culminating in a determined come back at the end by Steve and Ian as the British squadron salvaged some pride out of a bruising encounter that at times looked as if they might not even have achieved that.

This latest encounter has confirmed me in my choice of this scenario as a game to run at Clotted Lard, should our guests so choose, and definitely one I look forward to running at a later date.

Thank you to the chaps for providing all the fun and for those interested, all the models are from the Warlord Black Seas range of Napoleonic 1:700th model ships and the sea mat is from Tiny Wargames.