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Trent's Reach Battle Report

This is a report of a miniatures battle game that I recently ran. If you're interested in such things, you may want to check out eGroup's Ironclads page for a good start on further information.

The Setting: Early 1865. The James River, Virginia, near Trent's Reach.

The Confederate ironclads Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Virginia II, commanded by Dave Townsend and Volko Ruhnke, set out to bombard Grant's supply base, many miles off the map. Our plan was for the Virginia II to act as a fire base, bringing broadsides to bear on the enemy fleet, while the other two ships sailed straight for the table edge.

On the opposing side was a Union squadron under Sal Vasta, consisting of the double-turreted monster...er, monitor...Onondaga, with a torpedo boat and a conventional wooden vessel, the Kansas, in support.

Table size restrictions being what they were, the squadrons began at medium gunnery range and damage began to accumulate almost immediately.

Union fire was initially concentrated on the Fredericksburg, which soon lost steam completely due to hull damage and a lost smokestack. At least that sped up the orders writing!

As the Virginia II moved to bring its broadsides to bear, it nearly collided with the Richmond, which diverted its course northwards and lost some progress moving towards the board's edge. The Virginia II circled 'round, continuing a gun duel with the Kansas that the latter was, predictably, getting the worse of. The only critical hit of the game was scored against the Kansas's rudder, which prohibited starboard turns. As a result, the Kansas began a long Jeb Stuart-like circle around the Confederate squadron.

Around this time the Union suffered another bad piece of luck as a gun on the Onondaga blew up. As there's only a 1% chance of this happening, there was much comment on all sides about this confirming Sal's legendarily bad luck.

The Union Torpedo Boat, which had apparently been targetting the immobile Fredericksburg, saw the veering Richmond as a target of opportunity, and rammed it at full steam. Miraculously, the collision dismounted the ironclad's stern gun, rendering it useless, without damaging the tiny Torpedo Boat at all! Fortune made it up to the Confederates when the TB's torpedo failed to go off.

The TB went off in search of other prey. The Fredericksburg was a sitting duck, but this time the TB smashed itself to pieces in the collision. The ironclad took no damage and gave the Kansas the coup de grace on the same turn.

The Richmond now engaged the nearby Onondaga, hoping to plant its spar torpedo in the hull of the behemoth. The faster Union vessel had no trouble dodging the Richmond's clumsy maneuvering. Though the Onondaga lost two more guns, one by explosion (another 1% chance for anyone but Sal!) and the other by a lucky shot, the writing was on the wall for the Richmond and it sank shortly thereafter.

The Virginia II had done much harm to the Kansas and had taken only minor damage in return. Remembering the original mission, and being the only mobile Confederate ironclad, it headed off the edge of the table.

With the only remaining ships being an immobile Fredericksburg and a single-gunned Onondaga, we decided to call it an evening.

This was the first ironclads game for all involved. We used the Smoke on the Water rules, and found them to be adequate. Questions were raised about ramming: the rules explicitly state that you check for ramming at the end of movement, but internal evidence in the rules (as well as common sense) point to the need to check for collisions during movement as well.

The game seemed to move along pretty quickly. Rules explanations and discussions together with actual play took about four hours or so. Not bad for 11 turns with lots of action. Most of our time was spent resolving gunfire.

The scenario was very loosely based on the historical battle of Trent's Reach. Since this was our first outing, we omitted the shoals, obstructions, shorelines, artillery batteries, etc. that featured in the real engagement. We also kept the number of ships fairly low, due to lack of experience, models and players.

The mix of ships seemed to work out fairly well. The Onondaga is by far the most powerful ship on the table, but lucky hits (or explosions!) can affect its combat-worthiness. The other two Union ships can't hope to survive the battle, and the three Confederate ships fall somewhere in between.

Everyone enjoyed themselves, and we agreed that we should try this again sometime soon!

Dave Townsend / townsend@patriot.net / 24 Oct 00

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