Played 29 December 2002
| Scenario | Forces, Miniatures | Picture of Gaming Table | Game Pictures & Narrative (4 pages) |
The models used on the Union side arranged in their historical deployment - in column with gunboats lashed to larger ships.
Warning! there are a lot of ship substitutions with the models we had available. If you find this disturbing, go no further!
|
||||||
| Scenario (Top)
This game was meant to be a scaled down version of Mobile
Bay. The Confederate fleet was kept to its historic composition,
though Fort Morgan's complement of guns was greatly scaled down (as much
for play balance as for not having a proper miniature model representation
of it!). Fort Gaines was assumed to be too far away for any real
effect and was not considered. The Union fleet was reduced to 3 ironclads
(from the actual 4 that participated in the battle) and 6 wooden vessels
(from 14). For both fleets (and of course, Fort Morgan), a great
number of substitutions were made from the models that were available.
Finally, readers knowledgeable about the battle and/or the geography of
Mobile Bay must forgive my depiction of Mobile Point - from my research,
it is flat and sandy with little elevation (in the location of Fort Morgan,
at least), but the best terrain I had available with respect to size and
shape was...ummm...well, you'll see....
|
||||||
Forces, Miniatures (Top)
Rules used were Smoke on the Water. The scenario allowed for the provision for Admiral Farragut's tactic, repeated from his taking of Port Hudson in March 1863, of lashing smaller sidewheelers to the port side of the larger Hartford class ships. The purpose of this was to allow the bigger vessel to quickly turn to port (by having the smaller vessel reverse engines) after bypassing Mobile Point in order to quickly bring their large broadsides into action more quickly. |
||||||
|
|
||||||
| Picture of Gaming Table (Top) | ||||||
| The game was set up on a 9' by 5' ping pong table (see below) using cloth of various colours to mark the Mobile channel and shallows. A sheet of clear vinyl was placed over this (an idea originally from my wife, April). The vinyl is something I'd recommend to any naval gamer; storing it rolled up produces convincing looking waves (ripples). Plus, for those naval gamers who, like I, don't base their rigged and delicate ship models, the vinyl allows you to gently push models, reducing the chances of bunging up the works by lifting and moving. | ||||||
| Dark blue cloth represented the deep channel while shades of brown the shallows to either side. Transparent cloth of various colours over the blue cloth edges was used to make the transition from brown to blue seem a little more gradual. | ||||||
 |
 |
 |