AAR: Yazoo River, 1862

Three showed for play of IRONCLADS scenario 5 "First Encounter". This is an 1862 action with the rebel ram Arkansas steaming down the Yazoo river in Mississippi, meeting three Yankee warships: the armored Carondelet, a smallish wooden ram Queen of the West and the tiny tinclad Tyler. It is an intense and bloody action on a very narrow river with lots of shoals and ramming possibilities--some points of the river are only two or three spaces wide. The Confederate goal is to simply get Arkansas off the downriver map edge; the Union goal is stop it. We played the scenario twice.

First play through was with me playing Carondelet, Bob taking the two wooden vessels, and Ryan as the Arkansas. The Union send Queen of the West to lead, letting her heavily armored bow soak up Confederate shot. This worked up to the point where Arkansas rammed and crippled her. Carondelet gave Arkansas a ram in return, doing minor damage but slowing her. The rebel ship pushed through and moved downriver, with Carondelet and Tyler in a stern chase, chipping away at the Confederate armor. Tyler was badly damaged by return fire and was unable to close enough to get a decisive shot. however, through some good gunnery and several stern rams, Carondelet managed to put Arkansas under at the last minute. Hard fought and very close. Ryan said he misplayed his gun ammo type--you want solid shot for attacking the Carondelet and shell for the two wooden ships, but to do that you have to be able to guess which guns are going to be able to fire at which targets.Just a couple of turns of the right ammo type could easily have disabled Carondelet's bow guns, which would likely have let Arkansas get away.

In the second play through, I took the rebel ironclad. I decided not to waste time with fancy maneuvering, but to rely on my heavy ram to just plow through them if need be. The Union again led with Queen of the West, which Ryan maneuvered quite well; he forced me into a bow-to-bow ram, which did a lot of damage to me although it crippled Queen. I sank her with gunfire while Carondelet came around the river bend. Carondelet attempted to ram me, but excellent Confederate gunnery (i.e., really good dice) at point blank range shot off her ram and punched holes her hull, resulting in a boiler explosion; she took on water and grounded herself on a shoal to avoid sinking. At the same time, more excellent gunnery (more good dice) set Tyler ablaze; I followed up with a ram and put her under. Arkansas had taken quite a bit of self-inflicted damage from the rams and was low in the water, but she was still mobile and able to steam safely downriver to victory.

Two great games in about 4 hours of play. I'm not much into US Civil War history, but the maneuvering constraints of a narrow river and fast current make this a really interesting scenario.