Gentlemen,
Alas, there was good news and bad news about the ACW battle. The Rebs did indeed reach a Rebel Major Victory by the time we had to end the game, but we were only at about turn 65 of 165.
The scenario General Mihalik put together was a 'what-if': General Joseph Johnston rode to Vicksburg and personally ordered Pemberton to get his army out and meet with Johnston's army at Jackson, Mississippi. The map was a long east-west map, with Jackson about 1/4 from the eastern edge. In both eastern corners were exit hexes for the Rebs. Jackson had 12,000 points worth of geographic objectives.
Some of Johnston's Army of Relief (Walker's 2-brigade division and a handful of cavalry) started on the map, guarding the southwest corner. Pemberton's army entered via a road in the upper west. Grant's army was located somewhere (the Yanks will have to provide more detail) in the southwest.
Walker's division and the cav was beat up badly while trying to slow the Yanks down, but most of Pemberton's army was able to get past the Yanks. (We lost all of our supply wagons, but fortunately there were no points for supply in the scenario!)
Bob Weir, Paul Bruffell, and I basically rotated control of the two Rebel armies throughout the 3 days, depending on who was available. The biggest challenge with rotating through commanders was deciding on and carrying out a focused strategy. Some felt it would be an easy win to just force march across the map and out through the exit hexes. Others felt this wouldn't provide much 'fun'. It was interesting to spend several turns setting things up one way, then get pulled away to some other activity, only to return several hours later and see things going (strategically) in an entirely different direction. (This was also evident in command and control: Some weren't as confident as others about the importance of command ranges.)
The Rebs needed 15,000 for a Major Victory. Adding in the 12,000 objective points we would lose by abandoning Jackson we had to have 27,000 to guarantee a Major win.
Many of the Rebel forces made it entirely off the map, and more were safely on the other side of the creek running north & south through Jackson and would have been able to add to the score. Unfortunately, the Rebs left far too many stragglers (in my opinion) as rear guard units. These were quickly gobbled up, not only decreasing from the points available to us to get off the map but increasing the number of points we would have to have to guarantee the Major.
For me, the most exciting part of the battle were the last few turns, when Yanks began emerging from the woods southwest of Jackson. The Rebs had about a division or two worth of units (of mixed commands!) still on the road west of Jackson. I felt like Lee at Appomatox! [V] Some of the Reb infantry deployed to provide a screen so the remaining artillery could cross. The artillery was one turn away from the getting across when George Denney had to bow out. He was the last remaining Yank, so we called the battle.
The final score was just shy of 21,000 points, a Reb Major Victory. We still had about as many units already across the river who could have made it to the exits as we had on the west side, so even if we had lost ALL of the units on the west we MIGHT have still had enough for a Major Victory, but who knows.
Rotating command had its challenges, to be sure, but it was great fun. Not only did it allow those who wanted to to participate in other parts of the convention*, but it provided more of the fog of war I enjoy. ("You did WHAT while I was gone [:0] ?!?")
(* = I played -- and WON! -- my first Panzer Campaign game. Of course, I was given the Axis at Arnhem, so I definitely had the odds stacked in my favor. Still, for only having been provided 7 turns of 'tutoring', primarily by Mike Laabs, I was thrilled to be anything more than a speed bump to the Allies. My thanks to Gary Cobleigh for putting that tournament together, too. I even got a medal for being on the winning side!)
My thanks to Mike Mihalik for putting this blind scenario together. Based on what he saw, he might tweak it to make the Jackson objectives worth even more. (As Ken Miller, one of the Yank opponents, pointed out, the objectives points should be such that if the Rebs retreat their entire army and abandon Jackson, the best they could get would be a draw. That way, they would need to at least attempt to inflict some casualties in rear guard fighting to garner a victory.)
My thanks, too, to Bob Weir and Paul Bruffell, who had the brunt of the Rebel control in the game. I heard there was another Reb who filled in at times, but he and I never crossed paths at this battle. Also, I want to thank the many Yanks who led the overwhelming assault on Jackson: George Denney, Ken Miller, Jim Gleason, and Dave Klebbe (with Mike Mihalik himself stepping in at the end, when George was left by himself, to help move those throngs of Yanks along).
I'll make a separate entry on my overall thoughts on the convention later, but I knew many would want to know how the battle ended.
Your humble servant,
Gen 'Dee Dubya' Mallory
David W. Mallory
ACW - General, 3/2/I/AotM (Club President & Cabinet Member)
CCC - Lieutenant, Georgia Volunteers, Southern Regional Department, Colonial American Army