Savannah 1779

I've wanted to do this battle since I saw Greg Novak's version with Volley & Bayonet, years ago. That was on his excellent blog, which has gone from us now with his untimely death in 2012. (I wish now that I'd saved his wargame pics from his refight / campaign).
 
I have placed his scenario for the battle/campaign with Volley and Bayonet at the end of this post - which I would prefer to use V&B 'proper' for at some stage.

This version was a quicker play in order to test some terrain and unit numbers, of course using Field of Battle. (3rd edition of this epic rule-set now out).

Savannah features a Franco-American attack on the British defended coastal town: Admiral d'Estaing and the American Maj Gen Benjamin Lincoln, would try to take the robust defensive positions that Swiss-born soldier of fortune, and commander of the British troops, Brigadier Augustine Prevost has put in place.

The town would be stormed by French and American troops who knew that time was running out. Not only were French ships rife with scurvy; but chances would increase with each passing day that French ships at anchor would be located and destroyed by the British fleet.

The scenario also features Irish troops in French service (and in redcoats), under Count Dillon, whose ancestors could be counted among the early flight of the first Wild Geese to leave Ireland for France, under McCarthy and Sarsfield in 1689 and 1691; ...and whose troops, in tandem with their French masters, might have found some dangerously revolutionary and rebellious ideas to take home with them whilst in the Americas, which could blossom into fruition a mere ten years later...(well, that's the theory).

 
(This version of the scenario based on the excellent version for British Grenadier in this scenarios book).

The actual battle would see 1,000 Franco-American casualties, with minimal losses among the British, whose defenses would prove nigh impregnable. The game would end in similar fashion...

 

It's just like the map above ....right?

 The Allies have good numbers, but Class III defences / trenches, and massed heavy guns, will give the British a massive advantage.

 In reality, the flanking maneuvers were mere demonstrations; in the game they would prove to be the main thrusts.

 The French and Americans had massed their cannon on the nearby high ground.

 ...with some early success, forcing redcoats back from the defences. But their success, would be short lived.

'Oh do take care down there dear. I'll just stay cosy on the ship shall I?'

 

 American assault on their left goes in.

 ...supported by Dillon's Franco-Irish.

 The centre seemed possible to take, ...until the British artillery opened up...

 A massive loss to the Americans however, as the excellent Brig Gen Laurens is killed by a cannonball.

 Massing for the assault on the left, even as Laurens' troops are put out of command in the attack is badly stalled, allowing British to pour fire on the massed battalions.

 French rout in the centre. The British cannon had all the luck here.

 The left becomes a morass, as Laurens' command are simply in the way now.

 Eventually the assault on the left would go in, but substantial losses on the flanks would be the order of the day...

 On the right, horrible casualties from cannon would be overcome to eventually permit an assault on the entrenched British.

It would be for naught however ...as morale points were bled away. The French hoped to get their attacks in before the Army Morale card came up. They pass one morale check, then fail the second, getting only one battalion within spitting distance of the town. They withdraw in frustration.

Another excellent game, and proof that troops good defences in FoB are extremely hard to shift.

Below is Greg Novak's excellent version of the wider scenario and campaign for V&B: