USS Essex versus HMS Guerriere

And now we come to the closing act of the year 1812 at sea. The encounter between the USS Essex and HMS Guerriere.
Now to the set-up. As the Essex is armed with carronades she will want to start the action at close range. If the Guerriere knows about the Essex and her armament then she will not want to close. The Guerriere will be given three chances to detect the Essex's carronades but only has a 1 in 6 chance of success. The Guerriere has overall an approximately 40% chance of success which feels about right, each individual chance represents the closing of the range until if she has failed all three she has entered the range of Essex and her carronades.
The Guerriere is either confident in her abilities or ignorant about the Essex's as she failed every chance given to respond. A couple more die rolls and Essex is placed directly astern of the Guerriere at close range with the wind directly behind them. So naturally the bow chasers of the Essex anounce that battle has commenced and misses.
Positioning Essex behind Guerriere means that their is no reason to fight instead it just remains a chase. Time for take 2, I will reposition the Essex a little bit off to starboard.
Now Guerriere turns to starboard and rakes Essex's bow causing damage and crew losses.
Essex turns to Port and rakes the stern of Guerriere causing damage but more importantly damaging her rudder. Unable to turn Guerriere must sail straight until she rolls a six. Essex caught on a different tack drops out of artillery range.
Then the fog rolls in ending the battle.
Well that was short and downright inconclusive.

Cambra1 1917 - Planning the campaign

Okay now I have my organizations mapped how man troops do I need? The following order of battle focuses on troops involved in the initial assault.

Order of Battle

Germans

Group Caudry

9th Reserve Division

• 395th Regiment – Not engaged
• 6th Reserve Regiment – Not engaged
• 19th Reserve Regiment

54th Division

• 27th Reserve regiment – Not engaged, Group Reserve
• 84th Infantry regiment
• 90th Reserve regiment
• 387th Landwehr regiment – from 20th Landwehr

20th Landwehr Division

• 384th Landwehr regiment
• 386th Landwehr regiment – not engaged

British

IIIrd Corp

• 12th Division
• 35th brigade
• C battalion
• 36th Brigade
• F battalion
• 37th Brigade - 2nd echelon

20th Division

• 59th Brigade - 2nd echelon
• 60th Brigade
• A battalion – less 1 company
• 61st Brigade
• I battalion

6th Division

• B & H battalions
• 16th brigade
• 18th brigade - 2nd echelon
• 71st brigade

IVth Corp

51st Division

• D & E battalions – less 1 company
• 152nd brigade
• 153rd brigade
• 154th brigade - 2nd echelon

62nd Division

• G Battalion + 1 company
• 36th Division
• 107th brigade – not participating
• 108th brigade – not participating
• 109th brigade

Commentary
If the Germans are deployed according to doctrine elements of 5 regiments each with a battalion in the front line are caught up in the attack, possibly closer to four if you consider that not not all units are being hit equally. The British are attacking with 11 brigades. It does quite match up for an easy game.
On the British left flank, the attack of the 109th brigade is almost entirely against the the 384th Landwehr. So we can reduce it to 4 versus 10. On the right the 19th Reserve is only partially engaged by the 35th brigade attacks it. This makes it 3 versus 9. That's the flanks taken care of.
In the centre each German battalion is attacked by three brigades, odds of six to one, just in the first wave with another six following up and that’s just the assault brigades. It might be easier to do them half scale. So three British battalions versus a half battalion of Germans. That’s possible with the troops I have got painted at the moment. So what more do I need to get and paint.
Now for tanks. Most assault battalions have a company of 12 tanks attached organized into 4 platoons. This could be upto four models, but for the moment both for aesthetic and financial reasons each company will be represented by two models.
So on that basis I will need the following reinforcements.
British
5x Tanks
1x British battalion
1x Trench Mortar company
1x MMG company
Germans
2x battalions
MMG
mortars
artillery
Damn it, I am not even half way. May need a simpler battle or to get my painting mojo back.

Cambrai 1917 - a British Brigade on the attack

Now for the other side of the hill, the British. The basic source I am using here is the British official history fro the Battle of Cambrai as well as Paddy Griffith's book "Battle Tactics on the Western Front".
The division has three brigades each of four battalions and at Cambrai was attacking on frontage of about 2000 meters with two to three brigades in the line. The brigade itself would attack with two battalions in the first echelon and one each in a second and third echelon. The first echelon battalions would have two distinct functions half the battalion would be supporting the tanks while the other half would become the trench garrison or stops. The second echelon battalion would appear to act as support for the first echelon battalions rather than have a distinct mission of its own.
A British platoon at this time has four squads, two machine gun each with a Lewis Gun and two rifle grenade. This gives a company a RoF of 4 of which two can be indirect. The lack of LMG's for each platoon will for the moment at least means that the battalion deploys only company stands and not platoon.
Brigade headquarters

• 1x Command stand

4x Infantry battalions

• 1x Command stand
• 4x Company stands

Brigade Trench Mortar company

• 1x Command stand?
• 2x 3" stokes mortars

Brigade Machine Gun Company

• 1x Command stand?
• 4x Vickers MMG's

There are several ideas that I am toying with. The first idea is to allow each company to be replaced by a platoon sized cadre if it is destroyed. This will require more figures so I don't fancy its chances at the moment.
Next is to allow for Tank-infantry teams to be formed. This would allow for the increased co-operation which is said to have occurred at Cambrai except for the 51st Highland Division.Needs more research first as I think some modern research is challenging
Finally the use of one battalion as porters does open up the possibility of using the ammunition rules. Warfare on the Western front would normally not require any ammunition rules as there is no shortages of ammunition worth worrying about. What you do have is a difficulty in moving it forward to the front line troops. Hence only the attacker has to worry about supplies and only for those troops who cross no mans land.
That's it for the moment, time to paint up some figures and build more trenches.