The Siege of Big Stone Gap

On September 28th, the citizens of Big Stone Gap go to bed, confident that they will awake to a new day - a day in which the Kingsport military forces finally liberate the town of Sneedville from the grasping claws of the Knoxvillians.  The next morning, they awake to a nightmare.

As a gently rain falls across the town, an entire army of Knoxville's worst appears on the road north.  The little town militia scrambles to make ready a hasty defense, and every man wonders how this could have happened.  How could so many have slipped around behind the powerful Jones' Army?

In reality, the besieging army consists of just 600 regular soldiers and 750 medium horse.  But to the sleepy town of Big Stone Gap, they look grim, capable, and professional.

The Sneedville campaign faces its first siege.  It's a small one, with only 1,350 trained soldiers attacking a defense force of just 200 militia (for a C-class town per William Sylvester).  Better than six-to-one odds is pretty good, but the road into Big Stone Gap follows the Powell River through a narrow valley - a natural choke-point that might negate the Knoxvillian weight of numbers.

If you need to know the stats of the Big Stone Gap garrison commander, you can roll your own or use this set that I rolled up.  These numbers were generated by rolling percentile dice, and the stats are those suggested by Henry Hyde in his recent tome, Wargaming Campaigns. He uses these numbers (abbreviations are explained in The Rules) to determine the likely success of various strategies to end a siege quickly.  As you can see, our militia Commander is a consummate politician, smart and likable, but that's about it.

Int 79, Init 20, Cou 28, Cha 81, Str 24, Hea 24

Have at it, fellas.  What hope do the hometown militia have?  They are in a defensible position, but they are volunteers who are outnumbered almost 6:1 by a professional army.

The Harlan Blitz arrives on September 29th.  How long does it take them to crack the Gap?  How do they do it?  What are their losses?

That's all the information I have at this point.  You've got the terrain, the orders of battle, the direction of contact.  Everything else is up to your discretion. You can look up more specific information on the area to answer your questions.  You can use the rule set and scale that is most comfortable to you.  Play it as a pike and shot or 1945-era tech or even, as one viewer suggested a post-apocalyptic battle, it's up to you.  And if you want your version thrown into the canon, post results on a blog or social media site of your choosing.  Just make sure you let us know in the comments where to find it!

[Let's set a deadline of August 8th for results.]

The Battle of Morristown

The date is September 29th.  As a light rain begins to fall at dawn, two armies begin a fateful march to destiny.

Roger's Army, fresh off the success of the taking of Bean Station, turns south to their primary objective, Morristown.

The calm before the storm

The Knoxville Army of the East, newly formed, turns north to meet the invading army.  They are determined to defend their homeland soil, but outnumbered and wary of a second invading army - Greene's Army - stationed just a scant fifteen miles to the west.  The nearest friendly force waits far to the east - a hard four-day march away.

Both armies are at full strength.  That means every regiment of horse and foot has 750 men, and every battery of artillery has fifteen guns manned by a crew of ten.  Kingsport brings six regiments of mixed foot (4,500 men), four regiments of cavalry (3,000 horse), and two batteries of guns (thirty cannons) to the fight.  Knoxville can only field five regiments of line infantry (3,750 men), four regiments of cavalry (3,000 horse), and no guns.

Here's what the terrain and local roads look like:

Roger's Army of Kingsport

• Commander: Int 56, Init 75, Cou 13, Cha 42, Str 66, Hea 84, CCR: 3
• Greeneville Rifles (light infantry)
• Kingsport 1st Line
• Kingsport 2nd Line
• Hawkins Line
• Bays Mountain Boys (heavy infantry)
• Dollywood Exiles (heavy infantry)
• Rogersville Dragoons (light horse)
• Jonesville 1st Lancers (medium horse)
• Jonesville 2nd Lancers (medium horse)
• Kingsport Hussars (heavy cavalry)
• Greeneville 1st Battery
• Greeneville 2nd Battery

Knoxville's Army Group East

• Commander: Int 65, Init 96, Cou 10, Cha 46, Str 36, Hea 2, CCR: 5
• White Pine Line
• Dandridge Line
• Morristown 1st Line
• Morristown 2nd Line
• Morristown 3rd Line
• Jefferson City Dragoons (light horse)
• Kodak 1st Lancers (medium horse)
• Kodak 2nd Lancers (heavy horse)
• Morristown Hussars (heavy horse)

Since this occurs on the 29th, the Knoxville contingent no longer benefits from the morale boost inspired by a signing bonus.  Marching a week in the rain will do that to an army.

That's all the information I have at this point.  You've got the terrain, the orders of battle, the direction of contact.  Everything else is up to your discretion. You can look up more specific information on the area (here is a link to a recent topographical map) to answer your questions.  You can use the rule set and scale that is most comfortable to you.  Play it as a pike and shot or 1945-era tech or even, as one viewer suggested a post-apocalyptic battle, it's up to you.  And if you want your version thrown into the canon, post results on a blog or social media site of your choosing.  Just make sure you let us know in the comments where to find it!

[UPDATE: Let's set a deadline of Sunday, August 7 for results.]

The Balloon Goes Up

Last night we tallied the votes, ran the Knoxville and Kingsport strategies through the computer, and found out who would be doing what to whom and where and with what.  You can watch the process here, or skip down to read all about it.

Before we get into it, I should point out one small editorial change that I made.  I've changed the names of the armies.  Instead of naming them after the town they start in - that led to a lot of confusion as you might have the Jonesville First Line in the Jonesville army marching on Jonesville - I've given each army a slightly altered name, but one that retains the original character.  For example, The Army of Jonesvill is now Jones' Army.  You'll see how much easier that is below the fold.

If you ask Mr. Wargaming, things could not have gone worse for Kingsport.  Our weekly random event indicated bad omens for all of their forces.  All three armies would travel at half speed for the next week.  Combine that with the selection of Plan Safety Dance, and that really opens things up for Knoxville.

Jones' Army won't reach Sneedville until the morning of the 29th!  Even worse, Roger's Army crosses the border on the 24th, giving Knoxille an extra three or four days to get their act together.  Instead of a blitzkrieg, Kingsport winds up with a blitzcrawl.  They'll take the crossroads north of Lake Cherokee without a fight, but marching on Morristown, Knoxville's second largest city, puts them at risk of being surrounded by Knoxville's two largest armies.

On the flip side, things could not have gone better for Knoxville:

• Thanks to a signing bonus, the boys in uniform gain a +1 morale boost for the first week of the campaign.  With no battles in that time frame, it doesn't make a real difference, but the thought was nice.
• The Sneedville 300 pulled back to Tazewell rather than squander their lives for a meager couple of days of defense.  In retrospect, they might have done better to stay, given the Kingsport difficulty in moving their forces.  Too late now.
• With the implementation of the Cornerback Blitz, Knoxville takes the offensive in the north.  We'll call that little deep strike the Harlan Blitz, and it puts Kingsport in a real bind.  The nearest army - Jones - is parked in Sneedville and can't leave lest Knoxville take it right back.  The only available force is all the way down in Bull's Gap.
• Plan Weeb Hammer allows the major Knoxville forces to gather in Corryton and White Pine completely unmolested.  The Army of the East is in good position to intercept any force south of Lake Cherokee.  The Army of the West has a good line to the regions or south north of the Lake.
• The only fly in the ointment is the Army of the Pines, located just north of the Cumberland Gap.  If Tazewell falls to Kingsport, they will be out of supply.  They can't just sit there and risk being cut off.
• Meanwhile, there was some confusion in Bean Station.  Two companies of soldiers stationed there never received orders.  When Roger's Army appeared on the horizon the commanders had a falling out, leading to one company marching south to join the Army of the East and the other marching north to Tazewell.  The latter connected with the Sneedville 300, resulting in a small force of 450 soldiers uncertain of their next move.  It all depends on what happens around the map.

Here's how things stand on the 28th:

Note the flagpoles and arrows are color coded.
Red for Knoxville, Blue for Kingsport

We still need to run the numbers and see where the first direct confrontation will occur - and what forces will be there, but the picture is a lot clearer now.  Kingsport will take Sneedville, and they have secure supply lines, but Knoxville is anything but out of the fight.  They have a strong positional advantage, and a slight numerical advantage, over the invaders.

Bad Place to Fight

 Who chose this terrain?

What a nightmare for everyone involved.  This part of these United States is simply terrible for fighting a war.  It's all meandering rivers and high ridges and narrow valleys and woods everywhere you look.

That shot is a bird's eye view of the prize - the important crossroads of Sneedville lies in the center and you can see what a maze it is to get into and out of the place.  Unlike most wargamers, we aren't going to wave away the challenges of conducting a campaign here.  We're going to embrace them.  We're going to do what we can to faithfully translate the labyrinth onto our tables, and really sink our teeth into the very real difficulties that military men face on a regular basis.

Yeah, it sucks.  So what are you going to do about it?

We might wind up with a lot of scattered forces.  It might be smarter to leave a regiment here and a regiment there to hold those narrow passes and wide bridges.  This part of the map is absolutely filled with defensible terrain.  Most of those defenses hold men marching north-south, however, and our armies are more likely to march east-west along the valleys.  That means very little 'sneaking up' on the enemy, as there's only one road to take, and once you are on it...you are on it.

Things look better in the south.

Once again, looking east from a point hovering over Knoxville you can see that the southern portions of the map include plenty of rivers and ridges, but also the sort of broad, flat farmland that the lads prefer to slog through and fight over.  Plenty of space for smartly dressed ranks, don't you know?

Knoxville's Contingencies

The leaders of Knoxville aren't stupid.  With diplomatic negotiations grinding nowhere fast, they'll have ordered their miliary to make plans for the unlikely event that Kingsport takes the unprecedented step of invading soveriegn Knoxville territory.  As you read weight these options, remember that Kingsport has three sizable armies already on the border - we're talking three to five regiments of foot, three or four regiments of horse, and maybe a unit of artillery for support.  Dividing up the Knoxville forces into any more than four armies means watching all those little forces get gobbled up in turn.  These plans generally allow for armies of a size capable of threatening the worst the Kingsportians have to offer.

With that said, let's look at one plan that has to be implemented - forced on Knoxville by terrain considerations - two plans that need a "go-no go" decision first, and then look at two mutually exclusive possibilities.

Plan Fort Cumberland: The heavy dashed line shown below is the Cumberland Mountain - thank you, Caleb - a high and impassable ridge split only by the Cumberland Gap to the east, and Pennington Gap to the west.  Knoxville has no choice but to combine all the forces north of that ridgeline into Pineville.  It isn't a big force, but it does present Knoxville with a means of threatening the northern flank of a Kingsport march through Tazewell.  It also allows them a chance of storming Pennington Gap, which leaves open the choice of driving for Sneedville from the west or Kingsport proper.

Plan Cornerback Blitz: The only question left in the north is whether to send the troops in Harlan and Evarts to rendezvous in Pineville, or to swing around the north, force Big Stong Gap, and then play havoc with Kingsport supply lines.  If left alone, they may even be able to lay siege to Kingsport itself and force an early end to the violence.  Note that, at only four companies, this is an understrength unit of Line Infantry, and while capable of doing damage to the countryside, they won't last long under serious pressure.  Whether this plan is adopted or not, one of the Lancer units in Evarts will head west to lend support to the Army of Pineville.

Plan Alamo Shmalamo:  The two little companies of infantry in Sneedville will be the first to realize that Knoxville is under attack.  They might stay and fight it out - forcing Kingsport to waste valuable time rooting them out of the approaching valley or driving them back from the bridge over the Clinch River.  Alternatively, if this plan is adopted, those two companies hustle back to lend their strength to the forces in Tazewell/Middlesboro.

Now we turn our attention to the last question of the day and the biggest, at least in terms of the forces at hand.  Once again, the terrain and road network force our hands and leave us with two reasonable options.  These two plans are mutually exclusive, and the High Command has to choose just one of them.

Plan Polar Vortices:  In the event Plan Polar Vortices is selected, the defense of Knoxville will be divided into roughly two zone, north and south.  All of the forces north of the line will mobilize in Tazewell, ready to strike back at Sneedville or swing south toward Bean Harbor as the situation demands.

Plan Weeb Hammer: So named because it divides the defense of Knoxville along an east-west axis.  Instead of a Zone defense, this plan provides for a powerful one-two punch as the forces nearest Kingsport converge into an early spoiler force, buying time for a follow-up thrust by a second army centered in the Corryton area.  You're looking at 5 regiments of foot and support for the eastern force and a bigger force with five regiments of foot, including two grenadiers, and artillery and lots of horse.

We'll throw these polls up on the YouToob channel with a link back here so that everyone can read up in more detail.  As always, feel free to make a case that any or all of these plans are garbage and make a case for your own plans for Knoxville.  You never know - the High Command might just agree with you!

Keep an eye on the Community Tab of the channel - they will show up there over the next few hours.

Kingsport's War Plans

 Kingsport, having mustered their armies all along the Knoxville border, now faces the difficult task of formulating a war plan. Before we go over the three major thrusts suggested by viewers over on the channel, let's review a couple of things.  Capturing and holding Sneedville is of paramount importance.  Protecting Kingsport is obviously important as well.  The northwest corner of the map is a fortress.  High ridges and few passes means that the Knoxvillians have considerable freedom of movement up there.  The means either crossing over early, or holding back a reserve force should the Knoxvillians get frisky.

Operation Northwind throws everything into the mix right away. Jonesville sweeps up through the Pennington Gap to disrupt mobilization efforts.  Rogersville takes Sneedville, with an eye toward swinging due west or turning south based on the enemy reaction.  Greeneville follows up into Morristown to guard that vital I-81 corridor.

Operation Bottleneck has Jonesville sweep south through Sneedville then march up to contain any counter-thrust by securing the Cumberland Gap.  Meanwhile, Rogersville and Greeneville sweep down to seize the important crossroads of Morristown and White Pine.  An audacious plan, it doesn't leave anything behind to protect Kingsport should one of the thrusts fail.  By marching through Bean Station, this plan offers a little more flexibility in the center part of the map.

Operation Full Thrust also goes all-out on the attack. Rogersville sweeps down through Bean Station and Morristown with an option to swing north if Jonesville needs assistance. Here, Greeneville sweeps south through Newport, bypassing White Pine to drive on Knoxville itself.  Jonesville pushes through Sneedville to handle things in the north.

Operation Safety Dance goes all-in on taking Sneedville.  Here, Jonesville takes the prize, but moves to hold the northern forces behind the Cumberland.  Rogersville takes Morristown, but Greeneville simply holds its position.  They may shift quarters to Rogersville to allow for maximum flexibility, but their main goal is to act as a reserve.  Let the two northern armies bleed the enemy, then counter-punch hard to secure Sneedville and a lasting peace.

Bear in mind that the army of Rogersville will be fit for duty first, Jonesville the following day, and finally Greeneville one day later.  Whatever plan is selected, the forces will most likely move out the day they are ready for action.  That means Jonesville has a day of action before Rogersville swings into gear.  Greeneville will follow up the next day, meaning that whichever plan is selected, they will wind up being a bit of a reserve force due to the need to play catch-up.

There is a poll up over on the YouTube which lists each of these plans.  Go vote, and be advised that we're trying to preserve the fog of war - at least until we decide what Knoxville will do in response to this dastardly attack in the motherland.

The Knoxville Dilemma

 Let's take a look at things from the point of view of Knoxville.  Diplomatic negotiations are breaking down, and you doubt the Kingsportians are stupid enough to march to war over tiny little Sneedville.  Yet caution dictates that you formulate a plan just in case the Kingsport War Party gets their way.  Here is a map that shows the distribution of your forces, as well as the likely mustering points of the enemy (the flags).

As this post goes live, my initial thoughts on mustering Knoxville are presented in the "Armies of Knoxville" page.  Plan MW had them getting the biggest possible armies together in Tazewell and Jefferson City as fast as possible, with a reserve force up in Pineville and a strong counter-punching force in Kodak.

Looking at the situation again, a couple of possibilities present themselves:

• Harlan and Evarts can throw together an understrength regiment of foot (600 men) with two full regiments of horse (1500).  Why not send all those men and half the horse on a wild left hook into Big Stone Gap?  A small spoiler force would take a long time to develop, but the run down to Kingsport would force the enemy keep a big part of his force behind.
• Consolidating everything from Tazewell North into the fortress behind the Cumberland Gap.  (For those who don't know, the city of Middlesboro sits right at the mouth of one of the more important passes through a 1200-foot high ridgeline.)  Pull everything in the south into two groups - one in Jefferson City and one in Kodak.  That would provide three strong forces to begin the arduous task of pushing the enemy out of Knoxville territory, instead of four smaller forces.

There are certainly aspects of this that I've missed.  You might be able to come up with a much better plan than either of these.  Let me know what you would do if faced with this challenge.

Perspective

Friend of the channel Caleb Hines provides this useful view of the terrain from  the Kingsport point of view.  Does this change how you look at things?

Hello World!

The next major project for The Joy of Wargaming will be something a little different. I'm not going to play any of the battles out on my tabletop (if I can help it).

You Are.

I've got a full explanation over at The Joy of Wargaming, but for you readers, let me give you a quick rundown.  I used a couple of random number generators to pick out a random US county and the numbers came up Union, TN.  That particular county is way too small for a sizable wargame campaign, so I looked at the surrounding area - roughly 100 miles across - and that winds up putting the campaign directly between Knoxville and Kingsport/Johnson City.  We'll use those as our Capital cities and build a couple of evenly matched forces from there.  Luckily, the real world provides us with a very interesting set of terrain features.

God and history have done all the work for us, providing us with some interesting range-and-valley terrain in the north, lakes and rivers in the center, and woods and ridges in the south.  We're going to use real place names, including roads and rivers and towns, but this is strictly an 'imaginations' campaign.  We'll take off with flights of fancy, and avoid all the real-world politics that the perpetually aggrieved use to ruin everything nice.

The next thing we need to talk about is victory conditions.  Obviously, whoever controls Sneedville at the end of the war wins the campaign, but we need some secondary objectives to allow for strategies beyond just throwing every man, horse, and gun at Sneedville.  So if you one side can get an army into the outskirts of the enemy capitol and lay a successful siege, then the opponent will sue for terms and automatically forfeit Sneedville.  Instead of a full blow siege operation, we'll roll 2d6 at the start of each day of the siege - if that roll is equal to or greater than the number of days in the siege then the siege continues for another day.  If it is less than the number of days, then the besieged side loses the campaign.  Note that this gives the besieged nation anywhere from three to thirteen days to get a relief force together and break the siege.

We're going to run the campaign until winter sets in for good.  I'm not sure what that means exactly - it will take more than just the first snowfall to stop things.  This will likely be a judgement call on the GM's part.  It all depends on how frequently snowfall occurs.  If we get a full week of heavy snow that would do the trick.  Ten days of alternating snow would also do it.  Where exactly do we draw the line?  There are so many possibilities, it's hard to say at this point.  All I know for sure is that we'll know it when we see it.

The next thing we need to talk about is the orders of battle.  That's where the Pages come in handy:

• The Forces of Kingsport
• The Forces of Knoxville

Note that we only know where the Armies of Kingsport are at the moment.  They got the jump - call it a diplomatic coup in which Knoxville thought the mobilization was a bluff - leaving the Knoxvillians scrambling to assemble their scattered forces.  Do the two companies of line infantry that start the campaign in Sneedville fight a delaying action?  Or do they fall back to add their numbers to a strong counter-punch with the main body of Knoxville Forces?  That's up to you, dear reader.

The last thing we need to talk about is victory conditions.  Here it gets a little complicated.  The Kingsportians have launched an attack on the Knoxvillians and are looking to take control of Sneedville.  They have to do so before the weather turns too miserable to fight.  Fortunately for them, they caught Knoxville unprepared, and the armies of Knoxville won't mobilize until the day the Kingsportian forces cross the frontier.  Fortunately for us, we can leave the end date vague and random.  Instead of a cut-and-dried end date, we'lll use our best judgement on the weather.  Obviously, one snowstorm won't do it, and just as obviously a full week of heavy snow will call an end.  Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes is our end date.