"How about a Very American Civil War" Topic

I know there was a failed Kickstarter that was attempting to do for early 20th century America what the game A Very British Civil War has done for the same time period in Britain. So if one where to attempt to do something along those lines what figures either in 28 mm or 15 mm would one use? Please include any other materials, terrain, you would consider relevant.

There are a lot of nice SCW figs for militia or anarchist types; WWI Americans; WWI Germans or possibly 1939 Germans; various freikorps and partisans; pulp era police, gangsters and civilians; Chaco War; possibly some Boer War, RCW or Span-Am War types; some sailors from whatever late 18th or early 19th century range that strikes your fancy. This has tempted me for awhile, but I've got too much other stuff going on.

I guess I'd want to know more about what is envisioned. Is this imaginary conflict North vs. South, left vs. right, rich vs. poor, government vs. disgruntled veterans or criminals or insurrectionists or whatever? The setting would influence the choice of figures.

I have read a couple of navels doing this sort of thing in the 70 s-90s IRRC.

I will admit to not understanding the whole VBCW thing and why it is so popular, but I am not sure if Ameriaca post Great War had the sort of divisions that would make a VACW logical. Set about 1930 as a backlash to the Great Depression I could see it.

Maybe the real American Civil War is too fresh? Although lots of alt history has a divided US.

Lots of gangster figures could be used though. I am sure they would have stepped out of the shadows

Maybe a mass Labor strike leading to a communist insurection?

That would require reading Turtledove , which is too much to ask of anybody , let alone your friends.

My gaming group did a VACW campaign back in 2010, based on the Kickstarter author's alternative history. It was in 28mm scale, using a heavily modified version of the Triumph & Tragedy rules.

Here is a report of our final "everything on the table" battle.
link
If you search Lead Adventure Forums for "fire in the valley" (including the quotes), you can find the other campaign battle reports. It was based in Northern California where we live.

As 79thPA suggested, we used a lot of SCW figures. But there were also Spanish American War, generic pulp figures, Back of Beyond, WW1, & even some colonial askari were used as an African American Prince Hall Masonic unit.

My main force was made up of the Mexican Federales from the Pershing in Mexico line of Old Glory. & since my force was sponsored by the Sacramento newspaper family, I used 20mm SCW falangists in boilersuits & garrison camps, as newspaper boy grenadiers.

There was also a lot of scratch building of vehicles, but a lot of armored car models were used too.

Part of the fun of the Very ??? Civil War is using whatever you want & coming up with the history behind it to explain.

War gamers, are weird, yes indeed we are a weird lot. Don't forget how weird we are, just because getting together shows that you are not alone. Statistically, we are hardly a blip on the radar of world population.

I am in the category of "the ACW is too fresh" (and horrible) for me to have a gaming interest in this sort of thing. And I cannot read Turtledove either, anymore….

This is the discussion area from the Very British Civil War Forum that concerns the Very American Civil War called 1933: A Nation Divided. There you can read about the back story and what the originator intended. Also some discussion about figures to be used.

link

Jim

@Black Cavalier: I love the Prince Hall unit. If I ever get around to this, I'm stealing that idea.

Thanks for the link Jim!

The "Crimson Skies" universe has a pretty credible and interesting Depression-era break up of the US alternate history: link

The game itself is, of course, heavily slanted to air combat/adventure, but that wouldn't be too hard to change, I think, if your taste runs more to pulp.

I am as troubled about this as I am about VCBW. No thank you to both.

Huey Long has to be somehow involved. He is just too interesting a character not to be in there somewhere.

The Bonus Army?

link

The 1920s and 1930s is one of the few times in history when a group of private citizens could actually match the US military in terms of raw firepower. Thompson SMGs and Browning Automatic Rifles were something that you could buy over the counter, and bigger guns like a Maxim or Browning .30cal machine gun were also available *without stealing from Federal stockpiles*.

Of course, the crooks much preferred to steal their guns from Uncle Sam than pay $200 USD for a Thompson (that's ~$2700 in current dollars)!

But you'd need some really severe distress to get the children of Civil War veterans to start another civil war…

I think the reason the idea of VACW is anathema to so many is because the roots of the VBCW genre are deep in the English psyche and the real events and literary sources that established them there are absent from American history.

VBCW is actually more properly called VECW, since most of the action revolves around English locations and possible events. It's set in a parallel world where Jeeves and Wooster are regular visitors to Blandings, where attending Greyfriars school was an aspiration and where that nice Mr Hitler made such a bang-up job of restoring the German economy. Other cultural contributions to this mindset include the Famous Five series of books (the first of which was written in 1942), the Goon show and of course the real life establishment of the Home Guard in 1940 (and its famous TV incarnation). These are just the ones that come to mind, I'm sure there are others.

Echoes of all these influences can be seen in most (if not all) the VBCW inspired games, published material and figures available today.

Finally, the VBCW offers the chance to stage again the ancient struggle between the King (who somehow is deemed to speak for the ‘People') and Parliament and the Church who are more supportive of the ‘Establishment'. It could even be said that the recent worldwide financial crisis has added to this feeling of disaffection for the establishment, so gaming an alternate past where the Establishment is fighting for it's life has an appeal.