"200th Anniversary of Battle of Plattsburgh " Topic

Another bi-centennial event in the War of 1812 is today. the 200th of the Battle of Plattsburgh. I have thought of playing this out, once in a while, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Has anyone tried? A good case study in combined operations, or the lack there of, and friction between services.

Eric

The Canadian Wargamers Group put together a booklet/rules set on the War of 1812.

It had a combined arms scenario in it for Plattsburgh. Never have done that one in particular, but have played many of the others. If that era is of interest to you, it might be worth tracking down a copy. The rules are fun!

Hi Eric,

Plattsburg is definitely on my War of 1812 gaming to do list. However, based on the OOB of the contenders it may be a challenge to avoid a British blow out of the American defenders. As an aside my historical view is that Prevost threw away a certain victory and ultimately paid the price for his lack of vigour.

If one is going to conduct the naval element one could roll the dice (or multiples) to decide with varying degrees of victory or loss. Alternatively, a proper naval game such as the gun boat rules from "Captitan" could be played out to decide the naval portion of the engagement. How any remaining serviceable ships would affect the course of the land battle would have to worked out. My instinct is that it would have little effect in the short term.

Even if you ignored the naval battle (except for the gunboats on both sides, contending ships of both sides had battered themselves to wrecks, so they were not going to have much immediate effect on the land battle) you still have the problem of an overwhelming and mostly battle hardened British/Canadian forces of 10,000 versus approximately 3,000 not so experienced regulars and perhaps 3000 inexperienced militia.

My solution must unfortunately necessitate a 'what if' scenario. The what if refers to Major General Izard's army of just under 5,000 regular troops of all arms. The what if is that Izard, in certain knowledge that Prevost was moving a large army to attack Plattsburg (which is true) takes the imitative by ignoring Armstrong's order to move his army to Sackett's harbor and returns to Plattsburg (or never leaves).

To war-game this one could dice throw both the time of the arrival and where. The where could be from along the Saranac River or from Champlain and Chazy, the latter would interfere with British lines of communication. However the latter could bring in British and Canadian forces that were stationed along the route.

Those are my brief thoughts on a possible Plattsburg war-game. I too would appreciate other ideas.

P.S. We still need a War of 1812 Board.

Good evening from the former colonies!

I agree about the War of 1812 board. Keeping it separate from the other Napoleonics material would be welcome.

I'm intrigued by Thoroughbred's 1812 ships and boats and using Limeys and Slimeys (which my group likes) for the lakes portion.

But it's integrating it into the land operations that's makes it a bit difficult since I have 25mm figures for the armies.

The battle has a number of interesting actions. The combined light infantry crossing over the Saranac River with the militia performing a delaying action comes to mind.

I'm reading Graves' "And All Their Glory Past" and I think I could make a campaign game of it (solo) with getting some friends to help with the tactical actions.

The interesting thing I'm reading is only six of the battalions for the British were Peninsular veterans. The rest had been in The Canadas. The US Regulars seem to be fine. The militia actually performs fairly well.

I think the real trick would be to monkey with command and control, rather than troop quality, in order to make it more interesting for the tabletop. Prevost managed to muck things up the day of battle and his lack of nerve after the naval action could introduce some random events.

I think we have some good ideas here.

All the best;
Eric

Re Graves' "And All Their Glory Past"; I read it a few months ago. It is an outstanding work!

I am sure you have checked out the OOB at the back; some interesting artillery (if my memory is correct)24 pdr brass field gun (as per Chippewa and LL)and some carronade field guns.

I look forward to more ideas.

Cheers,
Rod

I did Plattsburg using Empire 3. The naval battle was off board and the British players had a certain time limit to get a result (sadly no one knew of the historic battle). Like the actual battle, the United States forces tried desperately to delay and the British almost got to the center of town before Prevost sounded the retreat.