"ACW bridges" Topic

Hello
Bridges in your wargames.
What ones do you have?
How often do you use them in your games?
Were they a minor or major part of the games you used them in?

martin

I have many bridges. There will be no inventory.

Bridges mean rivers and rivers and bridges are choke points. They are very useful in two-player games. Someone has to hold a bridge until everyone gets across, destroy a bridge before the enemy can use it or delay an enemy crossing at a bridge, and each of those has a reverse.

But in larger games, a river separating armies is generally a bad idea. The crossing army can't cross everywhere. Sometimes they can only cross at the bridge, and players are idle--and bored. Compare Antietam and Fredricksburg.

The general rule is that you need bridges with same width as your roads, and as long as your rivers are wide, and you need both stone and wood versions so you can have scenarios in which the bridge can be burned and scenarios in which it can't.

Good luck and good gaming!

Good thoughts Robert.
I concur with your thoughts about a river running through the whole game.
Wonder where the attack is coming from?

martin

Not sure where I got my bridges but when we use them it is either as an objective as noted by Robert or as choke-points in multi player games but we always use multiple bridges and fords when we do that

I have many bridges in many scales, girder, stone, wood…

Funnily enough the Irregular 2mm bridges make excellent 6mm ones.

For ACW specifically, I mainly do historical battles, and I have yet to find an ACW battlefield which doesn't have one or more rivers and creeks along with associated crossing points – bridges, fords or ferries. Sometimes they have enormous great rivers in them (the Potomac at Antietam or the Tennessee at Shiloh).

I could just run the roads and tracks over or under the rivers, but I prefer the look of bridge models.

Image from Page 29 of the Gettysburg Soldiers ACW Rules,
TYPES of BRIDGES:

That pontoon bridge looks nice Larry.

martin

All of them look nice!

I have also used bridges in multi-player games, but usually as either:

• a chokepoint between two parts of the same army in a rear area
  
• a danger to be dealt with on a flank otherwise protected by a river or stream
  
• a faster-but-dangerous march column option for a creek that may otherwise be crossed anywhere, slowly, in a combat formation.

Like Martin Rapier I usually need bridges because all of my horse & musket games are set in America (ACW or AWI).

Some games like the Bridge at Remagan really need a bridge. I have little bridges that cross a 2 or 4 inch wide stream.
And I have long bridges that cross from one table to the next with the space between being the very wide river like the Rhine or whatever.

In modern games AVLB is nice to have and so are helicopters.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

I have a lot of bridges including a 15mm model of Burnsides Bridge. I use it for a variety of games.

Well done, Larry.

I usually need bridges because all of my horse & musket games are set in America (ACW or AWI).

Meaning what? They didn't have bridges in Europe in those days?

No. US battlefields in the ACW seem to be terribly…wet, with lots of rivers and creeks. I guess they mainly fought along or across river obstacles, rather than up on the high plains.

That was true of Virginia, especially. But wasn't part of the problem a LACK of bridges?

But surely streams in Europe were bridged, the smaller ones at least, and probably bridged more frequently than those in the U.S.

I have stone bridges but no wooden or pontoon bridges. Any recommendations of who makes good wooden and/or pontoon boat bridges in 18mm?

I have bridges but I also like fords. I like to have multiple crossing points and see what happens. I also like to have blinds with fords. Several possible fords maybe, each with a small card to turn over to see if is passable. You can only turn over a card when your cavalry or some other scouting unit reaches it.