For Friday night fun I set up a small “scenario” where I have 2x 24-pounders and 4x 12-pounder guns bombarding the Fort Carillon. Assumption is that the British have set up their siege batteries and the French have some big pieces still defending the fort.
Fort Carillon, a somewhat awkward and almost-but-not-quite-Vauban fort in the wilderness of today’s Upstate New York, is a wonder by itself. Modern reconstruction was built approximately a century ago and is of masonry. The original fort, in the tumultuous years of the French and Indian War, was mostly made of timber and earth.
The “proper” plan was to besiege the fort as it is located on a small peninsula and surrounded by elevated ground. Amherst did that in 1759, but the previous year Abercromby had been led to believe e.g. by prisoners that strong French reinforcements could arrive almost any day, thus he hurried the attack believing the overwhelming numbers of his regulars and American provincial units would carry the day.
That didn’t quite happen, so I want to test out bombarding the fort with heavy artillery. The 1757 Fort William Henry (or the big battle scene in the “Last of the Mohicans” movie) is perhaps the closest comparison in this what-if situation. How much and what kind of damage do you need to inflict before you are able to carry a successful attack against the fort? Should / would the defenders fight to the end: How much is enough before a polite parley will come a mutually-acceptable conclusion?
Brushing all that aside, I’ll just do some artillery bombardment to observe the effects of the current “to-hit” and “impact” tables. Of course, a small Python script could do this is more effeciently, but don’t have it now, so I’ll just be happy rolling some dice.
The cannon can only fire against the redoubt as they are direct fire weapons. Mortars can fire indirect so they can fire the units behind the redoubt. The French have three heavy cannon that can fire into the direction where the British are coming from. Two 18-pounders and one 16-pounder – they all are heavy pieces with similar performance. How many artillery pieces are available depends on which bastion they are located. Fort Carillon had four bastions and two demi-lunes that extended out of the main fort. Artillery was placed in these and had only specific directions to fire. As the French player, you have to rearrange the artillery inside the fort to engage the British troops the best you can.
Let’s see what happens here. The French go first in this game, so they’ll have a chance to disrupt the British who have built level 2 entrenchments (“siegeworks”, redoubts really). In this case, direct fire is against the hard target i.e. the redoubt, and indirect fire is against the “soft targets” behind the redoubt (the artillery).
First fire is directed against the redoubt protecting the four 12-pounders in hex 48.17. Three heavy cannon unleash direct fire, assisted by an artillery leader (-1 “to hit”). They also get -2 “to hit” firing from the fort (French had ranged their cannon before the engagement) so essentially with a “9” you’ll miss – everything else hits.
We roll a “7” and it’s a hit as we get +3 from the modifiers mentioned above. The second (red) die is for impact, so three heavy cannon against a hard target (level-2 redoubt). The second roll is a “2” without any modifiers and we get a “reduce-1” effect reducing the redoubt-2 to a fieldworks-1. In the current chits, this is delineated with the single or double line as seen below.
We also have two heavy mortars taking a crack at the British. They can use indirect fire and target the four cannon. We roll a “3” giving us a hit and then an “8” – no effect. The big and heavy mortars missed their mark this time (or damage was too small in the context of this game).
The British artillery is still out of optimal range to breach the fort walls, but we have six heavy pieces ready to pound the fort. On their turn, the British artillery conducts the bombardment. Six pieces open fire and there is a “-3” to hit the fort – it’s a pretty big target. We get a hit without rolling a die (medium band, six pieces and -3 DRM is “9” or less to hit – i.e. automatic hit). Then I rolled a “5” for the damage roll, which against a hard target, is a “breach-1” inflicting one damage on the fort. It’s a good start but it will take a lot more to reduce the fort enough for the French to either surrender or flee, or for the British to mount a successful assault on the fort and its walls.