Cuban Hills

We are getting Jon to work through his back catalogue of armies. This week he gave us the US invasion of Cuba in 1898, when they went to help the Cuban rebels throw off their Spanish Imperial Overlords. We refought an early engagement, Las Guasimas, with the invasion force trying to capture a key road junction, and just "have at" the Spaniards. The Spanish are fighting a rear guard action to allow their hospital train to escape. A lot of the battle was fought in heavy jungle.

Ian & I took the Spaniards, with Richard, Chris K, Will and Steve as the Americans. The camera is behind the Spanish lines. The markers are our concealed troops. Half of these are dummies to confuse the enemy. Dark green is heavy jungle, light green spaces on the board is light jungle.

Chris and Will on the US left dispersed into open order and pushed on as quickly as they could. Steve was ordered to come up the main road, whilst Richard immediately headed off to the flanks through the heavy jungle to turn the position apparently blocking the road.

I was going to wait until they got close, but a quick recalculation in my head told me that wasn't going to work. So I revealed my mountain gun and started firing at Will. A lucky hit pinned him and slowed his progress.

We abandoned the farm (it was a dummy) as the US troops surged forwards. Ian popped out some men in firing line and opened fire. 

Will tried to push up the stream, but Ian leapt out of cover in the centre and fired at him. This slowed him a bit.

Richard's advance moved much quicker than I'd anticipated and he turned the line of trenches. Ian reacted and turned to face. I have since looked at the Wiki page on the battle, and the Americans came straight up the roads. I don't know if this was idiocy or that the jungle was close to impenetrable.

On the left Ian's men fought gallantly, but got pinned in position. His troops in the centre were giving Will a rough time. On the right he was fighting heroically and holding his ground. The mountain gun switched back and forth between targets to try and pin as much as possible.

Ian's men on the left are defeated, and are removed. On our right. Richard has detached a unit to seize the road junction and table exit, which are the objectives.

I unveil a unit on the hill and engage Chris in a fire fight. My other infantry I send off the hill on the right to cover the objectives. The mountain gun is keeping Steve pinned in the centre.

Will finally gets an attack in on Ian's unit in the centre and breaks it.

It's all getting a bit tense. After some discussion Richard probes into the light jungle on the right and bumps into the marker, which turns out to be a unit in a firing line. Richard has a General with him, so he gets double activations, which makes this tricky. In fact, the US forces use of their commanders was effective at getting their troops forwards. Shame I forgot completely that I hadn't asked for ours to be deployed.

My unit on the hills is attacked by Chris, whilst firefights carry on elsewhere. The game countdown clock is ticking. Will the Americans run out of time?

We have a good combat turn. Chris' attack is repulsed as my brave fellows turn to face and inflict firing casualties then win the melee, destroying his unit. It was tight - my unit is reduced to a Combat Value of 1. On the right, Richard's commander is killed in the fire fight. "Oh well" he remarks "That has cost us the game". It reduces the combat value of all US troops by 1.

Chris or Will sends another unit up the hill, and my fellows fail a reaction test and fall back 6", which honestly works for me. Ian's men by the trenches hold on still. Steve has finally unpinned something and is pushing to support Richard on our right. By this time I have killed ANOTHER senior officer on that flank, and just held on. That's the end of turn 10, and according to the victory conditions it was officially a draw, although it felt like a win. If we'd remembered those officers we might have got an actual win out of it.

An interesting challenge trying to simulate warfare in jungle. There were a number of other salient issues in the battle, for example the Spanish were using Mauser repeating rifles with smokeless powder. The US troops on their left were using black powder, and were much more easy to spot historically. 

In the actual battle the Americans had no real clue as to where the Spanish were, and blundered into them. The jungle was so heavy away from the roads that the flanking manoeuvre wouldn't have been possible, and they were forced to attack on a narrow frontage. The US press reported it as a famous victory. In practice the Spanish wanted to extract their hospital train and retreat. They did so and inflicted heavier losses than they took into the bargain. Jon reminded us of a remark by Teddy Roosevelt who said of the campaign in the light of the battle that if they'd been fighting English, French or Germans they'd wouldn't have lasted a week.