Desired scans : Rank and File supplements Harpoon 3 & 4 supplements Force on Force supplements Hind Commander At Close Quarters War and Conquest Modern Spearhead The Face Of Battle General d'Armee (TFL version) Swordpoint
Aaron Long
March the 9th in military history:
1230 – Bulgarian tsar Ivan Asen II defeats Theodore of Epirus in the Battle of Klokotnitsa. 1811 – Paraguayan forces defeat Manuel Belgrano at the Battle of Tacuarí. 1831 – The French Foreign Legion is established by King Louis Philippe to support his war in Algeria. 1847 – Mexican–American War: The first large-scale amphibious assault in U.S. history is launched in the Siege of Veracruz. 1862 – American Civil War: The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships. 1916 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. 1925 – Pink's War: The Royal Air Force began a bombardment and strafing campaign against the mountain strongholds of Mahsud tribesmen in South Waziristan. 1944 – World War II: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that would last five days. 1944 – World War II: Soviet Army planes attack Tallinn, Estonia. 1945 – The Bombing of Tokyo by the United States Army Air Forces begins, one of the most destructive bombing raids in history. 1945 – World War II: A coup d'état by Japanese forces in French Indochina removes the French from power. 1956 – Soviet forces suppress mass demonstrations in the Georgian SSR, reacting to Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization policy. 1977 – The Hanafi Siege: In a thirty-nine-hour standoff, armed Hanafi Muslims seize three Washington, D.C., buildings, killing two and taking 149 hostage.
Nathan Scott
It is 156 years since the Battle of Hampton Roads, the most noted and arguably most important naval battle of the American Civil War from the standpoint of the development of navies. It was fought over two days, March 8–9, 1862, in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay adjacent to the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederacy to break the Union blockade, which had cut off Virginia's largest cities, Norfolk and Richmond, from international trade.
The major significance of the battle is that it was the first meeting in combat of ironclad warships, i.e. the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The Confederate fleet consisted of the ironclad ram Virginia (built from the remnants of the USS Merrimack) and several supporting vessels. On the first day of battle, they were opposed by several conventional, wooden-hulled ships of the Union Navy. On that day, Virginia was able to destroy two ships of the Federal flotilla, USS Congress and USS Cumberland, and was about to attack a third, USS Minnesota, which had run aground. However, the action was halted by darkness and falling tide, so Virginia retired to take care of her few wounded and repair her minimal battle damage.
Determined to complete the destruction of the Minnesota, Virginia returned to the fray the next morning, March 9. During the night, however, the ironclad Monitor had arrived and had taken a position to defend Minnesota. When Virginia approached, Monitor intercepted her. The two ironclads fought for about three hours, with neither being able to inflict significant damage on the other. The duel ended indecisively, Virginia returning to her home at the Gosport Navy Yard for repairs and strengthening, and Monitor to her station defending Minnesota. The ships did not fight again, and the blockade remained in place.
Lincoln Barnes
The battle received worldwide attention, and it had immediate effects on navies around the world. The preeminent naval powers, Great Britain and France, halted further construction of wooden-hulled ships, and others followed suit. A new type of warship was produced, the monitor, based on the principle of the original. The use of a small number of very heavy guns, mounted so that they could fire in all directions was first demonstrated by Monitor but soon became standard in warships of all types. Shipbuilders also incorporated rams into the designs of warship hulls for the rest of the century.
There's no shortage of literature on this subject, but not that many games. ACW naval gaming definitely has a following, however. The Anaconda ruleset is focused on larger coastal actions but there are also rules in the folder for river actions, for those gamers who love their paddlepowered gunboats.
