Savannah 9th October 1779 (2) - the game

Refought on Thursday at Deeside Defenders I took the French and Paul (a novice to the period) took the British.

Too various cries of "don't trust the computer", etc it began to come true! The lead regiment of the French assault (Cambresis) proceed to take heavy losses from gunfire and yet shrug them off and proceed to assault the fortifications to the east of the Spring Hill redoubt. The loyalists manning that part of the line fired and failed to have any effect before the regiment charged home, pushed them back and subsequently routed them. The Grenadiers/ Marines arriving to plug the gap charged home but were also pushed back. They reformed, then blasted the heroic remnants of Cambresis away before it repeated it's heroic feat. (On subsequently checking the factors involved, the regiment had managed to pass a 50/50 shaken test twice, but to fail on the firing the loyalists would have had to have rolled anything but a double 1 to have checked them, but of course no one believes it until you roll the dice in front of them!)

The rest of the action became the supporting act. The French by weight of numbers and the valiant distraction of Cambresis gradually overcame the Spring Hill redoubt. However by this time the British reserves had got into position and formed a solid firing line behind the reserve redoubt. Various French units had broken from the rout and it felt that whichever regiment D'Estaing tried to rally would always fail.

The flanking action by the Dillon regiment (not the column) faced the same fate as the original of being driven back by fire from the Sailors redoubt and flanking fire from the "Germain".

We had fought for 3 hours by this point, but my opinion was that the British would manage to hold the line, but it would take to long to reach a definite conclusion. Certainly if D'Estaing had launched his attack simultaneously as he originally planned he could have won.

Will