Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Niagara Campaign


RSM British infantry painted as 44th Foot


I've been thinking a little about the material resources I'll need to to my Fort Niagara Campaign next year.

I have been asking myself the usual questions about the sort of things I'd like to represent on the tabletop, what I am able to do on a map and what I would like to see played out in a demonstration game.

Starting with Fort Little Niagara, it seems to me that this was a simple palisaded for that guarded the start of the portage road. There seems little information on it's ground-plan, so I am assuming it was a square/rectangular palisade with a timber blockhouse at each corner. I hope that Rene Chartrands' projected third Osprey on the forts of New France can shed a little light in tim for me.

This volume will also cover Fort Niagara itself, although I have the book on the siege which reproduces the many excellent maps and cross sections of the works as they were in 1759. I hope it can resolve certain matters of detail for me. It's a model I really want to build for myself; perhaps eventually as a demonsration game, and I've enough information on it to do a reasonable reporduction.

In conjunction with this (and perhaps expanding on the thought of making this a demo game) I like the idea of using the two brigs the French had available to them to stage some amphibous operations; I find myself inspired by Hornblower.

I'm more and more tempted to use Bill Protz's "Drums of War" rules, although I have just lost my second copy. I've about torn the house apart looking for them, but no luck!

6 comments:

Der Alte Fritz said...

I think that Fort Niagra was a stone fort, rather sturdy at that. Perhaps surrounded by a timber palisade. There should be lots of pictures of it on the net, in fact the Fort probably even has its own web site. It is used often for re-enactments.

Bloggerator said...

Fort Niagara was in it's 1759 configuration, an earthern work.

At the time of the Siege it was liberally garnished with "storm-poles", sharpened posts driven into the exterior walls to deter an infantry assault.

There are many modern picture available of it that show it preserves it's original trace almost intact.

It gained it's stone facing after the French period.

A J said...

A good fort to study is Massac, near Metropolis, Illinois. The state park has a faithful reconstruction of the wooden fortress first established by the French over 250 years ago near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.

littlejohn said...

I just received my "second" copy of "Drums" as well...it was a staple of my rules a long while ago and now that I've got a new collection of 40mm F&I I'm trying to find a good set of rules to start with. Toying with Ross Mcfarlane's "With McDuff on the Frontier" and derivatives as well.

Dave

Bloggerator said...

Thanks for the tip - I've googled it up and there look like plenty of construction details for me to emulate for Fort Little Niagara..

Greg

Bloggerator said...

Dave,

I'll be buying my third!!!

Dammit.

I'll archive this one and work off photocopies from now on!

Greg