Considering ACW Fog of War

 “Throw forward your cavalry, as soon as you approach your new position, to Culpeper Court-House, and carefully watch the whole country toward Richmond and Gordonsville.”

— Union Major General John Pope

Battle of Cedar Mountain, Aug. 9, 1862,
engraving from a sketch by Alfred R. Waud.

My feature on “Watch, Read, Play: Battle ofMidway” and one of the games noted, Sebastian Bae’s Find, Fix, and Finish, started me thinking about how two opposing forces come together on the battlefield. At Midway the battle came about through a confluence of intelligence analysis and aerial reconnaissance, with each carrier fleet probing for the other before deploying attack forces. The guessing game of Battleship came to mind as a very basic, extremely abstracted representation of this process, but Bae’s game refines it into a fast-playing micro-game modeling modern naval operations. I’ve long wanted to design an easy game around the American Civil War Battle of Cedar Mountain (not far from where I live in Virginia) simulating the fog of war as two armies move toward each other, probing with cavalry and infantry, maneuvering with limited information about enemy location and strength, and screening forces with cavalry. And I found some inspiration for game mechanics in Bae’s game, a starting point from which I began tinkering with ideas on how such a game might work.

The board for Find, Fix, and Finish.

My game design and play tastes have only dabbled in serious games about current issues like Find, Fix, and Finish. I’m more interested in historically themed games and ones geared toward kids and newcomers to the adventure gaming hobby. But every experience provides opportunities for learning; Bae’s game is no exception. Even though it’s a simulation from an “adjacent” wargaming field and a modern era, I found its core mechanic worth adapting to my own land-based design. In Find, Fix, and Finish players each have their own hex map of an ocean area with several islands, with a screen to shield their play space from their opponent for double-blind play. Each secretly deploys two carrier groups on the hex map. In a guessing mechanic similar to Battleship, each turn they may choose one of three search patterns to guess the location of enemy forces; the more tightly focused a search, the higher the chances to detect any enemy present. If detected, the game allows one side to carry out attacks on the discovered fleet...at the risk of revealing the location of their own fleet.

I started considering how the reconnaissance portion of Find, Fix, and Finish might serve a land-based game set during the American Civil War. Looking back on history we often focus on the operational aspects of a certain battle as fought, but don’t always look more closely at what factors brought the two forces together in a particular location. Cedar Mountain poses an interesting scenario. In July 1862 Union forces formed a cordon across Culpeper County to hold Confederate forces at bay and provide a distraction to relieve McClellan’s operations on the peninsula. Confederate forces under General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson pushed northward across the Rapidan River to move against the cordon and engage Union armies if the opportunity presented itself. The historical action leading to the battle consisted of Union infantry advancing piecemeal to the south, with cavalry watching the fords and bridges of the Rapidan; all while the Confederates marched northward toward Culpeper. Unclear orders — whether to hold a defensive position against Confederate forces encountered or attack if advantageous — and an assessment of the terrain and enemy strength led the Union general to attack on one of the hottest days in August, in a battle that ended in a costly a Union defeat.

I’ve had an idea to design a basic wargame covering the convergence of forces leading to the Battle of Cedar Mountain. The point of such a game wouldn’t necessarily focus on tactical elements of the battle itself — though I’d need some mechanics to simulate an eventual engagement — but I wanted to explore the issues of the “pre-battle,” the activities, recon and marches, which draw, or sometimes force, two opposing armies into combat in a particular place. Much of this relies on the fog of war, a concept introduced by the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz: “War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.” For two advancing armies, the position and intent of their opponents remain concealed in uncertainty until they happen to meet, and decided to engage, on the battlefield.

Richard III from Columbia Games, a
popular block wargame.

Tabletop wargames simulate the fog of war through various mechanics used to conceal the nature of units moving across the board and less often their actual locations. Battleship certainly serves as a simplified example, essentially a guessing game seeking enemy ships, though it does not allow for movement or defensive measures beyond the initial deployment. Block wargames infuse games with fog-of-war uncertainty by concealing units behind one side of an upright wooden block. Unless it uses blank decoy blocks as well, though, the opponent still registers the presence of some kind of force in a location...just not the type or strength. (And I suspect some games do use decoy blocks in this capacity, expanding the number of components...and blocks aren’t cheap.) I’ve played Professor Philip Sabin’s Schlieffen before, a double-blind wargame about the opening moves in World War I. Players each have their concealed maps on which they move their forces, often balancing the lack of fresh units with which to attack or defend. I’m a huge fan of block wargames for their use of concealment; but double-blind fare like Bae’s Find, Fix, and Finish and Sabin’s Schlieffen seem more suited and adaptable to the ideas I have for a Cedar Mountain game.

I dabbled with using Schlieffen’s basic system for unit movement and strength, but it never really came together. Find, Fix, and Finish’s guessing mechanic, like Battleship — calling out hex numbers to scout out enemy forces — seemed more practical for my purposes. My first challenge, though, was to consider how to limit the range of such reconnaissance. Unlike carrier groups and their aircraft, land-based armies, incorporating both infantry and cavalry, have far more limited range. Each turn I determined a player would call out hex numbers to reconnoiter, then secretly move forces one hex. I originally figured each infantry unit could scout one adjacent hex, with cavalry scouting two. But what if, through either player’s movement, two opposing forces occupied the same hex? So I increased the number of hexes to scout by one, with the requirement that one of those (given in any order) must contain the unit conducting the reconnaissance. Maybe I increase the number of hexes by yet another one, giving cavalry the ability to scout four hexes and infantry three (including their own)?

Unlike Find, Fix, and Finish’s search mechanics, if a hex contains enemy forces, the player must declare them, simply noting their type, cavalry or infantry, and not their number (or, in the case of cavalry, if the hex also contains any infantry, giving cavalry a more effective role in screening infantry activities). Units discovered in the same hex as the scouting unit may withdraw or remain. Once a player finishes all reconnaissance, they can move forces one hex. Units in hexes with enemy forces remaining may choose to withdraw or engage in battle.

The absence of stacking limits for forces would enable players to not simply increase force strength but compound the number of adjacent hexes to scout (the hexes would cover enough map space that such stacked units would be possible). For instance, a hex containing a cavalry and infantry unit could scout three adjacent hexes (and also include a fourth hex with those forces). Adjacent forces could scout out a range of adjacent hexes without giving away their exact location or their unit types.

Much of the concepts outlined above represents me thinking aloud, so to speak. I have many factors to consider and exact rule language to develop. I’m still working on the number of units to use for a Cedar Mountain scenario as well as their strengths and how to adjudicate confrontations. I have some ideas to explore for all these mechanics. All this remains theoretical at the moment. My next major task is drafting a map, essential for locating the barrier of the Rapidan River and the fords and bridges crossing it. I need unit markers, both for exact units and ones to place for noted locations of enemy forces. But I’m satisfied so far with my progress developing a game focused on discerning the reality of a situation, and acting on that assessment, to bring two opposing forces together on the battlefield...wherever that might be.

“Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.”

— Carl von Clausewitz

Sources

My principle source on the Battle of Cedar Mountain is Michael E. Block’s The Carnage was Fearful: The Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862 (Savas Beatie, 2022). It’s part of the Emerging Civil War Series, notable for its solid research, helpful maps, numerous period photographs, and directions for visiting the modern sites noted in the historical narrative. While it could use a more legible title font and an index, it serves as perhaps the most comprehensive guide to the battle and the circumstances leading to it. Alas, no Osprey Publishing military history title on the Battle of Cedar Mountain exists.