A (small) Railway Incident

Introduction

In my imaginary state of New Wiltshire, the American Civil War is being fought primarily between General Gilder (CSA) and General Wise (USA). General Gilder's army marching towards Washington is constantly short of supplies. On hearing of a large depot full of food and ammunition on the edge of Scrubyville (County Featherstone), the General hits upon a bold plan and despatches 2 regiments of infantry and a squad of his favourite cavalry to capture the 10:00 train to Scrubyville Junction...
This battle drew inspiration from the Railway Incident Tabletop Teaser by C.S.Grant published in Military Modelling in March 1979. PW rules were used with the following variations. Infantry Regiments had 10 SPs, the cavalry squad 4 SPs and the Junction box guard unit had 2 SPs. Cavalry took 1 grid square move to dismount and fight as infantry (and vice versa). After the enemy was sighted from the Junction box the guard would roll a dice each turn to see if they got a telegraph through to the town. The captured train would arrive on turn 6. It would take 4 unhindered turns for a regiment to load the supplies onto the train. It took 1 turn to disembark a regiment from the train during which they could take hits but not return fire. Exhaustion Point was set at 50% hits.

Game

Scrubyville Jnc.

Junction box guard

Town garrison

Confederate cavalry race up the line

Dismounting they attack the guards

End of turn 2, the cavalry have taken hits and the town has been alerted

End of turn 5, CSA cavalry have captured and changed the points

Turn 6 the train arrives and 1 regiment disembarks

Union forces in position start firing on the disembarking troops

The train rattles on into the station and the second regiment climb down into the face of the Zouaves 

The remounted cavalry head for town

The Zouaves have fallen back from fierce CSA melee and meet the bold cavalry!

Turn 12 - the Zouaves are still fighting the remaining cavalry and the train is nearly loaded!!

The train, now full of supplies moves out leaving the soldiers to fight their way out

The Zouaves have finally killed off the cavalry

With what can only be described as a rebel yell, the CSA regiment forces back the Zouaves

The remnants of the other CSA regiment fall back under fire and eventually leave the field

The Zouaves continued to fall back and at turn 16 the battle was over

The Union Colonel wonders if he'll have a commission tomorrow morning