At the start of turn 4, the Reb fort fired at the ailing Switzerland – 6 hits took her down to 1 hit point and a critical hit destroyed the boiler so she couldn’t move anymore either. Also, as she was below one third of her starting hit points, the ship counted as “battered” so was less effective at firing, could only move 1 hex (if the ship still had a boiler!) and needed to take a morale test when activated which, if failed would force her to strike her colours and surrender.
With the edge of the board fast approaching CSS Arkansas needed to start turning, so with her starboard gun destroyed only her rear battery was able to fire – USS Sassacus took 3 hits from her but crucially was set on fire by the shots. USS Passaic attempted to negotiate a sandbar and succeeded (not really that risky as she had a shallow draught) and because Arkansas would be out of the battle for a while, shot at CSS Hampton before she could sink USS Switzerland – 5 hits and a critical resulted in another fire. CSS Hampton now had to tackle the fire on board before activating and luckily succeeded in putting the fire out before further damage was caused – her rear medium gun then sank the Switzerland while the front gun missed the Sassacus. Continue reading