Game 61 : Bratislava 1805

This was a "what if" game. It assumes that Austerlitz did not happen and that the Allies are still advancing towards Vienna on the northern bank of the Danube, the French on the southern bank and working to generate a position to cross, block, then defeat the Allied army.
The game was designed by Bob, a regular attendee of these soirees!

Again I will just post some action pics with some information  to give a feel for the overall action.
The French have crossed one Corps sized formation over the river to block the Allied armies manoeuvring. The rest of the army starts to cross the Danube at 8 crossing points.

Bob also had "random events" generated from a table of events and a die roll. These fell into two rough categories. The first would impact on command and control of a specific character, Bernadotte on the French side and The Allied CinC on the other. The result would be some limited local disruption that lasted a turn.

The other events were weather related, ice flows destroying bridges to the Danube flooding, with details of the affects of any such happening.

Davout leads the crossing and is the initial blocking force. It has a Division of infantry and a Division  of cavalry, heavy dragoons. The infantry, especially with formed volleys in line, carries the day. They repulsed six charges by Russian cavalry to successfully exploit "the block" and halt, then drive back the Russians. There was a cavalry action on the far left of the French line, Davout's flank, where the Dragoon Division emerged the victor.

Next to Davout, Soult is attempting to move three Divisions across the Danube. Two would eventually cross, the third would eventually be hampered by all the bridges being destroyed by ice floes. However, as the weight of Soult pressed on the Allied line, now hinged as it was fighting on two fronts, the Allied line would eventually cave in.

Allied columns, further down the order of march, attempting to get to grips with the French to alleviate the pressure on the head of the army's column.

One of Bernadotte's Divisions attacking Austrians who must turn to fight. Both armies are now strung out along the battlefield.

The French manage to make space for part of the reserve cavalry. Cuirassiers pour through this gap. The fight against the Cossacks would be somewhat one sided!! The Cuirassiers then launch repeated attcks against Allied squares. The squares would hold, but it did stop the Allied army from further manoeuvring and helped isolate the head of the Allied army against Davout.

One of Bernadotte's Divisions managed to cross with only two light battalions before the ice swept away the bridge and stopped the remaining eight battalions crossing. These two light battalions would fight for nearly the entire game, in isolation, against a Russian Division of about fifteen battalions. Even outnumbered this heavily, they resisted all attacks until literally running out of men!! They also delayed an Austrian Division that was forced into line next to the Russian Division.
All these actions denuded the Armies column head of receiving reinforcements ina  timely fashion.

Another French Cuirassier Division advances, en masse, to charge the Allied centre, the infantry now in square. They would repulse the charges, but the French, Davout especially, had now crushed the Allied forces to their front and would now advance to roll up the Allied line.

The French claim victory!! A great game, everyone blamed Bob when something went wrong through the random events!!! Quite right!!!!!!!

Bob has not been put off and already has some ideas for another game. Graham is also putting together his ideas for a game. Its all good fun!


I've added the casualty table for comment. It also roughly gives the OB for both sides. Remember that anything approaching 30% really means combat ineffective.

French Formations	Losses %			Austro-Russian Formations	Losses%
	Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery		Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery
IV Corps Soult				Adv Gde Bagration
St Hilaire	5	-	0	Kamensky	17	-	19
Vandamme	6	-	21	Engelhardt	35	-	65
LeGrand	15	-	50	Wittgenstein	-	41	21
Margaron	-	20	-
Corps Artillery	-	-	10	Buxhowden
				Kienmayer	19	21	0
III Corps Davout				Dokturov	5	-	0
Friant	4	0	13	Denisov	-	6	-
Bourcier	-	14	29	Corps Artillery	-	-	28
Duroc	1	-	-	Kolowrat
				Jurczik	17	-	0
I Corps Bernadotte				Berg	14	-	29
Raffiniere	36	-	0	Corps Artillery	-	-	0
Drouet	25	-	0
Kellerman	20	-	0	Liechtenstein
Corps Artilley	-	-	41	Essen	-	28	23
				Hohenhoe	-	0	0
Cavalry Reserve Murat
Nansouty	-	37	0
D’Hautpol	-	15	17

 

The usual pic of "rogue's gallery". As an aside, a spider has just squeezed inside the keyboard as I type.  Just as well I nearly finished! Next game is a Peninsular game, the first playtest with British troops. The actual Brits haven't arrived yet, recruits should start arriving from June onwards. I'm basing the battle on Albuera. You'll have to wait and see what the report brings!

Game 60 : Dreden 1813

 

This was the Battle of Dresden, 1813. It took place in a local hotel as this was the "annual" "supagame"that I organise. There were 23 players and the battle lasted for a week. To say we used a lot of figures would be an understatement! I thought I would introduce this battle with some pics of the logistics involved in setting up the game. The terrain takes a solid day to set up and the figures take a full morning to deploy on table.



 

Above shows the tables being set up. They are trestle tables supplied by a local company. The battlefield had three main tables, each 6' by 32.5'. There was a fourth, smaller add on, 6' by 10' in size.

This shows the transport system for the figures. They are all made by my neighbour, who is considerably skilled and resourceful.

The tables are covered with a carpet in a single piece. The carpet is stapled onto the tables. The result is a uniform look and an extremely stable playing surface, as the tables, quite wobbly individually, are like solid 32.5' long solid tables.

I've adopted the same approach for the battle pictures. Some pics to wet the appetite and minimal explanation as the "each pic speaks a thousand words".
The battle itself was after the Armistice in 1813. Dresden was a major supply depot and centre of ops for the French and the Allies were keen to capture it after Austria had entered the campaign. In short the Allies blew it. They arrived in front of the city, dithered when it was weak and then Napoleon turned up with the main army.

The pic above shows the depth of the battlefield. We had plenty of space for the gamers but did run into the inevitable wargaming problem when fighting over the table gaps.

An Austrian Corps advancing in the centre. It gives a feel of the "mass effect" that is generated in this scale.

The above is the Grossgarten, it is a pivotal feature in the Allied line and was taken by the French to split the Allied forces in two. It is enormous!!

This is included simply to show the most beautiful woman in the world in the background. Anne, my wife, makes all these games possible. Without her enthusiasm, to add to mine, and a lot of time helping organise and given she has no interest in playing, I certainly believe I am the luckiest guy in the world. Enough embarrassment for now!!!!

This pic shows the battlefield depth. Nothing but troops visible as you go into the distance. My aim doing the blog this way is to demonstrate what can be done in this smaller scale, using larger units. These large battles will hopefully find themselves in print and published and I hope to be able to make this happen some time next year.

Next up it is back to the Situation room and a Napoleonic battle designed by one of the gamers who regularly attends. It is called "Bratislava" and is based on a scenario where the Austerlitz did not happen as the Allies were not duped into attacking and that the battle occurs later on that winter.

After Bratislava it is likely to be the first Peninsular playtest to see how the games play with British troops as they are organised as companies in two ranks. The British troops themselves will arrive later this year, so I will Hungarians pretending! Why Hungarians, because when deployed in line they will be the same length as a standard British btn. For anyone keen to understand the relevance, Hungarians are 180 men based in 6 companies, each one a 3 rank line. This gives a frontage of 60 men. For guidance, standard French are 36 man frontage. Brit btns will be 120 men in 10 companies, based in 2 rank lines. So the frontage is 60.

Its still all go in the eight year of this project!!! Enjoy.