Game 114 : Battle of Halle, 17th October 1806

 This battle involves a Corps per side as Bernadotte tries to defeat the last remaining Prussian filed force under the Duke of Wurrtemburg.

Bernadotte needs to recover his reputation after not supporting Davout at Auerstadt. The battle involved a lot of town fighting, the town is the key to the whole position. The person controlling Halle effectively wins!

The Prussian start by holding Halle and the French are attacking. Numbers are roughly equal, the Prussian artillery is heavier but the French have an edge in infantry quality. The pic shows the centre and Prussian right. Whilst the Prussian artillery was in position it was able to really hurt the French advance.

On the Prussian left, the Prussian artillery was very affective and allowed this wing to attack the French, especially the cavalry. This would result in the French being forced back and curtailing the action in this sector with the Prussians holding the upper hand.

Back on the Prussian right, the French have got forward and won the cavalry action. The Prussian artillery has also been weakened in this sector. The Prussian right is now flanked. Fortunately, the French cavalry are too weak to exploit this but it does keep the Prussians bottled up.

The French now push hard in the centre. Part of Halle is taken easily, then progress dries up as the Prussian infantry hold off the attacks. Losses for both sides are mounting, but the Prussian right flank is now completely impotent.

At this point, we normally call games but one of the fun parts, not often played in a lot of games, is to see whether the Prussians, who need to retire, can actually do so without the army disintegrating. So we played on. Bizarrely, next turn the Prussians issued orders to all formations, bar one which was the rear-guard, to retire. On average, we would expect half the Prussians to not receive the order based on their General's ratings. This time, all orders were issued successfully.

So the French took Halle and held the field. It was a fairly historical outcome with severe losses as detailed below.

French Formations	Losses %			Prussian Formations	Losses%
	Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery		Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery
BERNADOTTE	-	42	11	DUKE of WURTEMBERG
Dupont	26	-	-	Roggenbach	28	-	39
Drouet	18	-	-	Wurtemberg	13	-	0
Raffiniere	21	-	-	Winning	13	24	9
Grouchy	-	26		Netzmer	-	74	25
				Hinrichs	55	-	-

The losses were heavy for both sides, all arms suffering severe casualty rates. This was a very bloddy affair.

Nice sunny day, great game, now more beer and chinese food this evening. Next stop is bacl to 1814 and Brienne.

Game 113 : Escape to Dunkirk

 This was a made up battle simulating, very loosely, an escape to Dunkirk by Allied forces. The Brits had an infantry Division of 9 btns, an armoured Brigade of 2 tank btns and an Armoured car regiment, along with a French infantry Brigade. Also present was the Brit Divisional artillery of 6 Regts

The Germans had a Panzer Division and most components of a Motorised Division. The Germans had no supporting field artillery but did have "random" Luftwaffe support and a Fallschirmjager btn that could be air transported in to an airfield behind Allied lines at any time the German wished.

This is the left of the German lines where the Pz Div AC Regt was racing with Engineers and Gepanzert Infantry. At the top of the pic, out of sight, is a double river which the Brits must hold to allow the outlying troops to collapse the perimeter and then escape along a sinlg road over 2 bridges.

Germans advancing in the centre against the French Brigade. The French were dug in in foxholes along the approaches the Germans would have to take.

Brit armour in the background advances. This battle was mainly an infantry engagement, the German tanks taking all necessary action to avoid a direct tank fight against superior Brit tanks.

A view of the double river, the bridges and the escape road. Towards the top of the pic is the airfield. Although the battle was "made up", it did still create the flavour of the time and reflected the abilities of the forces involved. Out of the 5 Allied Brigade equivalents deployed, we reckoned that 3 should make the escape road. A fun change as we had not done WWII for a fair while. More WWII next year.

Rogue's gallery as usual. It was nice to see some guys who hadn't been for a while. I believe "Steve" is enjoying his late afternoon G & T!! Yes, we are very civilised now. Onwards to the next game!!!