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.