1809 French versus 1813 Prussians and Russians

Not an alternative history game, but a determination to have an 800 points Napoleon's Battles game. Richard preferred the 1809 period and was happy to run French while I was keen to see what the Prussians from Bauzten looked like on the table in 15mm and an OOB tailored for Napoleon's Battles.  After playing the Prussians at Bauzten in 25mm using Shako it would certainly be interesting to see a comparison.

The force came to 600 points and so an extra 300 points of Russians were added based on Gortachakov's force at Bautzen.  As this was a coalition army there was a 10% discount then applied to the points which brought it back to the French total.   The Prussians and Russians mustered some 47,000 men in total, about half the total figure at Bautzen.  However the two Russian Corps (I and IV) were very week as was II Prussian Corps with divisions comprising a single brigade.  They did have a lot of artillery.

The aim was to have a quick game and set up was effectively taking turns to put down a third of our forces no closer than 12 inches apart (this being the range of heavy artillery batteries).

Blucher was the overall commander of the Prussians as well as I Corps.  The reduced size of Yorck's II corps is very evident.  Both Zeithen and Kliest are strengthened by Russian batteries, the "green" of which stands out very nicely.

A bit of a closer look at Blucher.  All units have an identification/information labelled attached in some way. Cavalry could start on react (the yellow markers).  Most troops are deployed in column, but those Prussian dragoons are in line.

A closer look at Yorck's small corps and Dolffs' heavy cavalry.  Is that the French behind that wood?

Not to be forgotten, the Russians on the far right of the allied line, echelon back, hoping not to be attacked.

Pretty nearly all the forces deployed for battle.  The coalition looks a bit smaller as a lot of its points have gone into commanders (who in a good number of cases only have one unit to command and only being average are a bit of a waste) and artillery.  Richard uses a different system for labeling his units and recording casualties.  I must admit it is one of the drawbacks of Napoleon's Battles, but I am continuing to think on ways of streamlining things and not drawing away from the visual appeal of the game.  One immediate idea is to start using white on black (or brown/green) rather than black on white (I've seen that done very effectively for a Fire and Fury game posted in the Serpentine War Game Cub blog).

But on with the game:

The French attacked the Russians.  If they could defeat the Russians they would win, such are the rules governing coalition armies.

The was no action on the coalition's right, but in the centre the French made some determined attacks, but were generally blunted and repulsed by artillery and cavalry counter charges although the allied cavalry tended not to get its way, it generally succeeded in stopping the French attacks (it got beaten, but not routed and the French had to bounce out of the combat).  In the above picture Ziethen can be seen steadying his troops while the Russian artillery officers are busy peering through their telescopes in order to determine the best range at which to let the French "have it" (we were not playing with the ranged artillery optional rule, in fact the only optional rules we used were the use of the wheeling template and the Cossack rule which requires them to role under or equal to their response number to charge - and for the record they had two opportunities and failed both times).  The camera crew are obviously worried as the focus seems to be on the fence (which was purely there, like the fields, for colour - having no impact on the game, except to look good). 

We stopped the game when the Russian collapse looked all but inevitable - they had some units to rally, but couldn't sustain any more casualties without dispersing.  We had a one interesting encounter which I will leave to a subsequent post.  The game went for five turns (two and a half hours game time) and took about five hours to play (not including set-up).

Here is the coalition forces order of battle:

					Points	Accumulated
(3) Prussian Army	PR	Blucher	10"E(10)+3	[12M ]	49	49
(1) Advanced Guard	AG/PR	Kleist	4"G(8)+1	[ 2F ]	16	65
	1B/AG/PR	16RuJG		[ 8D ]	12	77
	2B/AG/PR	16PrLN		[ 8D ]	14	91
	3B/AG/PR	16RsLC		[ 6D ]	13	104
	AG/PR	Pr6#			10	114
	AG/PR	Rs6#			9	123
	AG/PR	Rs6#			9	132
(3) Prussian I Corps	I/PR	Blucher	10"E(6)+3	[ 4F ]	0	132
(1) Upper Silesian	US/I/PR	von Zeithen	4"G(8)+1		16	148
	1B/US/I/PR	24PrLN		[ 12D ]	21	169
	2B/US/I/PR	24PrLN		[ 12D ]	21	190
	3B/US/I/PR	12PrLC		[ 6D ]	11	201
	US/I/PR	Rs12#			9	210
	US/I/PR	Rs12#			9	219
	US/I/PR	Rs12#			9	228
	US/I/PR	Rs12#			9	237
	US/I/PR	Pr6#			10	247
(1) Lower Silesian	LS/I/PR	von Klux	3"A(5)+0		8	255
	1B/LS/I/PR	24PrLN		[ 12D ]	21	276
	2B/LS/I/PR	16PrLN		[ 8D ]	14	290
	3B/LS/I/PR	16PrLN		[ 8D ]	14	304
	4B/LS/I/PR	12PrLC		[ 6D ]	11	315
	LS/I/PR	Pr6#			10	325
(2) Prussian II Corps	II/PR	von Yorck	10"E(7)+2D	[ 2F ]	32	357
(1) Cavalry	C/II/PR	von Wuthernov	4"A(6)+1		12	369
	1B/C/II/PR	16PrLC		[ 8D]	15	384
	C/II/PR	Pr6#			10	394
(1) 1st Infantry	1/II/PR	von Zielinsky	4"G(6)+0		12	406
	1B/1/II/PR	16PrLN		[ 8D ]	14	420
(1) 2nd Infantry	2/II/PR	von Horn	4"A(6)+1D		8	428
	1B/2/II/PR	16PrLN		[ 8D ]	14	442
	2/II/PR	Pr6#			10	452
(1) Reserve	R/PR	von Roder	4"G(6)+1	[ 3F ]	14	466
	1B/R/PR	12PrLC		[ 6D ]	11	477
	2B/R/PR	20PrGN		[ 8D ]	27	504
	2B/R/PR	20PrGD		[ 8D ]	27	531
	R/PR	Pr6#			10	541
	R/PR	Pr12#			10	551
(1) Heavy Cavalry	HC/PR	von Dolffs	3"A(6)+0	[ 1F ]	9	560
	1B/HC/PR	12PrHC		[ 5D ]	12	572
	2B/HC/PR	12PrHC		[ 5D ]	12	584
	HC/PR	Pr6#			10	594
	HC/PR	Pr6#			10	604
(3) Russian Army		Gortachakov 2	8"G(10)+0	[ 5M ]	36	36
(2) I Corps	I/RS	Berg	8"G(5)+1	[ 2F ]	25	61
(1) 5th Division	5/I/RS	Lukov	3"A(5)+0		8	69
	1B/5/I/RS	24RsLN		[ 12D ]	17	86
(1)14th Division	14/I/RS	Helfreich	3"G(6)+0		11	97
	1B/14/I/RS	16RsLN		[ 8D ]	11	108
Corps Artillery	I/RS	Rs12#			9	117
	I/RS	Rs12#			9	126
	I/RS	Rs12#			9	135
	I/RS	Rs12#			9	144
(1)Corps Cavalry	C/I/RS	Pantschulid 1	4"A(7)+1		13	157
	1B/C/I/RS	12RsLC		[ 6D ]	10	167
	C/I/RS	Rs6#			9	176
(2) IV Corps	IV/RS	Markov	7"G(5)+0	[ 3F ]	21	197
(1) 11th Division	11/IV/RS	Karpenkov	3"A(5)+0		8	205
	1B/11/IV/RS	16RsJG		[ 8D ]	12	217
(1) 8th Division	8/IV/RS	Engelhardt I	3"A(5)+0		8	225
	1B/8/IV/RS	16RsLN		[ 8D ]	11	236
(1) Ad Hoc Division	AH/IV/RS	Saint-Priest	4"A(6)+1		12	248
	1B/AH/IV/RS	16RsLN		[ 8D ]	11	259
(1) Corps Cavalry	C/IV/RS	Mellissio	3"A(5)+1		10	269
	1B/C/IV/RS	12RsCLC		[ 8D ]	5	274
	1B/C/IV/RS	12RsLC		[ 6D ]	10	284
	C/IV/RS	Rs6#			9	293
Total after allowing for combined army discount						807.3

The number in brackets on the left is the command hierarchy and is shown by the number of figures on the command base.  The rest of the left hand column is the formation names down to divisional level.  The second column is the unit ID.  The third column is the unit information, either general's name or number and type of troops.  The fourth column is the general's values, being range, quality, response and combat modifier.  The fifth column has the army moral, formation fatigue and unit dispersal numbers - if an army, formation or unit losses reach these levels things go bad.

All the Prussians are from my collection, all the other figures and terrain are from Richard's collection.

The Last 5mm Stand

As I have already said in some related posts I used to have a 5mm Napoleonic Russian army using Heroics and Ros figures and based on the forces comprising the Russian Right Wing at Borodino.  It is the only army I have ever sold and I did so to move into 15mm Napoleonics.

These pictures are of the only stand I kept from that army, a division commander.  It was painted over 20 years ago and I am just amazed - I even did the eyes, I couldn't even do that recently on the Airfix Napoleonic figures I painted recently.

Mystery Anti-Tank Gun

This post was inspired by Archduke Piccolo a mystery anti-tank gun.

When I saw his post I thought "I have that gun and I always believed it was a 5cm Pak 38".  I must say this had been wishful thinking as apart from the gun that came with the original Airifx Germans and Africa Corps all I had was 75mm Pak 40s and a few rare 37mm Pak 35s.

Here's my gun, solo and with a yet to be rebased old Command Decision crew (Matchbox and Esci figures I think).

I consulted my copy of Anti-Tank Weapons by Peter Chamberlain and Terry Gander , and now think it might be a 7.5cm Pak 50.

The model came with ARII's German Secret Strongpoint.  

All the stuff in the box can be seen here: http://henk.fox3000.com/arii.htm

But I see on the box they call it Anti-Tank Gun 50mm ...  

Pousard Leipzig Project – Part 5

Just giving this project an increased audience.  Battle is about to commence.

Relevant post from Lawrence Pousard on the Yahoo Group – The Unofficial Napoleon’s Battles Group

 “My Leipzig project is finally ready to be fought ( I know I am over a month late in getting the battle fought for the anniversary) . Final troop placement have been made, reserve forces in place where they will be coming on. Victory points assigned, villages terrain and troops labeled and "mood" music is ready...LOL Since I have four days off for Thanksgiving and my kids as well the battle is going to start on Thursday and go through Sunday (very awesome). Thanks for everybodies help to questions I had and giving me some ideas. Photos of the battle will be posted.

Regards 
Lawrence

Sun Nov 24, 2013 2:14 pm (PST)”

Allied Command

Army of Silesia

Austro-Russian reserves

Combined reserve forces

Combined reserve forces

Elements of the Army of the North

Over head view

View from the South West

View from the South

View from the South

Galgenberg Hill labeled with French/Allied victory points and a 28FrLN brigade and battery protecting it.

Kolmberg Hill with its 24FrLN brigade defenders.

The city of Leipzig.

The classic first edition of the rules by Avalon Hill and all necessary player aids.

The mood music ... I didn't know there was a soundtrack for Waterloo (it was seeing this movie that got me into wargaming).  It seems to be a collectors item now, but it is amazing what you can find on YouTube, just a pity the one I selected was the German soundtrack, but fair enough, if it hadn't been for their arrival on the battlefield ... well, who knows?. 

Good luck for the game, Lawrence!

Just to restate this is not my game, figures or pictures.  The aim of this post is to give wider access to people interested in the subject of refighting Napoleonic battles using miniatures, particularly 1/72^nd scale plastic figures.

Canberra Games Society mid 1980s - Ancients

Ancient in more ways than one.  More photos too good to hide away.

The Tin Soldier figures are mine, I had to borrow troops from others in order to field an army for WRG 6th Edition.  The elephants aren't mine - my army was Later Hoplite Greek.  I did add in elephants later.

Yep, 6th Edition, just look at those wedges.

Looks like a competition game.  My apologies to the guy in the black jacket, but I can't recall his name.

More competition games, that's Myron reaching across the table.

My boys!  These guys are still going well.

My army in battle against Myron's Tibetans.  All my figures now except for the Peltasts.  I later went overboard on the Peltasts (LMI, LJS, LTS - the super troops of my army as I recall - doh!)

I would have been pretty proud when I took this photo - my first (metal) army.  Before this it was only Airfix plastics, Napoleonic and WW2.

From memory I won.  I have a photo of a particularly glum looking Myron that I have decided not to post that I think coincides with this game.  Mostly the Hoplites wouldn't win - it was hard to get them into battle, Irregular A armies like the Tibetans had a good chance of rolling high on melee, and missile fire was very low (in contrast to the Tibetans were everyone had a bow - and were bound to get a good couple of results sooner or later).

The Canberra Games Society as it was back in the mid 1980s.  Again I can't recall all the names, but the black haired chap seated facing towards the camera but looking to his right is Louie and he was one of the guys who lent me figures until I got my army finished.  The bridge club was a good venue and I recall the games were nearly all WRG 6th Edition at that stage.

SAGA - Sydney Adventure Gaming Awards 1988

In sorting out my papers (I have a new attic to stock) I came across this article which I scanned in for posterity.

I can't remember writing it, or what it was meant for (probably the local Canberra Games Society magazine called Charge).  I reading it I was sure pissed off at WRG 7th Edition.

Bautzen Part 2

November 16^th saw a continuation of the game with the allies in some confusion due to a change of commanders and lost notes, but all par for the course and might have even added a little historical accuracy into the game that would be hard to do by rules alone.

The French attacked von Ziethen on the Kreckwitz heights from three sides (at least).  

But my Dragoons were coming to the rescue.  (A slightly blurred photo, but I felt it does the situation justice).  My forces were very congested and I spent a lot of time shuffling them about to enable me to clear paths so I could move them (and which in turn lead to a bit of a discussion about unit density which I am keen to see how would be handled by Napoleon's Battles).

My Uhlans were beat up in a second fight but were able to pull back (or rather rallied at a safe point near Klein Bautzen, although how safe it was is questionable given that the French were just about to assault it).  The carp pond interfered equally to both sides by blocking attack opportunities as they presented.

Sadly that was where I had to leave the game for the long drive home.

As they become available I will add in links to the ANF posts on the battle.  It is a massive undertaking to plan, organise and game such a battle and the ANF are to have congratulated for a sterling effort, which most importantly produced a fun game.  I consider myself privileged that I was able to participate and only regret I won’t be able to be there for the end.

Meanwhile here is one of James' photos as a taster.

Here is the link to the main report on this game:
 http://avonnapoleonicfellowship.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/battle-of-bautzen-2021-may-1813-day-two.html