A Cold Wars Project: the Battle of Vitebsk

So, while Project 1777 is still on hiatus and the 1918 project (sadly) never really got off the ground, I have a new project underway. My friend Frater Ericus and I have gotten enthusiastic about the Napoleonic wargame rules Et Sans Resultat, a set for playing quite large battles (a corps or more per side). I recently hosted a replay of the 1805 Battle of Elchingen using the rules and, since that went fairly well, took the plunge and signed up to umpire a game of the Battle of Vitebsk, from the 1812 Russian campaign, at the HMGS Cold Wars game in March. The Sergeant and Mr Chips, other regular members of our group, enjoyed the game but are not a sold on the rules as we are, I think. Certainly we're the jamokes who are starting to build up armies of 6mm troops to do the whole Waterloo campaign with ESR!

In the meantime, this Cold Wars game: the scenario is drawn from ESR's first campaign book, Master of the World, which is made up of battles from the first portion of Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia. This features nine engagements of the campaign, gradually building up in size, from a small(ish) cavalry battle, a beginners' scenario for two players to the climactic class of armies at Borodino, an expert scenario for 15-25 players (!!)

I'm enthusiastic about doing this in 15mm mostly because I have a pile of 15mm Russians that I bought years ago to build the armies of 1813 and 1814 using the Age of Eagles rules. Our group has kind of lost interest in AOE, but the Russians have been biding their time in my paint pile since then, along with French that I picked up from the Notorious RJR when he sold his 1809 armies. Having these fellows sitting here and buying a whole bunch of new figures for this campaign seemed crazy. Yes, I may never be able to play the huge final battle at Borodino if I go with 15mm troops, but where am I going to get the people to play it even if I could? I don't have 15-25 friends! :-)

Vitebsk is a medium-sized scenario, rated intermediate and with commands for up to six players.

Notionally each player commands a "force". Generally speaking, this will be an infantry or cavalry corps, though early in the Napoleonic period the Allied armies didn't have the organization nous to set up integrated all-arms corps and threw things into huge divisions or just "columns" that might have a few regiments in them or half a dozen brigades.

In some scenarios, though, corps appear that are small enough that a single player can easily command several, or are large enough that they can be split up, with one player taking the commander's role and operating part of the force, while another player serves as his adjutant and operates the remainder.

The constituent elements of "forces" are called "formations", roughly equivalent to a division or a large brigade. Corps sometimes have assets--usually artillery, but including combat engineers (sometimes called sappers) or specialized light infantry detachments--that can be attached to specific formations or held together as a reserve under a separate formation commander (that's usually just the case with artillery).

If military organization goes a bit over your head, think of corps as "mini-armies"; they can operate on their own because they have a bit of everything: some infantry, some artillery, and some cavalry--along with the non-combat troops that never make it to wargames tables but make everything else work, like medical troops, supply troops, repair crews, clerks, liquor-sellers, and washerwomen.

Divisions and brigades are smaller groups of troops than corps. They still number in thousands, but they are usually just infantry or just cavalry, and they may not have any artillery permanently assigned to them, or any of those nifty support troops, so they aren't as able to operate on their own. If infantry on their own run into infantry and cavalry, they don't fight as well, and the same is true for cavalry who run into cavalry plus infantry. It's like playing rock-paper-scissors with someone but only being able to play rock, or only being able to play scissors. The other person knows all the tricks you can come up with and foil them, and you can only foil a few of his tricks. So corps that are composed of "all arms"--infantry, cavalry, and artillery--are better than single-arm formations, even if the corps is outnumbered.

The task ahead of me in the next three months or so is to put together a corps each of French infantry and cavalry and about the same for the Russians (slightly more infantry and slightly less cavalry). I have (almost) all the bases for the figures to go on and their storage boxes ready, so one way I'll be tracking progress is by filling up those bases and boxes.

The French

The French force is the advance guard of the Emperor Napoleon's Grand Army, commanded by the flamboyant Joachim Murat, Marshal of France and King of Naples. It consists of a corps of infantry under the Emperor's stepson, Viceroy of Italy Eugène de Beauharnais, and a corps of heavy cavalry under General Count Étienne de Nansouty. Here are (most of) the bases that need to be filled (I'm still missing bases for the army commanders--in this case Murat--and for the French artillery batteries).

On the left, the infantry corps: round bases for the corps commander and his two division commanders, 32 rectangular bases for the infantry battalions, and two larger rectangular bases for the divisions' Reformation Areas (RAs).

These last are markers that show where troops from a division are placed if they've routed. These troops are not permanently lost (yet...) but they're not functional, and the more troops of the division that end up at the RA, the less able to fight the division is. Troops can be rallied from the RA and sent back to the fight. But the more men have been routed, the more fatigue the division has likely taken, and fatigue is the real killer. The more fatigue that's taken, the likelier the entire division is to break, at which point it may be very difficult to get it back into the fight. And rallying routed troops doesn't restore fatigue; it jut gets tired men back into line. Some amount of fatigue can be restored to divisions by inspirational action by the leader; but those actions cause some of the routed troops to leave, so at some point it becomes a rapid downward spiral.

Having an RA model for each division is going to be an investment of time and expense, as the prescribed model for an RA is a wagon or caisson (to show it's the rear area). I'm toying with the idea of using command stands (bases with some foot officers and standards) on them as RAs, to avoid both the expense and the tabletop real estate that 2-4 wagons per corps are going to take up, plus the painting time that all those spoked wheels (ugh) and horses (UGH) are going to require.

On the right are the bases for the cavalry corps: again, round bases for the corps and two division commanders, 17 square bases for the cavalry squadron groups, and two oblong bases for the RAs. Also in this box are six oblong bases for the artillery limbers for the guns of the two corps; I'm hoping that I will also be able to fit in the bases for the unlimbered artillery batteries, which are square, each about half the size of a limber stand. Not all wargamers collect and paint limbers for their artillery: it's additional expense, it's more to paint, it's more to transport, and they're only useful on the table when the battery is moving and isn't deployed to fire, so who wants to go to more trouble for that? I like the idea of being able to show the guns are limbered up (most gamers just turn the guns backward, which looks silly to me), but if I start running short of time, that will be the second thing to go by the board (after the specialized RAs). As an alternative to painting the whole limber team (a small cart, several horses, and one or more riders), I might paint just one mounted artilleryman per battery, which can be placed with the guns when they're limbered.

My painting of wargames figures has improved a good deal since I started playing Napoleonic miniatures games in the 1970s. A good part of my current French forces date from that period, and I'm hoping I will have enough time to paint up new figures so that the old ones can be gracefully retired. Lots to do, though, and not that much time to spare, so here are the figures I have ready to go now, standing for the most part on the bases they will fill.

On the infantry side of the house, I have several elderly regiments of infanterie legere, the elite light infantry in their blue coats, blue breeches, and brightly decorated shakos. Also present are the duller but more numerous infanterie ligne or regular line infantry, with a smattering of green-clad troops (Legion Irlandais here, standing in for regiments of the dark-green-uniformed Provisional Croatian Line). These are led by a rather dowdy corps command stand (an ancient relic) and some (rather newer) divisional generals.




On the cavalry side we have an (older) light cavalry general and 4 squadron groups of chasseurs a cheval and cheveauleger-lanciers; next to them are 4 squadron groups of cuirassiers and another of lancers. To their right, sitting temporarily on the limber bases are the guns and crews of the Advanced Guard's artillery contingent, while towards the stage front is a nearly prehistoric depiction of Joachim Murat as an army/wing commander (an aide de camp stands by, while a trooper of the Gardes d'Honneur arrives with a message).


The Russians

Here we see the boxes for Russian troops. The Russians' army/wing commander, Lt. General Nikolay Alexeivitch Tuchkov I* is, like Marshal Murat, still without a base. The Russians, though, have almost all their batteries represented, as the things are huge (12 guns compared to the French 6- or 8-gun batteries) and can be represented with the large oblongs I already have for limbers, just turned sideways.

In the box on the left are the bases for the infantry corps of Lt. General Alexander Ivanovich Count Osterman-Tolstoy. He has two division commanders, one of whom commands eight battalions, two of elite grenadiers, the others of musketeers, or line troops, and one battery of artillery. The other division commander leads ten battalions of infantry (two of jaegers or light infantry, the others musketeers) and three batteries of artillery. Their batteries and limbers and their Reformation Areas are also present.

The keen observer will note here that the Russians still hadn't really gotten the "all arms" concept down yet. Their infantry corps are infantry and artillery, not even any cossacks or other light horse for scouting. This meant they couldn't go far from their cavalry corps (cavalry corps in the French army were just reserve formations, full of extra cavalry to finish off battles and lead pursuit of a beaten enemy), because they would still be stymied by an enemy that had a rounded combination of foot, horse, and guns. Russian corps might be able to play rock, scissors, or paper, but French corps had lizard and Spock up their sleeve as well.

In the righthand box are the bases of Maj. General Peter Graf von der Pahlen's cavalry corps, composed of dragoons and hussars, along with their single battery of horse artillery, RA markers, and officer bases. Next to them are bases for the single division of Tuchkov's own infantry corps that is in attendance, a mere eight battalions of musketeers. Once I can represent Tuchkov in his temporary role as army/wing commander, I won't be including his corps-commander base as well. He had to wear two hats in this battle, but he won't get two miniatures to represent him.

Here you can see the Russian figures I have already who can step right into their Vitebsk roles. Fewer than for the French, but all newer paint jobs, so I'll be using all of them. And, thankfully, covering all the commanders and troopers of the cavalry corps! Mounted men are a bother, as you have not only to paint the soldier but also his horse.

Thanks to a replaying of the Battle of Borodino many years ago, I have a large quantity of Russian cavalry painted. I did not attend (my friends The Waltons' Attorney and The Notorious RJR did), but I contributed what was then a corps of cavalry (a division of light cavalry and two divisions of dragoons). In ESR they should provide at least two cavalry corps! That's more than I will need for anything short of the battle of Borodino.

++++ Footnote on Numbering of Generals ++++

* The gentry of Central Europe, especially the Germans who formed a great part of not only the Austrian and Prussian but also the Russian officer corps had many sons--and many fathers, cousins, nephews, uncles, and so forth--many of who went into the military. Add in "cadet branches" of famous families, and one ended up with a lot of military officers of high rank with the same surname. This led to the practice of numbering them, much as one might number kings. This Tuchkov, Nikolay Alexeivitch, is Tuchkov I; his brother Sergey is Tuchkov II--he commanded the 2nd Reserve Corps in 1812; their brother Pavel Tuchkov is Tuchkov III--he commanded a brigade in II Corps and was wounded and captured at the Battle of Loubino. Their brother Alexander, who also reached general's rank in the Russian Army, served under his brother Nikolay as a brigade commander, and was killed at Borodino, goes down in history as Tuchkov IV. (Tuchkov I also died of wounds suffered at Borodino.) All of these brave fellows were the son of Aleksey Tuchkov, who served as lieutenant general of engineers under Catherine the Great and as a Russian senator, so no surprise that he had so many sons in the army or that they all rose high. Their family had emigrated to Russia from Prussia in the 13th century, but if I know anything about Russians, they were still considered "German" and somewhat looked down upon by "native" Russians.