Kleiner Fledzug 1757: Results of April I

April I Map

Here's the state of the board after the operations of the first turn.

Precis of Operations

The Prussian flanking columns moved forward cautiously, crossing different parts of the Sudetes mountain ranges into Bohemia from Saxony (Winterfeldt) and Silesia (Schwerin). Arenberg's Austrian column fell back from Karlsbad on the west while Hadik's column advanced up towards Schwerin's advancing troops in the east.

FM von Browne, the Grand Old Man of the Austrian army, pushed forward into Zittau, with Prince Henry falling back before him. Though battle briefly threatened, Mars kept his countenance and no combat ensued.

The two dueling commanders in chief, meanwhile, took very different approaches. Prince Charles of Lorraine (brother to the Empress's husband and husband to her sister) took a portion of his forces and moved west from Prague to Schlan, leaving the remainder as a garrison of Bohemia's ancient capitol.

King Frederick, by contrast, led a mighty blue-clad flood across the border, moving swiftly and decisively to Aussig, a crossroads from which he may now strike west, east, or south at Prague itself.

As the armies moved forward, it became known that the Austrians had cleverly prepositioned supplies near the frontier, ready to supplement their main supply bases deeper in Bohemia at Pilsen and Bruenn. Three of these were originally established, but two were expended in the first weeks of the campaign, that at Budin being called on to support Arenberg's retirement over the mountains to Saaz and the one in Jungbunzlau being used up supporting Browne's march into Saxony. This leaves one supplementary depot in Koeniggratz.

Next Steps

Moving on to the April II turn, the CINCs will get to nominate raid or recon targets, then when the results of those are distributed, commanders will submit their next orders.

Questions and Clarifications

Several questions came up about general officers which left me thinking I had not explained the limitations of command well enough. Here's my attempt to remedy that.

Leaders and Movement

Each side has a number of officers. Some of them are rated for army command (Poor, Average, Good, Great). Those leaders can lead commands (groups of units on the map: call them armies, columns, corps, or divisions).

Other leaders are capable of directing troops in battle, but are not able to lead commands on the map. These should all be marked "subordinate only" on players' orders of battle, but the dead giveaway is that they have no army command rating (Poor, Average, Good, Great).

Units do not need an army commander to hold their position and defend it. They do need an army commander to move on the map.

Eight of the nine Prussian officers are rated for army command. Only four of the seven Austrian officers are. This, unfortunately, is a cross the Austrians have to bear.

Leaders Moving Without Troops

In other questions, one player asked, "How fast is a general moving alone?"

So, in design terms, I don't want to encourage players to start sending generals off on their own. Unless there are historical examples I've missed, that doesn't sound like something commanders at this level did (jumping around from army to army). So I'm going to say, as a provisional rule, that if they really need to, they can strategically reposition, but that this takes them out of play for a turn. They may leave the board at the beginning of Turn X and can be placed at the beginning of Turn X+1 with any friendly force they could have traced a route to free of enemy armies and fortresses.

Replacements for Attrition

Another question that came up: "Can armies that lose troops to attrition replace them?

In the context of a single campaign season, generally no. Armies were prepared over the winter and early spring, then marched out on campaign. Some drafts of replacements might be sent out from depots to individual regiments but, by and large, the forces one had at the beginning of a campaign were those one had to fight that campaign. In case of dire emergency, forces already in the field in a different theater might be diverted to shore up an army after a disaster, but a steady flow of replacements were not forthcoming.

Camp Defenses

One question that came up revolved around field fortifications: "Can armies construct fortified camps?"

There isn't a standard mechanism in Kleiner Feldzug for field fortifications, but given that armies often constructed defensive works when remaining in place for some time, I'm going to allow commands that remain stationary for a turn to acquire defenses. It wouldn't take a whole two weeks to build something, but giving up the local initiative should gain you something, in my opinion. What will result will not be anything like a fortress, but more like the defenses constructed by the Prussians at Hochkirch or the Russians at Zorndorf.

Whether you're playing in the campaign or watching at home, please feel free to post in questions, if you have any, about the campaign.