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.

More Quick Briefings on Kleiner Feldzug

A very fine wargame.

All right, well, this didn't end up being the next day. But here we are to finish off describing Kleiner Feldzug.

I mean this brief precis to be enough of an explanation for players to muddle through our campaign or for readers here to follow along. It is not an attempt to provide all the detail of the rules themselves, which are available as part of Sam Mustafa's Might & Reason tabletop battle rules, and which I highly recommend the discerning wargamer to purchase for a paltry fee on his website.

Raids and Reconnaissance

During the game, at the beginning of each turn, each side's commander in chief (CINC) gets to make the "recon and raid" decisions for the army.

Each CINC gets to choose one enemy force to either raid (possibly attrit) or recon (possibly determine some information on its makeup) with a chance equal to his "raider" value. The defender gets a save against a successful raid but none against a reconnaissance. Normally in Kleiner Feldzug, each side gets only one of these checks per turn: in this scenario, I am giving the Austrians two (2) checks per turn provided at least one is of an enemy force inside the Austrian borders, to represent their historical superiority at ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) in friendly territory.

Movement and Supply

Armies normally move two (2) spaces per turn unless they are 100% cavalry or commanded by a Great general, in which case they can move three (3) spaces. Force-marching is allowed, with capabilities definded by each scenario. In this campaign Austrian troops can force-march one (1) additional space per turn but will suffer (additional) attrition. Prussians can force-march up to two (2) spaces, but will undergo additional attrition in each.

Normally troops only check for attrition if they move(/evade/retreat) along a mountain path, move while out of supply, or spend a turn in a besieged fortress.

Armies must stop on entering a point occupied by an unbesieged enemy fortress.

Commanders may move by themselves. Troops may not move by themselves; they must have an officer capable of army command to lead them. As might be expected, the Prussians tend to have more of these independent-minded and initiative-seizing gentlemen than do the Austrians.

Troops can be left at a point by themselves. They will not be able to move, but they can defend adequately.

Supply extends six (6) spaces from a supply source (Austria's are Pilsen and Bruenn; Prussia's are Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau) but do not extend through a point with an enemy corps, enemy-held city, or unbesieged enemy fortress.

Battle and Siege

Armies may attempt to evade enemy armies they do not want to fight. This is easier to do if one's army contains light/irregular cavalry units and/or is lead by a Good or Great general.

Likewise, if armies decide (or are forced) to fight, they have an advantage in pre-battle scouting and post-battle pursuit based on having light/irregular cavalry units and better generals than the opposition.

To besiege fortresses, one needs an army with more units than the total of the fortress value (usually 3) and the enemy infantry and artillery sheltering inside. Sieges may reduce a fortress over time and/or by means of assault.

Armies' Starting Positions

Here is a map of the campaign and the forces deployed at start. I should have an update this weekend with their new positions. Refer to the previous post for a version of the map with no units, so you can see all the place names that are obscured here.

Some basics about Kleiner Feldzug

So...erm, how does it work?

Frederick after the battle of Kolin (Carl Röchling retouched by kabinettskriege.blogspot.com)

So we have the map set for our campaign, and the armies are being marshalled. The scenario determines the starting positions of the Prussian and Austrian commands (call them armies, corps, or columns--terminology was a bit loose at this point). But while the approximate size of each force is known, and the starting position of most of the general officers, some details are still unknown, to be determined by the commanders in chief (CINCs) on each side.

While we wait for them to make these decisions, let's review the rules by which the campaign is governed. I won't post the whole ruleset here (they are part of the Might & Reason battle rules, which can be found for sale at the author's website), but let's go over some of the basics.

Victory

The most important question of any military campaign, and of any game--how do you win? As I mentioned in the first post, each army is seeking to occupy each other's supply sources (Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau for the Prussians; Pilsen and Bruenn for the Austrians). The Prussians also want to capture and hold Prague, the capital of Bohemia. And each seeks to defeat the other's armies in battle. If the Prussians manage to accumulate at least two more victory points than the Austrians do by then end of the campaign, they win. If the Austrians get more, or even if the Prussians are a head by only a single point, Austria has defeated the invader.

The Seat of War

The area of campaign constitutes most of the northern portion of the Austrian-controlled Kingdom of Bohemia, as well as parts of Saxony (conquered by Prussia the year before our campaign, in 1756) and Silesia (a part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown lost by Austria to Prussia in 1742 in the treaty ending the First Silesian War). From these two conquered territories, emboldened Prussian armies make ready to plunge their knives into Austria, front and flank.

Each of the points on the map represents a town, a city, or a fortress. The points marked with a circle represent towns and cities without substantial or well maintained fortifications, while the diamonds represent fortified locations, whether a city or town or simply a fortress located at a strategic site. Three Prussian fortresses and two Austrian-controlled towns are marked as supply centers. Armies in the field will depend on those places to keep their men from starving and running out of munitions.

The lines connecting points follow the roads available for movement and mostly represent distances of 15 to 25 miles. Paths through more difficult terrain--especially the routes marked with small triangles, corresponding to mountain passes--represent shorter distances, as these defiles will take more time to negotiate. For the sake of simplicity, no other terrain is represented; assume that river crossings, dense forests, and poorer than normal roads are factored into the frequency of routes. The mountain passes will cause more attrition (explained later) to troops crossing them than other routes.

The campaign will last for five months of game time; it begins at the beginning of April and ends at the end of August. Each turn represents two weeks of activity.

Prussian grenadiers advancing at the battle of Leuthen (Carl Röchling)

Armies

Each army in the campaign, Prussian and Austrian, is represented in the game by several commands. Each consists of one or more general officers and a number of units. Each unit is roughly the size of an 18th century brigade, something like four battalions of infantry (perhaps with attendant light artillery), ten squadrons of cavalry, or several batteries of medium or heavy artillery.

Units possess varying numbers of strength points (SP), which represent the combat power of the formation--a combination of manpower, training and discipline, experience, and morale. A unit with solid esprit de corps but fewer men might still have a higher SP total than a larger unit of untrained recruits or militia of limited experience and training.

Units cannot move operationally by themselves. To move, they must be under the direction of an army commander. Each side has a number of these individuals, of varying skill and ability.Several commands may be present at a point. Troops may be left at a point by a departing general if he wishes to garrison it, but they will have to remain there until another commander arrives to take charge of them.

Frederick the Great addressing his generals before the battle of Leuthen (Drawing by Menzel)

Officers

These commanders mentioned above are rated for command ability, for personality (how aggressive they were), and whether they typically showed exceptional signs of valor in battle. Not all generals are cut out to be commanders, however. A general in charge of an army will need subordinates to command elements of his army in battle, and some of these subordinates were remarkable enough to be called out as individuals; other subordinates may appear at battle time but are generic enough they fade in the background at the level of the campaign. Each commander has a seniority level (the lower the number, the more senior), and whoever is most senior in a force if and when it comes to a battle must command.


Tomorrow:

Raids and Reconnaissance, Movement and Supply, and Battle and Siege

New Kleiner Feldzug campaign starting

With the help of the gamers in the Army of Central Maryland, I'm starting a new run at the 1757 campaign of Prussia against Austria (the "Kolin" campaign). You can read all about the historical events here on Wikipedia's page about the Third Silesian War.

Here's the map we'll be using:

Without giving anything away that the players won't know to start off with, the Prussians start with corps at Dresden, Freiberg, Zittau, and Landeshut.

The Austrian forces start at Prague, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, and Koeniggratz.

Each army is seeking to occupy each other's supply sources (Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau for the Prussians; Pilsen and Bruenn for the Austrians). The Prussians also want to capture and hold Prague, the capital of Bohemia. And each seeks to defeat the other's armies in battle.

More posts to come on the generals, the armies, the history, and of course the campaign!

Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new...

So, with time at home on my hands, I've been nosing around a couple of options for a new miniature wargaming project, mostly because (inconceivably, given all that I have to work with) I'm bored with my current projects. (Admittedly, if I actually enjoyed painting figures, I'd be happy as a sandboy; I guess I far prefer organizing and planning to painting and modeling.)

Of course, actual gaming is pretty hard to do right now in any case. I've heard of folks having some success playing games through the Tabletop Simulator module in Steam, but I haven't explored it yet.

Options I'm thinking about:

New Zealand Wars: I ordered some Empress Miniatures figures to see what they're like. From reading about the campaigns, these seem like they would be largely small battles with troops firing dispersed in the dense NZ terrain or British/colonist forces trying to capture Maori pa's (forts). Eureka also do some nice Maori and European figures.

Indian Mutiny: I got a few of Iron Duke's figures too. I wrote to them and pointed out that they have only one mounted leader for the Indian forces (the maharaj' on his elephant). They wrote back right away and said yes, sorry, they hadn't got around to it and probably won't for a while because of all the new lines they're starting. *gloomy face* Who *are* these people who can't stick to one thing and finish it properly before moving on? ROFLOL.

Wargames Foundry does have a good line with pretty of options, as does a company called (appropriately enough) Mutineer Miniatures; it will be interesting to see how they scale to each other. 

I do have some of the Dixon 15mm Mutiny figures, some of which I had painted up. They are handsome figures; the only problem IMO is that like many older UK ranges they have only one pose for a good many of their figures. Sikh, Highlander, Gurkha, mutineer in uniform, mutineer in civvies--all a single figure pose. Some of the Wargames Foundry packs are like that, but most have at least three poses. Whereas Iron Duke had 14 different sepoy packs, each of which has four different poses in it.

Earlier (or later) Indian Wars:  I find that from somewhere I acquired a small collection of Redoubt figures for their Wellington in India range--British troops, sepoys, and Maratha and other local opponents. I could probably field enough for a small battle, but more would be needed to really put on a game. Redoubt are still available, and they're not bad figures, but they are huge compared to other 28mm (they're probably 32mm) so one would have to make do with whatever is in that line. Perry and Wargames Foundry and Artizan Design also have figures for the Afghan wars, the Sikh wars, and various other Victorian entanglements.

Nine Years War/War of the League of Augsburg/Great Northern War: A string of late 17th/early 18th century wars that Warfare Miniatures sell some nice 28mms for and which Khurasson does nice figures in 15mm. The NYW and the WLA have some appeal for me because they're the last time the Dutch were a big power on the battlefield. :-) The NYW is the Irish and Scottish elements of the Glorious Revolution, which was very quick in England but not so quick in the other three kingdoms. Barry Hilton and the LoA folks have always done a good job of making this seem very appealing to do in 28mm. I have a collection of siege equipment in 15mm I bought to use as props for a semi-board/semi-miniature game I planned for a convention once but never carried out. I have some field army troops in 15/18mm but sadly only a small number and from a maker (Venexia) whose 17th century line has sunk without a trace.

Tudor/Valois/Hapsburg warfare: I'm a great fan of a series of books set in the mid-16th century, part of which touch on the warfare among England, France, Scotland, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Khurasan make a couple of nice lines for this period in 15mm, and The Assault Group has some lovely figures in 28mm. Wargames Foundry has some appropriate bits too and Artizan.

Sub-Roman Britain: I re-read a set of novels recently that got me thinking again about this period. Both Gripping Beast and Footsore Miniatures make nice figures for this period, as do Artizan Design.

Roman urban conflict? While looking at the Footsore site, I was introduced to their Gangs of Rome line. While I'm not all that fascinated by gang-fighting games, I'm a sucker for diverse civilian figures and scenery bits, and the range of buildings they have for this game is just stunning. Again, Foundry has plenty of figures that would supplement those Footsore offers.

Things I'm just not going to look at: The Perry lines of Carlist Wars, samurai, or Korean figures. Footsore's Barons War line. Eureka's 28mm French Revolution line. Steel Fist's Italian Wars and samurai lines. Just not looking, nope, nope, nope. 

Currently neglected projects: Things I could get my head back into, if my head would cooperate, include 6mm, 15mm, and 28mm Napoleonics; 15mm and 28mm American Revolution; 6mm WSS and SYW; 28mm SYW small actions; 6mm and 28mm WWI; 28mm Anglo-Scottish war; various Triumph! armies; various 6mm late 19th century European armies; 15mm wars of the French Revolution; and 15mm WWII. 28mm French and Indian War. Wars of the Roses and other late 15th century European fighting. 28mm Scottish border reivers.

Rules

I'm quite happy, for larger battles of almost any of these periods, with the Carnage and Glory rules

Of course, at the end of the day, what one lacks most is a good set of rules for playing smaller actions, the sort that one instinctively wants to play with larger figures that take up a lot of table space and budget and so prevent you from acquiring them in gigantic heaps. I have yet to find a good set of rules for recreating what *I* would call skirmishes. Most that are available these days are simple and easy to learn but don't give the sense of recreating an actual battle any more than the average Hollywood movie does. They consist mostly of moving unformed mobs of figures back and forth and are won mostly by rolling dice better than your opponent, not by employing actual military tactics.

In my opinion, the best of a bad lot, ironically, are Black Powder, the latest in the long line of products from the brain of Warhammer designers Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson. They're generic horse and musket rules, and they have their silly side, but they are simple to learn and to mod, they don't involve figure removal (a game mechanism I find wildly unrealistic), and they have broad distribution. They have earlier period cousins in Pike & Shotte and Hail Caesar. Pike & Shotte, ironically, do least well at handling the pike & shot period, as they had to be retrofitted for units that consisted of both pike and shot!

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.

Recreating Bound Brook: A Preview

Johann Ewald's map of the Bound Brook action (Wikimedia)

I'll be running my first re-creation of the Bound Brook action this weekend. The original engagement was almost literally a walk over for the British; I hope the ideas I've come up with make it more challenging and interesting for both sides while still retaining a sense of what the historic action was about.

To recap quickly, the Bound Brook garrison was an American post in advance of their main winter cantonments. It was being used to support New Jersey militia raids on the British lines and attacks on British foraging expeditions. The British assaulted it partly to destroy its usefulness as a forward operating base and perhaps partly in hopes of drawing the main American army, or a portion of it, into a general engagement.

The gradual escalation of the Forage War and the seeming intelligence domination of the battlefield by the Americans had left the British in the Jerseys, like Frederick the Great when operating in Austrian territory, completely in the dark as to enemy strengths and locations. To begin with, the vastly underestimated the forces they would face in small-war operations. When they sent a company, a battalion of American appeared. When they sent a battalion, it was attacked by a brigade. By the end of the winter, then, they were prone to employ overwhelming force in any operation, no matter how small. So this attack was planned to feature four converging columns totalling almost 4,000 men to attack an outpost that they expected to have only 1,000 men in it (in fact, by April 13th, the American garrison had shrunk to 500 men).

The assault force easily overran the post, though failure to coordinate the columns perfectly meant an uneasy start to the action for the initially unsupported jaegers. The failure of coordination also meant that the bulk of the Americans escaped, rather than being captured. The British then left the area before the American relief force, a division under MG Nathanael Greene, came up. It's not clear if that force was sent to contest the post with the British or just to reclaim it once they had departed; the British had brought neither guns nor engineers, so it is unlikely they planned to hold the position once captured.

The Area of Operations: The highlighteds areas are (New) Brunswick and Raritan Landing ("Old Bridge") in the SE, where British troops were based; Bound Brook in the center, just E of Bridgewater; and Baskeridge (or Basking Ridge), where Greene seems to have been posted. (Wikipedia)

I'm going to give the Americans a force stronger than what defended the post historically, and Greene will be waiting in the wings. I'll give the British access to the same forces that they had historically and let them plan their attack (I hope to even have some facsimiles of period maps). I'll then inflict some of the same uncertanties on both sides that attended (or could have attended) the historic event and see what result we get. Given the size of the forces (10-15 units per side: larger than our last game, a bit smaller than a "regular" C&G game), we may be over quickly and have time for a replay, or it may prove a full game.

Another view of the AO, with highlights, from a Hessian map of the theatre. (West Jersey History Project)