Kleiner Feldzug 1757: The Battle of Gitschina

As we saw in the resolution of the May I turn, the Prussian forces of FM Kurt Christof, Count von Schwerin fell upon the Austrian army of FML Andreas Count Hadik von Futak in the vicinity of Gitschina in the course of the move.

The battle is still being resolved, but I thought I'd share the initial setup.

Hadik's army is to the top of the map, deployed on a ridge with field fortifications protecting its four units of infantry and its artillery in a strong redoubt. On the Austrian right (to the left of the map) are two brigades of Austrian cuirassiers. On their left are a brigade of Croatian grenzers in their red cloaks and a brigade of chevaux legers.

Approaching them is von Schwerin's army, all still on movement formations. On the Prussian left are a brigade of hussars (yellow) and two of their own cuirassiers. In the center are two heavy batteries (outlined in black) flanked by grenadiers (gold edged) and fusiliers (pink edge). Behind those are three brigades of musketeers, making up the reserve.

During the first turn of the battle, the Prussians advanced relentlessly, finally shifting their leading brigades of infantry into line as they passed the town. Their cavalry accelerated, deploying and hurling themselves on the Austrian cavalry, which repulsed them, counter attacked, and were repulsed in their turn.

Seeing the slow advance of the Prussian main body, Hadik launched his light troops in a dash across the front of his army, hoping to strike the Prussian cavalry in the flank. Will they succeed? Will the Austrian cavalry hold out? Look for future dispatches!

Kleiner Feldzug 1757: Results of May I turn

Here's the state of the board after the third turn.

Precis of Operations:

The Austrian forces moved eastward. Arenberg retired to Prague from Schlan. Charles moved from Prague through Brandeis to Jungbunzlau. Von Browne moved from Niemes through Jungbunzlau to Muenchengraetz. Hadik held his ground, fortifying his position as best he could.

Frederick and Winterfeldt moved northeast, marching through Komotau to Brun, ending in Teplitz. Prince Henry held position. Von Schwerin sent Keith with a brigade of dragoons over the mountains to Landeschut to guard the supply line back to Breslau while pressing southwest with the rest of his force to find and fight Hadik.

Next Steps

Feld Marshal von Schwerin has found Feld Marshal Leutnant Hadik's army and is preparing to do battle. Hadik has taken some time to prepare his position to meet the Prussian onslaught. We shall see who is successful! Once the battle has been concluded, I'll post a report.

Kleiner Fledzug 1757: Results of April II

April II Map

Here's the state of the board after the second turn.

Precis of Operations:

As you will see, the Prussians planned a lightning descent on Karlsbad. Winterfeldt marched over the mountains, and Frederick led his troops on a march almost worthy of "Stonewall" Jackson's foot cavalry, almost 100 miles in two weeks, which is blistering speed in Seven Years War terms. However, instead of returning to Karlsbad, the Duke of Arenberg had marched east to join up with Prince Charles at Schlan. But Charles, in turn, had retreated from his cavalry sortie to the safety of Prague.

Meanwhile in the east, Hadik slowly withdrew, with the Prussian FM Schwerin slowly on his heels, a roadrunner versus coyote race in slow motion. FM von Browne, having probed into Saxony and outrun his supply lines, pulled back into Bohemia as Prince Henry and the Duke of Brunswick watched but did not pursue.

Rules Changes

Having seen the rather devastating effect of attrition rolls on both armies, I decided to reduce their deadliness. For all causes, attrition rolls will now be conducted as per the rules, but all SPs targeted for elimination get a confirming saving throw, and if they get a 5 or 6 will avoid becoming a casualty.

Additionally, while both sides were getting one opportunity to raid or recon an enemy force, I was giving the Austrians an additional opportunity to target Prussian forces inside Austria proper. Given the damage capability of even a scaled-back attrition roll, I'm changing that to an additional recon (but *not* raid) roll on a Prussian force inside Austria.

Finally, while I've been allowing a small chance for dispatches sent between commanders to go astray (get lost or be captured), I'm adding a saving throw, as it were, for those as well, allowing for the possibility that extra copies of a dispatch sent by alternate routes may get through even if one is lost or waylaid.

May I Raids and Recons

The Prussians, having seen the outcome of the April II move, sought to raid the forces of the Duke of Arenberg. Arenberg's partisans proved too much for them however (raid result: unsuccessful).

Meanwhile, the Austrians attempted to raid the force of Prince Henry at Goerlitz, but were unsuccessful. Likewise, their reconnaissance of the combined armies of Frederick and Winterfeldt was turned back. The Prussian freikorps contingents were concentrating on defense this turn!

Next Steps

Now we wait for commanders to submit their May I moves...

How To Be Sporting in Games

Someone wrote this up some time past and I saved it. It strikes me that while much of it applies to DBA (or Triumph, which I play instead of DBA now), much of it is simply good advice for sporting play.



The following basic points of etiquette have been recommended by DBA gamers for both tournament and regular play and are collected here for ease of reference:

• All games should be conducted in a spirit of good sportsmanship for the purposes of fun and friendly competition.
• To avoid confusion over often similar looking elements in a game, it is customary during the deployment phase to identify your army list, identify each element deployed by type, and indicate which element is your CnC. This includes identifying any elements set aside for use as a littoral landing force.
• It is permissible to pre-measure move distances and/or to check distance shooting ranges at any point during either player’s bound, and to use markers to help indicate zones of control, and special rulers to assist in wheeling lines of troops.
• All movement should be carefully measured to ensure that elements do not exceed their allotted movement allowance. When moving an element, the initial starting location and/or the proposed ending location can be marked so that the move distance can be verified by measurement and/or the element restored to its original position if the movement is challenged.
• Once an element has been moved, as in chess, the move is final and should not be retracted or adjusted unless correctly challenged by the opponent.
• If you are not sure when moving an element whether it will end the bound in or out of ZOC, in or out of shooting range, in or out of bad going, etc., it is appropriate to communicate your intentions to your opponent and then mutually agree on the final location and status of the element. For example, Player 1 might say -- I want to move this element up, but end just outside the range of your archers. Player 2 would respond by indicating range line or by agreeing that the element is outside of the shooting range in its current location.
• Dice should be given a good, solid throw, bouncing on impact and landing within plain view of your opponent. Use of a dice cup or dice box are encouraged. Avoid rolling dice into your opponent’s figures. Any thrown dice that rolls out of your opponents view (e.g. off the table) or does not end up flat on the rolling surface is “cocked” and should be rerolled.
• When an issue can’t be resolved amicably by the players using the published rules, reference should be made to the tournament umpire or a neutral third party if no referee is readily available, or by use of a standard reference (e.g. the WADBAG Unofficial Guide) or, if necessary, resort to a dice roll.
• Players should not handle the figures of other players or using their dice or gaming implements without their knowledge and consent and should always be careful to avoid causing damage to all game components.
• At a tournament game, players should arrive on time, ready to play, and should be available to continue play at the start of each scheduled round.
• Players should avoid engaging in activities of a distracting nature (e.g. talking on a cell phone) while involved with a game.
• At the conclusion of a game, it is customary to shake hands and thank your opponent .

KF 1757: Supporting Mechanisms

Models of Austrian military wagons and limbered gun, Wagram Museum (http://ultimaratioregis.com)

Attrition

Attrition is a fairly simple mechanism in Kleiner Feldzug. Jolly simple, but jolly deadly.

From a different war...

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead : [Adendorff has explained the classic Zulu 'buffalo' battle formation]  It looks er... jolly simple, doesn't it?

Adendorff : It's, er, jolly deadly, old boy.

In Kleiner Feldzug, troops have to take attrition checks when they take actions that may cause substantial non-battle losses. These include force marches, marching when out of supply, marching during the winter, marching through hostile terrain (primarily in Europe marching through mountain passes, though extensive swamps or other dense, unpopulated terrain would count). Simply sitting still, if in a fortress under siege, will cause an attrition check, though sitting still while otherwise out of supply will not (some amount of foraging will supply basic needs, though it cannot replenish military supplies).

Attrition checks happen for each instance so, for example, if one force-marched two points, one of them over a mountain pass, while out of supply, one would take four checks.

Attrition checks are fairly brutal. One rolls a die per attrited unit; two-thirds of die rolls will result in one or two SPs of losses. Most units have 4-9 SPs, with average units possessing 6 or 7. So that rash command in the example just mentioned that takes four attrition checks will suffer from 0 to 8 SP losses PER UNIT, with an average loss of around 3 SPs per unit. Needless to say, for a force composed of mediocre to average troops (4 to 6 SP per unit), this would be crippling; even for a force composed of good troops (7, 8, or 9 SP per unit), this would be a severe blow.

The lesson? Don't undergo attrition checks if you can avoid it!

Dispatches

Beautifully painted Minden jäger zu pferde delivering a dispatch (altefritz.blogspot.com)

This subject is not addressed directly in the original Kleiner Feldzug rules. Since we're playing this online by email, I thought it would make life ...interesting...for players if they could not communicate immediately and directly with each other unless the officers they were playing were loacted at the same point.

Thus players wanting to send messages to other players (friendly or, I suppose, enemy) have to send them to the umpire. The umpire then determines if the messages get through, get lost or delayed, or get captured/intercepted. Since commanders were likely to send dispatches via multiple couriers, these results are not exclusive of each other--one copy of a message might get delayed, while another got through and another was intercepted.

For the moment, I'll leave it at that.

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.