11. Battle of Sesena - 24th August 1808

We have another battle to fight in late August and this will not be the last either!

Doodle:

http://doodle.com/3zh8pe4wr8xbzdwa

The map is our restricted movement Gettysburg map rotated 90deg clockwise so that west is now north.

Possible Spanish moves are shown in orange, possible French moves in blue.



I repeat, WEST is now NORTH. Game orders should be given accordingly! Blue rivers are not crossable except where shown (either bridges or fords). The southern river is the Tagus (or Tajo). The city of Aranjuez is just off the SW map corner. The northern river is the Jarama and off the west map edge it turns south to join the Tajo, making the west map edge impassable as an exit route by anyone except routed troops. The town of Sesena is just off the NW map corner. The town of Gettysburg does not have an equivalent on the campaign map but looking at a real map the town of Las Tajeras fits this location. We can use the other village names on the map as-is. The Italian ones sound a little Spanish.

The Army of Andalucia commanded by General Castanos is crossing the Tagus from Aranjuez in the SW and moving north to cross the Jarama, making for Sesena and Madrid off the NW map corner. Marshal Murat's army is in the vicinity of Las Tajeras, or east of there, marching back towards that town, having set off a day ago to march east to attack another Spanish army under General Villava y Aybar which has crossed the Tajo at Tarancon some 30 miles east of here and is pushing up the La Poveda road. For his own strategic reasons, when Castanos began to cross the Tajo in force behind him, Murat halted his eastward march and after some small confusion of march discipline, returned to attack Castanos the next day.

The orange and blue arrows do not indicate where the Spanish and French are going, specifically, merely routes they could take.

This is going to be a HUGE battle. We may need a smaller sprite ratio than 4:1. If we do not get enough players I have another battle we can fight that requires fewer players and is taking place 30 miles to the NW, on the west side of Madrid where the highway from Portugal, Almaraz and Talavera crosses the Rio Guadarrama at a small place called Navalcamero. If we fight Sesena this weekend, Navalcamero will be next weekend.

Please make every effort to attend this battle as it should be a big fight of a subtle and complex nature. We especially need a lot of French players and skilled cavalry commanders for both sides as cavalry will almost certainly play a critical role.

As always I will give more detailed information in the two sides private forums.

I am going to postpone this battle until next Saturday as Ron (Castanos) cannot make this weekend but he can make next and this battle is a significant one for the Army of Andalucia. There will still be a campaign battle this weekend but a much smaller one - however I think it will still be very interesting...

I'll make a new thread for it soon.

That's unfortunate, Diggers.  Murat cannot make the following 2 weekends.

Martin (J)

Grr, that's a pain. Ron has missed a few games recently and dropped early from the last one he was in. I was hoping to offer him command of his army at its finest hour.

Ron can make a Sunday game, so in the hope that others can, I have added Sunday timeslots. Please edit your entries.

GCM guys, can you rattle up some support on the GCM forum or in TS? I am not sure we will get enough players for this game without more people.

Yes I can do this Sunday too, and have just filled in the doodle.

If we cannot get enough players for Sunday, is another option to play it in 3 weeks time, and have a couple of non-Napoleonic games in between, just to ring the changes?

While it’s good to keep the campaign moving, there are some folks who just prefer ACW, and we want to keep them happy too.  And there’s also the Blenheim and Fontenoy mods to experiment with.  

Martin (J)

We could do that. There is a smaller Nap battle to fight as well, as I mentioned.

It involves some Frenchmen in bearskins so the French players may have some fun there.

Posted on Doodle that I can't make the game on Sunday, we are usually just getting home from Church at that time. Will try and make it, just depends on what we do for lunch that day.

We are going to play this game on Sunday as both Ron (Castanos) and Martin (Murat) can make that date/time. If we're short of players so be it, people will just have to command big formations and let the AI handle the work.

Saturday (tonight) its the Battle of Navalcamero. Small and cute but rather funky.

A final call for today's game which is on Sunday 5th Oct at 19:30 UK time, 20:30 European time, 14:30 East Coast, 13:30 Central, 12:30 Mountain and 11:30 Pacific.

I've been talking with the two C-in-Cs and its been agreed we can play this if we have 7 players; 4 French, 3 Spanish. Any less and it'll be impossible due to the command structure, any more is a bonus and I'll strictly add the 8th player to the Spanish side, the 9th to the French, etc. The C-in-C of that side will have the choice of where to allocate the extra player(s).

As I have mentioned before this is going to be a big battle and could be highly significant regarding events around Madrid - and that means campaign-deciding events - so please come along. Our new players Brett/Calpurnicus and Pepe/Iberalc are especially welcome.

Very sorry for my game crash today. I think it has nothing to do with the connection as it happens to me in SP.

I hope you were able to play the battle.

Hi Pepe

Don't worry. These things happen.

Given that you experience this in SP as well, it may be that you have some corrupted files. Can I suggest you try reinstalling everything, including mods.

Yes we got to play. More details in a day or two.

Martin

Well, I've done everything and updated drivers for graphic card and today I was able to play a MP battle on GCM.

Thank You.

Pepe's game works fine in the GCM 1v1, everything moves smooth and laggless. Hope it will go this way tomorrow.

Maybe even today, if family allows me.

This action was a minor victory for the French in tactical terms, although very little actual fighting took place. Near Novi infantry and artillery of Dupont's corps encountered a brigade of Spanish cavalry under the command of Carrillo de Albornoz holding the approach to the eastern crossing of the Tagus and there was a brief but violent clash. The Spanish were driven back with about 50 casualties but one battalion of French were routed when they were charged in rear. The French suffered about 200 casualties here. Albornoz himself was badly wounded in this fighting.

Elsewhere near Gonzaga and Budrioni some cannonading took place as the Spanish withdrew causing moderate losses but nightfall saw Castanos' army retreating back across the Tagus, although in considerable disorder. He was obliged to abandon Aranjuez and Ocana and pull back south along the Manzanares road. Castanos' decision not to press on to Sesena may have saved his army from destruction but it halted all strategic attempts by the Spanish combined armies to attempt to get into Madrid in August.

Murat consolidated his corps at nightfall in the village of Sesena and collected in wounded, stragglers and some prisoners of war. While the Marshal was denied the crushing defeat of Spain's principal southern army in this battle, his strategic position at Madrid for September will be greatly strengthened as two of the Spanish advancing armies have been thrown back.

High drama, even if the anticipated bloodletting fell short. Nice work, Martin!

On with the next turn! More high drama one hopes!