14. Battle of Aranjuez - 25th September 1808

Doodle here:

http://doodle.com/5p7e8qehwuu3739f

Dupont attacks Castanos. I am not going to give away much at all at this point but this could prove to be a highly significant battle for the fortunes of both sides. It may even be the fight that decides the campaign result for the rest of 1808.

As the armies concerned are Ron's and Mark's I will do my best to choose a date/time when both are available. This means if one is unable to make it this weekend I will defer the game to a time when both can. I'll get briefings written for the private forums hopefully tomorrow.

We will be using a Pipe Creek map so you will need this add-on to play in the battle. If you don't have the add-on it's ridiculously cheap and comes with three very nice maps, all mostly open but with steep rolling hills and many creeks and towns, some just hamlets, some very much bigger. The graphical quality of the ground textures isn't Norbsoft's best but the terrain of these maps makes up for that; there are numerous 'powerful' positions and heights to make a stand on, so please buy the add-on if you can.

Map:



We will be fighting on the eastern half of the map which is largely terrain we very rarely fight over. The map is correctly oriented with north to the top. The main creek passing from W to E and named Fiume Perosa is the Tagus. The NE fork named Fiume Grana is a tributary of the Tagus. Both are unfordable except at marked crossing points. The small city of Aranjuez itself is just off the SE map edge below Molini and Scarnafigi. The rivers flow from right to left and the town of Sesena is many miles north off the NE corner. This map can be considered to be slightly west and south of the map we used for the Sesena battle (TL:DR, I didn't want to use the 5m Gettysburg map yet again!).

Would really like to play in this one, but regrettably I cannot make either Saturday or Sunday. Would you mind extending the doodle to Friday please, on the off-chance we can run it then?

Martin (J)

It included Friday originally but since the first three players to register interest all said they couldn't play that day I deleted the option. I've tried Fridays before in the European evening time and it's always failed, probably because most Americans are at work.

If I set the time at midnight Fri/Sat or 1:00am Sat, could you play then? Those are the kinds of times we'd have to use to catch the American evening period.

Almost every night there are battles at GCM scheduled at 22:15 GMT and they usually start before 23:00 GMT. Just in case it helps.

Hi Pepe

I mentioned Midnight/1:00am because that is the time I know Kevin can play, and that is about as soon as he gets home from work (6:00pm Mountain Time). Perhaps the earlier GCM games are being played by east coast players or maybe students who get home earlier?

Sadly that's too late for this old codger. Good luck to my fellow Frenchies.

I will be on T/S on Friday at 20.00 UK time in hopes of an impromptu game with anyone else who can make it.

Martin (J)

You guys are dedicated

The importance of this one is demonstrated by the recruiting that is going on at the GCM site and (probably) elsewhere. Aranjuez will go down in the history books -- so it is only appropriate to make it a BIG one with 12+ players!

We need to put this Dupont fellow out of his misery once and for all.

Perhaps this will be your chance.

Dupont and Digby against the whole Spanish side, so far.

But I hear the Mexican. . . err. . . Spanish peasants are sharpening their pitchforks because they have no ammo.

Our biggest problem is the noxious odor pervasive in the camp because of all the beans we captured and ate.

We need to drum up more French players. I have asked Mitra/Davide if he and his Italian mafia can play.

Hopefully, I will be able to play this one. I'll let you know ASAP.

I have avoided reading the Allied forum just in case you want me to play Frenchies, although it would cut me bad, doing so

Let me know if you need me to float.

Mike

That's exceptionally good of you Mike. We may just need you to be French, yes.

I will give it my best shot at being there

That's 3 French and a turncoat Cuesta, so its now do-able. More is always better.

There has been an interesting discussion in the Allied forum about my decision to introduce a "don't go into woods" rule for this game. What my decision boils down to is the fact that the Spanish troops who were led by almost certainly the worst and most inept officers in Europe were not capable of functioning effectively in close terrain - woods, vineyards, olive/citrus groves, etc.

Historically almost all the battles fought by Spanish generals were fought in relatively open terrain and this was highly detrimental to them as it gave the French a significant advantage with their more numerous and better cavalry and artillery. This was even the case when we know the terrain in Spain was much more broken than elsewhere in Europe; it was a country that allowed Wellington to use masterful defensive positions where the French preponderance of guns and horsemen was nullified. His Spanish allies seemed quite incapable of doing the same.

While I don't want to make life so frustrating for the Spanish players that they get disillusioned, I want to try and introduce this feature to our Nap battles as well as to move towards more fighting in the open generally. Unlike ACW battles which were more often contested in dense terrain, Nap battles were frequently fought in open farmland (other than town fights which fall under a different heading from a tactical POV).

Maybe the problem is our lack of very open maps. So many that we have are wooded, broken with numerous creeks, fences, etc. On the other hand very open maps might give us simply repetitive dull games.

To clarify what I'd like to see players attempting to do is (and note how that preference is phrased, please everyone):

1) No artillery or cavalry from either side in woods (I think we all mostly do this already anyway, so not a biggie)
2) No close order Spanish infantry in woods.
3) Only skirmish order Spanish infantry may enter woods.
4) All French infantry may enter woods.

Now, on to the caveats.

1) The AI can't read this forum so it's unaware this rule is in place. Some breaking of it is to be expected.
2) "Woods" means the large contiguous belts of forest shown on the minimap. It doesn't mean smaller woods, thickets or clumps of trees on the battlefield that are too small to show on the minimap. This should make it easier to know what's wooded and what isn't.
3) I don't intend this rule to bring about a retreat from Fort William Henry style game where the Spanish/recoats get sniped to hell and back by the French/Indians. If a French unit is within or just on the edge of woods and a Spanish unit is getting shot at, the Spanish are allowed to deploy against the French and charge in.
4) Please do your best to comply. No-one's perfect, we can all miss things using HITS & couriers, but lets just see how this goes and talk it over after the game. If it's a humungous fail, we'll drop the idea. If its just too frustrating to deal with this extra vigilance lets talk about it.

Also, discuss.

I can play tomorrow.

Would it be possible to somehow have some plans and my command mailed in advance .

Thanks Martin

mike

Martin, the woods discussion is interesting.

I guess that since was the Army and was used to wartime or training ROI's that sounded odd. We just went on with it and for me it was just another day in the Army mindset.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Good job on keeping us on our toes.

I would suggest for next game that the French can't use gunpowder rule.


Looking forward to this afternoons game.

Morsey

I guess we are going to meet in about 1 hour, am I right?

There are several of us already in the TS lobby. Not sure exactly when it's starting

20:00 GMT, 15:00 East Coast.

Great fun again. Thanks to Digby for the great work on the scenario. The no woods rule added nice flavor to the game and well done to the French for fighting so hard against the odds. Definitely caught the Spanish on the hop with such a bold strategic move and had many of the Spanish players concerned over the implications of a French success in cutting supply routes to the armies surrounding Madrid. Can't wait to see what the implications are in the metagame and how it plays out next turn. More fighting to come I think Digby hinted and a surprise in the North...Gulp!

Yes,

Thanks Digby. A tough fight. My god the Spanish took so much canister I couldn't believe it. But they marched right up the hill and got them eventually. I recaptured all my guns and gave them more canister. Still they came. Spoom and Sharpe arrived just in time to turn the tide.

I was feeling pretty good. Then I turned and saw all the regiments coming over the hill right into our guns.

Kevin/MTG and his commanders Brett/Calpurnius and McLeod did almost all the fighting and diserve honours and recognition from the whole Spanish Army.    

For my it was an eventful battle from minute one.

With Martin/Digby's cavalry allways close and ready to ride at the first opportunity that arose. He surprised me twice, first charging an infantry brigade when I was far away, they couldn't get into square but were in column by divisions, and the battallions were shoulder to shoulder, so it was not too bad.
Later, I was setting up my divional battery somehow isolated and he started galloging from more than 400 yds away just parallell to my leading brigade and our cavalry, I was able to switch some battallions in the nick of time, so the cavalry charged them and got some cannister. It eas a very stressing time for me.  

I made 2 clicking mistakes. One giving orders to a brigade on the courier map so they went north-east, I couldn't see them and was thinking in searching for them, kept sending couriers and they finally appeared.
The second one moving my general on the 3D map close to a hilltop, I found myself charging the french cavalry like crazy.

And finally when we got to the top of the ridge east of Scarnafigi, I think we were faced by 3 french battallions and a battery that pulled back straight away. We got to bayonet charge and gave the final blow to french resistance.
My infantry did very little fighting. One of my infantry brigades got 4 points with 0 casualties, 0 to the enemy. Other was leading the initial advance and fought the cavalry. And the last one was involved with the french infantry.

I am very glad the way Grog/Mike and myself played together, he was allways a huge help, sending information and supporting me on his own initiative, his brigade accounted for half the casualties inflicted on the french by 2nd Division.

The overall plan from Ron/Castaños worked out fairly well, as we were counting on superior numbers, and I think Morsey too had some encounter with french cavalry early in the game, so no time to get bored.

It was great to have so many players, so the game gets more dynamic, thanks to all the generals!

Glad to hear you are enjoying the games so much Pepe. You're becoming a great asset to the group and your tactics are getting better quickly. I had very few opportunities to do much damage to your division last night and I too was puzzled (and a bit worried) where your other brigade had gone!

Grog used his cavalry brigade superbly as well. I never had a good chance to get at your infantry and his final charge that destroyed my last 3 squadrons was all over before I knew it was coming.

Replay File.