15. Battle of Murcia - 9th October 1808

Murcia is a little known but sizeable town in Cataluna a few miles downstream of Gerona and sited at an old stone bridge across the Rio Ter. It isn't the Murcia that's the capital of that province in south-east Spain.

We are playing part 2 of Kevin's linked scenario game this weekend so the doodle has been drawn up for the following weekend 13th-14th December.

Doodle here:

http://doodle.com/v88fcvqryvb4trsc

French VII Corps under Gouvion Saint Cyr is about to attack Vives across the Rio Ter. Another reason I'm delaying this battle is because Pepe would like to be the Spanish C-in-C (his first time in a campaign battle) and he can't play this weekend.

The game also ideally needs 13 players and I hope the extra time will give us chance to rustle up more players.

This fight promises to be a real ding-dong affair of large size so if you like big fights, please sign up! Please also invite along anyone who you'd think would enjoy this game.

The map is Lynchburg (free-add on) so everyone can play - it's also in the new Supplemental Maps add-on mod by Kevin and the minimap has Spanish names as well.

Map:



General Reille finally succeeded in securing the surrender of the port of Rosas and had put in a French garrison and was re-organising his corps when unexpectedly a superior officer arrived - Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr. He bore a letter of authority from Napoleon himself and took command of VII Corps. Reille was given back command of his old division - the third. Saint Cyr then advanced during the first week of October south from Rosas and reached the Rio Ter near Gerona. His scouting light cavalry easily pushed back the much weaker Spanish cavalry screen across the river and over the next few days the French conducted a reconnaissance of the north bank in search of a suitable place to cross. Eventually they took up a position behind a powerful array of artillery with which they began to bombard the Spanish positions defending the south bank around the old stone bridge at Murcia; the Puente del Rosas. This bridge has an unusual wooden roof covering it which is a very uncommon sight in eastern Spain.

Unable to effectively reply to the stronger enemy artillery, general Vives pulled his divisions back from the river into the centre of the town where they were protected from the French guns. This however gave Saint Cyr the opportunity to send assault columns across the bridge.

There was a second wooden-framed bridge just downstream of the Puente del Rosas which carried the metals of the Murcia Marble Quarry Company's line; a tramroad by which marble is carried from the quarries several miles away. The horse-drawn wooden wagons bring the dressed stone into the town where it is polished and sent to the coast on river barges. General Vives had his men burn this bridge down and it is not crossable.

Technical Note: the map has a railroad bridge but troops will not cross it - no game-path is made over it and instead they walk down into the water and 'swim' across. The Rio Ter can be swum by men and horses however this takes a long time and will tire troops considerably. Couriers can have their horses swim it as well but again this gives long delays to messengers. Players need to be aware of this in the battle - it is pretty much impossible to send couriers between forces either side of the river - your general should ride across the bridge and send a courier once he's on the side where the message is intended to go, then if necessary ride back again using road movement (which takes him via the bridge).

The map shows the approximate position of French troops the Spanish have observed with their guns being indicated by dots. The orange lines show Vives' initial position. His troops have now moved south-west up the slope and into the centre of town. Apart from one division on the east side of town his troops are largely out of sight but parties of officers have been seen riding about the town.

The burned-down tramway bridge is marked with a red 'X'.

Although Gerona itself is off the north-west edge of the map a little north of Ojos, as you can see the terrain here is very broken with a minor river and steep slopes as well as low-lying boggy ground in places. The main road to Barcelona is the one running south-west from Murcia via Lebrilla. It turns north just off the south-west map corner and runs by an easier route to Gerona before swinging back to the south from the city itself.

More detailed information is given in the relevant posts in the private forums for each side.

Order of the day to the Army of Cataluña:


Your Excellency, Gral Vives,
Please read the following Order of the Day to your forces:

Officers and men around Gerona, our motherland is in great danger. An invader with no God and no mercy is committing abominable crimes aimed to wipe out our traditions, our territory and culture.

The French Army is probably one of the best in Europe at the moment, so we must have no illusions about the difficulty of the task ahead of us.

The sacred soil of our country and our destiny is at stake!

The time has come to revive the long forgotten battlecry that has terrified our foes for centuries, shout out with me, ¡Santiago y cierrra España!

Forward with God, our belief is in victory. Hail my brave warriors!

Capitán General Don Pedro González de Llamas y Molina.
Commanding Officer Army of the Right.

Can I ask our GCM/KS members to try and gather some players from the GCM community for this battle? I'd ideally like 13 players. We currently have only 6. Also can EVERYONE please fill in the doodle poll? I'd like to see your name up there even if you cannot make it - that helps me in last minute chasing up of people by direct e-mail. I need not e-mail you if you have told me you can't make it.

Thanks.

Attempting to drum up still more support at the GCM site: http://forums.sowmp.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=850

Several new players have had problems recently finding and then downloading the mods necessary to play (encountering broken links, etc.). Would it be possible (one more time) to post working links that may be accessed outside the KS forum (new members won't have access to it) -- to the required mods, together with abbreviated instructions on how/where to install them, their proper order, and other mods that must be turned off? I'd recommend targeting this directly to new players who are interested in testing the waters. (So, for example, instructions for hosts about how to change their sowgb.ini files may not be necessary). It might also help to include just a few basics of KS HITS play that occasionally trap the unwary, e.g., press "enter" before sending off a text courier; don't toggle-off trees, etc.

This might help smooth the process and reduce potential frustration.

Hi Ron

Here's some links you could post on there.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to post them on the GCM forum but I might need to re-register:

In case you have trouble with the server, I've uploaded the mod (Large 1.710) here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/ks9qpdz56q3prv4/KSNapoleonModLarge.7z


Supplemental maps(1.01):

http://www.mediafire.com/download/52hy13agss9yv0s/KS_SOW_Supplemental_Maps.7z

mike

I think the links given in the KS forum are to Kevin's dropbox account and unless Garnier has any issues with the KS Mod links being on the GCM site (I quite understand if he does), you could definitely put them up there.

Apart from the tech stuff involved in getting the mod working, my play-style advice would be:

1) Only play in full screen - never in windowed mode. We have known windowed users games to cause crashes.
2) Please never toggle trees off, no matter how much you're tempted!
3) Disable the 'range to nearest unit radar'.
4) Turn off unit flags.
5) Turn off road march markers.
6) Install the keyboard.csv file that allows you to access and control your general avatar by using the Ins/Home/PgUp/Del/End/PgDn keys as well as the arrow keys to move through your OOB hierarchy (Higher level/Lower Level/Next Peer/Prev Peer).

Keyboard.csv:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nhbrdl0lo1rq07g/keyboard.csv?dl=0

7) Turn off all other mods except graphical ones such as GCM/Jolly's Terrain, realistic smoke, blood, etc. These are compatible.
8 ) Disable all other toolbar mods - the KS Mod uses a specific toolbar for many Napoleonic formations (square, brigade formations, etc) and the mod will lose many features or even crash if you use another toolbar.
9) The only mods needed are in this order (top of list to lower on list):

Road To Wagram and Peninsular = https://www.dropbox.com/s/4oqo6jshlmy7kcd/Road%20to%20Wagram%20%26%20Peninsular.7z?dl=0
Supplemental Maps = https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0cknmct0b0u0zc/KS%20SOW%20Supplemental%20Maps102.7z?dl=0
KS Napoleon Mod (Large) = https://www.dropbox.com/s/61ji19qyff9pm4d/KSNapoleonModLarge1710.7z?dl=0
KS Napoleon Mod (Small) = https://www.dropbox.com/s/a8xqtnaby7xy8gp/KSNapoleonModSmall1710.7z?dl=0

Use the 'large' KS Mod if your vertical screen res is 1024px or greater, use the 'small' KS Mod if your vertical screen res is less than 1024px.

These are copies I have just uploaded to my dropbox account.

10) Sometimes the KS group uses maps from NSD buyable add-ons (Pipe Creek, Brandy Station, Antietam, Chancellorsville). You may need these add-ons to play in some of our games though we also use stock maps (often modified) and Garnier's random maps as well as many of the free NSD add-ons (like Lynchburg, Seccessionville, Olustee, 10Mile, etc).

Also Ron, thank you. I very much appreciate your efforts. The Doodle for this weekend's game is looking nice and full now so I think this will be an awesome battle.

Thx, Martin. It'll be great to give them one-stop shopping for all they need... I seriously doubt Garnier would mind. Stuff about other games, mods, etc. is posted all the time over there.

As for what to make available to new players, I was thinking maybe 3 or 4 essential bullet points (special rules, tips, etc.) that don't suggest players need to start changing a bunch of settings, learn a new keyboard scheme, etc. Don't want to overwhelm or scare them off! Perhaps we could just give them the very bare essentials to play this weekend, get them hooked on the format, and then spring the remaining detail on them once they've had a chance to play one through?

Where is this smoke mod lol??

I'm working long days Sat and Sunday but might be able to join when I get home, usually 8-8.30pm.

Don't let this influence starting time, though.

If work is proving to be tough, I might just want to put my feet up and sip on a glass of Baileys

Martin,
I've put this up over on the GCM site. Let me know if/when you plan to pull down your Dropbox links for the mods, or if you'd rather we use a different source.

http://forums.sowmp.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=853&p=6535#p6535

Thanks Ron.

Of those tips the most important are full screen mode and don't turn trees off. They are hard and fast rules. The others are preferences I think most KS members would like to see players do without, of which probably the most important is turning off the range-radar which is quite gamey and doesn't sit well in the HITS format.

The new keyboard csv isn't essential but players will find it useful for moving their general avatar around, especially on the hilly maps like Pipe Creek. Its also great for getting at your units you are not in sight of (including those dratted ammo wagons) and after using it for a couple of months I couldn't do without it now.

I have no plans to delete those dropbox links so please go ahead and use them.

Mark - the smoke and blood mods are here under Misc/Graphic Edits:

http://www.norbsoftdev.net/forum/modifications/23871-released-mod-threads

We now have 11 signed up for the game plus 3 more possibles so we shall set the game start time at 20:30 GMT on Saturday 13th. Please log in to Teamspeak about 30 minutes beforehand so we can test new players installations. If the possibles turn up we'll have enough for everyone to take a division. More players will let the more inexperienced players take brigades.

We're very well served by Spanish players with Pepe, Kevin, Ron, Martin, Hays, Brett and possibly Grog, which maxes out their roster.

On the French side we have Mark, Josh/Knight, Mark87, and MacLeod with me joining as a floater. Wittman and EJ are possibles.

This looks a little unbalanced against the French as several of those players are new to HITS, so any more players joining I will add to the French team giving the new people the opportunity if they prefer it to only command brigades.

Thank you everyone for signing up, I am still sending e-mails to chase up more potential players.

Remember... your Emperor Needs You!



Or, as they say 'en France', "Votre Empereur a besoin de vous!"

The French, again, had no chance from the start.

A tough fight, no doubt. And fun.

Thanks for the hard work, Digby.

What was left of my command had to swim for it.... It would seem that the spaniards had knowledge of our presence to the south, and were very prepared for our advance.... It was like hurling our troops against a stone wall.... breast works, cavalry, infantry, rank upon rank....  

I lost three regiments, two of them captured.... merd.

The two left, fought gallantly, and inflicted great pain upon the enemy.... My brigade did well, in impossible conditions....

We were worried about how to get back home, until Soldier sent word that Digby could be seen to the North...  we headed that way, and amazingly, the Spanish allowed us access along the river banks so that we could rejoin our commrades near town.... there my poor remaining regiments pitched in as they could and continued to inflict casualties.... One glorious moment saw one of them, throw back a cavalry charge and then continue to shoot them greasers....

Alas.... overcome in the end, the remaining men thought a dip in the river might be soothing, and cooling after experiencing the heat of battle....

I dropped, and never did see my men make it to the far bank....

Very one sided, I am afraid.... but a great time in a rather sadistic manner

Robert McLeod wrote:amazingly, the Spanish allowed us access along the river banks so that we could rejoin our commrades near town

I was concerned, and tried to send some troops to the east a couple of times to try to cut your line of retreat, but we had just 1 division in the town at that moment, at it took priority for us to reinforce that sector.

It was a bloody and intense battle, and a though one for the French side, as always they fought with skill and courage against odds of almost 2 to 1.

The Spanish divisions were deployed to face an attack from the river, for us it was a complete surprise to have French forces to our rear. One of the commanders asked about that possibility in the briefing meeting before the battle, but he was just a Coronel and not much attention was paid to the matter.

Our plan was to absorb the attack from the river with the Army of Cataluña and keep the Army of Valencia in reserve for any contingency.
I guess the surprise for the French was to find the Army of Valencia so closely deployed with the Army of Cataluña, I wonder if they knew about the presence of the Army of Valencia in the battle area.

For most of the time it was very confusing was we were fighting 2 separate battles in 2 different directions.

I would like to pay tribute here to the great combat qualities of 2 units and their commanders, their acts yesterday rank above the fine overall performance of all Spanish units on the battlefield.

1° Division AoC: General de Brigada Mariano Álvarez de Castro. Mike/Grog.
Supported Saint March’s left flank facing south, and then turned north to face a new threat coming from the town.
2° Division AoV: Teniente General Don Felipe Saint March. Martin James.
Detected and faced the French units to our rear.

These 2 units initially on our right flank suffered the higher casualty rates of the Spanish Army. Their commanders displayed the highest levels of initiative, courage and tactical soundness. They will be strongly recommended for promotion.

I believe quality of French troops was better this time, I didn’t fight much myself, but I got under the impression that their battalions were very hard to break.
I was not present in the fight through the town, had to take Ron’s division to our right flank, and kept busy there figthing some infantry, with the artillery on the central island and some cavalry squadrons coming from our rear till the end of the battle.

To commanders involved there, how was it like? very consfusing I would say...


General Llamas. Pepe/Iberalc.

You did a good Job Pepe for your first time in Command, I don't think I am ready for that task yet. Good for you!

Thanks Mike, I think it is more funny to fight a division, but I enjoy it in a different way.

This was a battle in which I had absolutely no idea as to what was going on.  I spent the whole time reacting to the situation right in front of me with no ability to grasp the larger picture and deploy my men with some sort of plan in mind.

At the start of the battle I thought we had a very straight forward task of beating back a French advance coming across the river and through the town.  Because there would be little maneuver, I felt it would be a very good learning opportunity for people new to HITS or new to CinC command.  But for the rest of us it would just be a simple task of bashing the enemy into submission.  So I was surprised to learn that this was to be a three hour battle.  Ninety minutes should have been be enough.

My first inkling that everything was not as it seemed occurred five minutes in the game when a number of French couriers went streaking past my position, all headed south.  Unless they were terribly lost, they were not delivering good news.  I rode off in their direction till I came to a high hill where I had a good view to the south and east.  There on a neighboring high point I saw a French cavalry commander.  So instead of dealing with a simple frontal assault, we'd have to fend off a pincer attack.

I sent a message to Ron, my corps commander informing him of my discovery and rode back and began turning my division around to face the expected arrival of the unwelcome guests.  My next surprise was how quickly the attack from the south developed.  I heard no indication of an enemy push from across the river and this attack was largely being done by cavalry.  Lots of smoke but not much fire.  Martin's division which was immediately north of me took the brunt of the enemy advance while I formed my division on his right and rear.  As my men were mostly spectators in this fight, Pepe ordered me to counterattack.  Given that all I could see of the French force was lots of cavalry and perhaps a single division of infantry, well to north, I took a brigade into the woods in my front, flanked the enemy, captured a battery and got into his rear.

As I was maneuvering the brigade into position for this turkey shoot, I receive another order from Pepe to take my division north towards the town.  Apparently the French were attacking in force.  So I hurried back, turned the rest of my division around again and moved to the southern outskirts.  When I arrived, all I saw were 2 or 3 battalions of green uniformed troops, (Italians?).  They didn't seem very aggressive or dangerous, so I asked Pepe why his knickers were in a twist.  His reply was to order me east to cut off the enemy.  What enemy?  All I saw were the French guns on an island in the river.  I left one brigade to deal with the boys in green and took another and the cavalry north to cut off an unseen force.

I marched past Mike's division to a high point and saw nobody in need of cutting off.  But I did see a large number of assembled French troops around the bridge.  They too did not seem to be very interested in being offensive, which is saying really something when discussing the French.  So I marched my brigade and cavalry towards that part of town and recalled my third brigade from the turkey shoot.

No sooner had I gotten my men into a miserable battle in the town did I get another message from Pepe, warning me of French troops marching towards the city from the east.  Not that there was anything I could do about it, since my troops were all green and were being swatted away by the French without much effort.  I was still surprised that they did not become very aggressive.  It then hit me that they were really there just to keep open the bridge so that wayward French division and cavalry could rejoin the main French force.  Perhaps that had been the enemy's mission all along, but they tried to march on a straight line through our corps, rather than go around along the river, under the protection of their guns on that island.

I continued attacking the bridgehead, even managing to capture a few more guns.  I knew there were some friendly troops north of me, farther into the city,  but I had no idea who they were.  They did seem to have the same goal as my division, capture the bridgehead.  To the south, where I had a better view, I could see more friendly troops attacking the wayward French column.  The battle ended with the southern end of the bridge being hotly contested.

As I said in the beginning, this was a fight where I never had a clear idea of what was happening due to the limiting nature of the terrain.  Even after watching the replay I am not sure what happened.  The French made a good fight of it, given their lack of numbers.  They were able to unite their forces in the end, but I think they'd have had to swim to safety.

This was a real nail-biter for me, but very enjoyable.  

With the fighting in various sectors, it must have been a challenge for both French and Spanish commanders.

I began the game out on our extreme SE flank.  I was expecting to bring my reserve division towards the river in support of the Army of Catalonia, and initially did my scouting in that direction.  I was very fortunate that I returned to my troops when I did.  The French on the southern sector came into action quickly, and I barely had time to turn my guns around and get them into position before we were under attack.  We did have good ground, but were under severe pressure for what seemed like an eternity.  Because of the numerous French cavalry, most of my infantry spent much of the time in square, but the French commanders sensibly brought up their guns quickly, and my boys suffered severely.

I had four squadrons of dragoons, which I used singly to counterattack any penetrations, or sometimes to support one of my squares under cavalry attack.  My thanks to the Numancia Dragoons, who proved to be much more effective than I had expected.

My thanks also to Pepe and my team-mates who came to my support.  This eventually allowed me to pull my battered division out of that fight and recuperate.  I think we lost about 50%.  We later had minor involvement in the Spanish counter-attack to the E of the town, and helped force the French back towards the river.  Later still we were ordered into the town from the SW, where a couple of my better battalions participated in the last fight for the bridge.  It is unusual to be in action on all parts of the battlefield.

I must officially report that I aged ten years in the course of that early fight however.  It is therefore necessary to establish who was responsible for my deployment in that sector in the first place, in order that condign punishment may be administered.  I suspect it was Diggers, but my hit-man needs a name and address.  He informs me that an additional fee will be payable if he needs to carry out a repeat ‘termination’.

Martin (J)

I was responsible for all the divisional assignments, the corps commanders were link to some divisions by Mr. Digby. I needed an independent commander as a flank guard, and someone in the staff suggested "let's give Saint March a chance to probe himself in a real battle".

Llamas / Pepe.

Matt's (MJP) Post from the GCM forum:

"So, we just finished up the marathon game of the Battle of Murcia. I have to say that overall, I had a great experience. There was a tension to the game that I no longer experience with GCM Games which I really enjoyed. I only controlled a brigade in the fight and it's extremely clear to me that all war is truly local because while I understood what was going on in my 250 yards of the world, I had absolutely no idea what was going in with the big picture. I'm sure this is partly because I was a brigade commander and obviously the C-in-C wasn't going to update me directly. Morsey was my division commander and I really enjoyed working with him in this regard.

Our division was holding the town and though I didn't know it until about 10 minutes ago when I finished watching the replay, the main French Attack was on the very far right of the allied line. At one point in the game, my commander saw French advancing to attack just to the south of town and I reporting my sighting to morsey that i thought we could turn the flank of this attack and he promptly ordered an all out attack on the French which was definitely the right move. As it turns out however, what appeared to me at the time to be a big attack, was really just a small attack that was meant to drive into the rear of the allied troops who were facing a much larger attack from further south. We did manage to drive back the French and roll up the secondary assault after which Morsey informed me that we had been ordered to move back to town. I spent the rest of the game trying to find the battle and more French to kill as MOrsey had informed me he had intercepted a courier that the French thought the main bridge to town wasn't held and he was heading that way to stop any French Crossing.

In the end, here are my observations.

1. It was REALLY fun. I only had a brigade and really i don't know that I'd want much more. Like i said, there was a tension to not understanding the bigger picture and trying to cut through the fog of war that i really enjoyed. I must have enjoyed it, i played for like 3 hours only commanding 5 regiments of level 2 Spanish!

2. Playing in a town with buildings turned on using HITS is an exercise in masochism. I can see how you could do this effectively over more open ground, but the town was maddening. Even in the open ground, the slightest undulations in the terrain make it difficult. I would ride behind my guys to high ground to get a better view but this would put me further away from them making my orders, sent by courier, take longer to take effect. So there was an interesting balance going on about how to best position yourself to both see and have your orders acted on efficiently.

3. I love Napoleonics and the graphics were better than i thought so overall it was a real Napoleonic experience which was cool.

4. I thought the scenario itself unfortunately didn't make for a very interesting game. Rarely if ever does an army attack across a river into a town against a prepared defense. That being said, an obvious wrinkle was that the French had a few divisions (?) already across on the Allied right, but the fact that the Spanish outnumbered the French so heavily made it pointless anyway. So i love the concept, but I'd much rather battle it out in Saxony in 1813 with relatively evenly matched army instead of trying to find the near impossible balance of troop numbers vs. troop quality. Besides, Russians/Prussians/Austirans vs. French is far more interesting than the Penninsula which (i can hear the British guys moaning!) was merely a sideshow of the Napoleonic Wars at best.

5. I was shocked to see the score at the end of the game. The French according to SOW were up by 5000+ points. But the battlefield told a totally different story in that it seemed the French got their asses handed to them.

6. I think i will become a regular player of this because i really enjoyed it. Truth be told, i enjoyed it far more than beating up on you guys in GCM. ;-) For me, as I said, there was a tension of not knowing and something totally new that i really enjoyed that i haven't felt with GCM since i first started playing. I was a new guy and it leveled the playing field for me giving me an enjoyable experience. In fact, it was great having Morsey as my superior in this regard and obviously when I play GCM games i tend to take that role. So despite it taking 1 hour of testing and deliberation to get it going, despite the game lasting pretty much all day, this was probably the best SOW experience I've had in a year.

Overall, though i can see how things could maybe be improved with a more interesting scenario, i can't recommend playing in the KS Napoleonic campaign to all the GCM'ers highly enough. Soldier who knows me pretty well recommended it to me and he was absolutely right. I didn't "get it" until playing today. I'm glad i did and when I'm in China next week and sitting in a hotel next Friday night, I'm going to set the alarm clock for 3:30am and get up and do it again.

Just my observations on a good gaming experience.

Best,

Matt"

That's the Coronel that suggested the French might be on "our" side of the river Ter.

Very funny to read his comments on the battle, I was and at the same time.

"That's the Coronel that suggested the French might be on "our" side of the river Ter."

Yes indeed. The new guy was right and us old-timers were dead wrong. What a wonderful game this is!

"I was responsible for all the divisional assignments, the corps commanders were link to some divisions by Mr. Digby. I needed an independent commander as a flank guard, and someone in the staff suggested "let's give Saint March a chance to probe himself in a real battle". bom"

A most noble admission. I've decided to go with Digby on grounds of cost. Luigi says he needs to reclaim travel expenses for a Spanish hit. Some might say that's a tad unfair, I suppose, but h*ll this is war!

Martin (J)