Friday 30 Jan

Anyone up for an ad-hoc game today? I can make the more popular later GCM time of 22:15 GMT if that's a help.

We haven't used the Prussian army for a while so 1815 Prussians v French would make a nice change.

I can most likely make that time.

Works for me. We can throw up a Schedule Battle on the GCM site and probably scare up a few players...

If we're trolling for GCM guys, I suggest using a battlefield everyone surely has in their current repertoire of maps.

I think I can make it.

Try a ACW and I will be there!

Jack

~

I can be there

Tom

2230 GMT is too late for me.
But if anyone wants to play a short game before that time I would be online now.

Last night's game was... interesting.



I was on the French team with Pepe commanding, Ron and Josh taking our other two divisions and Jones taking a brigade in my division.

Things started off well with my division of 3 brigades and 2 batteries in our centre and ordered by Pepe to advance north and deploy south of the objective. Simple enough. Palmer was our other infantry division (same size) and was to the east, also moving north as our right flank. Josh was our cavalry division (2 brigades, 1 horse battery) to my west, moving north as well. We were all quite spread apart, something I noted early and which concerned me and which I should have mentioned to Pepe, but didn't. I had Jones in my division as one of my brigade commanders but wasn't to learn until much later on that he was unable to read a single courier message I sent him. And I sent him LOTS.

I first saw the enemy way off to my right north of Villa Real - a gun battery was in action facing south and I could hear canister being fired. The enemy was distant and in the murk and I could not tell if the enemy guns were supporting an infantry or cavalry formation. I reported this to Pepe and suggested I turn east and attack their flank. I was instead told to go NW to Frechas which I did, assuming Palmer was dealing with the enemy at Villa Real.

Reaching a good round low wide hill SE of Frechas I saw an enemy infantry division deployed below me in a shallow valley and deployed. Very quickly my 14 guns drove off a battery of six enemy pieces, destroying one. I ordered Jones to stay aligned on the main S-N road to Frechas on my left. I saw Palmers division moving N to assault E of Frechas, his columns coming past my right flank in majestic formation. Everything was looking great.

Then it all went down the tubes.

An enemy artillery battery appeared right behind me at close range to the SE and unlimbered to begin hitting my right hand brigade with canister. WTF!? Where the heck had they come from? Why had Palmer marched away from that sector and left them unbeaten? Had no-one else realised an enemy force was there? Cavalry was with the guns and with enemy to my front as well I determined to ignore Pepe's orders and went west to get myself out of this pocket and a quickly deteriorating situation. Pepe advised me Josh and his cavalry were coming from the left flank but my last sight of Josh was when he was simply miles away and my men needed to get away from these guns now. Fortunately the low rounded hill had an upturned bowl-shaped top, convex, and I was able to sneak a few battalions past the guns across their front in dead ground.

I got my formation to astride the road leading S from Frechas, left a battery and a brigade facing NW where Jones was fighting and returned the second brigade and battery to face SE where by now Josh's cuirassiers had arrived from the south (an unexpected direction). I launched two battalions at the enemy battery and captured it, then formed square to receive an enemy cavalry charge. Josh's troopers charged too and we worked well together for a short while until it seemed the Prussian cavalry division had been all driven off.

I was then told that Palmers division to my N had been destroyed and I was to attack the objective. I was doubtful of our chances. Pepe ordered me to send a brigade to my far right to support Ron, then he cancelled it, then he reinstated the order! I wrote a stackload of messages to Jones, none of which he read due to a technical fault (gah!) and had to breach KS rules by verbally asking him to shift from my left to my right. He did so but then didn't move to help Palmer because I hadn't said to. He sat on my right in line with my RH brigade and we watched Josh and Palmers men die.

I had two fresh-ish brigades and 18 guns (including several captured pieces) in line now and began to pound the enemy in the valley around Frechas. I saw them fall back NW and was ready to begin my northward attack under Pepe's command when my left was attacked by Rogers and a Landwehr brigade. I faced a battery and a brigade left and managed to stall this attack but a brigade was 60% destroyed in the process and that left me with only 1 good brigade to attack with and I refused to do that since I could forsee it would only add to the size of our defeat. Another enemy column was coming across the valley to try and take my left hand battery and I was sending two battalions to protect it when the battle ended.

I apologise to Pepe for writing him some sharp messages in this game but it was a horrible mess that went from clear easy win to utter chaos in a few minutes and after that I couldn't unglue my division from the attentions of various enemies until all its strength had been leeched away. The lack of comms with Jones was deeply frustrating as was the apparent strange manouver on our right when Palmer marched away and left an enemy cavalry division in our rear.

I would like to know what other players saw and did in this battle! I'm keen to piece together the full story.

I began the game just south of the objective, and spent the first hour wondering what was going on in Emes, as I could see a lot of troops moving on the ridge. A somewhat disconcerting moment was when a broken Prussian battalion ran right through our position, from the fighting around Emes.  It seemed very early for that!

I was commanding a brigade in the division (Kevin's?)on the left, guarding the right flank.  The french came down the Frechas Road, and when Palmer attacked I initially stayed put as I was worried about the french to my right (that must have been you Digby?).  Eventually, Prussian troops moved up to my rear, and I counterattacked Palmer on his flank, driving him back with minimal casualties, before pulling back to the objective.  

Then the killing began.

Artillery took me from +400 points to -700 in the next hour, I kept edging backwards, but the slope was long, and canister ripped through my troops.  To my front, a french division was drawn up, but never moved, and to my left heavy cavalry and horse artillery threatened.  Eventually, I decided to try and take the guns, as the infantry weren't going anywhere - I think that must have been Jones? This led to even more casualties, but the guns withdrew, and I think we captured some?

Then the game ended.

If Jones had attacked I think we would have crumbled - My brigade was in reasonable shape, but I think the rest of the division had been hammered by Palmer's initial attack.  Our cav was nowhere to be seen, and the French had combined arms  Also, if the french infantry to my front when Palmer was attacking the left of the division had attacked before the Prussian reinforcements, I think we would have been in trouble.

I regret attempting to take the guns, my men were almost broken by it - but it was 1am, and the constant trickle of artillery based deaths was getting on my nerves!

-Edit: Apologies if I get names wrong! It's hard to assign names to voices without faces!

It was indeed a strange and frustrating end to a battle that began with some promise. With orders to march north and attack the enemy from the east, the Prussians were first encountered south of Villa Real. Though this was sooner than anticipated, my first thought was that the enemy was likely little more than an advance cavalry placement. But there were lots of them and soon the guns were rolled up, forcing me to move the division into the cover of the woods. Reporting all this to Pepe, he directed that I continue on a path NW, again to find an approach to attack from the east. No doubt he also hoped to close some of the distance between Martin's division and my own. This I did, but in some haste being anxious to get out from under the guns that had already inflicted some 400 casualties among the ranks. This resulted in an unmanageable spread for a division with 3 brigades and 2 batteries but only one human giving orders. Now, with the guns trailing behind and the infantry potentially plunging blindly ahead, my Sophie's choice was to first move to the head of the column to make sure it had a suitable place to land before riding south to look after the guns. But with touted Prussian efficiency, the enemy did not permit the situation to go unpunished and fell upon my double-quicking guns. This was clearly a major setback and one of the turning points of the battle. In retrospect, I should have been less anxious and more patient in carrying out Pepe's NW movement order -- or less literal and moved directly west to join with Digby's division before sorting things out. It would also have been a greatly different situation had I been able to detach one of the brigades with a human commander to look after the guns and the rear. I'm sure this is what Pepe had in mind, but it really wasn't possible in my situation being completely out of sight of any of this rear action, and not even being aware until it was too late that the enemy cavalry was there. Had I known this, a more prudent move would have been to delay the march north, circle the wagons, and await the eventual arrival of our own cavalry to drive the enemy away.

Following all this drama, the division's 3 brigades eventually arrived at the originally intended destination. Digby and Jones were already deployed on my left, but did not seem anxious to move in. The sight immediately before me was that of a Prussian brigade, facing south and seemingly quite casual about my presence. Taking the insult, and the flank appearing wide-open to my entire division, I decided to attack immediately. I had contemplated waiting for Pepe's direct command to go in, and sent a courier scurrying off requesting permission to attack -- but as I could see that he was far distant to the south and fearing the opportunity would soon pass, I launched my 3 brigades immediately, holding nothing back. I was comforted knowing that I would be able to present to the court martial panel the (much) earlier order to attack from the east. In any event, the Prussians were initially sluggish and my casualty and point deficit from the earlier unpleasantness was quickly erased -- that is, until a building tide of Prussian peasantry began to arrive. This continued until it had the appearance of an avalanche (at least from my saddle). Seriously, was there ANYONE left to tend the fields of Ost Preussen? Pepe advised to ignore the objective and focus on the Prussians to the south (these being pinched between Digby's right and my left). This was done and a few of the Prussian battalions fell victim. But the avalanche of enemy continued nonetheless and my division began to melt away.

So, I fell back with the remnants composed of 1 battalion from each of the 3 brigades. The Prussians were in hot pursuit until I was able to stop them from the edge of an orchard. By now, Knight's cavalry also appeared which helped greatly to shore the line and discourage further Prussian aggression. By then, however, the question had been decided.

I likewise must extend my apologies to Pepe for sending him a few frustrated messages and not better executing his directives. My frustrations had nothing to do with his leadership, and everything to do with the unfortunate situation in which I found myself. I definitely had a touch of the "poor me" syndrome.   In fact, all his advice was solid and helpful. It must have been pretty frustrating for him also, to see an otherwise promising situation quickly turn.

And congrats to the Prussians. The mark of good generalship is the ability to promptly take advantage of openings offered by the enemy. From my vantage, this was well done.

We started deployed just south of the objective.  so, against my nature, I ordered Kevin (2nd Division) to choose his ground southeast of the objective and defend.  I ordered Matt (3rd Division, Cavalry) to go find and harass the enemy.  I brought up my division (1st) to just southwest of the objective.

It wasn't long before Matt sent me a courier saying his guns were engaging the enemy. Soon after, a French division showed up on a hill to my front left.  My guns were in a good position and immediately began to pound the insolent French.

I ordered Rogers' brigade to harass the French left.  He took quite a few casualties, but the rest of the French division to my front was content to stand in place and take my artillery fire.  I ordered EJ's brigade to support Rogers' left, but he misread the order and marched to Kevin's division's left.  I didn't see EJ the rest of the battle.  I started to move my brigade up on Rogers' left, but decided against it because of the mass of French guns.

Kevin informed me he had repulsed an entire French division, so I kept my brigade in reserve and simply watched my guns pound the enemy.

As the battle neared the end, I thought for sure the two French brigades to my front would attempt to overrun the objective.  I waited with my fresh brigade but the attack never came.

My two batteries inflicted near 1500 casualties.

A busy day for me as a commander.  I sent at least ten couriers.

Apologies to Ron. . . had I realized he was commanding 3 brigades and attacking, I would have offered EJ or Rogers to the French and commanded 2 brigades instead of one. It's near impossible to make an organized attack commanding that many troops.

For me this was quite a strange battle as well.   It was my first time in command of just a cavalry division and my first time utilizing the Prussians.    In our pre-game planning session and opening deployment, I found myself at the major four way intersection east of Freschas and north of Villa Real without a single friendly unit visible to me.    Mark/Soldier, our very own Blucher, told me sort of as an afterthought right at the end of the planning session to "go and find the enemy."  As it turned out, i would not see any friendly forces in this game from start to finish.  

We mounted up and started heading down the road to Villa Real.  Now, one thing about this game was that the visibility was awful.   I reached Villa real and my avatar was in view of French Ligne and Voltigeurs but i couldn't actually see any of them.  800 yards, 700 yards...uh oh.   I can see nothing, but i know they are here so I actually had to ride short distances in different directions to see if the distance went up or down just to get an idea of what direction this unseen enemy was coming from.   It was quite disconcerting actually.   At maybe 500 yards range i could finally see masses of French Infantry moving towards my position at Villa Real.  I spread my cavalry out a bit and set my guns up in that sleepy hamlet and began to unleash very effective cannister fire into the French Infantry who seemed not to know what to do.   They all bunched up in a woods and the cannister kept pouring it on.   I could now see a French battery down the road past the woods the infantry were in and i saw an opportunity to exploit the confusion on the French side. I dispatched two cavalry regiments and personally led them south and captured all of these guns, a full battery.   I then realized that the Prussian cavalry isn't very good as one of the regiments, while taking zero casualties, suffered massive morale drops.   Unable to limber the guns, myself and the regiments rode north and left them to their fate.

At this point the French infantry had pretty much gotten itself back far enough to stop the cannister and made a dash to the NW to the next woods and moved past my division.   I decided i would follow them up and headed west where i found myself in the rear of the French Army.   Another juicy artillery battery was the first thing i ran into and i captured that one as well and began pouring cannister in the rear of the French main battle line.  This must have been when Digby had his "WTF" moment.  I deployed my own artillery as well and we were doing some good effect.   The French infantry turned around and we charged one and though i though we caught it out of square, the cavalry was routed (have i mentioned that Prussian cavalry sucks).   I then noticed that the French Cavalry had finally found me and was coming up on my rear.   At this point my thinking was to withdraw, but as you remember i had to go to dinner last night with friends in town for the super bowl, so i decided rather than pull away from the French Cavalry i would just fight it out with them and then go to dinner.   So we stood firm and got into some melees with Hussars and such and did ok with that until French Cuirassiers came up and sent us packing.  It was at this point that what i assume was Digby's infantry came up and captured (or actually recaptured) the guns we'd taken.   The Cuirassiers then captured my own battery.  It took all of about 3 minutes for the Prussian cavalry to succumb.   At that point i messaged Mark that the Cavalry division had done it's duty and was destroyed and i disconnected and left the battle leaving a few guns and such that had been captured and my officers to their fate.  

I'm not sure if Mark ever received any of the couriers that i sent him.   I didn't receive a single courier from anyone all game.   Very strange in that regard.   Could have been my relative position and that they were all intercepted.   Overall I feel i did my job well and caused a lot of disruption in the French attack plans and weakened their artillery arm considerably by capturing 2 batteries (at least one of which they recaptured), damaged some infantry, and perhaps made some Cuirassiers breath heavy.   Which leads me to an aside - captured guns are an albatross and far too likely to be recaptured and used to full effect.  I wish they would just white flag and take no further part in the battle.  

A very different battle.  I hate the fog, but it does add some tension for sure.

"Go find a place to deploy along the road. We'll deploy to the west of you." Typical. General Pirch, (Mark), couldn't be bothered to supervise the initial positioning of our corps, for back at HQ the schnitzels were getting cold and the beer warm. Really though, I think he was trying to arrange a for suitable scapegoat in case things went badly.

I thought the main French attack would come up the road to Frechas. If that did occur, I wanted the enemy to see the end of the Prussian line and concentrate their attack there. I had a 2nd brigade in close reserve at that end of the field to throw in when the attack came home. Once the enemy was fully engaged and pushing me back I planned to order my 3rd brigade, (commanded by Tom), to hit them in the flank. I hoped the French would be ill positioned for that and our chances for a victory would be fairly good.

As I was putting the final touches on my position, I heard cannon fire off to the SE. It soon changed to canister. I knew our cavalry was out there, but had no idea what they ran into. I assumed it was the French forces sent to pay me a visit. I sent a courier off to find out what was going on, but he never returned. He either got lost in the fog or became the first casualty from my division.

Soon after, Tom reported enemy movement to the south and SW of his position on my right. I was not overly worried about them as I thought our 1st division would see them and take the appropriate steps. I sent a message to Pirch relaying what I was seeing and hearing. When the courier returned, he told me the commander was in the middle of a sausage rolling contest and couldn't be bothered.

Soon the artillery sounds in the SE stopped and the silhouettes of infantry and artillery filled the horizon east and south of my position. Seeing eagles perched atop the flags I knew they weren't friendly folks. Their artillery soon opened with deadly accuracy. Our guns were out-ranged and outclassed. They soon drove off one of our batteries. Once they accomplished that, I knew it would not be long before they came calling. I sent a message to Tom telling him not to become involved in the initial fight. I'd take the first blow.

What I saw literally froze me in place for a moment. To the east, it appeared an entire division was marching to me in assault columns. To the south more troops were moving towards me. Somehow, while Pirch was rolling his sausage, the entire French corps had been allowed to assemble on my front. I wish I had had the presence of mind to press the F4 button a few times. The sight of seeing all those columns coming out of the mist was very intimidating.

With the battle joined, I sent off an urgent message to Pirch telling him I was facing a 2 division attack and needed support. I handed my messenger my pistol and told him that if the general wouldn't see him then he should create a friendly fire incident. He soon returned and said that the commander, while washing the oil from his hands, said he'd counterattack in 10 minutes. In ten minutes, this battle would be over.

My two brigade slowly gave ground as they absorbed the initial impact, but some deft bayonet work temporarily halted the French advance. At that point Tom asked if he should now advance. I told him to support my right the best he could. I thought that 2nd enemy division would be engaging at any moment. Tom advanced and in what seemed like a few moments the French started to give way. My other two brigades started to advance and take the fight to the enemy. Also at that time a brigade from our 1st division, (ej?), advanced on my left and routed what remained of the enemy. Like a mountain storm, the battle came on and abated in seemingly just a few minutes. That 2nd French division also pulled back, I think before ever making contact. My division had survived and was still a viable fighting force.

We then entered another period of the filthy French bringing up their guns to do what their infantry could not, try to drive us from the field. The beaten French division was trying to reassemble to the east for a second attack. I decided to attack before that could occur. I sent word to Tom that I was moving towards the enemy with my two brigades. The attack was successful. The enemy appeared to have little stomach for further fighting. We even managed to capture several guns the enemy had advanced. At this point darkness descended on the field to close the battle.

Enemy artillery will white flag and vanish if a division captures it that has no guns of its own. I think that once a gun is captured but retaken its usefulness to the original owner is a lot less - no horse team and a crew quality that's worse, so just taking a battery and abandoning it again gains you much, especially in a game like this where things were fluid.

In a way I'm glad everyone else had as weird and dreamlike a time as I did last night. It was one of the more peculiar battles I'd been in. That curious blue fog added to its ethereal quality, all we needed was a graveyard and zombies clawing out of the soft earth for the scene to be complete!

As to "being content to stand and be pounded by guns" that was exactly how the Prussians down in the valley looked to me as well! My own two batteries had scores of more than 900 and more than 500 each by the battle's end and I think it was poor Tom's boys who caught most of that.

Damn that EJ, going to support Kevin! Argh!

Because respect for the rest of the players, I didn't quit the game immediatly after receipt of each of those two couriers.

On top of that at the last moment you took Gral. Girard and deprived me of any troops (and Ron with too many), when I had made clear I wanted some. I didn't want to restart again after so many trials.

So for me it was a very enjoyable game from before the start to finnish.

I don't come here to have quarrels with people or go pissed off to bed (of that I have enough outside), just the opposite is true.

No hard feelings Martin apologies accepted.

Pepe.

Matt wrote:A very different battle. I hate the fog, but it does add some tension for sure.

Hmm, more foggy battles...

oops. i thought kevin was you..lol

ej wrote:oops. i thought kevin was you..lol

A vile slur, sir. I demand satisfaction.

little mac wrote:Damn that EJ, going to support Kevin! Argh!

My sentiments precisely. Dammit, EJ!