24. Battle of Calatayud - 22nd February 1809

Sorry, can't make it today either. Next Saturday looks dicey too (at least at the regular time) as it bumps up against my granddaughter's birthday.

Next weekend I'll put in slots for Saturday and Sunday.

New Doodle link for next weekend. I edited this weekends one so everyone's name is there, just edit your entry please.

Note the game will use Waterloo only, no Gettysburg KS Nap Mod option.

http://doodle.com/poll/sffynsbvw9bsr7mc

Thanks all.

I will need to confirm my attendance later in this week.

Can't make it.

This battle is on again for Sunday 25th at 20:00 UK time / 21:00 CET / 15:00 EST. Please try to be there, we need a minimum of 8 players.

Many thanks.

I plan on being there after begging from the Boss   ....but I live in the Dallas, Tx area and we are having some flooding now and into the weekend, so for any reason I am not able to get on you guys will know that water played havoc with my service provider.

Thanks,
Tom W

I will likely be there. Will confirm when sure.

I don't have a command assigned but can fit in as needed.

Martin, If you like, I can avoid the Spanish forum pre battle thread, just in case I'm needed to play French.

Mike

In Spain we go to winter time on Saturday's night. What about the UK?

The UK goes to GMT at 02:00 Sunday so... thanks Pepe, that means that 20:00 UK time is still 21:00 CET as usual but 16:00 EDT instead of our usual 15:00. The US clocks go back an hour on 1 Nov apparently.

Ok so we did some minor mods to the files last time ... For Sunday ... Is there a cleaned up mod or ........

Yes. We have new players too so its best if you delete the ones from last week and I'll send you all links for the new one.

EDIT: Here. Please delete version 1.01

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cqgrqygefmgvqtg/KS%20PenCamp%20Mod%20102.rar?dl=0

So ....

That makes it supmap1.09; sprite1.02; nap1.14 and pencamp1.02

Correct?

Sitting here on TS ... Everything I read says 1500 EST ... Is there a time change I am not aware of?

1600 EDT. Time change in Europe pushes the US 1 hour relative to the start time.

Europeans and their time changes .... next you'll tell me they went to Gregorian calendar

So ....

That makes it supmap1.09; sprite1.02; nap1.14 and pencamp1.02

Correct?

Correct.

This engagement was most sanguine and hard-fought. General Villava pushed two infantry divisions and a cavalry division west and north across the ford beside the burned timber bridge over the Rio Ribota about two miles SW of Calatayud while screening the south side of the town with a third division and the cavalry division of the Army of Granada which had just come up after a tiring night march.

Marechal Mortier sent his dragoon division under General la Houssaye south-west to block the Spanish western advance and used good ground on a narrow frontage between the Ribota on his left flank and the broken terrain of the mountain foothills on his right to slow the Spanish down.

Meanwhile in the town Mortier ordered Suchet's infantry division to withdraw from the Novian Fleches back into the works on the south side of the town where a formidable line of artillery had been set up.

Things then began to unravel for the French as one of la Houssaye's brigade commanders went off on his own initiative and was lost to the rest of the battle; his brigade of three squadrons being trapped up against some wooded rocky terrain in the far west of the area of the battle and the second brigade being relentlessly driven back to the town despite inflicting heavy losses on the enthusiastic Spanish infantry who came on in a series of ragged columns through the broken country bisected by wooded ravines and fast flowing steams.

Suchet meanwhile had sent a brigade west to defend the wooded country around the Soria Redoubt on the western end of "The Neck", the name the French had christened the narrow strip of ground between the confluence of the Ribota and Jalon rivers. This ground was highly unsuited to artillery deployment and throughout the action several French batteries made almost no contribution to the defence at all. There was talk of Spanish spies in the town mixing sand in with the gunpowder or drilling holes in the stock of roundshot so these projectiles split apart and scattered harmlessly when fired!

Suchet had one brigade holding The Neck and his second facing south at the Three Bridges but the Spanish came on in an unstoppable mass, taking the Soria redoubt and pushing on to threaten the line of breastworks at the eastern end of The Neck and hard up against the town proper.

Here the Spanish attack stalled, several battalions being destroyed or driven back by heroic charges of la Houssaye's dragoons while in the south several charges by battalions of regular infantry against the southern line of breastworks were thrown back with bloody melees taking place bear the bridges and along the river banks.

As nightfall drew on the Spanish pressure let up and they pulled back a few hundred yards to secure the positions they had overrun - the Soria redoubt in the west and the Novian Fleches in the south. They had suffered some 2,000 casualties for French losses of about half that number but many wounded French were left to the mercy of the Spanish in the positions Mortier had lost.

The French still have communications with Zaragossa to the north-east and over the next days it is expected that both sides will renew the struggle here, the situation taking up more of the character of a siege.

That was a very frustrating battle; first restart I lost a squadron of my second brigade out of the chain of command. Which I then proceeded to lose. Second restart, my entire second brigade, un-tced, stopped on a roadway which it had been marching and was never heard from again.


Still, I was able to destroy several Spanish battalions; I would have done much more damage but our lines were not set and properly manned.

Lastly, artillery's automatic withdrawal: is there a way to disable this feature? This could be potentially disastrous in further games; especially games with chokepoints. I saw the French artillery scatter to the winds. 6 of my guns ran off the map while behind a cavalry squadron. I really hope that feature can be turned off.

To conclude; a tough quality fight which showed the limitations of cavalry versus infantry solely. Very fun. Not bad for the first crack at a campaign game!

I had great fun, though we had a couple minor setbacks (those setbacks sound like they impacted others more than me).

For me there was frustration with some of the French units running away across the river and not the bridges. I was trying to use the cutoff point more towards the bridges to the south of the fortress, so I was a bit disappointed when some of the French were crossing a bit further east than I expected. Also, I had a couple assaults across the bridges, move more across the river than the bridges, so I am sorry about that.

Trying to funnel combats units into a certain area, while having only certain avenues of approach can be a bit grey, through no fault of the players. Perhaps the future might allow for less of that at impacted areas. Just to be clear, I like the ideas of only being able to cross at certain points, but not when those certain points serve as an aggregation of friendly and enemy troops.

Can't wait for the next battle!

Thanks,
Tom W.

Well, since Robert E Lee had his less-than-stellar moments I supposed I shouldn't feel so bad LOL

After that second re-start my division was too far split for me to exercise prompt control, so the troops sent over to help Mark on that side of town were essentially leaderless until I got back over there to shift them ... by that time the hordes from the Iberian Peninsula had breached our preferred defensive line. ... I was trying to reclaim and redirect the other half of the division which was going too far south.

And just in case I didn't know all that, Mark and Martin were quick to remind me.

... unlike the troops in that sector prior to that first re-set where each regiment was placed personally and then TCed to keep them there in the works .... but all those orders got lost in the re-start.

NONE of my artillery batteries fired a shot ... ever ... and then one got stuck in the river that I thought wasn't supposed to be a river ... so basically all the artillery I owned was out of action at Time = 0

And then for the last 30 minutes I was stuck with the unfordable (but previously fordable) river between my and my command on the western side .... and behind me were more Spanish ... I watched most of my couriers ride off to provide my orders and get shot ...

The southern defense didn't need a commander ... so nothing survived for long hitting those choke points.

Had I exercised better control after that last re-start we would have at least kept the Spanish out of the outer western defenses and Mark would have had better combined arms support as he fell back to the defenses.

There were so many of them! I mean does Spain have any sort of birth control going on over there, or what? Spanish were coming out of the woodwork.

Overall fun ... and we ain't done yet in Calatayud!

For the Spaniards the problem was we didn’t have room to deploy most of our units and in addition to that all the troops started with some degree of fatigue. Understandably some infantry generals were very anxious about that and wanted to rest their men whenever possible.

It was very hard to attack the last line of defense to the west of the town, where just three battalions could be deployed, I guess we could have achieved a breakthrough with a couple more hours of daylight.

Coronel Juan Terrida sends me word about a French horse battery put out of action by his hussars, it was a costly affair in both men and horses for his Brigada Ligera. Now the men are very excited about using those guns against their former owners.

Mariscal de Campo Pedro Adorno.

Pepe

Normally I would be saddened by the loss of artillery pieces. But since ours don't shoot, anyway, you are welcome to try them!

I have been checking the battle results and la Houssaye's horse artillery did quite a bit of damage before it was driven off, in total about 250 casualties.

V Corps 2 12-pound reserve batteries each did about 40 or 50, either random long range hits early on or canister at the breastworks.

All 3 of Suchet's batteries never hit a thing. That's pretty odd. I wonder if its a bug.

Total raw French losses are 176 killed, 29 missing and 1,265 wounded.
Total raw Spanish losses are 318 killed, 52 missing and 2,288 wounded.

The French generally have somewhat more skilled regimental surgeons and their troops are of higher motivation so wounded and missing numbers should rise quite a bit more in favour of the French after losses are adjusted but the Spanish captured all the ground so the more badly wounded French who cannot sneak away in the woods after dark and attempt to get back to the town will become POWs.

Well in a way those figures sound very logical for Suchet. Ain't going to hit anything when you don't SHOOT anything


Non responsive and non firing even when troops came within range. All in same division. Can't be random, right?