Sieges: The Siege of Toro (1811) - Part 1 (of several)

 Another solo practice game with Piquet's Vauban's Wars. I have a few days to work with this, so I took some trouble today to set everything up and play through the first couple of turns.

This time I've carried out (committed?) a few changes to the rules, to give a better fit with my idea of how sieges in the Peninsular War operated. I'm interested to see how these work out, and may say something about them as I go through this. Some are changes to the basics of the Piquet-style game - nothing too outrageous - some are behavioural things for the armies.

This siege did not trouble the writers of factual history, but it could have done if it had happened. Toro is a town on the River Douro. The fort is a classic hybrid for the Peninsula, with the medieval walls and towers of the town and with it's 10th Century citadel, Alfonso III's El Carrañaco. In an attempt to cope with the arrival of gunpowder warfare, the side of the town away from the river has been improved in the early 18th Century by the addition of two hornworks (named Pablo y Pedro locally), which offer platforms for fortress artillery (there is no space for guns on the walls themselves), and the whole section is protected by earth banks to shield the base of the old masonry wall.

The French commander is General Thiébault, better known as some-time governor of Burgos, and his energetic 2inC, General Valladière. The British besiegers are commanded by Sir Thomas Graham, and his chief engineer is Colonel Daniel Fogarty.

 

As I did last time, I set up a segment of the fortress on the edge of the table, with the remainder off the table on extensions (floating in mid-air!), to provide space for the garrison troops and also a little gratuitous scenic content. The old castle on the right is entirely scenic here, being the ancient citadel from the time of Alfonso III, but it doesn't get out to play very much, so I decided to give it an outing. Made by ECO, of Bavaria, in the 1970s. The smoke puffs are Boots' finest cotton wool, and these are not just for show; they indicate which guns have fired and have not been reloaded, and then when the Reload card comes up I count the puffs to assess powder consumption

 

 

To get things off to a brisk start, I used one of the options suggested in the rule book, and set the game up with the Second Parallel complete, but with no gun emplacements added to it. Here, a little way into the action, the British have brought some guns up into new emplacements, and it is apparent that everyone is banging away in fine style. At this point the two front lines are still some 700-800 paces apart, and cannon fire is not especially effective at this range. The French have heavy mortars mounted on a couple of the ancient towers, and they did some damage to British infantry sheltering in the 2nd Parallel

 

 

You can just see in these last few pictures that the French commander has turned up a Trench Raid card, and - having learned how useful these are in the previous test game - the elite infantry companies have been sent out to cause a nuisance...

 

 

Since this is supposed to take place at night (each turn represents about 3.5 days), I dimmed the lights to give a suitably murky view of the Trench Raid action. The smoke is a bit incongruous here - the mortar is not firing at the raiders, it is just marked as unloaded. In this case, the raiders were driven off with loss, which is a fine show for an unsupported mortar crew

 

 

The other Trench Raid on the same night, however, caused some damage to a 24-pdr gun, which was withdrawn for repair and solace

 

 

Much firing going on, but very little in the way of casualties or damage - that will improve as the guns advance into the 3rd Parallel, so Graham's way forward is to start work on this parallel, and do as much damage as possible to the enemy guns from his position in the 2nd Parallel

 

 

A couple of teams of Sappers set off to advance the zig zag saps - the brown felt saps provide good cover, as we are reminded by the little sets of gabions, but the Sappers themselves are really wishing that the British guns had been more successful in quietening the French artillery, long range or not

 

That's as far as I've got thus far - there was a brief outbreak of disease among the British troops - like desertion, disease generates losses which cannot be recovered, though the numbers are not high. Tomorrow I'm headed for the 3rd Parallel - things should get correspondingly nastier for the fortress gunners, but I have to say I really don't fancy the sapping job!