Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros (10-11 Nov 1808) - Set-Up

There'll be a wargame here during this week - to keep myself entertained I set up the battlefield yesterday. Looks OK - I am using a slightly expanded version of the official Commands & Colors: Napoleonics scenario, the table is 17 hexes by 9, so there are a few extra units, and the terrain is corrected very slightly.

I may produce a write-up sometime - a lot depends on whether or not I remember to take photos!

General view, from the French left flank - yes, the Spaniards will be defending with an unfordable river behind their right - it's OK - that's how they like it

And from the other flank - the Spanish position on the ridge in the right foreground looks promising, but there are a lot of Provinciales up there (and we are talking triple retreats...)

Marshal Victor, the French commander, gets some reports - we should always remember that Victor's real name was Claude Perrin, so leaves on the line may be a hazard to be watched out for. Those dreadful chairs will be tidied away before any action

Zoom: Battle of Kluis (Vorpommern), 12th Sept 1808

There was a remote wargame hosted here today - a special treat for anyone who likes alternative history...

Outline scenario: The skeleton of this has some bits of actual history in it, if you look for them. Following the French Victory at Vimeiro, and the [much misunderstood] Convention of Cintra, by the terms of which the British Army was evacuated from the Peninsula, attention turns away from Spain for the moment.

There is already a British force in the Baltic, commanded by Sir John Moore and Lord Edward Paget. The original intention was a collaboration with the Swedes to recapture Vorpommern, until recently Swedish Pommerania (next to Mecklenburg), on the Baltic coast. [After the French captured Stralsund in 1807, Vorpommern, the former Swedish Pommerania, has now joined the Confederation of the Rhine, as the new-fangled Duchy of Stralsund-Rügen.] The original Allied plan was for a joint Anglo-Swedish invasion of the (large) island of Rügen. Planning for the joint invasion did not work out - the Swedish King, Gustav IV Adolf, was obsessed with the idea of using the combined force to capture Finland from the Russians instead.

The British are now going ahead with the Rügen invasion without Swedish support. Moore has under his command British and KGL troops - approx 25 units and Leaders. His army includes a rocket battery, which was used with some success at Copenhagen the previous year.

Word of the British plans has, unfortunately, appeared in The Times, and Bernadotte, whose VIII Corps are based in the Hamburg area (having recently been involved at Kolberg and the siege of Stralsund), has been ordered to send a force to intercept the invaders. This army, commanded by Marshal Brune, comprises French and Confederation troops, with a contingent from the Marquis de Romana's Spanish force, also based at Hamburg. Overall, the French army is very slightly larger than the British - the Spanish and Confederation troops are not wonderful, however.

This is an encounter, in open country; the armies will bump into each other on the moors near the village of Kluis. Moore is hurrying across the island to take station opposite Stralsund, to co-ordinate with the Royal Navy, who will bombard the port. The British are not expecting to meet any French force so soon, and the French have little idea of the nature of the invading force.

The only reason you've never heard of this little campaign is the usual one - Napoleon wasn't there, and therefore nobody is interested.

 

Spoiler: the British/KGL force won fairly decisively, though there was heavy fighting on the British left and in the centre. A narrative of some sort should emerge from the pictures... 

 

Initial set-up, with the British/KGL forces on the left, French Allies on the right

Some of Brune's Confederation troops - units from the little army of the Duchy of Stralsund-Rügen; here, on the left, you see the Franzburg Jägers [Scruby figures], on the right the fusilier battalion Putbus [Garrison 20mm]- the Duchy's soldiers fought well enough today, but, when things went against them, they were subject to double retreats. The problem, you see, is that they never cared much for the Swedes when they were in charge, and only joined the Confederation to keep the Prussians out. They don't like the French much either, it turns out.

Sir John Moore, with the controversial rocket troop in the background. The rockets scored a couple of hits, but are generally unreliable. At least there were no accidents. The rockets have mud-brown bases because technically they are part of the British siege train - I knew you would want to have that explained.

British left, with the KGL boys at the far end

The French begin to develop their attack on their right and in the centre; Confederation troops in the foreground, French in the Centre and the Spanish contingent at the far end. [Yes, the Spanish troops should have marched to Denmark and been shipped back home by now, but this is alternative history in action] 

KGL troops positioned behind the pond at the Velkvister Graben. The orange counters were to denote light troops - my original idea was that these counters should be yellow, but yellow looked too close to white on the Zoom picture, so orange it was. We now use white loss counters on Zoom, since the normal red ones don't show up. The bad news was that the orange doesn't show up either...

The quiet end of the field; the village of Kluis can be seen in the foreground, and opposite are the ruins of Schloß Pansewitz, where the Spanish troops are stationed. Nowadays Pansewitz is a Nature Park, but back in 1808 you didn't have to pay to get in

The French assembling their big attack in the centre; Marshal Brune has the white border to his base - he did a good job of organising and bringing up the reserve troops. [Editor's Note: Marshal Guillaume Brune - Billy Broon, as he would be in Scotland - possibly one of Napoleon's less interesting Marshals?]

Same moment, from the French left - Kluis on the far side of the field, Pansewitz in the foreground

Inevitably, the light cavalry of the Duchy got twitchy as the day progressed - Brigadier-General Leberknödel in command...

...and had a bash at the British cavalry opposite...

...this produced a series of lively fights, with a lot of to-and-fro, but the cavalry largely cancelled each other out

General view from the French right, as Brune puts together his main attack

British infantry (all right - with anachronistic uniforms) in the village of Kluis. They gave the place a very nice write-up on TripAdvisor.

Crunch time in the centre - Moore was very pleasantly surprised that his boys held the position well. The bonus die for British line infantry firing from a stationary position is a valuable advantage (though the small cavalry units are not)

The big French attack was suddenly falling back - the big line more or less disappeared...

By this stage there is a big hole in the middle of the field

The British have plenty of troops left - one of the KGL light battalions has been pulled back out of the firing line, with a lot of white loss counters

On the British right, the troops are still watching each other very carefully

The action has slackened elsewhere as the French fall back

Another look at the Nature Park - the Spaniards had no losses; in fact they were not involved at all, though their field battery scored a couple of long range hits

The victory requirement was 8 Victory Points - the British had won 9-4

The British left flank - still holding the ridge next to the pond, as Brune organises his retreat

 

Update to my C&C-based ECW Rules

This post is overdue - I was working on some changes back in April, but hadn't got the links formalised for Google Drive.

The latest version is 3.01 - as always, there is some typo-fixing, and I've simplified some rules because the (imagined) added cleverness proved to be outweighed by the extra complexity (constant theme).

One of the big changes is that I've now included a more-or-less coherent note on the use of my optional, dice-based Ramekin activation system with the ECW rules. This does a number of things, the chief of which is removal of the Command Cards from the game. Ver 3.01 of the rules also uses a coloured font to identify the parts of the rules which are changed in the absence of the Cards. I have been surprised to learn that a number of people actually use these rules now, and it is only right and proper that I should try to ensure that the "official" downloads are up to date.

The downloadable documents should now allow use of Ver 3.01 with the Command and Chaunce Cards or, as an alternative, the Ramekin system. In passing, Ramekin has proved (fortuitously!) to be absolutely invaluable for playing C&C Napoleonic games remotely, via Zoom, which is an accidental bonus I had not planned for!

As ever, please bear in mind that these rules are primarily for my own use, they are supported and maintained on an occasional, best-endeavours basis, and I don't really wish to hear how awful they are(!) - I'm delighted to discuss them if anyone has any suggestions which are consistent with what I have tried to achieve with them. Also - of course - if the links don't work properly, please do let me know! Google Docs and its offspring have always been pretty much intuitive in use, but I use them so infrequently that I have a tendency to forget best practice!

If you are interested, or want to update the versions you have, you will find the link in the top right corner of this screen.

Vimeiro (1808) - the Zoom Game

Today was the day for our "distanced" wargame, the set-up for which was described in yesterday's post. Sadly, Goya was forced to call off as a result of some urgent family commitments, so Stryker and I resolved to try the game as a twosome. Thus, in the space of about an hour, my role changed from being host/umpire/Schlachtmeister to being Lt. General the Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley.

The 2/86eme Ligne regain their composure after rushing into the woods near Ventosa and destroying my Rifles - one of a number of very heavy early blows!

I am delighted to say that the two-handed game worked without any problems at all - which is largely due to the good humour of my opponent, who is one of Nature's true gentlemen - so that was a major bonus for the day. The battle was a lot of fun - a challenging scenario (we used the C&CN one, straight out of the book) and there was never any evidence of our getting bogged down in the rather fussy terrain. All good.

The good news stops abruptly when I have to admit that the Allies lost, which will make the Convention of Cintra rather more complicated, but I had a great time, my new BlueTooth headset worked perfectly and once again I was privileged to be present at the overturning of History as We Know It.

The C&CN scenario offers an entertaining game, but its standing as a historical simulation (not that it matters) is worthy of some consideration. The scenario starts at the point where Junot has already screwed up rather badly, sending too few troops to outflank Wellesley's left, and the publishers have tried to balance the game by adding some extra French troops, including a cavalry presence on their right which doesn't seem to have been there in reality. Never mind - we do not care, it is a good game anyway, but it would be a poor show if we did not take the opportunity to demonstrate our half-assed grasp of the history.

Junot did what I think I would have done in his place - he pretty much ignored the main objective of the hill and town of Vimeiro (for which bonus Victory Points were available), and concentrated his efforts on eliminating enough units on the Allied left (6 VP needed for the win) without assaulting the very strong position at Vimeiro. Thus most of our action took place around the farm and hamlet of Ventosa.

The early stages of the action were notable for some remarkable combat-dice rolling by the French (about which I can hardly complain, since I did all the dice rolling, moving of troops, allocating markers and cursing for both sides). An early rush to gain possession of Ventosa was won rather easily by the French, and the Allies lost two units very quickly. 2-nil. Hmmm. Then, not long after, my skillful manoeuvre to bring my Rifles battalion through the woods, to fire on the flank of Solignac's troops on the French right, ended in tears when a single battalion of ligne charged into the woods and wiped out the Rifles with one astonishing dice roll. 3-nil.

Thereafter things began to settle down a little, and the Allies began to claw their way back into the fight - I got to 3-1, then it was 4-2, and Solignac's force were working very hard to take battered units from the front line and replace them with fresh ones. Then it was 5-3, and the game ended almost on an anti-climax when a rare moment of counter-battery fire eliminated my field battery near Ventosa, and the French had won 6-3. This may sound like a tanking, but Junot had a few units who were reduced to a very poor state at the end, so I am not too downhearted.

The pictures should give an idea of the proceedings. [I must add, in passing, that adding photos to this post has been a real grunt, since I am offered something halfway between the new and old versions of Blogger, which really doesn't work at all well. It's clunky, man.]

View from behind the Allied left flank, right at the start of the action, as we fail to capture Ventosa, and my infantry start to take a hammering.

The French left flank, opposite Vimeiro - the newly-painted 70eme Ligne are in evidence, with General St Clair keeping an eye on them

Looking along the French line, from the left, you can see where the action all took place, over beyond the trees and the rocky hills.

The fight continues at Ventosa - the British infantry (now less a couple of battalions) have withdrawn to rally a little, and a continuous firefight is underway.

Meanwhile, on the ridge in front of Vimeiro, Fane's troops wait for the French to attack. They may still be waiting.

Again, a more extensive view of not much happening.

At Ventosa, it's all happening - Solignac has even brought up some cavalry (coincidentally, this is the same 15eme Chasseurs à Cheval that had a starring role at Coa the other week, and which have drawn attention to themselves numerous times over the last few years).

But, apart from pulling his infantry back behind the ridge at Vimeiro, Fane has had very little to do. He had a field battery which spent the afternoon taking long shots across the valley and missing.

Ventosa again.

Troops are coming through the woods from the centre of the field, and things are really not going brilliantly for the Allies at this point. Note that we've adopted white loss counters for the Zoom games, since they show up better on the cameras than red ones.

The French don't have much in the way of elite troops, but here they are - General Kellerman with a battalion of combined grenadiers, about to set off through the woods.

On the extreme Allied right, Rowland Hill brings forward his brigade, across the fordable River Maceiro.

Kellerman's grenadiers about to march into the woods - some more celebrities in this photo - the 1/26eme (Freitag battalion) are up front, the 2/26eme (Gonsalvo battalion) on the left.

At Ventosa, the Allies are running out of troops - the nearest I got to a moment of success in this game was just before this photo, when the French grenadiers were decimated by fire from two humble Portuguese battalions - General Kellerman survived, but has dropped back to join another regiment (in the wood).

Understated ending - this French battery eliminates my British battery, and that's the 6th Victory Point for the win.

General view at this time shows that Fane's people are still having a fairly untroubled time at Vimeiro.

And Junot brought up his left wing cavalry, just to have a look at the enemy.

Now, this is interesting - at the end, you can see that Junot's right flank includes some very battered units (four counters means they are eliminated) - three units with three losses in the picture, and a couple with two. This is evidence of the intelligence with which Stryker conducted his attack - one of the skills of Commands and Colors is bringing up fresh units to relieve battered ones, and there's clearly been plenty of that!

[Final gripe about New Blogger - it took 57 minutes (I timed it, since I had nothing else to do) to upload these 21 small photos into this post using New Blogger. I assume this is going to improve - if it doesn't, I don't propose to do very much more blogging!]