Solo Campaign - Battle of Corrales - 24th Jan 1812

Cazadores de Castilla in the village - they did well until the ammunition ran out

Marshal Marmont sent General Clauzel ahead to engage the Conde de España’s little force. Clauzel had his own (Second) Divn of the Armée de Portugal (10 battalions of infantry and a battery of 8pdr guns) – and was supported by Cavrois’ Division of 4 regiments of dragoons plus 2 foot batteries from Tirlet’s reserve artillery (a total of 10360 men with 24 guns).

España had 5 line infantry regiments,  with 2 battalions of volontarios (militia), Sanchez’s 2 regiments of irregular lancers, and 2 field batteries (a total of 6140 men with 12 guns).

The Spanish troops took up position on a line of low hills behind the stream of Valparaiso,  which was fordable but difficult to negotiate because of its position in a gully. Clauzel set his artillery on the highest ground he had available, and sent Berlier’s brigade forward over the bridge which carries the Salamanca-Zamora road over the stream, close to the small hamlet of Peleas de Arriba. His second brigade, with Barbot commanding, were committed to a feint against the stream on the French right. The dragoons were held in reserve behind the flanks.

A theme for the day was the desultory performance of the French artillery. Clauzel’s intention was to demoralise the Spanish infantry by sustained fire from his batteries. Some blamed problems with the quality of the powder, but – whatever the cause – the French guns caused very little damage throughout the action. If the banjo had existed  in 1812, the French gunners could not have hit a cow on the backside with one on that day. The Spanish infantry kept up a surprisingly brisk and effective fire, especially around the bridge, and Berlier’s men were repeatedly driven back with heavy losses. Because the attack around the bridge gained so little ground, Barbot’s diversionary attack was switched to become the main assault, but with no better success. At one point the 2^nd Princesa and the 1^st Sevilla regiments made a bayonet charge – supported by the plucky volunteers of the Defensores de Fernando VII – and swept a large portion of Barbot’s command back into the arroyo in confusion. Eventually Clauzel broke off his attack and withdrew, but his losses were heavy, with many men missing or taken prisoner.

España won a remarkable and unexpected victory – his total loss by the end of the action was 1080 men, of whom many were expected to rejoin the colours, while the French lost over 4000, plus the eagle of the 2^nd Bn of the 25e Leger. The Junta de Castilla had been so pessimistic about España’s chances prior to the action that they had been very reluctant to attach a militia battery to his force, since that would simply be another 6 guns lost if the French prevailed.

Marmont’s Chief of Staff, La Martinière, was given the challenging job of writing up his report of the battle in terms which would avoid bringing the wrath of the Minister of War down on their heads.

The French fell back in good order, and with all their guns, towards Salamanca, since the Spanish cavalry were not in a position to do them further damage.

Orders of Battle

Spanish 3^rd Army (part) – Conde de España

2^nd Princesa, 1^st Sevilla, 2^nd Jaen, Tiradores de Castilla, Cazadores de Castilla

1^st & 2^nd Lanceros de Castilla

2^nd Loyales de Zamora, Defensores de Fernando VII

2 companies of foot artillery

French force (from Armée de Portugal ) – Gen de Divn Bertrand Clauzel

2^nd Divn:

Berlier’s Bde – 25e Leger (3 Bns), 27e Ligne (2)

Barbot’s Bde – 50e Ligne (3), 59e Ligne (2)

15/3e Art à Pied

Dragoon Divn (Cavrois)

Picquet’s Bde – 6e & 11e Dragons

Boudinhon-Valdec’s Bde – 15e & 25e Dragons

Reserve artillery (Tirlet)

10/3e & 19/3e Art à Pied

Spanish position at the start

French starting position, from their left flank

Some of Espana's volunteer troops

French right flank - the quiet side

Berlier's attack - all they have to do is cross that bridge and keep marching...

Growing concern on the French left

Clauzel wants to be alone for a while

Espana (right edge of picture) played a conspicuous part in pushing back Barbot's attack

Getting desperate - bring up another reserve unit...

Solo Peninsular Campaign - Week 1

All right, I know I said I wasn't going to do this, but here is a summary of activity during the first week of the campaign. I have no intention of doing this for each week – this is just to show how I’m going about it. This was an easy week, since there are no Demoralisation issues, no Replacements to worry about, no Sieges to progress and everyone is In Supply (since the LoCs are all open).

The Allies rolled better activation dice, so got first move.

We have a battle! The French have attacked the force of the Conde de Espana (who is unable to withdraw, since he has a severe cavalry disadvantage) in the area of Zamora, and the action is large enough to justify a proper tabletop battle with the CCN rules. I’ll have to fight this battle before I can complete the week’s returns (obviously). I will write up the battle in a posting in due course.

Elsewhere, the Allies are calling in outlying cavalry, and their siege train has begun the slow plod from Lisbon. Mostly this week I have been developing clerical procedures to keep tabs on everything. Thank goodness for Excel spreadsheets. What follows is copied and pasted directly from my own campaign notes, so it may lack something in style and readability...

It is probably obvious, but single capital letters refer to Combat Groups, which can just about be seen on the map photo in the previous post.

Week 01

Housekeeping

To help get things moving, both CinCs get a rating of 3. The 3D3 activation throws give Allies 7 Orders, French 4, so Allies move first. Because the armies have been sitting in Winter quarters for some months, it is assumed that they are pretty well aware of who is in adjacent Areas, so for the moment the optional Intelligence rule is suspended.

Moves

Allies

1 – D (Framlingham with Eng + Siege train + escorts) march 1 step from Lisbon to Peniche (expected to take about 3 weeks to get up to Elvas)

2 – Sp B (Espana with Spanish 3^rd Army) at Zamora concerned that they are about to be attacked from Salamanca, thus Sp C (Sanchez with 2^nd Lancers) move from Leon to support Sp B at Zamora

3 – F (11 Lt Dgns) move 2 steps from Porto via Coimbra to Abrantes...

4 – ...where they join A (Wellington), and are attached to Anson’s Bde

5 – E (Von Bock’s KGL heavy cavalry) move (along rough road) 1 step from Braga to Almeida to join B (Hope). This is conditional move, so must be tested
2D3 = 5 +2 (Bock’s rating) –1 (rough road) –1 (winter conditions) = 5   which is OK...

6 – ...and they are absorbed into Group B

 

French

1 – U (St Paul’s Italian bde) move 1 step from Segovia to Valladolid

2 – Split R (Guye at Madrid) – detach Merlin with the King’s Guard and Treillard’s cavalry, which become Q (Guye commands, Casapalacios assumes command of R)...

3 – ...and march the new Group Q 1 step from Madrid to Segovia

4 – N (Marmont, with Clauzel’s Divn + Cavrois’ dragoon divn + reserve art) march north 1 step from Salamanca into Zamora, where they attack Sp B + C (Espana)

Supplies

All Groups on both sides are In Supply – French keep Segovia open by moving Q (Guye) in to replace U (St Paul), so protecting supply route from Madrid north to Valladolid; French supply route from Bayonne is protected by troops stationed at Pamplona, San Sebastian, thence via Vitoria, and there is a garrison at Burgos, covering the routes south to Salamanca and Madrid. 

Contacts

Even with his extra lancers called in, Espana is outnumbered in cavalry by 2:1, so he is unable to withdraw. The Junta de Castilla is able to add 2 bns of volontarios to his force (they rank as militia). Espana takes a defensive position on the road from Salamanca to Zamora, on a low ridge runnig SW-NE behind the rugged little stream of Valparaiso, close to Peleas de Arriba, which is a few miles – about an hour’s march – south of the village of Corrales del Vino. The terrain is fairly open, rolling, lightly wooded – Espana is concerned that it will suit the French cavalry.

The so-called Battle of Corrales takes place on Friday 24^th January, on a cold, windy day.

Solo Campaign - Start-Up at 19th Jan 1812

A few days late for a strict 200th anniversary, but the armies are now on the map for the start of my solo Peninsular War (type) campaign. It is 19th January 1812, the armies are emerging from their Winter quarters, apart from Montbrun's force, which is returning from an extended forced march to assist Suchet in the East. The Allies have Ciudad Rodrigo, which has a Spanish garrison, but the French still hold Badajoz.

Galicia, Cataluna, Valencia and all of Andalucia apart from Badajoz, Zafra and Huelva are regarded as self-contained and off-limits. There is no way that Suchet or Soult are going to help anyone else, thank you. The supply depots are not yet marked on the map, but are, initially, French: Bayonne and Madrid - Allied: Lisbon and Porto. Spanish irregulars do not need supply depots.

Initial positions indicate that the cavalry needs to be spread out among the field armies, and the Allies had better start thinking about controlling Badajoz, so should get the siege train on the road.

Objectives? If the French capture Lisbon, they win. If the Allies control Castilla they win. Anything else is how you write it up.

I'll not bombard the blog with weekly reports - times will slip a bit anyway - this is a fairly relaxed campaign! The rules are sort of complete but do not exist in a form I would wish to publish yet. I'll put out an update occasionally if there is something to say - battles would be appropriate! If you wish to see detailed OOBs they are here and here, and there have been various posts discussing elements of the rules and philosophy. On the map, blue counters are French, white are Anglo-Portuguese, black are Spanish - the strengths and exact locations of partisan forces are deliberately a bit vague...

Hooptedoodle #41 - The Tale of the Eucalyptus

What a laugh - this weekend's farce here at the Nature Park was me trying to get the biggest bits of our old eucalypus tree split into stove-sized logs. We've burnt all the small stuff now. I had a go with a big axe a week or two ago - depressing - I could hardly make a mark on the wood. This weekend I meant business, and borrowed a pneumatic splitter capable of 8 tons pressure. Wouldn't look at the eucalyptus, thank you very much. Didn't mark the stuff any more than my efforts with the axe (which doesn't help, but is a slight comfort).

Eucalyptus is obviously special. You may cut it, though not easily, but it will not split. Today I am going to negotiate with the farm to see if they can hire me a tractor-mounted hydraulic splitter, which will produce 20 tons. If that doesn't work either then I'll see if they can hire me a young man with a chainsaw.

So what is/was a eucalyptus doing here in Scotland, the Land of Mud? When I bought this house, nearly 12 years ago now, there were two hefty eucalyptus trees, one either side of the garden. I know they were planted in the early 1980s, because I have an aerial photo from 1985 or so, with some little, wispy trees just visible, but by 2000 they were big and beautiful. The more northerly of the two had a bad accident in my first winter here. Because it had grown in the shade behind the building, it was spindly - what tree-specialists call "pencilling". In a gale one night it split, and about half of it fell across the garden. Maybe a couple of tons of timber - if it had fallen in another direction it would have altered the house substantially.

I had it sawn up, and the remaining section taken down, and I spent the years afterwards looking sideways at the survivor. This, however, was a much more robust specimen. Growing in what passes for full sunlight here, it grew to about 70 feet high, but it used to alarm me waving about in high winds. In addition:

* it kept having to be cut back to clear the power cables

* it overshadowed the patio, and provided a very popular pigeons' toilet in the same spot

* its roots kept getting into the village drains, an expensive nuisance and a source of potential unrest

* its leaves fell all year round, blocked up gutters, cluttered flower beds, stained paintwork and never, ever showed any signs of rotting

* as it grew larger it sucked all the water out of the garden - it became hard to keep the lawn alive, no plants would grow within 40 feet of it

* its roots were beginning to crack the garage floor, and ruin the paving

* most importantly, one day it was going to break and fall over - if we were lucky, it would hit the garage and the power lines, otherwise the house was under threat

On the other hand, it was an absolutely lovely tree. After some years of footling about, not making a decision, eventually we realised that it had to go, so we hired in a contractor and had a very entertaining day watching the circus act that is required for tree removal. Fantastic. It was cut into logs, but the biggest pieces were just stacked at the deep end of the woodshed, for future reference.

The large, dark green object to the right of the electricity pole is the longer-lived of our eucalyptus trees - this picture was taken about 5 years before it was taken down, so it still had a good way to grow...

After the tree was gone - and it came down in about June 2010, I think - we went into a strange period when we didn't like the garden any more. The heart had gone out of it - though, of course, it was now safer and more practical and less maintenance and we could actually use more of it. We've now put in some baby fruit trees, and made a feature of shifting our bird feeders to where the big tree used to be, and we are sort of getting the hang of it, but it hasn't been easy. This Winter I've been working my way through our stock of eucalyptus wood for the stove, and very good it is, but we have now reached the point where the big pieces are going to have to be cut up - this, of course, is where we came in.

The one really bright spot from the weekend is that I might have bought an 8-ton log splitter if it had turned out to be cheaper than a full load of logs, and then I would really have been very upset indeed.

Falcata - Carlist Wars

I got a few emails and some comments asking me for more details of the new Falcata Carlist Wars range.

I have to emphasise that I know very little about them, other than the fact that they appear very attractive! If you want to know more, or to purchase some, please contact Gregorio at La Flecha Negra, the Madrid model and hobby shop.

I managed to find a picture of some painted samples of the Carlist figures, a picture which I was sent by the shop but had managed to misfile. Here they are - apologies for the delay.

Falcata - a Package from Madrid

Gregorio at La Flecha Negra has sent me some samples of the new 1/72 Falcata white metal Napoleonics, which look very good. He also included a couple of samples of the new Carlist Wars, which are also excellent.

Top, left to right are Spanish infantry in campaign dress, a couple of Grenadiers and a line infrantryman in full dress, while below are the Carlist samples. Figures are nicely sculpted and animated, as you would expect, and stand about 24mm from soles of feet to scalp.

Gregorio also got hold of a couple of boxes of set FE-1808-07 for me, the guerrilleros from the old boxed Falcata series. I was very keen to get these, partly because I wants them (my precious...), but also because as far as I knew these never made it into production, and I had never even seen pictures of them. Here are some samples from these boxes - you get 34 castings in a box, with a wide variety of poses (especially suitable for irregulars). 1 box has 3 commanders, 3 standard bearers, 2 musicians (a drummer and a bagpipe player), a couple of dead guys and a whole bunch of fighting figures, including a female partisan.

Gregorio hopes that he may have a supply of the old boxed Falcatas in a month or two - whether that means that they are being reissued or if it is old stock I do not know. In the meantime, if you are interested in the new ranges (12 infantry or 3 cavalry or a gun + crew in a bag), please contact Gregorio at LFN - they have stock available now, and they are very nice, helpful people to deal with - they do not take PayPal, but international money transfers are very easy now - even from Britain!

I am a happy bunny today - nice job, Postie.

British Artillery Caissons, and Some Very Big Guns

Delayed by a late decision to strip the limbers, here are two examples of what Carl Franklin, in his lovely book, describes as the British Two-Wheeled Ammunition Car. A quick glance, of course, will confirm that the car is hooked up behind a standard limber, so it is in fact a four-wheeled vehicle, but articulated, which was regarded as a big advance over the earlier rigid 4-wheeler. These are the carts which accompanied the individual batteries into action, to provide an immediate reserve of ammunition.

The models are Lamming throughout - equipment and horses, and also the drivers, as evidenced by their Easter Island profiles and the trademark Lamming elephant whip. My thanks and compliments to Clive and to Dave Watson, who somehow came up with yet more supplies of extinct artillery kit.

Since I am deep in the artillery projects box at present, I think I may take the opportunity to make up and paint some more siege guns. As these may be of some interest, here are a couple I prepared earlier. I included a more normal 9pdr gun to give an idea of scale, and you will see that these siege guns are very bad boys indeed. These are 18pdrs from Hinchliffe's (current) 25mm scale range, which should make them way too big for the Minifigs gunners. Before you laugh (and I laughed myself before I checked the sizes), be assured that I have measured these castings and they are spot-on for 1/72 of the official weapon dimensions for an iron 18pdr. Further, Clive and I once put these same Hinch 25 castings alongside a Finescale Factory model of an 18pdr, and they were exactly the same size - I am not even prepared to consider that FSF would ever make anything which was not perfect 1/72, so let's just assume this is what they were like.

Big.

Anyway, I have 2 or 3 more of these to prepare, and a 10" howitzer, so I may take a short break from painting vehicles. Note also that my Allied Siege Train and associated engineering chaps have their bases painted a fetching shade of mud brown. It seemed a good idea at the time.