The War Spreads, and so do the rules challenges

 When I first wrote these rules I envisioned the operational level being intermittent and quite short-term - corps would meet on the strategic map, drop to the operational map of seven hexes, or maybe ten if they had friends nearby, manoeuvre for a week or so, and maybe have a battle.  After that they would separate, go back to the strategic map, and continue there until another meeting occurred.  There might perhaps be two operational theatres, or even more, going on in parallel, and then all returning to the strategic level.

That is not how it has turned out at all.  It is how it started - a tight little map stretching from Munich to a few miles east of the Inn, perhaps sixty miles by fifty, extended from the northern flank of the Alps.  At that point we had about 80,000 Frenchmen trying to force a crossing of the Inn against a rather smaller number of Austrians.  The Bavarians were there in the background, and the Imperial Guard and Grand Park were just coming on-stage - not really near the enemy, but approaching the base of operations at Munich, so they went into the mix also.  

That was on October 17, game time.  Now, as I write, we are in the third week of November, and there has been no possibility of going back to strategic-level manoeuvering.  More corps have poured in from all sides, and the map has expanded to accommodate them.  There must be over 300,000 troops in-theatre - French, Bavarian, Austrian and Russian.  They are manoevering over an area bounded approximately by the cities of Innsbruck, Nuremberg, Taus in Bohemia, Passau and Salzburg - perhaps 200 miles by 150.  The main French supply route stretches over 70 miles from the great logistics base in Munich almost to the Austrian fortress of Braunau (which I think the Emperor has his eye on already as the next base for the push east).

I have had to revise my assumptions and my rules as I went along, and mostly this has been achieved fairly smoothly.  New logistics rules have been retro-fitted without doing anybody any terrible injustices, and the players have come to grips with how supply works pretty well.  I still have some further simplifications in mind, but the bulk of the work has been done, now.  The rest can wait for the next campaign, I think, although no doubt there will be some ad-hoc insertions as we go. 

I have given some information above that is not public knowledge, but nothing that will come as a surprise to anybody, I trust, or affect strategy at this stage - the Coalition must have spies and correspondents in Munich to tell them of the great warehouses and wagon depots there.  Further remarks I was going to make here would give away secrets that are rather fresher, so I shall keep them for later.  It will perhaps be of interest to show what the operational map now looks like:

1805 Campaign: Act III - The Armies Converge (25 - 31 October 1805)

The Russian victory at Ottenhoven left the security of the whole French advance into Austria in question.  Marshal Soult retreated to the south-east, linking up with Bernadotte's army group on the Inn but leaving the way to Munich open to the Russians.  The (now Royal) Army of Bavaria was too far away to guard its own capital, having been sent to the right flank of the advance to act in concert with Marshal Ney in seizing the Inn crossing city of Rosenheim.

Saving General Roussel - Campaign Battle of Jettenbach

In the confusion of the retreat from Babensham the Austrian army became strung out along the south bank of the Inn.  The French hastened to pursue, attempting in particular to cut off the tail of the column and destroy it.  Drouet, leading the pursuit, managed to catch FML Auffenberg a little upstream of Mühldorf, where the small stream of the Wanklbach flows into the Inn at Kraiburg.  Auffenberg might have fought a skirmishing retreat to the east but for his knowledge that if he did so he would be leaving General Roussel d'Hurbal, with almost 9,000 men, cut off to the west, trapped against the bank of the Inn.  Roussel would surely be forced to surrender, so Auffenberg sent an appeal to the Emperor, committing the army to a reversal of direction to rescue the isolated column.

The map, looking from the south, and the actual table seen from the east.