1805 Danube Campaign: Act I - Opening Moves (10 September - 15 October 1805)

The time has come that I can begin to tell the story of the campaign without giving away crucial military secrets.  At the time of writing we are still mid-campaign, so I will be rationing what I say and when.  Once it is all over I may go back and update posts giving more detail.  Or not.  In the meantime the account will trickle out in several parts.

Introduction (from the campaign handbook)

The War of the Third Coalition began with an Austrian assault in September 1805.  The Austrian plan was to attack the French possessions in northern Italy with the main army under Archduke Charles, while a secondary force under his nephew, Archduke Ferdinand (nominally, but really managed by the Chief of Staff, Karl Mack von Lieberich), was to cross Bavaria to invade France.  Its real purpose was to distract Napoleon from reinforcing Italy, not to prosecute the main war.  The main French force was far away, preparing at Boulogne for an invasion of England. 

Napoleon responded with shocking speed and force.  He ignored Italy, where in any case Charles had as yet made no move (having grave reservations about the safety of the army north of the Alps) and launched a counter-invasion of Germany.  The Bavarians, meanwhile, revealed a secret alliance with the French - not formally concluded, in fact, until some weeks after the Austrians crossed their borders - leaving Mack’s army in an embarrassingly exposed position.

Campaign Battle of Babensham

The Situation

Four days after the Russian victory at Ottenhoven, the Grande Armée is finally getting to grips with the army of Austria.  A strong push by Bernadotte, backed by Davout, has expanded to the East the Wasserburg bridgehead across the Inn, only to discover a solid line of Austrians stretching for miles to the South-East in the direction of the Chiemsee.  It has been raining for days, and will be an uphill fight.  The French have fought with mud on their boots before, though, and if the Austrians are willing to accept battle the French are more than willing to give it to them...

We played the battle in the extremely congenial location of Bundanoon, in the Southern Highlands of NSW, where the Bundanoon Hotel were kind enough to allow us the use of their private dining room.  Thanks, Gavin!  We hope that this will be only the first of many such meetings.  Robert led the Austrians, assisted by the (nominally Russian, in the campaign) John and Colin, while David and Michael handled the French.

Playing Austrians in 1805 - Some Notes

Toward the end of the Battle of Babensham, Robert as the Austrian commander was heard to exclaim "How can you win with this army?  How can you attack?".  Later, when the post-battle dispositions had been completed at operational level, he was dismayed again.  The French, having the initiative, moved first in the following pulse, and piled straight into his rearguard.  Feeling obliged, for reasons I will not go into here, to accept battle, the pulse ended immediately.  Despite knowing that that would be the consequence of the decision to fight, he nevertheless opined that "this sucks", for it meant that his forces elsewhere would not get to move, nor the Inn valley force even to re-construct brigades broken in the previous day's fighting.  The same could be said, mind you, for all of the other French and Bavarian forces - they did not get to continue their advance, either.

Naturally I do not like my players to be unhappy, but this is after all a simulation of war, and in war a good deal of excrement occurs.  Some of the Austrians' current predicament is simply down to that, but some of it is a reflection of the fact that the Austrian army in 1805 was pushing 'it uphill in facing Napoleon at the height of his powers, leading arguably the best French army that ever existed.  That is, this is not a balanced tournament scenario, but a simulation of an historical situation that was deliberately set up, historically, to be unfair.  In that context the French were certainly more successful than the Austrians, but it was not a foregone conclusion, I think, and it is still not one in the campaign.

While trying, as usual, not to give any intelligence away that is not already public knowledge, I want to offer a few notes on the situation at Babensham in the campaign, and also (of more general interest) on the Austrian Imperial army at this date and how this is reflected in the rules.

Campaign Battle of Ottenhoven

 This battle was played on 19 December, with Michael kindly offering to host it at his office at Marrickville.  The Russians were led by John as Kutusov, faced by Dave and Michael as Napoleon and Soult respectively (the presence of Napoleon on the field giving John some qualms about the imminent arrival of the Guard).

The Situation (spoiler and intelligence-free, I trust).

The Grande Armée crossed the Rhine in late September, advancing inexorably to the east with no enemy contact.  This changed as they approached the eastern frontier of Bavaria - Austrian scouts, then major formations, were met along the valley of the river Inn.  Even as the lead elements of the army, under the immediate direction of Marshal Bernadotte, started to probe across the Inn, new intelligence was received from the Bavarians, with whom an alliance was concluded on the 1th of October.

They had been aware, through their local agents, of Kutusov's 1st West Army since it had crossed their frontier some days earlier.  On concluding the alliance they advised the French of the Russian presence, now well south of the Danube and apparently heading for Munich.  Marshal Soult was ordered to take his IV corps off to intercept them.  Soult's scouts located a strong column of Russians marching south from the Iser river crossing at Freising via Erding and Markt Schwaben.  Without waiting for reinforcements from other corps, Soult made haste to surround the head of the column.  It had reached the village of Ottenhoven, a couple of miles north of Markt Schwaben, and Soult launched his assault just after 10:00am on the 23rd.

Progress and Digressions

This post was written a year ago, but never published...

It is high time to do that now, in anticipation of more good stuff to come, I trust.

I see it has been quite a while since I put anything up.  In January I looked forward to playing Aspern-Essling by May (everything was ready, including printing of the army counters), but for one reason and another we have not had a public battle at the club since then.  The delay has dragged on so long, in fact, that I decided in the end to take a step that I always meant to take eventually.  I have ordered troops from Baccus, initially enough for Aspern-Essling, then in following orders for a replay of Friedland and, with the addition of Bavarians, for 1805 and Austerlitz.  That will keep us for a while, and then a small number of Prussians will enable us to do 1807, and a large number to do 1806.

Nevertheless, things have not been entirely static.  Mini-playtests have allowed the Throne & Altar rules to be refined further and they are now close, I think, to a final form.  Meantime, in anticipation of the promised 1805 campaign next year I have been at work on three parallel projects.

Friedland AAR - January 2019

This month we finally played the long-planned Friedland game, using the latest version of the T&A rules.  I received Greg Wagman's kind permission to distribute complete rules to the players beforehand, and I know that at least some generals read them in the day or two available, but only two of the players had actually played them before.  More on that below under "Game Notes".  My thanks to the many people who signed up for the game - on the Russian side John, Angus and Geoff, and on the French Robert, Dennis, Steve, Anthony and Gordon.  Special thanks to Steve and Gordon, who remained good-humoured and engaged, even though their troops never actually made it onto the table!  Special mention also of Angus and Anthony, both playing their first Napoleonic battles (at least in this form), who handled their respective commands with skill and aplomb despite their inexperience.

With that said, what happened?

Troop Quality

The third axis of troop characteristics is quality - this is a combination of moral confidence, unit cohesion, including esprit de corps, and level of training.  All (or almost all, anyway) wargaming rules reflect this in some way, often by sorting different units into categories such as "raw", "trained", "veteran" etc.  Throne and Altar does it with a numeric rating, which unlike Altar of Freedom varies between units.

I mentioned in an earlier article that AoF represents degradation of unit effectiveness, including casualties, by means of "fatigue" points.  In AoF, if a brigade accumulates more than four such points it breaks.  Once enough brigades have broken, the entire army breaks and the battle is lost.  This number (the army break point) is known in advance, and is calculated based on the scenario designer's judgement of the general state of enthusiasm of the army

National Characteristics

The first axis of troop differences I identified as having to be addressed in a Napoleonic rule set was the tactical roles filled by various troop types.  This has been dealt with already.

The second was tactical doctrine, by which I mean the differences in behaviour for ostensibly identical troop types across different armies, and even the same army at different time periods.  It includes also the effects of differing cultures and social relations between members of different armies.  The relations between officers and men were quite different, for example, in the British army as compared with the French, for the societies they came from were founded on different principles.  Likewise for Austria, Russia and so on.  The differences discussed below are all expressed on the battlefield as simple bonuses and deficits applied to certain troop types.

Troop Types

To alter a set of rules written for the American Civil War to be suitable for Napoleonics, a number of changes need to be made.  The first and most obvious is the range of troop types available.  All of what follows (in terms of actual modifiers, move distances etc.) can be found on the Quick Reference Card.  This post sets out the thinking behind the rules - the justification and reasoning, to give y'all something to take issue with.

Foundations

I wrote a few weeks ago that I would expand, in due course, on the Throne & Altar rules, and I want to do that in a couple of steps.  I have already said that the rules are based on Greg Wagman's Altar of Freedom.  First, I want to give an overview of those rules, and then I will go on to set out what changes I have made to make them suit Napoleonics rather than ACW.

Bailén AAR - August 2018

At the August meeting of the Northern Sydney Wargames Club we played the first public test run of a set of grand-tactical Napoleonic wargames rules that I have been working on in odd moments.  I will post more on the rules themselves another time, but want to start with an after action report while the event is still fresh.  I do have to say, though, that the rules are based closely on the Altar of Freedom ACW rules written by Greg Wagman.  My rules, in homage to Greg's, are called Throne & Altar, with reference to the counter-revolutionary principles that animated the opposition to Revolutionary and Imperial France.

I give my thanks to the four players who commanded during the battle: John and Michael on the French side, Robert and newcomer Tony on the Spanish.  The battle was hard-fought and tense, with serious plotting going on throughout.  Although the scenario puts the French in a very difficult position (as they were historically) the outcome remained in the balance until remarkably late in the day.

With that brief introduction out of the way, on with the game, which represents the battle of Bailén in 1808.  A French corps, of fairly indifferent quality and laden with the loot of the city of Cordoba, is trying to escape pursuit and get back to the safety of Madrid.  Having marched all night, they are horrified to see, at dawn, Spanish troops blocking their way.