Revisiting La Bataille

Started by MengJiao, October 10, 2022, 03:16:34 PM

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MengJiao

  Looking at the battle of Kulm got me interested in what happened at Dresden on the 25-27 of August in 1813.  It's really Napoleon's last big win and really the last time the Napoleonic army
was in good shape.  For a closer look at that battle, I resorted to a game system I had not played at all in almost 20 years: the Clash of Arms version of the La Bataille system.  It's basically a really
ancient war game system as such things go -- late 70s I think in its earliest incarnations.  In the 1980s I was pretty familiar with the system.  But here we are in the 2020s and I was very reluctant
to look into what it might have mutated into.  While the Clash of Arms Battles from the Age of Reason seemed sort of Okay, I couldn't imagine la Bataille as the rules and such for a bearable game.
So I looked into the most recent rules ( six bucks at Wargame Vault) and they seemed mysteriously okay.  So I bought the Dresden (2015) game and hoped for the best.

  Well, it does look okay.  I did a little scenario based on Vandamme versus the Russian Guards at Kulm on the 29th of August...of Course Vandamme wasn't at Dresden (he was farther south with his
gigantic corps trying to cut off the Army of Bohemia) and while the rules say the French artillery is supplied without tumbrils or caissons, I've put in some since all accounts of the Army of Silesia
have it capturing and using vast numbers of French caissons packed with enough ammo to run a battle or two....so the French must have had an abundance of caissons.... 
so it's Marmont and Ney (et ADC Camus) with the Marines and Latour-Maubourg versus the Guards (on terrain south of Dresden):




MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on October 10, 2022, 03:16:34 PM

  Well, it does look okay.  I did a little scenario based on Vandamme versus the Russian Guards at Kulm on the 29th of August...of Course Vandamme wasn't at Dresden (he was farther south with his
gigantic corps trying to cut off the Army of Bohemia) and while the rules say the French artillery is supplied without tumbrils or caissons, I've put in some since all accounts of the Army of Silesia
have it capturing and using vast numbers of French caissons packed with enough ammo to run a battle or two....so the French must have had an abundance of caissons.... 
so it's Marmont and Ney (et ADC Camus) with the Marines and Latour-Maubourg versus the Guards (on terrain south of Dresden):

  Things get complicated:

 

MengJiao

#2
Quote from: MengJiao on October 11, 2022, 08:13:26 AM

  Things get complicated:


  Further reflections -- you can't tell from the images I'm attaching (because I try to photograph things without too many markers to obscure the landscape) -- but the recent versions
of the la Bataille rules i have looked at or used all have an intriguing mesh of command control, message simulation, initiative, movement, combat, and turn sequence that overcome
some of the problems with using impulse systems for battles before radios and mechanization.  Here's the basic problem -- in an impulse or chit pull system with large 18th or 19th century armies
fighting over fronts of several miles -- how would anyone know that some impulse event on the other side of the battle field went well or badly within the 20-minute time frame of the turns?
The La Bat. system answers this problem by having command points apportioned by each side before anything happens -- the messages go out before the results are known.  Then there
is a bit of chit-pulling and the priority of cavalry charges, but basically, side A does what its messages say and then Side B (though you don't know which goes when and the side with more
command points will tend to go first).  Anyway, its a pretty good system and works well for solitaire with minor adjustments (as usual).

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on October 11, 2022, 11:37:22 AM
Quote from: MengJiao on October 11, 2022, 08:13:26 AM

  Things get complicated:


  Further reflections --

   Over an hour into the battle -- things are getting more violent by the minute:


MengJiao

#4
Quote from: MengJiao on October 12, 2022, 11:14:40 AM

   Over an hour into the battle -- things are getting more violent by the minute:

   And assuming the battle started at 8:30 (a lingering adaptation to not having much cavalry in the 1790s? -- the French get up early to scout on foot and make camp early to secure a definite perimeter?)
by about 10 am, Marmont's corps is about to crush the Russian Grenadier Guards when (to sort of duplicate Kulm) Kleist arrives with his large Prussian Corps trying to escape to the south.  Latour-Maubourg
heads north to slow down the Prussians (who are marching to Plauen) and Friedrichs gets command points at IX to start bringing his Division around to block the Prussians.  The command points for the manouever units are all down ( 1 for Ney as "the army level" 1 for Marmont as Corps -- which will put most of the French in command, 1 for Latour-Maubourg and three for Divisions, at the moment only one ADC has sent to deal with a problematic situation -- Lavoy rallying the Saxon horse guards far to the south)...once all of Kleist is on the map, I'll bring in Napoleon and the Young Guard to rescue Marmont:


MengJiao

#5
Quote from: MengJiao on October 13, 2022, 07:10:50 AM
   And assuming the battle started at 8:30 (a lingering adaptation to not having much cavalry in the 1790s? -- the French get up early to scout on foot and make camp early to secure a definite perimeter?)
by about 10 am, Marmont's corps is about to crush the Russian Grenadier Guards when (to sort of duplicate Kulm) Kleist arrives with his large Prussian Corps trying to escape to the south.  Latour-Maubourg
heads north to slow down the Prussians (who are marching to Plauen) and Friedrichs gets command points at IX to start bringing his Division around to block the Prussians.  The command points for the manouever units are all down ( 1 for Ney as "the army level" 1 for Marmont as Corps -- which will put most of the French in command, 1 for Latour-Maubourg and three for Divisions, at the moment only one ADC has sent to deal with a problematic situation -- Lavoy rallying the Saxon horse guards far to the south)...once all of Kleist is on the map, I'll bring in Napoleon and the Young Guard to rescue Marmont:

  And here the large Prussian Corps is closing in on LaTour-Maubourg and Freiderichs around Plauen.  The Young Guard and Napoleon are arriving.  The Russian guards are putting up a very bloody fight against the French Marines.  Once Napoleon and two divisions of the Young Guard are on the board, I'll bring in Wittgenstein and the Russian Advanced Guard and see if they can salvage something from the mess (ps: oh, Jomini is the guy with a quill in the black box on his red counter on top of a stack in Loebta -- he deserted the French during the armistice -- the game considers him a competent ADC and even division commander replacement):

 

MengJiao

#6
Quote from: MengJiao on October 14, 2022, 01:09:55 PM

  And here the large Prussian Corps is closing in on LaTour-Maubourg and Freiderichs around Plauen.  The Young Guard and Napoleon are arriving.  The Russian guards are putting up a very bloody fight against the French Marines.  Once Napoleon and two divisions of the Young Guard are on the board, I'll bring in Wittgenstein and the Russian Advanced Guard and see if they can salvage something from the mess (ps: oh, Jomini is the guy with a quill in the black box on his red counter on top of a stack in Loebta -- he deserted the French during the armistice -- the game considers him a competent ADC and even division commander replacement):


  Things get more extreme as Napoleon arrives near Plauen.  The 2nd Young Guard division and Latour-Maubourg cross the Weisseritz by Plauen and the 21st crosses at Doeltzchen.  Looks like the classic Napoleon hits the center since I rolled to see where Wittgenstein would go to save the Russian Guard and he went a bit too far south.  Well, maybe some massive coalition charges can save the day:


MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on October 16, 2022, 02:12:44 PM
Quote from: MengJiao on October 14, 2022, 01:09:55 PM

  And here the large Prussian Corps is closing in on LaTour-Maubourg and Freiderichs around Plauen.  The Young Guard and Napoleon are arriving.  The Russian guards are putting up a very bloody fight against the French Marines.  Once Napoleon and two divisions of the Young Guard are on the board, I'll bring in Wittgenstein and the Russian Advanced Guard and see if they can salvage something from the mess (ps: oh, Jomini is the guy with a quill in the black box on his red counter on top of a stack in Loebta -- he deserted the French during the armistice -- the game considers him a competent ADC and even division commander replacement):


  Things get more extreme as Napoleon arrives near Plauen.  The 2nd Young Guard division and Latour-Maubourg cross the Weisseritz by Plauen and the 21st crosses at Doeltzchen.  Looks like the classic Napoleon hits the center since I rolled to see where Wittgenstein would go to save the Russian Guard and he went a bit too far south.  Well, maybe some massive coalition charges can save the day:

   As it turned out, while Wittgenstein and the Advanced Guard could rescue the Russian Guards, Napoleon and Company could not stop the Prussians (which is pretty surprising) without calling in the
Old Guard and generally when the French call in the Old Guard, I consider that a win for the Coalition.  The Prussian Corps is really big.  I guess that should have been obvious, but the Prussian infantry is so green that one doesn't expect them to overwhelm things as they can do on a relatively open flank.  Not what I thought would happen and not what Vandamme or Napoleon or even Kleist thought would happen at Kulm, where apparently things started with the Prussian Landwehr taking one look at some French Cavalry and letting them go by while they took themselves into the woods.  Once the Prussians massed in the open, two of their big brigades were unstoppable.  Weird.  But oddly historical for Kulm at least.