Battle of Breslau 1757 : SYW

Leaving the Ogres to feast for a while we return to the Seven Years War. The Battle of Breslau 22nd November 1757. Earlier in the month Frederick had defeated the combined French and Austrian army at Rossbach. But whilst he was moving west the Austrians had started to retake Silesia, moving at the end of the month to take Breslau hoping to achieve this before the Prussians could combine their armies in defence. The duke of Brunswick-Bevern was covering Breslau but with only around 28,000 Prussians. The Austrians under the Prince of Loraine and Von Daun sought to combine their forces. They were then further supported by Nadasdy bringing their combined force to between 60-80,000.

The Prussians held a strong position SW of Breslau protected on two sides by the Rivers Oder and Lohe, the later being somewhat smaller. The Prussians had dug in a pretty strong position with many entrenchments, a series of abatis blocking the northern most section of the lohe and had dismantled several bridges. Historically Nadasdy took his corps round to the south, the Prussians under Von Zieten held them off on high ground and this flank attack then came to a stand still. For the purposes of our battle the. We have excluded this section of the fighting. The main Austrian assault was directly across the Lohe river, they had built a number of pontoon bridges. The Prussians held a series of fortified villages where much of the fighting took place. In the end the Prussians held the Austrians off till darkness before pulling back in the face of very superior numbers and the following day pulling out of Breslau all together.

My interpretation of the battlefield some licence but the main elements in place. The Austrians broadly attack in three blocks, infantry followed by cavalry. They have extensive artillery support to help them do this. For objectives the Austrians must try and capture the five villages running from Kosel to Grabischen. We allowed Von Zieten to filter a few troops into the battle from the high ground. Historically the Austrians pounded the defences for several hours before the attack, given our constraints it became clear this wasn’t having the desired effect and the Prussian artillery would be too dominating, so we implemented a rule where by Prussian cannons would have to roll to see if they ran out of ammo during the battle this worked well as the prussian artillery gradually filtered away back to Breslau. One final quirk is using Honours of war we rolled for each brigade commander. Almost every Austrian commander rolled dithering and all,st every Prussian ordered inspiring ! So there was a serious risk the Prussians might go charging across the river on the attack !

The Austrian left wing attack Prussian grenadiers through the village of Pilsnitz

A view down the battlefield the bridge at Pont de Pelz ?can be seen heavily defended beyond that the Austrians are crossing a pontoon bridge in numbers. historically I have read that the Prussian orders were to let the Austrians cross and then counter attack ! Prussian cavalry reserve can be seen on the left holding back for now

The Austrian reserve corps cavalry advances towards Grabischen, Prussians cavalry can be seen sweeping around the village, a significant combat took place ( which I forgot to photo) with both sides cavalry forced to withdraw from the battle exhausted/beaten.

Von Zieten sends some infantry to hold the crossing.

The defenders of Klein Mochbern have been temporarily driven back where they do eventually regroup

To the north the Pilsnitz crossing is proving too tough and the Austrians decide to occupy the village and fire long range cross the river.

The leading Austrians infantry is across the river and fighting and now the Austrian cavalry (lots and lots of it) is moving to the advance

Seeing the risk the Prussian cavalry edges forward seen here on the right behind the villages

Fighting continues in the south but the Austrians have the numbers in any fight in the open

The Prussians pull back to the village

Carnage in the centre, a massed cavalry battle in the foreground, more Austrian cavalry arising in the centre and further back move Austrian cavalry being held back on the Pont de Pelz. Hot work everywhere !

Having won the intital combat the Prussian cavalry is just able to regroup back behind the villages before being destroyed by Austrian artillery. The Prussians have very little in reserve now.

Fighting to the last at Grabischen but the village is about to fall.

Much of the Austrian cavalry has been driven back over the river where it is regrouping, but the Prussian infantry is only just clinging onto the villages at the moment 

The crossing at Pilsnitz has proved too tough for the Austrians to force, where almost the whole Austrian right wing has been tied up

But in the end numbers begin to count as the Prussians held villages are gradually surrounded 

In the end given the objectives we felt a draw was right, the technically both side were holding two villages each with. Third unoccupied but about to be taken by the Austrians.

We both really enjoyed the battle, given the relatively unequal sides it provided a great battle with plenty of twists and turns. The balance was almost perfect, anymore Prussians and the crossings wouldnt have been possible any less and the Austrians would have come galloping across. Interestingly the Austrians did suffer from their dithering command but by virtue of the overall commander being inspiring this allowed re-rolls without this the Prussians may never have gotten off the start line.

Hard not to enjoy this one and wargaming pretty much at its best 👍

Thanks for taking the time to check out my activity in the dungeon

Matt ❤️

Fantasy Battle Ogres vs Empire : Kings of War

With a lot of Historical games in the last few weeks and several more coming up this week, and looking for a quickish game I unpacked some of my Warhammer collection for a sadly rare outing in the dungeon.

Somewhere in the North the villages of the empire have been marauded by foul Ogres worse than that it appears the ogres have been touched by the evil gods of chaos. An Empire army under the renowned Knight Sir Stephen the Bold has been despatched to deal with the trouble !

Sir Stephen finds his foe in a suitably desolate location, a mixture of sharp impassable rocky outcrops, icy swamps and the decaying bones of giant creatures.

The stalwart men of the Empire, knights mixed infantry and they have managed to drag some cannons with them.

The ogres are a Brutish lot touched by chaos. There is some variation in the deformities but who can tell the difference, they have a lumbering giant with them looking for food and a mammoth  !

Given the short hours of light this far north both sides  charge forward

Crashing through the swamp the knights seek to knock the giant out of the fight, he staggers back but doesn’t fall

Annoyed by the pop pop of a unit of hand gunners the Mammoth charges across the field stomping them immediately, but he may now be trapped but the empire poleaxes ?

The giant is going in the swamp by at least two units of ogres and although the giant succumbs to his wounds limping away to recover, the Empire knights are wiped out and collected up for the stew pot.

The Mammoth is struggling agains the poleaxes, but does eventually break through, a pesky wizard is annoying the ogre Warlord !

General mayhem on the snowy field now, the Ogre armed with rudimentary ranged weapons can’t hit a thing,  it on the Empire right flank their superior ranged weapons bring down an entire horde of ogre caught out on the open snow, food for the crows (or other Ogres perhaps)

Luckily the empire cannons have very limited effect, half of the poleaxe troops have been squashed, the Sir Stephen the Empire General is floating about on his Griffin looking for a target, or is he just looking to stay alive ?

Although the empire has pushed back the Ogre left flank (not sure Ogres would really understand the concept of flanks ?) and are holding their ground there. The empire men are being butchered everywhere else, the swamp is literally turning red with Empire blood and the Mammoth is running a mock in the Empire artillery. The battle is up and the remaining Empire Forces must withdraw (go home for tea) the Ogres of course will have a veritable feast on or the soft squishy bit of men and horses left on the field.

We played using Kings of War which we are now much more familiar with rather than good old Warhammer Fantasy, but still we had a lot of fun. This Ogre army is one of my favourites as they are pretty much all converted in some way. Just getting them out of the box was a joy, and I found plenty of stuff not completed, needless to say we might see these have some attention on the painting table for one thing I never completed the bases which I will now put on the list.

I have a busy gaming week this week, with the Seven Years war Battle of Breslau on the table yesterday, we are off to Sicily on Wednesday WW2 and then ECW Friday……..and potentially a game Saturday as well. Having said that the rain has returned and back to cold weather so I need to stay indoors anyway.

Thanks as always for popping in 🙂

Matt

Chain of Command and other stuff

I have noticed my labelling of blog posts is not very inspiring hey hoy…..

The last two games have both been with George, starting a new Chain of Command campaign. But I do have more games in the dungeon over the next week or so. Anyway with George having completed his BEF force he was keen to give them a run out.

A pint sized campaign which I think is a bit of a misnomer as it is 6 or 7 Battles. George has covered much of the details of the campaign and our first battle on his blog. So just a couple of photos of our first two battles and some thoughts from me as the Germans. Of course George’s lovely early WW2 collection stands out 👍 given the nature of the campaign the British appear to be attacking most of the time, always tough.

In the first battle for HedgeHog wood the Germans have a fairly restricted deployment but as the defender it is pretty easy to get cover setup and wait for the British to attack. Above in the first battle my infantry supported by a 75mm and a MMG. The British immediately start to lay down smoke. But the ground is very open for the attack and they pay the price.

A secondary objective is to capture the scout car, but the Germans are more interested in throwing back the attack

Not surprisingly the Germans have jump off points in the wood itself and quickly move to the edge and setup a very strong defensive line

The British really like their smoke !

But ultimately the open ground (and some below average dice for the British) means the British are thrown back, a win for the Germans hoorah !

On to game 2 which we played yesterday.

The Germans are dug in, in the village with some off table support from 88Flak guns, I took the photo here but actually the off table support wasn’t coming from the village

If anything this was an even tougher table for the British the German deployment is contained in the village, internal lines of communication and support, especially with 2 German senior leaders available. The German jump off points are in three of the buildings. The hedges block line of sight which is a challenge for both sides but inevitably gives more of an advantage to the defender.

The off table 88 is called in and immediately makes short work of the small French Hochkiss tank, seen burning in the distance. The British objective is to drive the Germans away from the village but this is a really tough ask given the lines of sight.

The Germans get stuck in but when they come under heavy fire they are able to pull back out of harms way, no point dying if you don’t have to.

After about 4 hours of hard fighting it became clear that even though the Germans morale had dropped to 2 and they had lost nearly all their Junior leaders, stunned, wounded or dead the British just don’t have enough fire power left to finish them off. A second ‘minor’ win for the Germans by default as they are still holding the village.

Some thoughts so far on the campaign, the maps in the campaign are very open with the Germans almost always dug into cover, giving a big advantage to the Germans, the British (George) has so far rolled pretty below average at one point two British MMG fired 20 or more shots at some German infantry on the right of the village who were for a short time in the open they failed to score even a single shock ! In these first two battles both sides effectively had ‘free’ platoons from now on we may need to be more careful. With two really tough and slightly frustrating battles for the British we are considering whether to continue this campaign or swop to something new, time will tell.

Next up some completed painting.

Some more British Napoleonic command stands, above two brigade commanders from Perry, the extra figures are foundry I think from some random secondhand stuff I had and a couple of random horses

Also some Battalion command stands, these are to use when I split 24 man battalions down into smaller units. Perry Colonels with again some random standard bearers from who knows where ?

The weekend was family time with both children at home for the Mother’s Day weekend, but we managed to visit a small Gladiator exhibition up in Carlisle which was fun.

The weather has been kind for a couple of days so I headed for the hills, a significant lack of fitness was showing but the  day was beautiful perfect walking weather.

And when I got home !

A recent Peter pig order had arrived, these effectively allow me to fill out a more rounded Scottish Montrose Army, which is waiting in the wings. This may be my last ECW purchase for a while as I have more than enough now to paint and pretty much play any battle within reason. Marston Moor was never my intention.

That’s it for now folks, more games to come and I am cracking on with more painting 👍

Thanks as always

Matt ❤️

Battle of Germantown October 1777 Part 1 : The fight for the Chew House

Back to our AWI campaign yesterday with the first part of the battle of Germantown. Given the rules we are using and the challenges of remote gaming I felt it sensible to split Germantown into two smaller battles and I was keen to see if we could have a skirmish focussing just in the fight for the Chew House.

A painting of the fighting around the Chew house.

The overview of the battle histprically. This part ‘one’ would effectively cover the highlighted area.

A second map of the battle from a wargame scenario perspective. The battle for the Chew is quite hard to balance as the British really are completely outnumbered. So the scenario sees a delaying action by the British with units of Pickets and the Light battalion trying to inflict as much damage as possible before the 40th Foot with Colonel Thomas Musgrave will try to hold the house. We had a number of specific scenario details. The battle starts in fog so range is limited until the fog lifts. We extended the movement rates for the first few turns as with R&P it could take a long time to get to the House itself. The British are all veterans. The Americans fire cant effect the troops in the house itself, effectively this reflects history as  even though they brought up cannons they had no impact. We also had a slightly amended combat result so the British even if they lost a combat wouldn’t flee the house until they actually failed a test. Col Musgrave who is in the house would also provide a plus 2 leadership, making the 40th Foot pretty tough to shift.

Our setup at the start of the battle

General Sullivan with his force march through the fog up the main Germantown road.

With an early lifting of the fog the British pickets open fire and start to pull back. They have little effect but the British light infantry use their First fire to knock the leading skirmishers back, the Americans are pushing forward their artillery along the road. Sullivan is slow to get moving.

Quickly the Americans drive forward and a sharp fight occurs around the church

The Americans are able to open up with their light cannons and this cause a real problem for the British light infantry

After an initial wobble the external portion of the 40th move forward to contest the advance knowing that every casualty caused before the Americans reach the house will help.

Ouch despite the fog lifting some Americans friendly fire into the rear of their own infantry. Sullivan is lucky the damage is not too great

The pickets are pretty much wiped out now, but the British infantry outside the house open up, they will be a tougher nut to crack

On the American right, the British light infantry are still holding just and causing casualties 

The 40th form into line they are not going to give ground !

Some tough fighting across the front, as you can see the British defenders are almost lost, but just clinging on, every minute will count

Finally the external defenders are driven back and Sullivan advances towards the House knowing that it can only be taken in hand to hand combat.

The Americans surround the house and charge in…….

Given that Musgrave had been given a key role in the defence with a 2 plus leadership, I was not too happy when in the first round of combat, with only one casualty caused Musgrave was killed ! Suddenly it was far more likely the British would fail a morale check and be forced to withdraw.

The Americans charge in again and again are driven back …..

But with Musgrave dead the inevitable happens and the British defenders finally fail a morale check forcing them to flee the building…. An American win arrghhhhhh

So despite the casualties a win for the Americans as they have forced the house, musgrave’s leadership might have made all the difference, but he died a hero much too early in the fighting. A fun battle full of twists and turns and challenge for both sides. Everything worked well and balanced apart from the Colonels untimely death. Were we to replay I might reduce this risk and give the occupants in the house the 2 plus so they can’t lose it so quickly. Nice of course to get my Chew house on the table 🙂

Next up I have been thinking about terrain for my Greek/Italian 1940 project. Much of the fighting took place in the mountains and in winter in quite desolate areas. Specifically I felt I needed more rocky terrain and more winter-looking trees. First up the trees…..

I picked up a packet of these railway type trees off eBay

These were then stuck to heavier bases to make them more stable and painted before I set about twisting the branches into suitable shapes, I then cover the base in some leaf type debris which I had in my terrain box.

The results are quite pleasing and give a sense of ‘winter’ trees obviously these can be used in other theatres eg the ACW when we fight battles in winter. I didn’t want snow as this makes them just a little too specific. In total I have about 20 of these and plan to make the  other slightly smaller trees into olive/fruit trees as I need some more of these.

As a final thought I put some autumn type lichen on the armatures and I guess they could also be used like this?

Well that’s it for now, we played a CoC battle down at George’s this morning but I’ll let him tell the tale before I share a couple of photos.

Thanks as always for passing through, you are most welcome

Matt ❤️