"Battle of Soor/Burkersdorf - 28th June 1866" Topic

Played this game yesterday using Fire and Fury adapted for the period (Austrian muskets out-range the Prussian Needle gun, but the latter is more deadly up close. Prussian artillery is slightly better, although outnumbered in this game).

The Southern edge of the map stretched from the town of Raatsch in the East to Soor in the West. A Road from the North-West through Burkersdorf to Soor was the retreat route of the Austrian army, although they gained extra points if they could take Raatch in the East. The Austrians entered in the North-West, the Prussians in the South-East.

As the Austrian plan of retreat was a simple "about face" their retreat was headed by the baggage train (including a press-ganged "cooks" brigade) and the artillery, with the infantry following later.

At the start of the battle, the Prussians raced hell-for-leather to Soor to head off the Austrians, which they did, the baggage train and artillery hunkering down in Burkersdorf, with the artillery battering the nearest Prussian column that was still in march column formation.

The Austrians then launched their infantry around the North map edge, intending to descend on Raatsch. Like the Prussians, they got caught in march column and halted but, as the Prussians were prioritising the approaches to Soor, they made headway through sheer numbers.

Two battles developed. In the East, there was a fierce fight in a cornfield for a small villiage (Rudersdorf) on the road to Raatsch, but after a see-saw of combat, the Austrians ran out of steam, with fresh Prussians available to drive them back.

In the West, the Austrian artillery had been hapily decimating any Prussians that came close until it ran out of ammo. Then a Prussian attack into Burkesdorf threatened the supply wagons, with by this time, precious few Austrian infantry left.

The game ended with the Austrians halted in the East and being over-run in the West. A comprehensive Prussian victory.

Thoroughly reccommend Fire and Fury for this period. Excellent rules and a very enjoyable game.

Did you use your own variants for F&F or some others? If so which others?

Pretty much what was mentioned – just the guns.

Have you tried the rules/scenarios here – wfgamers.org.uk they give a good game as well. They are a F&F variant for 1866 and other wars of the time.

Hwiccee – they look very like the rules that our umpire brought along, so I think we were using them! Excellent rules, by the way.

Had a closer look at your site. It was your scenario that we used: link

I that case, glad you liked the rules/scenario. By the I am slowly working on Konigratz and an update of the rules :)

Hwiccee – I didn't realise that was your site! Our group has also been using your rules as the basis of our games from the Crimean War to the 1870s! Excellent work!

Great praise indeed from the Emperor himself :) Glad you like them and I hope you do better than your namesake :)

Hwiccee – pardon my delay in responding. I am one of those the system has decided to play tricks on, and currently my password isn't being recognised. So I finally had to create this (temporary?) membership in order to get "back in the game", while I wait for the Nap III account to be restored.

At any rate, yes we like them very much! (we've tinkered with a couple of things, but then what wargamer doesn't do that with his rules?? )

"…and I hope you do better than your namesake" So far so good! We're planning a fictional European campaign set in roughly 1859-60 that will allow us an "excuse" to use the Russian, French, Austrians and Prussians we've accumulated in 28mm. Soon some Brits, Bavarians and Danes, too!

Napoleon III: Sorry to hear about your membership problems. You campaign sounds a great idea. My group did a similar thing but using 1870 as the start point – basically the Franco Prussian war spreads into a world war – we had Americans intervening as well :)

Hwiccee: the system did it to me again! I logged out as "Act 2" to see if it was ready to recognize my password for "Napoleon III" yet (it wasn't), and now it won't recognize my "Act 2" password either!!

So here I am in my 3rd incarnation (and counting?).

Anyway – thanks, we are looking forward to the possibilities of such a campaign. We toyed with the idea of 1870 as a start, too, but with the Crimean-era armies also floating around within our group, picking an earlier year made better sense for us. How did your campaign turn out?

Login Problems: Maybe the computer is a Republican and is taking revenge because of your name :)

Campaign: We went for the 1870 idea for similar reasons, we had 1866/1870 armies. But I think that the idea works for any time.

We never finished it but it was great fun. The basic plot was based on real events of the Franco Prussian War and we went from there. The initial 'sides' started with France, Austria, Italy and Denmark against Prussia, the smaller Germand States, Russia, Britain and Belguim. Other countries joined in afterwards.

The logic being that this could easily have happened. Austria and Italy had agreements to come to France's aid. Austria actually mobilised the army but Prussia had a similar agreement with Russia, who 'counter mobilised' against Austria, so Austria did nothing. Italy also didn't honour its agreement – they wouldn't commit until they knew their backs were safe from Austrian attack. Garibaldi and some volunteers did go to France later in the real war. Finally Denmark was eager to revenge the events of 1864.

The key here I think is that because the French didn't win any battles and nobody wanted to join the 'losing side'.

On the other side the Russians join because of the above mentioned treaty they had. The British and Belgians join because of French plans to annex Belguim. These actually existed and were leaked to the public by the Prussians in the early stages of the war. They were actually just staff exercises but at the time some people believed they were real plans. Belguim mobilised their army and Britain (as in 1914) commited to intervene if the French invaded. It came very close to war in reality and wouldn't have taken much to start.

So the campaign started in the early stages of the real war. The French, Prussians and German states are , more or less, mobilised and on the French border. The French then win a minor clash in the early clashes and successfully manage to portray this as a 'great victory', leading to the various allies on both sides joining in. But they had to mobilise first.

Fairly quickly (too quickly really but of course gamers want to fight) the war spread as the rest of Europe (and America) joined in on one side or the other.

There was a kind of 'Great Scandinavian War' which was kind of a seperate war between Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland (with occasional outside intervention). The 'sides' in this changed rapidly and also whether a particular nation was on the French or Prussian side. So it is difficult to say who was on which side here. But other than that the French were joined by Spain, Turkey and the German states (they declared a new Bavarian led 'Holy Roman Empire' and swapped sides). While the Prussians got help from Portugal, Rumania, America and various Balkan states and rebels.

I would love to run it again some day, when I have time :)

Wow! What a roller-coaster ride! Sounds like great fun!