Last night we played Bob Hewson's fictional Le Feu Sacre scenario Dolkenewitz 1813. One of Victor's French divisions was on the wrong side of the River Preisselster and attempting to reunite with the corps which had communications with Leipzig. Meerveldt's Austrian Corps was attempting to stop this, capture the village of Dolkenewitz and cut the French communications too.
Tom was saddled with Meerveldt – a poor commander – and I ran his 2nd division and a detached brigade of grenzers, cavalry and light artillery. Dennis played Victor and the CO of his 3rd division, while Bill commanded the 2nd division holding the town and the wayward 1st division. Both corps commanders also ran their corps artillery reserves. The French corps had 12,000 infantry and 46 guns. The Austrian corps had 12,600 infantry, 1,000 cavalry and 42 guns. The Austrians had the usual clutch of medium to poor officers. The French commanders weren't stellar but better than their enemy.
The French were required to start the game with hold orders. Their plan was apparently to launch a pre-emptive attack with their best division, the 3rd. The 2nd division sidled over to try to cover the ford the 1st division would have to use to rejoin. We sent the depleted 1st division to hold the ford on our left. The corps artillery, bolstered by the 2nd division artillery, would work over the village and the nearby area. The 2nd division would support the guns until the time came for Meerveldt to order the attack on the town. The advanced guard brigade, detached from the 1st division, was ordered to maneuver around the French left to the road to Leipzig. It was backed up by a dummy blind. I hoped the French wouldn't figure out what it was for a while.
Visibility must have been poor – both sides rolled miserably for spotting on the first turn. The 1st division blind marched rapidly behind our left and started deploying near the ford. Our corps artillery unlimbered within effective range of the town. Victor's card came up and he began changing orders. The blind around the town began to sidle to the west, getting closer to the ford. The blind in front of our left advanced.
My detached brigade spotted the advancing blind. It was the French 3rd division. They spotted my brigade and opened a heavy artillery fire. Dennis rolled hot dice and got hits on my grenzers and my cavalry. My light artillery missed – my dice were cold early in the game – and I put my forces into skirmish order. Dennis still scored some hits. He put his leading two light infantry battalions in skirmish order and advanced into the woods. The attack went no further. I assume their orders were to take the woods. It was fortunate for us, since there was a gap in our line south of the woods.
Meanwhile our artillery began working over the French corps artillery near the town. Both sides were rolling hot dice but Tom had more guns and caused more damage. My divisional guns added to the noise but missed the infantry in front of them.
Bill's 1st division appeared on the far side of the river and began deploying to force a crossing. 34 Austrian guns worked over the French center. In time even my divisional guns began scoring hits. Bill wondered how he would hold on. His heavy battery limbered up and pulled out, half its guns destroyed. The divisional horse artillery lasted another two turns. The Austrian medium guns were manhandled forward every turn, slowly closing the range. Austrian battalions of the 2nd division accompanied them, though the movement went in lurches.
Victor rode back and forth behind his lines – a sure sign of indecision. Meerveldt stayed rooted in our center. Our poor artillery CO lost a turn to the poor-cautious card. Meerveldt prompted him to fire on a subsequent turn, though the corps CO was twice afflicted with the poor/cautious card himself. Then we caught a break – the cautious CO of the French 1st division got nailed by the poor/cautious card three turns in a row, stalling his attack over the river. The Austrian battalion guarding the ford had driven off an early attack but then was savaged by the French divisional artillery. Tom began pulling them back. The rest of his division had little choice but to stand under the pounding. One battalion was pinned by the right most unit of the French 2nd division and charged near the end of the game, defeating the French.
Meerveldt now changed the orders of my 2nd division to attack the town. The French center was fraying under fire. Dennis had ordered his 3rd division to attack the grand battery. As his 3rd division began moving towards our center, my detached light brigade started edging around his left flank. His left flank turned to face, using up some of his limited pips.
The first attack on the town saw my battalion driven back in defeat. Another Austrian battalion on their left pinned the French west of the town, under divisional artillery fire. My second line battalion passed through the rallying front line battalion and stormed the town. In fierce house-to-house fighting the garrison was driven back into the center of the town, shaken. My card came up first the next turn and the attacked continued before they could rally. The French light infantry were defeated. They routed, carrying away their supporting battalion behind the town. Bill threw in a counter-attack with a shot-up battalion from the east but the Austrian battalion (one of my favorites – painted as 34 IR Davidovitch) drove them back with heavy losses that left the French permanently shaken.
Meanwhile Dennis sent a battalion in line against my right most divisional artillery, part of the grand battery. I was up 2, rolled a 3 and the resulting 5 saw my battery defeated.
Dennis now had to leave to catch his train. Bill took over all French troops. My divisional card came up and a line battalion supported by another charged and routed the French, who disordered a veteran battalion behind them. The Austrians pursued but were knocked back by the veterans after a nasty firefight. Tom lost patience and had wheeled some of his guns around the east edge of the town – just as I broke into it and drove his target away. One of Bill's battalions charged the flank of a battery. They wheeled guns to face him, but Bill rolled high and routed the battery who carried away another behind them. Our grand battery was a mess, 3 of 5 batteries out of action. But the 12 lb battery savaged Bill's victorious battalion. The three battalions Bill had left in his center were all permanently shaken and incapable of offensive action.
We had played nine turns in about three hours – slower than our usual. It was 10 PM. The 1st French division was in the middle of slowly crossing the river. The town was just in our hands but we didn't see what French units could counter-attack any time soon. The 2nd French division was pretty beaten up. The 3rd French division was formed in a semi-circle, with my detached cavalry brigade circling around their left. I had put the cavalry back into formed lines, ready to make opportunity charges if the enemy turned away. That should suffice to pin much of the French division.
We called it a marginal Austrian victory. The French lost 1850 troops and 7 guns knocked out. We lost 1650 troops and 8 guns knocked out with more overrun. We were recapturing the guns. If we played 3 more turns the losses would be higher. But there was no interest in continuing the game next week.
It was a sloppy but exciting game. Dennis, Tom and Bill had hot dice early in the game while mine started cold, slowly improving to decent. But the Austrians did well with the cards. We had three commanders who could get hit by the poor/cautious card while the French had one. We got nailed by it three times in nine turns, the French got it two or three times and the rest we managed to duck it. Twice my 2nd division card came up before shaken enemy could rally. I'd have to say that Dennis was afflicted with the indecision problem Bill had last week. The theme song for the game should be ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?" by the Clash. The French 3rd division, their best unit, didn't do that much fighting. The lesson here – just because staff officers get a free move each turn doesn't mean they should use it.
Tom, playing a poor CO for the second week in a row, kept the CO in one place and doggedly worked at getting him to do a few things. He did get a little frustrated at one point and lost a couple artillery batteries as a result. But we made fewer errors than the French and the cards were with us. Out of this we scraped a marginal victory. The French did have the problem of no cavalry, but it was 1813 and they had left all that dead cavalry in Russia the year before. That'll teach them to be expansionist.
gets started with Flintloque.
