"1813 Halle PBEM Campaign" Topic

The 1813 Halle PBEM campaign has begun. It starts on 1 June 1813, and is a follow on to the Magdeburg campaign. There are 10 players representing Napoleon and four French corps commanders and Kutuzov and four Russian corps commanders.

There is a new blog, which already contains the rules, maps and background information. It will be updated daily with summary of each move. In this campaign the players are not aware of the enemy locations, so the blog will not have a daily campaign map showing the location of each corps. Nor will it contain up to date military information. It is intended to be a general report on the progress of the campaign, and should be regarded as a sort of daily paper or bulletin which would be available to the general population. As a result everything contained in it should not be regarded as actual fact.

It is only a week since the end of the Magdeburg campaign, and I am pleased that we have been able to get going so quickly. There have been a few teething problems, as the rules have changed considerably since the last campaign.

The two commanders in chief issue daily orders to their corps commanders, with a copy to me. The corps commanders then issue a movement order for their corps. There are penalties for off road movement, or movement through difficult terrain, so the corps commanders have to choose the best route. They also have to protect their lines of communications.

No contact has yet been made with the enemy. When it does the corps commander will be informed and will have to issue orders to react. I will notify nearby commanders if they can hear the sound of battle, and they will have to decide whether to react. The commander in chief will only be informed if he is within sound of the guns, or if the corps commander tells him

Each campaign day I will send the two commanders in chief a daily report and locations map. This will cover the three moves of the current day, and may well be the first he learns about contact with the enemy. He will then have 24 hours to issue orders for the next day, and the sequence continues.

I expect that there will be a lot more confusion and fog of war than in the previous campaign. I am very much looking forward to seeing how it develops, and I hope that the ten players enjoy the experience.

If you want to follow the campaign you will find it at:

link

are the players from your club?
if not, how did you recruit them?

We live in Spain, and there are no local wargamers that I am aware of. My wife and I wargame regularly, but we stated the PBEM to make contact with other wargamers.

All have been recruited over the internet. There are currently players from UK, New Zealand, USA and Italy. There are slight delays due to different time zones, but it works ok as I always allow 24 hours for a reply.

What tactical rules are you using to resolve battles?

We use our own rules, which are derived from LFS. The original campaign was designed to fight large battles using the figures in my collection on the terrain and table I have available. Consequently they are small sized corps. If you are interested you can find the rules here:

link

Looking forward to the reports.
Max

This looks like it should be good!