"Interesting Campaign Situation - What Would Napoleon Do?" Topic

My Peninsular War campaign has thrown up an interesting situation at the end of November 1808:

There are three French Corps concentrated around Valladolid (59,000 Infantry, 10,000 Cavalry).

Two Spanish Armies and the British Army are concentrated between Salamanca and Segovia (Spanish: 45,000 Infantry, 4,000 Cavalry; British 36,000 Infantry, 4,000 Cavalry).

The French reserves and Napoleon are between Miranda and Pamplona (53,000 Infantry, 14,000 Cavalry).

(Here is a map to make things clearer

What do you think each side should do?

Regards

Your link doesn't work for me.

Nor me!

A drive on Almeida would make life difficult for the British, possibly splitting the allied command.

EDIt: Being November if you can get there fast all the better. if now preparing winter quarters would not be ill advised.

No idea what N. would have done.

Bob

Hopefully that has made the map work.

Regards

If I were the French I would use part of my force to pin the enemy armies and use the rest to outflank them to take Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. This would threaten the British supply lines and maybe split them from the Spanish.

It's the same old paradox. The Brits need only fight when they want to or have no choice. If they are overmatched they head for the coast.

Napoleon should try to have the Valladolid army attack. Even if the Allies win they will be a hurt army with Napoleon's reserve force bearing down on them. If he can overrun them dragging their baggage and woundled…

The Allies need to go directly for the coast. They should not pass go. They should not collect £200.00 GBP They need to be there before Napoleon's column becomes an immediate factor. They'll have to try to keep the Valladolid force off their backs and will have to fight them a la Corunna at the coast.

The Spaniards better hope the Brits bring enough transports to carry them away as well, or it could be a long cold winter for them.

No map here either

Hi

French: have Napoleon (assuming he is your subordinate?!)concentrate his forces at Miranda, ready to make a move to 'Burges' and then onto Valladolid – have the 3 French Corps ready to move to 'Zamora' and then onto 'Almeida'.
The idea being to attack the allies from both a southwest and north easterly direction, this would leave them with little chance of re establishing their communications into Portugal.
Of course, the distances involved in these movements represent some 200 miles per battle group, opens up a vast distance between them both and leaves communication difficult … but and if the French do not starve to death, they might force the allies into battle and/or drive them towards the east coast.

Allies: The British army should simply adopt a defensive posture and await the French to attack – so long as Napoleons force does not join them the allies should be OK.

Saying that, we are not aware of the state of supplies, the political situation, the need to take back French controlled territory or cities/supply routes or even your own 'objectives'.

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far, very interesting.

Saying that, we are not aware of the state of supplies, the political situation, the need to take back French controlled territory or cities/supply routes or even your own 'objectives'.

All armies are well-supplied at the moment. The French lines of communication run via Burgos to Bayonne. The British supply lines are quite extended and run along the Tagus (more or less) to Lisbon. The Spanish supply lines run to Madrid. The Madrid area is lacking forage as the area was ransacked by French retreating northwards and their Spanish pursuers.

War aims are historical – i.e. the French must dominate the majority of the Peninsular and be unopposed by any strong remaining field armies, the Spanish and British must drive the French out.

The situation in the rest of the Peninsular is not dissimilar to that historically (more details here: link

Regards

Hi

I think I will stick with my 'Davout-esque' outflanking move!

Thanks.

Fall back with your 3 corps and combine them with Napis force.

I'm not having much luck with my links in this thread, hopefully this one will work: link

The French concentration will be very difficult for them to supply. Send Spanish off to control other parts of Spain while Wellsley falls back to Portugal. If necessary, start fortifying Torres Vedras. Napoleon will think he has won and go off to other, more important theatres (with or without Josephine).

The French should, as others have said, seek battle. As often as possible.

Napoleon's instructions if Wellesley made a foray into spain was for french forces tocut his line of supply to portugual so that's where I'd start, also Nappy would be thinking about splitting the Allied force, defeating the shambolic spanish army in detail and then if Wellesley is blocked from portugual destroy him or chase him back to lisbon. A march on madrid as well as a thrust to cut off the British from their Portuguese bolthole would achieve such a split in the allied forces. Unless of course they act unusually and attack the split french forces seperately. Sounds easy eh!? Lol :)

Gents For me, and napoleon spain was a lost cause and army killer so get out of it so as possible best to you al sergejoe

I'm with S[e]rge Joe on this one.

This looks kinds promising for the French on the map … but they are in Léon, not the Rhineland.

So, while we are discussing this, the big horde of French in Valladolid has already gone on half-rations. The population of Valladolid city was 20,000 in 1830 – the entire region was then less than 200,000 people. It was lower in 1808. 90,000 French are just not supportable.

The French in Navarre are 30 to 35 days (or more) away from the enemy armies. They have the same supply problems.

You can't move in force on the British supply line faster than they can retreat on that same line. The French are crossing some arid plains and major rivers – there are no useful roads. The British are moving on interior lines with roads. With 20/20 hindsight on the example of Corunna, the British will make a pursuit of them to the coast slow and measured, including some fortified lines. So the French should starve before the British have to evacuate.

I think if your game system can have the French somehow "in supply" in such concentrations for more than about 10-15 days, that the supply rules might bear some re-examination.

So, the best the French can do :
- create flying columns (light horse, light infantry, a few light guns, pioneers) to harass the British and disrupt their supply
- put these under Spanish national command (see below)
- organize and employ local bandits to attack the British
- get the vast bulk of the army out of the country as quickly as possible
- establish a Catholic Bourbon on the throne
- propagandize heavily agianst the Portuguese "invaders" and the Protestant heretic "English"
- bribe the Spanish Church and nobles to support the new government
- do not insist on the "Continental System", but embargo trade in militarily useful items (by the way, take the same stance with other European states and Russia)
- aim to keep the British in Portugal, and the Spanish effectively neutral, at the lowest possible cost in "blood and treasure"
- assist (really assist) in the economic development of Spain – improving agriculture, building water projects, etc., etc.

- Sasha

@Sasha,

Thanks for the interesting comments. I use the rules from a boardgame called Tomb For An Empire.

The French in Navarre are 30 to 35 days (or more) away from the enemy armies. They have the same supply problems.

You can't move in force on the British supply line faster than they can retreat on that same line. The French are crossing some arid plains and major rivers – there are no useful roads. The British are moving on interior lines with roads. With 20/20 hindsight on the example of Corunna, the British will make a pursuit of them to the coast slow and measured, including some fortified lines. So the French should starve before the British have to evacuate.

I think if your game system can have the French somehow "in supply" in such concentrations for more than about 10-15 days, that the supply rules might bear some re-examination.

Basically the supply rules will let the French concentrate there as it is about as far as they can get their supply line from Bayonne (via Pamplona – Vitoria – Burgos) and they don't try and do too much. They will start bleeding troops as soon as they try to advance quickly or in numbers – the figures vary depending on the situation, but in maximum bunches of 24,000. So they can do the outflanking move, but they are going to suffer a lot of sick in doing so (and even worse for the French, they will be losing veteran troops in this way).

The supply situation for the Allies isn't amazingly good either though: the British and Spanish are going to start bleeding troops too when they have to move.

In addition, the British supply line follows the line of the Tagus at this point, there are French troops around Astorga and the Brits never got round to changing their LoC from Lisbon to Corunna. The Spanish are (as usual) in an even worse situation – they have no depots to fall back on, and their supply line goes through Madrid, which has already been devastated when they were pursuing Moncey's retreating troops Northwards. Alternatively they can retreat westwards with the British, but the Brits have a chain of supply depots between Plasencia and Lisbon, but the Spanish will have to survive by requisitioning in what is one of the least fertile areas of Spain, after La Mancha.

Alas, the wider changes to the overall political approach are outside the scope of the game…

Thanks again

Regards

The French are facing Wellington. What would they do?

Lose.

There's just no way poor Spain can support a French army this size … what, 136,000?

I really like these ideas from Sasha:
- organize and employ local bandits to attack the British
- get the vast bulk of the army out of the country as quickly as possible
- propagandize heavily against the Portuguese "invaders" and the Protestant heretic "English"
- bribe the Spanish Church and nobles to support the new government

Fight with money. Isn't that a page from the Manual of World Dominion by Perfidious Albion?

Make the English have the enormous supply lines. Might just have a chance to beat Wellesley then.

Were I the French I'd divide the advance force and:
Send 1/3 against the British with orders to keep him busy without losing too many men.
Put the other 2/3 in between the two Spanish Armies, then spank them hard one at a time using interior lines. One battle each should render them hors de combat.
Then reunite your armies and the British will withdraw without support.

My opinion: The French should move the army at Vallodolid west to threaten the British supply lines. The allied army will being to fall back to counter that movment, and eventually some Spanish contingent will do something stupid that opens up a gap in the retreating army. The French should assault through this gap, using 1 corps to slow down the larger part of the allies and the other 2 corps to attack the smaller part.

As always in war, the devil is in the details. Once things start moving, chaos will rear it's ugly head, and the outcome is uncertain.

What a fun puzzle! Please keep us up to date on what the players do. I'm watching this thread.

- Ix

PS: I have no idea what the allies should do. Without knowing who controls what, it's hard to say where they should move.

- Ix

What a fun puzzle! Please keep us up to date on what the players do. I'm watching this thread.

No players apart from me – it is a solo campaign, I'm afraid. Although once I've played throught the entire war, and if I'm happy with everything, who knows? Perhaps I will do is a PBEM campaign.

It hasn't actually been too much of a problem though. There is a reasonable amount of uncertainty into the rules, so it is hard to make clockwork plans.

I have no idea what the allies should do. Without knowing who controls what, it's hard to say where they should move.

The British Army can co-operate with both Spanish armies, but the Spanish commanders must test against their initiative to co-operate with the other at any given point. So if Cervellon (Commander of the Army of Valencia) calls upon Castanos for aid, he has a roughly 60% chance of getting it. The other way around, it is roughly 40%.

Regards