One scenario, three rules sets

Started by Leman, 10 August 2018, 10:38:11 PM

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Leman

One of wargaming mates and I decided to have a go at an old style scenario, from the Grant and Asquith book, and play it three times using three different rulesets. Recently for such scenarios in the FPW we have been using They died for Glory, Square Bashing's Walter Schnaffs and Tin Soldiers in Action. We wanted to find out which gave the most satisfying game in this relatively small scale scenario.

The first set we tried was TSiA, a gridded game for use in the period 1689-1914; a long period of time but with various options within the rules to tailor them to particular wars, in this case chassepot v. needle gun, Krupp v. Napoleon, most units able to throw out skirmishers and so on. The scenario was called The Vital Bridge. Both sides needed to capture an important river crossing. The Prussians were approaching from the north and east, both groups being on the northern side of the river. The French were approaching from the south and west. However, the western group was also on the northern side of the river but not due to arrive on the battlefield until turn 5. the game was scheduled to last 10 turns.

The French had three commands and the Prussians four, each command group represented by a playing card. These were shuffled and the top card turned to determine which command had the first move. The game moved along at a reasonable pace, the Prussians marching south towards the bridge, whilst their eastern group turned south and forded the river in an attempt to outflank the French. Meanwhile the French attempted to rush the bridge but were thrown back by the Prussians.



The Prussians sent their three northern line units, plus their jaegers, a battery of guns and a unit of dragoons to contest the bridge. Unfortunately the commander had forgotten that troops in close order become disordered in woods and cannot rally in them. Disorder reduces combat effectiveness by 50%.  He should have adopted open order, which would also have allowed him to use the trees for cover. Silly Wilhelm! The French, being in the open, did not suffer the same penalties and so produced some relentlessly effective chassepot fire. They also destroyed the artillery battery.



The Prussians were gradually whittled away at a faster rate than the French. Meanwhile the second Prussian group made much better use of the long range capability of their artillery whilst using the cover of and extensive chateau, wood and hill to work their way around the flank of the French. Becoming aware of this the French sent in their cavalry. This resulted in two cavalry clashes leading to the destruction of the French cuirassiers and weakening and withdrawal of the French dragoons, but at the cost of the destruction of the Prussian hussars. It quickly became apparent that in TSiA cavalry is quite literally a one trick pony. Later the Prussian cuirassiers were to meet the same fate in a reckless charge on infantry supported by a mitrailleuse battery. The French now bolstered their right flank with a fresh infantry unit, gun battery and mitrailleuse battery. This soon put paid to the Prussian outflanking manoeuvre, one infantry unit taking shelter in the chateau grounds, and becoming disordered as a result.

At this point the French western column finally arrived. It had a unit of chasseurs a cheval who rode down the  jaegers and then saw off the Prussian dragoons. This left one damaged and one severely weakened Prussian unit still in the wood contesting the bridge. The French sent in the fresh, assault trained Turcos and the Prussian conceded.



We took the following lessons away from this battle re. the TSiA rules:
1. Don't take up a position in close order in woods - you cannot rally from disorder and you cannot gain cover from the trees.
2. Be reckless with cavalry when it really matters - they don't last long in actual combat.
3. The attrition rate in these rules is brutal. I had one unit that went from a strength of 18 to 11 in one move and from 11 to 3 in the next.
4. Always prep before putting in a charge - the defender gets supporting fire and infantry defenders always get to strike first. Only after this attrition does the attacker get to strike.
5. Re. defender supporting fire, always make sure you have friendly units around you as much as possible.

This was an interesting little battle that lasted just over two hours. The turn sequence in TSiA is very precise, but combat calculations are not onerous. A good little game, but how will it compare to Walter Schnaffs, our next outing for the vital bridge?
The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

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paulr

Good report :)

It will be interesting to see how the scenario goes with the other two rule sets :-\
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Steve J

A nice report and I like the post game conclusions. I've played this scenario before and it gives an interesting game. Looking forward to seeing how the other games and rules go.

SV52

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Shedman

Good report and good idea

I did the same a few years ago with my 10mm Russo-Japanese War forces - same scenario - several different rulesets

Techno

Quote from: SV52 on 11 August 2018, 10:07:21 AM
I DO like that table bud  =D>

So do I !
T'riffic, Andy ! 8)

Cheers - Phil

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Westmarcher

A good looking and interesting game.  :-bd

[Out of interest, will the same players play the Prussians and French in the next game(s) and, if so, will they follow the same plan (if there was one) (obviously the objective will be the same)?]
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

d_Guy

Liked the pictures and an interesting read, Leman. The entire Prussian experience in the woods demonstrates the necessity of having grizzled veteran NCOs to prevent that sort of mess. Wouldn't infantry automatically go into open order to pass through woods? (No - I don't know the answer).
Sleep with clean hands ...

ronan

Very interesting idea ! Thanks for sharing.
Waiting for the other games ..  ;)

Womble67

Excellent looking table

Take care

Andy
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Leman

Tomorrow I will be playing the second set of rules for the vital bridge scenario. This time I have had the forethought to photograph and post the actual table layout. In the last game, which was for TSiA the table size was only 4'x3' using 4" squares. This table is 6'x4', although the top 8" and the right hand 8" are not strictly necessary, as this is a scaled down version of a 7'x5' scenario. The french deploy to the west (L) and north (Top) and the Prussians to the south and east. The rules are They Died for Glory.



Just for interest I have included a photo of one of the new side tables I got from Amazon to try and keep the table tidy (one for each player). It also shows one of the completed dice rolling trays last seen in its bare wood form.

The artist formerly known as Dour Puritan!

Leman

At the commencement of the battle the Prussians and French come on in march column. The French immediately peeled off south, to hold the low hill and a line around the wood to the west of the chateau. They also sent three infantry regiments directly east to take and hold the inn by the the bridge. The Prussians already had two commands on table. From the south the two cavalry regiments were sent north. the artillery initially moved north then deployed to fire on the inn. The three infantry units forded the river with the intention of moving north-west around the chateau in an attempt to outflank the French. The command entering from the east sent the jaegers straight into the wood to provide covering fire for the line infantry, while two of the three infantry units marched east along the road. Unfortunately the French artillery had deployed and began to fire on the advancing Prussian march columns, who shook out into line, then skirmish, then prone, but not before taking casualties. The third infantry unit, the dragoons and the artillery battery moved north off the road to counter the potential French threat coming from that direction.

The Prussian northern command moves into position, having already taken casualties from French artillery:



French columns approach from the west. The jaeger are already in the woods:



The French take and hold the inn:



The Prussian infantry from the south begin their outflanking manoeuvre, but the French are already moving to protect their southern flank:



A fair amount of ranged fire took place over the next few turns. The Prussians in both sectors began to form deep assault columns or get into skirmish line, but it was becoming obvious that they had left it too late. In the previous game the northern French command did not appear until turn 5, but in this game it was turn 3. The northern command Prussian artillery battery got off some good shots and damaged two French infantry units, but the French began to pour in long range chassepot fire and the gun crews were so depleted that the guns could no longer fire. Meanwhile, the Prussian dragoons had come too close to the French lines and they were easily driven off with heavy losses as their morale collapsed. The Prussian troops by the bridge were also not faring well against the French artillery and the infantry, who had loopholed the inn. Here again Prussian morale collapsed and the Prussians fell back with heavy losses.
The worst was yet to come. A certain General de Bredoville led a spirited charge of French heavy cavalry into the Prussian infantry who were attempting the flanking manoeuvre. Again heavy losses and a collapse of morale led to a rout. When the jaeger were also driven from the wood with heavy losses the Prussian commander realised he no longer had enough strength to complete his mission and withdrew to lick his wounds.

After a melee with French cavalry delivering a charge from over the crest, the defeated Prussians flee (the explosion markers show loss of morale):



Meanwhile the Prussian northern command is facing attack from two sides:



The end of the affair as the Prussian northern command also collapses:



Conclusion and observations about They Died for Glory:

1. Something that has always niggled with me about TDFG is the rule about artillery ammunition. This has always struck me as odd. The Prussians can choose whether to use shot or shell, but the French only have shot. In all my reading about the FPW over the last 30-odd years I have never come across any mention of shot ammunition for the Prussians, but rather that sometimes the detonators failed to work on impact. Similarly the French ammunition was shell with range fuses intended to airburst, however if these failed the shell would act like solid shot. Thus nobody chose to use shot as ammunition. Consequently we ditched the idea of limited types of ammunition, apart from canister, and instead replaced it with a rule that once the number of shots on target had been determined, a 6 on a D6 would mean it would actually explode like a shell for the French, but would fail to explode and act like shot for the Prussians. This worked very well with a couple of fortunate explosions for the French, and likewise a couple of non-explosions for the Prussians, much like I had read.

2. It soon became evident that the Prussians needed to adopt the deep column formation to move in the open in preparation for the assault across open country, otherwise they would take massive casualties, leading to morale collapse.

3.Cavalry are extremely fragile in theses rules (as they should be) and ought to be kept out of harms way in order to deliver a successful charge. It worked that way for von Bredow at Mars le Tours and for de Bredoville in this game.

4. If at all possible, don't halt Prussian attackers to take up firing positions. Throw them in using deep columns, several at a time as they will thus usually overwhelm the opposition - but beware the four casualty rule which forces the unit to go prone, thus having to waste a precious action to stand up again.

Our overall impressions were that TDFG gave a much more satisfying FPW game than TSiA. It certainly seemed to handle woods and skirmish lines better and gave a greater variety of period related formations. As a consequence it was a more exciting game to play, but it does require a certain discipline to follow the playing sequence accurately. In our final game we will refight the scenario using the Walter Schnaffs FPW variant of Square Bashing.
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Steve J

Another interesting AAR and your thoughts at the end are interesting. Looking forward to the final game :)