Battle of the Day - Lodz to Poznan mini campaign, 1813

Mini Campaign - From Lodz to Poznan - 1813

Area of Operations - Objectives

This map shows the layout of the critical objective locations (shown with the red stars), important objectives (blue stars), and the available road network with waypoints (gold stars).
This is a simple quick and dirty campaign, with 2 players :

• Player 1 - in command of a number of Russian Corps
• Player 2 - in command of a number of French units

Its 1813, the Russians are advancing through central Poland on a Westerly bearing.
The rest of the report is strictly from the Russian player's viewpoint.

Smartly Attired Russian Cossacls - 1812+

Regiment of the Day

Smartly Attired Russian Cossacks

A Russian Army needs a good supply of Cossacks.

In amongst my parts box, I found a number of old Minifigs 15mm lancer types, which I suspect are Russian Cossacks.

Bit hard to tell, since this lot of figures comes from another ebay-rescue, with a bag of unfinished bits and pieces covered in a thick layer of flaking black paint and broken parts.

After a ridiculous amount of work, the rescue is complete, and I now have some half decent Russian Cossacks to take to the battlefield.

Russian Horse Artillery 1812+

Regiment of the Day

Russian Horse Artillery - 1812+

New Project for May ... well, same old Project really, painting tonnes of 15mm Russians ready for battle, and writing software to control the whole game.

Thought I would start off a "May Day" Parade to try and get back up to date with the blogging and photography anyway.

So here we go .... welcome to my May Day Parade effort, concentrating on the Russian Army of 1813.

Will try and keep rolling through May to get all my Napoleonic Russians up to date on this blog.

Russian Horse Artillery

Russian Horse Artillery 

Some Russian Horse artillery to go with my Russian Cavalry Brigades.

Figures by Lancashire Games, and the guns are a mix of LG's Russian 6lb cannon, and some Eureka Russian SYW period battalion guns.

Russian Hussars - Loubny Regt

Regiment of the Day - Loubny Hussars

 

Time for some Russian Cavalry ... and I need LOTS of Russian Cavalry.

For the start of my newer Russian Cavalry collection,  will get into the Loubny Hussars for 1812+

Russian Grenadiers 1807

Russian Grenadiers 1807

And now for something completely different - more Russians !

Another Battalion of 1807 period Russian Grenadiers from Warrior miniatures, shown above advancing to battle in 1-company wide march column.

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Another quick one .. some left over warrior miniatures later Russians in Kiver, enough to make up 2 battalions.

1813 Russians in field cap

Russians in field caps - 1813

Some later (1812+) Russians in a mix of uniforms and field caps, shown here advancing in Closed Column.


Picked up a few bags of mixed of OG Russians in field caps from the TMP marketplace. Ended up with about 100 figures in this lot.

OG always have a good mix of animations and poses in the bag, so they are quite useful to  create fill in bases to pad out a growing army.

Time to splash some paint on them and get them on the gaming table.

Russian Musketeer 1807

Russian Musketeer 1807

Another Battalion of the wonderfully formidable Russian Musketeer line regiments, shown above in 1-company wide march column.

This time in their earlier 1807 period uniforms, complete with regimental facings.

Russian Grenadiers

Russian Grenadiers (1813)

"Russian Month" is going so well, that I now have a significant backlog of Russian units to blogged about. A serious backlog !

Lets get rolling then ...

Russian Grenadiers for 1813.

Main differences for the Russian Grenadiers for this latter period are :

- Reduced unit size. Most battalions are now down to 2 bases worth of troops by the time they take the field at Leipzig.
- Reduced grading. 1813 sees the average Grenadier battalion drop from grade 'Grenadier' in 1812 down to 'Elite' ... not a huge change.
- Simplified uniform. All units in standard kiver, large but thin plume, and standard red facings.

Russian 5th Jaegers - Eylau 1807

Regiment of the Day

Following up from the last set of 1812+ Jaegers, here are some of their earlier cousins from the 1789-1810 period.

Russian Jaeger - 1812+

Russian Jaegers (1812+)

I better get this thing Napoleonic before we get way off track.

Here is a quick one then - some 1812 Russian Jaeger Battalions.

Russians in Manchuria - 1905

Regiment of the Day

And now for something completely different to kick off Russian Month ...

Some 1905 Russians in Manchuria !

All figures below are from irregular's 15mm colonial range, and painted up as Russians for the 1905 campaign against the Japanese in Manchuria.

These figures are another save from years ago. After doing a monster house move, its amazing what  turns up buried away in the cupboards !  So these figures are on FoW bases, and painted up using primitive techniques from before the discovery of vallejo glazes and sealers. The results are still pretty good though



The Russo-Japanese War

An excellent war to game this one - as the period is still in transition from Napoleonic post-linear style tactics to modern tactics. Artillery, trenches, mines, machine guns, barbed wire, flamethrowers, telegraph and rail .... all conquered by human wave bayonet attacks.

Well, thats how some observers from Europe incorrectly read the results anyway.

By the end of the Russo Japanese war, some observers had noted and learned the real underlying lessons .... some not so much.  The result was clearly shown in the trenches of WW1 a few short years later.

I highly recommend reading up on this war, as the ground battles themselves demonstrate some of the worst possible command and control stuff ups (mostly on the Russian side). It has it all - whole Divisions attacking the wrong objectives at the wrong times,  whole Divisions attacking each other !, orders simply not getting through, total failures of logistics, etc, etc.

In fact, just one short battle in this disastrous campaign has enough WTF moments to justify even the very worst die rolls on the table as being entirely "historical" in their impact.

Anyway, on with the figures .....

Russian field gun.

Mourman line regiment - Dresden campaign 1813

Regiment of the Day

Now on the the Russians.

Useful for the any period from 1812 onwards ... I am hoping to get in a little mini-campaign for Borodino this year, and then build on that collection for the Leipzig campaign next year.

So here we have some Russians in Kivers.

More Battalion Sabot Bases

Battalion Scale Sabot Bases

Following on from the previous post, here is a brief selection of some of the other Battalion scale Sabot bases that I have in  mind for running big games.

After many play tests, I am convinced now that using Sabot bases is not only convenient for ease of movement, but it also adds a lot of clarity to the tabletop.

It is definitely something worth playing with.

The rationale of using Sabot bases for each Battalion scale unit are many :

• Speed up moving lots of figures around, whilst holding their formation.
• To denote a sort of 'Zone of Control' for each battalion.  As units start to lose cohesion and take losses, bases from the unit can remain on the table, but off the Battalion base .. so they become stragglers that clutter up the table.  I like having my figure collections nicely organised if possible ... but I find that removing bases during a game and putting them back in the box just creates chaos. This solution of leaving stragglers and wounded on the table solves that issue, and also does away with needing to have tokens on the table to denote cohesion / morale losses as well.
• Battalion bases that are close to each other (or touching) mean that 2 battalions are in close support, and are acting as a single group despite the gaps between the figure bases. 
• More flexible units have larger battalion bases, which gives a larger zone of control.
• Restrictions on the types of formations that the unit can assume are defined by the physical size of the Battalion base.
• Changing the formation within the confines of the Battalion base is a 'free' move as part of standard tactical movement in the game.
• If a formation change requires adding additional Battalion bases to the unit to accomodate the formation, this requires the expense of some 'Command Points' or something similar.
• Also provides a holding spot for labelling each unit !  
• I want to start playing with embeded RFID tags on the unit bases, for use with computerised tracking of the game. Battalion sabots make sense for this.
• In order to build 'Every single unit in every campaign' ... All I really need to do now is build a Battalion base for each unit, and just fill them up with figures on an as-need basis. I don't actually NEED to collect and paint up 3 million figures now if I do it this way :)

So lets have a look at some possible designs of Battalion Sabot bases to reflect different scenarios :

Start with the simple ones ....

3" wide, 2" deep - for a 4 company Prussian Battalion, 1813 Leipzig campaign.

My Prussian Musketeer battalions for this campaign are operating almost exclusively in Battalion masses, 2 companies wide.

Due to the large scale of the campaign, and need to compress as much mass as possible on a given frontage, this formation allowed easy control of the very large and not very well drilled armies.

They rarely changed from this formation (as far as I know).

This Battalion base allows for the following Formations : 

• 2 x2 companies in closed attack column (as shown here).  
• 2x2 companies with a space between the lines for supporting waves of 2 company wide columns.  
• 4 company square fits nicely on this base. 
• Throw 1 company of troops out front of the Battalion base, to denote the 3rd rank deployed as a semi-skirmish order screen.  
• Sideways orientation - 1 company wide column, 4 companies deep. 
• Add a spare base next to this base and re-arrange as a single line of 4 companies .. a 'complex' move for this unit, so that requires some command point cost.

Battle of Jenastaedt 1813 - The Assault

Battle of the Day

... continued from Part 4

Events in the early afternoon, around half past one :

The Russian engagement on the left has all but fallen into chaos.

A fierce engagement has cost them their remaining infantry regiment, whilst the forward most regiment has now lost contact with the commander as it proceeds to loot and destroy Jenastaedt itself.

Battle of Jenastaedt 1813 - The Bombardment

Battle of the Day

.. continued from Part 3

General Allied situation at 1040 hrs :

Over on the Russian left flank, the Russian artillery is now finally in effective range, and begins to pour fire into the remaining French artillery. In an artillery duel at around 800 metres, with twice as many guns, the Russians should wear the French down here in short time.

Meanwhile each Russian infantry brigade begins the slow work of rallying and getting their lines back into fighting order.

Battle of Jenastaedt 1813 - The Firefight

Battle of the Day

... continued from Part 2

The main French forces are now engaged in the pinning attack. Lets see if the attackers can hold it together, as the hammer of 1st Corps begins its general advance to assault the pinned French units.


Events on the Allied Left up to 1000 hrs :

For almost an hour, the Russians engage les Invalides on the left flank, maintaining contact with the French and drawing them into an extended firefight.

At the start the French were reeling from the attack ....

Battle of Jenastaedt 1813 - Inital Deployment

Battle of the Day

Just setup for the next battle, in this one I want to test out my new Command and Control HouseRules to allow my Allied forces to engage in a limited pinning attack on the main French position

All going well, the pinning attack in the centre should not be too bloodily contested,  so the lower quality Russo-Prussian mob in the middle should survive the action without running off the table in panic.

Hopefully the French will also get delayed long enough to allow the main hammer blow to fall. (Austrian 1st Corps on the right wing)

Geographical situation prior to the action.

The City of Jenastaedt sits on a juntion of a major river, and is surrounded to the North by rolling hills, some woodlands, and a number of farmyards and villages.

Being a large well stocked city on a bridgehead, Jenastaedt is strategically important in the campaign.

The French currently hold Jenastaedt, and Allied scouts have setup camp to the NorthEast.

Russian 2nd Division - Eylau 1807

Division of the Day

Today we gather together all of the Russian units making up the 2nd Division on Ostermann Tolstoy's Left Wing Army, and see how they operate as a fighting force.