It was time again to do a fictional battle located somewhere in eastern parts of Prussia, 28mm, Seven Years Rules set, in the Seven Years War. Campbell would play the multitude of the Russian jugger-naught clashing against a fortified hill of Prussians and some helpers of Hessians (Cassel borrowed from my AWI collection) played by me, blocking some retreat route of the Russian army.
Each had the same amount of guns (only light), cavalry and skirmishers and veterans units, the Russian had 9 regiments of the line while the Prussians had 6, but there were on the hill. Campbell/The Russians had also 5 commands while the Prussian had only 4 but one guaranteed successful each round.
Campbell started and advanced on all fronts ready to take on the "Bunker hill/Borodino" position, as he called it. First it went well for him the horse flanks were clashing back and forth and the centre made good progress. But then slowly I took out his Hussars, then another cavalry unit then some guns, most of the time I was able to "silence" his guns, i.e. I hit his guns and disordered them, which meant that their reduced action could either go on rallying OR re-loading ... in effect making them unable to shoot the next turn.
Then I started to attack with my cuirassiers and had a home run, while he rolled abysmal, the effect was that his right flank became a problem of increasing size. on the other flank I was first successful, but then had to retreat, one unit of hussars wasn't enough to press a flank.
At this time he really made it for the centre to charge in, and to be fair he pushed away / cracked my Hessians brigade and even got on the hill behind the fortified fence routing one Prussian unit. But in the end the right flank was his downfall, by then that flank had completely disintegrated and my cuirassiers and the Black Death Hussars were literally standing right behind his centre - he did the only sensible thing and admitted defeat. If he had not needed his veteran infantry units / reserves to block the flanks, I would have been annihilated in the centre, but thanks god his horse on the flanks collapsed!
Again the rules worked a treat and next time hopefully I will have more Prussians available. ;)
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| Initial Set up: Russians to the left, Prussians to the right ... |
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| The Prussian left horse flank |
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| The Prussian centre with Hessians at the base of the hill ... |
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| The Russsians centre ... more men ... |
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| The rule set |
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| The first light cavalry clash a Prussian win ... |
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| The Russian centre advances |
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| The left flank shakes ... |
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| and then falls ... |
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| Every where Russian horse on the run! |
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| But the centre stoically firing ... |
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| ... and advancing ... |
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| ... to shooting range ... |
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| The left flank gets fixed with grenadier veterans |
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| Suddenly the Russian centre attacks |
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| Gets repulsed but not beaten ... |
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| A "silenced" Russian light gun |
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| The centre gets hotter |
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| The Hessians in retreat ... |
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| Fire fights everywhere |
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| The right flank temporarily fixed ... |
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| The left flank gets pushed back again ... |
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| In the centre its all out attack for the Russians |
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| They stand in front of the "real" Prussians now |
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| The centre pressure rises again ... |
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| 2 of 3 Russians units are in fights |
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| The flanks are seemingly stable and the centre is charging in |
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| The last Hessian unit flees |
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| And the Russians steadily follow through - stoically |
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| But then both flanks collapse ... |
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| The centre runs out of steam ... |
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| The veteran grenadier unit flees ... |
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| And the Black Hussars have literally no opponent ... |
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| A last push in the centre ... did not bring the necessary results |
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| The Russian admit defeat |
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| The butchers bill: 1 Hessian destroyed 1 Hessian shaken off the table vs 3 Russian cavalry and two infantry and one gun. |
It looks like another fun game. I like to see increasing numbers of the Prussians in your collection. Soon my Saxonns should arrive and I hope within a month my brigade will be ready for tests.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bart! ... your SYW Saxons are on your to-do-list for over a year ... are you sure they will arrive within a month? ;)
DeleteThey were in the queue. Now is their turn. Figures are already ordered and paid. I keep my finger crossed, that the delivery will be without any problems. Hope to do them within a month.
DeleteYeah! lets play a tedeum! and do a battle (on either Prussian or Austrian side) once their finished! :)
DeleteA spectacular aned gorgeous attack, brave Hessians!
ReplyDeleteThank you Phil! As for the Hessians ... they are mad.
DeleteThis was a lovely blog post
ReplyDelete