Action at Kuhstall - Part II

Today's fox is the small action at Kuhstall between Hadik's Austrian raiding party and Zieten's pursuing column. I was able to complete four game turns last evening in what proved to be an opening minuet of maneuvers, but very little in the way of musketry.

Hadik's strategy was to delay the Prussian advance with two lines of Croats, who were ordered to give one volley and then retire up the hill to safety behind the Austrian regular troops.

Zieten placed all three of his Prussian infantry battalions in the center and they were ordered to advance straight ahead and crest the hill to victory. Zieten covered his left flank with a battalion of rifle armed jagers, while the two squadrons of Black Hussars were to cover the right flank of the Prussian infantry in the center.

Please read the captions of the pictures to follow the story and be sure to click or double click each picture in order to enlarge the view.

This evening I completed Turn 7 and I will post an updated report of tonight's action on the blog tomorrow as Part III.

The Prussian infantry (IR1 von Winterfeld musketeers) form a battle line and prepare to advance towards the Austrian position. Note the Prussian 3-pound cannon being manhandled forward.

The first line of Croats (Red) await the Prussian attack.

They are supported by a second line of Croats (Blue) further up the hill.

Howevcr, the Black Hussars see an opportunity to outflank the first line so they advance forward while the Prussian infantry covers the Croat front. The Red Croats have no choice but to retire on to the second line without firing a shot.

On the second turn, the Black Hussars decided that they might have an opportunity to catch the Croats out in the open and ride them down. So the hussars boldly advanced towards the Austrian first line and attempted to outflank the Croats. Fortunately for the Austrians, they won the initiative on Turn 3 and elected to move first/fire second, allowing the Red Croats to skedaddle up the hill to safety.

The Prussian jagers advanced into the wooded area on the Prussian left flank (see picture below), where they ran into more Croats (what a surprise huh?). Some shots were fired, the first of the game, but the range was too long even for the jagers' rifles and so their bullets whistled through the air harming no one.


I might have to make a special rules adjustment, just for this game scenario, to increase the range of the Croat musketry or adjust the firing tables so that the Croats and Jagers can actually hit something. As it now stands, both types of units can only hit on a roll of "1" on a D10 die, which makes it nearly impossible for them to hit anything.

Prussian Jagers and Austrian Grenz- Croats face off in the woods while the jagers cover the flank of the Winterfeld musketeer regiment.

More Croats skulking among the rocks and trees. It looks a little bit like Devil's Den at Gettysburg  with the large rocks added to the terrain. I like to add rocks and strew them all over the ground to break up the monotony of green grass.

The Prussian Jagers could fire away at the enemy with their rifles, but the Croats could not reach them with their musket fire - out of range.

An aeriel view of the situation at the end of Turn 4. Click or double click the picture to enlarge  the view. Picture taken from the Montgolphier Brothers hot air balloon.

 The above picture shows the postioning of the Austiran and Prussian forces, when I called it a night. To me, the interesting part of the game was the fact that the Prussians were able to pry the Croats out of the first line without a shot being fired



Last evening I played Turns 5 through 7 of the action at Kuhstall and I shall post a new report this evening.

A Small Action At Kuhstall - SYW Report

The Action at Kuhstall, October 1757

In October 1757, the Austrian general Andras Hadik was given the task of conducting a raid on Berlin to take advantage of the open route between two Prussian armies (Frederick's in Saxony prior to Rossbach and Bevern's army in Silesia). The raid was a success with the Austrians breaking into Berlin and leaving after being paid a handsome ransom by the Berliners. At the same time, Frederick sent numerous forces back towards his capital to both fend off the Austrian raid and to capture Hadik's corps.

In our scenario, Hans von Zieten is in charge of a Prussian flying column that has been tracking down Hadik, finally corning the Austrian raiders at a small hamlet called Kuhstall.

Prussian outpost finds Hadik's Austrians

Hadik's Austrian corps consists of the following elements:

3 battalions of Croats
1 Musketeer battalion
1 Grenadier battalion
2 x 3-pounders
1 Regiment of Hussars

Von Zieten's Prussian flying column consists of the following units:

1 battalion of rifle armed Jagers
2 battalions of musketeers
1 battalion of grenadiers
2 x 3-pounders
1 regiment of Hussars

Hadik organizes his troops into three lines of defense.

Hadik posted his forces on a low ridge line that intersected the road from Berlin to Kuhstall. He positioned two battalions of Croats forward of the ridge in two different battle lines. Their orders were to fire one volley at the Prussians and then retire to the second line. Repeat and then fall back up the ridge and rally behind the Austrian grenadiers and musketeers in the third battle line. A regiment of Austrian hussars (Baranyai Hussars) were posted out of sight behind the ridge. Finally, a third battalion of Croats was deployed on the Austrian right flank, hidden in the woods. The Austrian left flank was also anchored by a wooded area, but no troops were deployed here.

The Austrian third line was comprised of veteran grenadiers and musketeers, supported by two 3-pound cannon.

Hadik placed the Baranyai Hussars out of sight behind the ridge and behind the third battle line.

Zieten had driven his troops hard for two days, hoping to make up for lost time and to catch Hadik's raiding party before it could retreat to Saxony and safety. Hadik had a day's march on Zieten, but the Prussians managed to catch up with the Austrians, who were slowed down by the booty that they were carrying with them.

Zieten leads the Prussian Black Hussars to their opening position covering the Prussian right flank.

Zieten posted the Black Hussars on the right flank and the Jagers on the left flank. His best troops, the two battalions of the Winterfeld musketeer regiment and the Kremzow (17/22) Grenadier battalion were deployed in the center along with two small 3-pound cannon.

A view of the Prussian left (Jagers) and center (the IR1 Winterfeld Regiment of musketeers and the Kremzow Grenadier Battalion forming a second line reserve.

A view of the Prussian battle line after the deployment is set up and ready for the battle.

Once Zieten was satisfied with his troop deployment, he gave his infantry commander, Major General von Ingerleben, to commence the advance of the infantry in the center. The infantry would conduct a vigorous attack on the Austrian center, while the Black Hussars would remain in reserve and the Jagers would advance into the woods to protect the left flank of the Prussian musketeers.

I was able to play four game turns this evening and will post the report and pictures of the opening action tomorrow.

Starting With A Clean Slate

The past four weeks have kept me busy getting the Fife & Drum dealer booth stocked and ready for the Seven Years War Association convention this past weekend. I will post a separate convention report later this week.

The basement became a wreck with boxes, bags and figures all over the place, as shown below and When I returned home from the convention, I couldn't stand it any longer so the Great Game Room Clean Up commenced yesterday.

The above picture is the "Before" view of the basement. It is not a pretty sight and I caution you to avert your eyes and not look at too closely.

Here are the "After" pictures, which are much more soothing to the eye:

The black bins hold most of my Finished Goods SYW figure inventory of Fife & Drum figures ( note that I'm transitioning away from the Minden name). I claimed a storage shelf unit from our general household goods storage area and placed it in the room, to the right of the door in the picture above. This allows me to get most of my buildings and terrain into one area.

Above is the central game table, 15 ft by 6ft, with parallel side table that are 2.5ft wide. On the back wall, you can see all of my storage shelves, which span the entire length of the wall. I keep terrain pieces and my Minden - Fife & Drum- SYW and AWI painted armies.

Above is a view of the entire room, noticeably cleaner, tidier and better organized than in the first picture.

I now have a clean game table, an empty canvas if you will, that is ready for a new game setup. So that leads to the question, "which battle should I do next?" Your thoughts and suggestions are welcomed in the comment section below.

Fritz

Austrian Generals Pix

Andras Hadik, as a Marshal

Andras Hadik, in hussar mufti

Hadik (left) and Graf Wied (right)

I finished off a couple of Austrian generals that I needed for my games at the Seven Years War Association Convention next friday and saturday in South Bend, Indiana. I needed an Austrian light cavalry commander for my Battle of Kolin scenario, so I used a Minden Austrian hussar officer and mounted him on one of the "Heroic Horses" in the range. I sort of made up the uniform, based on the portrait at the top left of this page. So he is wearing a white hussar pelisse instead of a uniform coat and a red vest and breeches of hussar uniform cut.

Click on all pictures to enlarge the view.

The other picture, top right, illustrates Hadik later in his military carreer after he had been promoted to Marshal in the Austrian army.

The other officer, in the long white coat, is a major general rank and will probably be Graf Wied or Starhemberg at Kolin. I used the von Loudon personality figure from the Minden figure range.

Same gentlemen, different point of view.

Finally, I needed another 2-wheel ammo cart to use with one of my Austrian infantry brigades. Each brigade of 4 battalions also gets one ammo wagon used to replenish ammunition as it is used up during the game.

Fife & Drum 2-wheel Austrian powder wagon.

xxx

New AWI Hessian Sculpts

A couple of weeks ago I received pictures of the greens that Richard Ansell had sculpted for AWI Hessians that will be added to the Fife & Drum figure range. We have Hessian musketeers and grenadiers, both in marching poses and firing line poses. Fusiliers and Jagers will be added in the future.

I will post the pictures of the officers and standard bearers tomorrow.

Undoubtedly, these figures could be used as SYW Prussians as well as for Hessians. 

SYWA Convention Preparation

Let the bagging of the figures commence!

Between taking my annual inventory for the tax man and getting my stock ready for the Seven Years War Association convention (March 31-April 1, 2016) in South Bend, Indiana, things have been rather hectic around the old barn these days. It also means that the shipping of orders has slowed down considerably and so I apologize in advance to anyone who has an existing order with me that has not yet been invoiced to you via PayPal. I expect to catch up with everything by this Saturday. ( since I have a full time day job, the only day that I can go to the post office is on Saturday ).

Taking inventory is a time consuming chore that is both necessary and exhausting because it seems to take forever and ever. Just when you think that you have counted everything, then another bag or box of figures turns up somewhere in the basement and you have to count them too. Some interesting things often turn up in inventory taking; for example, what was I thinking when I ordered 300 castings of Maurice de Saxe seated ( to use with the wicker carriage) and why did I order 20 spins (16 figures per spin) of the Prussian cuirassier standard bearer?

A large order of castings arrived in late January and so I wanted to segregate that stock from my 2015 stock so that the sums would apply to the 2016 tax bill. For those of you who are not accountants, the cost of goods sold is calculated thusly:

Beginning Inventory

+ Purchases

- Ending Inventory

= Cost of goods sold

And it follows that your income is calculated as Sales - Cost of Goods Sold - Other Expenses = Income. So you can see how important it is to count your inventory at year end.

Once that task was done ( they don't tell you about all of these things before you start a miniatures company), then it was time to move onto the chore of bagging figures for the convention. Eight figures of marching infantry get placed in bubble wrap, taped closed with clear shipping tape, and then squeezed into a 3-inch by 5-inch plastic bag. Cavalry figures have to be bagged with horses.

I have to label the contents of each bag ( I know, I should print out labels on my computer and just peel and stick the labels on the bags). However, since I am selling 18th Century figures it only seems right that I should use 18th Century production techniques, don't you think?

I realize that I should enter the 21st Century and have a full capability shopping cart system on the Fife & Drum website. As of now, the AWI and artillery ranges are shopping cart capable on the web site, but the SYW range needs to be added to the shopping cart. There is one little problem with the shopping cart: the one that I use from Pow Web has absolutely no way of calculating and adding postage to any of my web based orders, so I'm automatically losing $6 to $10 on every web order since I can't add a shipping charge to the order. So I will likely have to raise prices on web based orders to cover the shipping cost; however, orders submitted to me in the old fashioned way ( you send me an email with a list of what you wish to order) will continue to be charged with the actual postage cost ( unless you reside outside of the U.S., in which case you are only charged a flat postage rate of $10). If there is anyone out there with expertise in web design and shopping carts who can offer some hands on help with this, I'm all ears.

Yes, being in the miniatures business Is glamorous and will bring you fame and fortune. LOL!

Which is to say that I have had very little time to paint figures or do other hobby related things. I am looking forward to the SYW Assn convention in two weeks as it will allow me to socialize with many friends that I have made in the hobby over the years as well as to host two games during the convention: Reichenburg and Kolin, both from the 1757 campaign in Bohemia. The convention Experience makes all of the preparation work worthwhile. I hope to see many of my blog followers there.

Cheers,

Fritz

Return of Marshal Soult - Part 2

The Battle of Rio Mondego Continues

Well let's see, when we last saw the intrepid brigade of Brigadier Alexander Sinclair at the Battle of Rio Mondego, it was close to being driven off of the front table and back onto the center table in our war-game  (originally played on Saturday March 5, 2016).

As always, click or double click on each of the pictures to see an enlarged view of the action.

Sinclair advanced the 45th (Nottinghamshire) Regiment onto the first table to relieve the beleagured 94th Regiment. The remains of the 94th are off camera to the right of the 45th.

It seemed like the French always drew the first fire card each turn, so the 45th  Regiment  received casualties almost immediately after it crossed the aisle onto the left-hand table in the game.

Eventually the French compel the 45th Regiment to retire back to where they came from. Mermet brought up his battery of 8-pounders to create more discomfort for the Red Coats.

Meanwhile, in the center of the table, the French division of Delabord was coming on in the usual style - l'ordre mixte.

Sinclair forms a new line to protect the road leading to the harbour at Cabo Mondego, where the Royal Navy transports await.

By the time that Sinclair had established a new line of defense on the center table, anchored by a small village on his right flank, it was readily apparent that victory would go to the French.

The Swiss Regiment Arrives (its first battle) - Elite Miniatures painted by John Preece for the collection of Bill Protz

The Swiss Regiment, shown above, entered its first battle as a wargaming unit, and thankfully, they did not come under fire.  They can observe the battle carnage that preceded them, shown via the casualties that are laying on the ground.

It was a fun and well-fought game by both sides, but at the end of the day, Marshal Soult (the Duke of Damnation) and his French prevailed over Major General Pettygree's outnumbered British army. As I mentioned above, the cards were not friendly to the British, who rarely drew the first firing card on any given turn, but sometimes it is just not your day.

My French opponent, General Mermet (Kurt B.) did a masterful job of utilizing his voltigueurs to great effect - they came after the British not just in single companies, but rather in whole clouds or swarms of skirmishers. My previous opponents had never used their skirmishers in such a matter (much to my relief), but Mermet knew what he was doing. On several occasions, I had to waste my first fire bonus on the skirmishers, rather than saving my fire for the columns of advancing formed infantry. The only way to drive them off was to advance towards them, forcing them to fall back. However, this then exposed the British to the fire of the French battalions.

I have no idea what was going on at the other end (right and center sections of our line) of the table. I gather that General Delabord smacked the Royal Horse Artillery around quite a bit and drove off all of the British cavalry. Delabord's French division was following up fast on the heels of the survivors. Pettygree's Red Coat infantry seemed to be holding its own in the center  (off to Sinclair's immediate right flank).

The Butcher's Bill

Here are the roster returns of Brigadier General Sinclair's brigade at the conclusion of the battle, once they were safely aboard the Royal Navy transport ships.


45th Regiment: 34 casualties out of its original strength of 72 figures (47% casualties)

94th Regiment: 48 casualties out of its original strength of 84 figures (57% casualties)

83rd Regiment: 17 casulaties out of its orginal strength of 84 figures (20% casualties)

5/60th Rifles: they were scattered to the winds, maybe 50% losses?

Grant's section of 9-pounders RA: 2 casualties out of 12 figures (17% casualties)

You can see that the 94th took a hard pounding from the French, as it was the unit deployed the furthest forward and was faced off against two or three battalions at a time. It was my plan that they should be sacrificed to delay or stop the French for a few turns in order to buy time for Pettygree's infantry to march down the road to Cabo Mondego. Then the 94th was to fall back to a prepared second line where the other two regiments would take on the French. The 45th came to the aid of the 94th and got mauled as well, losing 47% of its effectives. The 83rd Regt. was held in reserve, but still took 20% casualties.

Post-game, I rolled dice to see what the fate was for the casualties. On a D6, a roll of 1-2 was Dead; 3-4 was Wounded; and 5-6 Recovered. After the Dice Gods spoke their piece, the following results were achieved:

45th Regt. = 6 dead, 6 wounded and 10 recovered. 60 of 72 original figures survived to carry on and the 6 wounded would come back eventually. So killed represented only 8% of the orginal 72 figures.

94th Regt. = 8 dead, 13 wounded and 14 recovered (nice die rolling there!). So the killed represented 10% of the original 84 figures.

83rd Regt. = 7 dead, 4 wounded and 8 recovered or 8% of the original 84 figures died in the battle.

Thus the cumulative brigade totals, after recoveries and wounded, were 22 dead, 23 wounded and 32 recovered or about 9% of the original 240 infantry died at Rio Mondego. The wounded will eventually come back after a couple of months and rejoin their units. Were we to have another battle in a month or two, we would deduct the dead and wounded from the regiments at the start of the game.

We haven't played a BAR Napoleon game in several years and so I was glad to have the opportunity to bring the lads out onto the table once again. I hope that we get another chance to play some more Iberia games in 2016. One of our regular British players moved to Florida and with him went 4 or 5 British and Portuguese regiments, which severely depleted the forces that are available to General Pettygree. So unless some reinforcements arrive soon from Olde Blighty, the Duke of Damnation may soon be taking up quarters in Lisbon. We can't have that.

Never fear, Major General Pettygree and Brigadier Sinclair will march again, so be sure to come back here (probably in June or July of 2016) to see what happens next.