Leuthen Day Once Again

 

Prussian cavalry of the right wing at the start of the battle.

December 5th is the 265th anniversary of the battle fought by Frederick the Great's Prussians and the Austrian army of Charles of Lorraine on December 5, 1757. Leuthen was Frederick's signature battle in which his oblique order tactics were executed with near perfection and allowed his army of 35,000 men to overwhelm the 65,000 Austrians.

I direct your attention to Colin Ashton's fine blog: Carryings On Up The Dale where he presents a very good after action report of the game that he always plays on the anniversary of Leuthen Carryings On Up The Dale Blog . Colin's pictures of his game are simply awesome. Apparently the Austrians continued their long winning streak and defeated the Prussians once again. Ouch! LOL!

Last year I refought the opening battle on the Austrian left wing which was anchored on the village of Sagschutz. Leuthen is a huge battle so it is a good idea to break it down into its subcomponent action. I had never fought the opening attack and it seemed like a good time to do so because I wanted to play test some changes to my cavalry rules. Since this part of the battle involved a large amount of cavalry on both sides, this scenario fit the bill for me.

Following pictures, below, were taken during my battle scenario in December 2021. The Prussians overwhelmed the Wurttemburgers in Sagschutz and Ziethen's Prussian cavalry go the better of Nadasdy's Austrian and Saxon cavalry.

Nadasdy and his Saxon and Austrian cavalry prepare to cross swords
with Ziethen's Prussian cavalry on the Prussian right wing.

The elite Prussian Garde du Corps and a lot of cuirassiers lead the attack.

Wurttemburg soldiers defending Sagschutz wonder where all of those Prussians on their flank came from.

An overhead view of the troop deployment for the Prussian opening
attack on the Austrian left flank at the village of Sagschutz.

Wedel's advance guard infantry prepare to attack Sagschutz.

The Prussians deploy their battalions en echelon
so as to outflank the Wurttemburgers in Sagschutz.

A special thank you goes out to all of the people who took advantage of the Fife and Drum Miniatures Black Friday Week sale. You helped me to clean out some of the inventory that had been building up in my stock shelves. Since the funds from sales go back into the business in the form of new sculpts there should be some interesting new items added to the Minden SYW and the F&D AWI figure ranges.

Der Alte Fritz and family will be taking a much needed break by invading some of the southern climes at the end of December 2022 and into the first part of January 2023. So he will not be able to ship any orders after December 27th through January 15th of 2023. Unless you want to wait until February, get those last minute figure orders in before we close for vacation over the holidays.