New Leipzig PBEM AAR

[milrevko]

T36:

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, isolation is not good.



Next I will get some shots of the ARTY battle across the broken bridge at Leipzig otehr then taht all the action is concentrated in the south. I am literally dropping every bridge in the north and even every bridge on the map. The 200,000 allies in the north will not be racing down to save the guys in the south. They will have to repair the bridges. But before they can do that they will have face all the arty I have left at leipzig to kill anyone repairing bridges. In defence of the river bridges I have left three corps and roughly 6 division, I can monitor the movement and counter attack any attempt to cross the river. All this while I try to cause 100,000 casualties in the south.

Remember this game is only on turn 36 that means there is 300 turns to go. I plan to rest after the the destruction of the southern armies, repair the bridge and go after the allies in the north when I am done in the south...

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Big Duke:

I wish the game engine instead had an optional rule that would just allow skirmishers to be attacked more than once in a turn. I think almost everyone would play with that option.
[/quote]


They really did a good job with the civil war game, it cost extra movement to move adjacent to a unit with skirmishers deployed. Which in fact is exactly how 99% of skirmishers were trained and used for.

Another way is not have either side deploy skirmishers and have the units fight as battalions, what a concept.

Ever since cav units can break down people have also been using them ahistorically also...

[BigDuke66]

Big Duke:

I wish the game engine instead had an optional rule that would just allow skirmishers to be attacked more than once in a turn. I think almost everyone would play with that option.

They really did a good job with the civil war game, it cost extra movement to move adjacent to a unit with skirmishers deployed. Which in fact is exactly how 99% of skirmishers were trained and used for.

Another way is not have either side deploy skirmishers and have the units fight as battalions, what a concept.

Ever since cav units can break down people have also been using them ahistorically also...

Yea a restriction of the skirmishers by housrules is necessary, a little bit is already done by the game, from the manual:
"Skirmisher Rule
In addition to the normal test, Disordered Skirmisher units of non-Light, non-Guard units are only eligible to recover from Disorder if they are within 5 hexes of their parent unit."
But that is surely not enough to keep the players from using them as "commando units".

Can't imaging Napoleonic works without skirmishers as sometimes there was extensive skirmishing done as prelude to the real battle, also the use of them for battles that also cover "unusable" terrain like forest is also important.

Civil War might be OK but here the problem is that the skirmishers there also a a slight problem, in some cases it won't cost extra movement points to get close with the unit using skirmishers.

From the CW manual:
"I’ve noticed that the +1 extra MP cost of moving into an enemy Skirmisher Zone never prevents the movement. That is, if it would normally take 3 MP to move into a hex and a unit only has 3 MP left, then
the presence of an enemy Skirmisher Zone in that hex doesn’t prevent the movement. Isn’t this a bug? If the program prevented the movement, then the controlling side would know that there was an enemy Skirmisher Zone in the destination hex and thus that there was an enemy unit in the vicinity.
However, the opposing side would have no indication that a unit from the other side was nearby. Thus the side that had deployed Skirmishers would have less information than the side that had not. "


Oh and yes that picture is from http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/ a good page to give a quick look at certain things in the various armies.

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Looking at how your opponent acts.... either he thinks he's in a different war like(WW1 maybe) or he totally exaggerates the quote "Offense is the best defense."

[milrevko]

Big Duke,

I really think on par with skirmisher fail is the breaking down of CAV units, especially heavy CAV (these units as a general rule operated as battalions).
Most players will operate them as if the are squads in squad leader and it is understandable why.

The effects of zones of control and the inability of INF to melee CAV make them useful but fully unhoristical. Even if this practice is not alway the best option or the best and fullest use of available forces.

In Leipzig all the CAV start as squads but in the other games they start as battalions. What is an easy rule to make the use of CAV historical:

1) In games where the heavy CAV start as battalions they should not break down

2) Or, in games where CAV start as battalions only light cav should be able to break down into squads

3) In games where the cav is in squads Heavy and Non-light CAV should keep stacked up to as close to 600 men as possible (max cav stacking)

I have not used these as I keep the house rules simple and clean but, they are necessary to keep the game from turning into a World War II game where the skirmishers and cav squads flourish and spread across the map like waves and the principles of linear warfare are lost. Remember the original Battle front game of Waterloo where the french would breakdown every single unit they could into skirmishers and fllod out, it was insane.

Players will use all units to there best advantage regardless. As is rational.

[milrevko]

In reply to you comments about skirmishers.

In open terrain a battalion of 700 men would walk through the skirmishers, it would not fight, it would not shoot, it would walk and it really would not even slow its pace. It really is that simple and straightforward. Line units walked trough skirmishers units (and most likely the skirmishers of the line unit advancing would be out there slug'n it out with charlie) That is history of skirmishers on the Napoleonic battlefield.

In terms of the game a 70 man skirmisher would be spread out over and in the depth of a 100 yard hex (there is no way for 70 men evenly and in depth to impede a 700 man compact formation marching in step), they were not little line units, they were general order formations formed out of the better men of a battalion to operate in front of the battalion as a picket line and to keep other skirmishers away. And, yes occasionally the skirmishers would cause losses and those losses would cause a moral check and that moral check would cause even a rout. It did an does happen but what did not happen was a skirmisher impeding the movement of a formed line unit in open terrain (side note: a 700 man french battalion of mine of "C" or "B" moral took, I don't remember if it was skirmisher fire and that fire caused a 2% loss to the unit, that unit then proceeded to rout off the map for all intent and purpose, that is the 1% of the time when things get crazy)

The skirmishers would take pot shots, they would pick off the outliers and woo whoo shoot and officer that got to far out. They did not stop a formed battalion of 700 men from marching there full movement(within reason) or cause them to move only a 100 yards in ten minutes or 15 minutes (what ever the game turn is).

People who do not read about napoleonic battles see the skirmishers units and think wow this is great, I can put out a 70 man skirmisher unit in clear and stop 700 man formed unit from advancing more then one hex.

Yes, some were trained to operate away from and independently from line units, but we are talking about 5% est. of all skirmishers and yes, they are great in woods, towns and chateaus which was historical.

Yes, I also know what the designers try and failed to do with the rules about moral and disruption for skirmishers but they trapped themselfs, people wanted the totally unhistorical commando squads, intelligence gathers, mini-line type operators and would throw a fit if they could not use skirmishers as such...

[BigDuke66]

That Cav topic is also interesting, personally I guess I wouldn't break down heavy/dragoon cav into squads as they provide the hitting power that is need sometimes and are simply too precious to waste them for any other small operation, but I would surely break down light cav as they screened the army, sometimes did a bit action with light cav of the enemy, did recon etc..
I think it is really important to provide the player with a "guide" of how specific unit types were used, the "Armies of 1805" pdf that came with Austerlitz is a good starting point as it already provides a general clue of these units but still misses they way they were used.
It is still the problem of this engine is that you can play historically but you are not really forced to^and if players come in that have not the knowledge of the "Art of War" from that time it is no wonder that they use anything that is possible.


For the skirmishers, it seems another optional rule might help, how about this idea:
"Automatic Skirmisher Displacement"
It goes a bit like in the CW titles, you can move into a hex with enemy skirmishers but these are simply moved automatically back. So no melee, no slow down but it maybe triggers their defensive fire so a chance for disruption.

[KG_RangerBooBoo]

Interesting discussion on the cavalry and skirmishers. Personally the only reason I break the cavalry into squadrons if if they are actually scouting and to help speed up recovery from disruption. If you melee with the full battalion then you've lost the ability to charge until that battalion undisrupts. If you have them broken down into squadrons then you can use they you can use the ones that undisrupt while waiting on the ones that don't. I think a better rule for the skirmishers would be that a line battalion could melee them but instead of costing all of its movement points it would only cost a few and casualties are checked normally. Going that route the skirmishers would serve to slow down the line battalions a bit but not totally which is what I would think would be more historical.

[milrevko]

T37

I wanted to give a look to the minor actions going on around the city of Leipzig. In the shot below is the ARTY duel over the bridges of Leipzig. Note: I have taken down the bridge between the ARTY and knocked down the other bridges to around 150 sp, this allows me to still move cav and arty and as soon as I need to drop them I can. When a bridge is below 150 strengthen cav and arty can not use them.


Here is my fighting battle below the city of Leipz in the smaps and woods, I know he has atleast one Austrian division and maybe two, the Prussian have been discovered just in time, they might be there in divisional strength. This will be a delaying action to draw as much as I can towards here while I complete my destruction of the Austrians and The Russian on the main southern battle field.


This is a prep shot of my French division getting ready to rush the Russian right flanks and take out some nasty guns on a hill. Note, always go after the gun from 3 directions at once. No matter how strong any gun is it can not fire in two directions at any one time


The entire Southern Front in all its glory:

[milrevko]

T38 2:10 PM 4 hours until dusk.

Sorry about the lack of spell check in the screen shots. The French IV Corps has crossed over the river with all its units a but has decided to leave one "B" moral division and all of its Corps level ARTY at leipzig just in case.. I know the Russian and the Prussians have some ability to repair the bridges but I do not want to take any chances that they will interfere with my master plan of crippling the southern allies army before I turn on the allies in the north. No Alba for me...


I can not explain it but the Austrian have chosen to take not one step back. He must have sent out Fuehrer Order No. 1, there will be no retreats on the Eastern Front!! And, the results are the same. Where a retreat of 10 to 15 hexes would have saved his three corps. But, NO! he whet on the offensive against me and it has kept his units in the pocket and not even the ARTY has made a run for the pike. I said to it might be best to back up a tad or a bit, like I said I can not explain it. I keep isolating the 1,000 man Austrian battalions and they do not last long with support on the flanks. Those strong INF units become a liability when they are Isolated and rout. Then in essence they become a 1,000 man loss, in one attack...