The Battle of Le Champ Glissant

Last weekend the Rejects assembled at Stuart's Shed of War for another French Revolutionary Wars game.  This time it was a fictional encounter with the sides fairly even.

The supposed context was that both armies have been maneuvering for some time in order to gain some positional advantage in the inevitable engagement.  This game represented that final jostling for position just prior to battle.

As I'm umpiring and that seems to make it tricky to take the photos and annotate key events, I'll leave the detailed reporting of this tabletop affair to my fellow Rejects.

Click here for Lee's report.

The Players

Rejects Ray and new boy Steve were the Austrians.

Rejects Lee and Surjit played the French

Stuart, while graciously allowing us to use his shed and still recovering from a bad cold, chose to spectate and provide the very handsome lunch.

The Briefings

The Battle of Le Champ Glissant, 9^th September 1796

French Briefing

You have been desperately trying to fulfil the orders of the Directory and push the Austrians back onto the Danube and to then link up with the Army of Italy in order to force the Austrian Emperor to make a peace.  However, Archduke Charles has been handling the imperial army well.  He has been manoeuvring just enough to ensure that you do not have the advantages you would wish for.

But at last, you have brought him to battle.  Though can you find the most advantageous positions in order to incapacitate the Archduke’s army?

The Battle of Le Champ Glissant, 9^th September 1796

Austrian Briefing

You have heard of French successes in Italy, and you realise that it is important to prevent a French breakthrough from the Rhine to the Danube and thus to Austrian defeat. 

You have, so far, successfully avoided a pitched battle whilst also frustrating your opponent.  However, the French have now been able to bring about an engagement.

You first need to manoeuvre to gain some positional advantages before attempting to eliminate the threat of an invasion of Austria by incapacitating the French army before you.

The Armies

Austrian Commander in Chief – Archduke Charles			French Commander in Chief – General Moreau
	Rating			Rating
1st Division Duke Ferdinand of Wurttemberg			1st Division General Desaix
IR4 Deutschmeister	Line		Grenadiers	Vet
IR13 Reisky	Line		4th Demi Brigade	Line
IR24 Preiss	Line		5th Demi Brigade	Line
IR27 Strassoldo	Line		Medium Artillery 1	Line
Medium Artillery 2	Line		2nd Division General Delmas
2nd Division FML Petrsch			51st Demi Brigade	Line
IR51 Splenyi	Line		69th Demi Brigade	Line
IR25 Brechainville	Line		75th Demi Brigade	Line
IR43 Thurn	Line		85th Demi Brigade	Line
Medium Artillery 4	Line		3rd Division General St Cyr
3rd Division Count Wartensleben	Line		14th Demi Brigade	Line
Illyrischer Grenzers	Line		19th Demi Brigade	Line
Szluiner Grenzers	Line		57th Demi Brigade	Vet
Carlstadter Sharpshooters	Vet		Medium Artillery 2	Line
Light Artillery 1	Line		4th Division General Beaupuy
4th Division Baron von Kienmayer	Line		Legion d’Allobroges	Line
IR29 Kerpen	Line		12th Demi Brigade	Line
IR14 Klebek	Line		6th Demi Brigade	Line
IR8 Huff	Line		Carabiniers of 4th Legere	Elite
IR49 Pellegrini	Line		Cavalry Division General Laroche
Light Artillery 3	Line		5th Dragoons	Line
Cavalry Division FML Meszaros			20th Dragoons	Line
2nd Hussars	Vet
Stabsdragoner	Vet

Victory Conditions

The following was used to calculate the victory points at the end.

7 points For each broken enemy division

5 points For each enemy division with 50% plus losses but not broken.

3 points For each enemy division with 25-49% losses but not broken.

1 point For each enemy standard captured.

1 point For each melee won

The Starting Table

The tabletop terrain was set up quite simply as this was going to change shortly.

The starting terrain

The Game of Position and Deployment
The idea about the start of this game is that both sides were still trying to out-maneuver each other to gain some sort of positional advantage.

To replicate that we played out a pre-game phase where the opposing sides could draw and play cards alternately to add, move, remove terrain and to move or delay the enemy divisions.

First of all, the players placed blinds representing their divisions plus a couple of dummy blinds.

They then played the pre-game card game.  The photo below shows how the terrain has changed and where the blinds are.

The new battle field.  The French will be deploying on the right.

The players now had 5 minutes to take as many photos as they liked then had to leave the shed to formulate their actual troop positions in the 2 foot squares and an overall plan.  This gave me a chance to place the figures in the appropriate squares on the table.

Upon their return, the players had ten minutes to redeploy in the allocated squares.

The Battle
As you will see the Austrians successfully bottle necked the French infantry in the centre.
Both sides found their cavalry facing infantry on the flanks.

The starting positions for the Austrians on the left and the French on the right.

The French start to unpack their infantry that is massed in the centre.

French work themselves into some sort of battle line in order to better coordinate their assault on the more defensive Austrians.  The cavalry on both flanks hover around to occupy their respective opponents.

French columns, having been screened by swarms of skirmishers, now charge into the Austrian centre.

French skirmishers in front of the columns are about to withdraw to let the columns through.

The columns took a lot of damage going in and especially in the woods.  However, the Austrian line has buckled and been forced back.

Unfortunately, Lee is unable to press the attack without Surjit's divisions engaging further down the line... which they have not.  So Lee has had to pull back.  His divisions are suffering and exhaustion is a real issue for his commands.

Surjit's French columns are now advancing down the far end, and Lee's dragoons are now advancing towards the centre.  However, night has fallen and the battle ends with the Austrian significantly pushed back in the centre.

The points were counted and the French, Lee and Surjit, were declared the winners... by ONE point.  As you you see on the chart below

Analysis
Losses to Austrian Forces:

1st Division - 10%

2nd Division - 0%

3rd Division - 37.5%

4th Division - 0%

Cavalry Division - 37.5%

Army losses - 12.5%

Losses to French Forces

1st Division - 21%

2nd Division - 43%

3rd Division - 33%

4th Division - 0%

Cavalry Division - 0%

Army losses - 23%

You can see from the numbers above the French 2nd and 3rd Divisions were the ones assaulting the Austrian centre, which was mainly held by their 3rd Division and part of the 1st.

1.  French casualties on approach and on charging in were high.  This did lead to both French Divisions having to take division tests, which was where the Austrians got most of their victory points from.  It also meant that Lee was struggling to renew his attack.  The Austrian defensive position did enable them to pour plenty of lead into the columns.

2.  Despite their good shooting and position, Ray and Steve were unable to win sufficient melees.  French prowess in melee, and the capture of standards, racked up the points for them.

3.  Ray and Steve were also dogged with poor dice rolling for morale and rally tests, e.g. "don't roll a 6 Ray," which is exactly what he did.

4.  2 and 3 above meant the Austrians were pushed back in the centre, thus losing their position there.

5.  However, the French were unable to follow up the hard won advantage.  Especially with Surjit's divisions not close enough to engage or support.

6.  The blind deployment and the pre-game phase led to both flanks causing some hesitancy about what to do.  In the end, each side's cavalry division pinned an opponent's infantry division.

7.  The pre-game phase and blind deployment, I think, worked well to create dilemmas for the commanders and uncertainty preceding the battle.

Overall, I was pleased with how my rules worked.  They gave a sense of ebb and flow in the fortunes of the two armies.  Command and control degraded nicely as contact was made, the lines became ragged and as morale was being eaten away.  The small alteration to the rally rules worked well, though I need to make a little amendment to skirmishers in melee.

For the scenario, I might consider altering the victory points to assign 1 extra to each of first three.  As it stands, it was a good game and if it was a French victory, then it was very much a pyrrhic victory.  I think the French and Austrians will continue to maneuver on the Rhine for the foreseeable future.