The Battle of Castelnuovo del Garda, 16 January 1796 - AAR

It seemed a suitable time to put on a French Revolutionary Wars game using Volley and Bayonet rules and my 6mm MDF armies.

The engagement is a "what if" set piece battle set two days after the Battle of Rivoli.  Which in this alternative universe did not take place.

The Austrians have launched an attack to break the French siege of Mantua.  Once achieved and reinforced by the large number of troops there, they are to push the French westward towards Piedmont.

Hoping to hold Alvinczy’s Austrian forces at Rivoli, General Bonaparte and his divisions, nonetheless, failed to move quickly enough to reinforce Joubert who was guarding the approaches down the river Adige.  Consequently, Joubert was compelled to withdraw his troops south and rendezvous with the forces of Generals Massena and Rey.

Thus, Alvinczy was able to complete the junction of his three columns on the Rivoli plateau.  After a day’s rest, he set the Austrian army in motion south to defeat the revolutionary Army of Italy.  As he approached Castelnuovo del Garda, Alvinczy got news of the French beginning to deploy.

Bonaparte, now certain that the approaching Austrians represent the main strike towards Mantua – not the feint that Augereau is holding back around Verona - he is determined to strike a blow against Alvinczy at Castelnuovo del Garda.

The Players and Armies:
Austrians (6 divisions)
Generals Vukassovich and Luisignan – Dan
3 artillery, 3 regiments and 3 freicorps

General Quasdanovich – Steve
5 cavalry regiments and 5 infantry regiments

Generals Liptay, Koblos and Ocksay – Ray
10 infantry regiments

plus Colin, a late addition, who would share Ray's command.

French (8 divisions plus assets)
General Joubert – Lee
8 infantry and 1 cavalry plus 3 artillery

General Rey – Stuart
3 cavalry and 3 infantry regiments plus horse artillery

General Massena – Surjit
5 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments, 1 artillery

Battlefield and Deployment
The players had their army lists and some essential rules remainders sent out a week or two before the day of battle.  They were also forewarned about deployment.  In short, they had to follow these instructions:

1.  Choose one player from their side to reconnoitre the battlefield. They had 10 minutes to sketch the battlefield; observe the enemy forces and ask questions about the terrain.

2.  The sides reconvened and had 15 minutes max. to note on their sketch maps their deployment.

3.  the two sides then had 10 minutes to simultaneously deploy their troops.

4.  Both sides rolled 1d6.  The higher scoring side went first.

So, this is how it looked with the troops waiting to be deployed.

The French to the left, Austrians to the right.

View from the French side.

... and from the Austrian side.

And this is how the armies ended up facing each other.

The Battle

From the umpires point of view this was a very busy game.  After a year since last playing these rules, the Rejects needed to (rightly) ask lots of questions. They then proceeded to stress test the umpiring as well.  All that is said because in the second half of the game I just plain forgot to take any photos in the heat of battle.

Interestingly, neither side elected to deploy a reserve despite the big movement allowances in Volley and Bayonet.  At least one player would bemoan this omission at the end of the game.

French cavalry advancing.

Both approached each other cautiously.

The Austrians on the right quickly adopted a defensive posture while their cavalry sought to turn the far flank.

This gave the French cavalry an opportunity to start harassing the Austrian left flank.

Stuart has to turn General Rey's divisions to face the threat to their flank from Quasdanovich's cavalry.

Meanwhile, the Austrian left comes under attack.

However, the French first assaults are stalled as the cavalry is thrown back.

The attacked now become the attackers as they seek to drive away the threat to their flank.

Alas, this is going to be a desperate tussle on the flank that will eventually wear down both sides.  The French commanders now start throwing the rest of their line at the Austrians.

The battle on the far Austrian right is becoming increasingly isolated as Quasdanovich's and Rey's troops grind away at each other.

As we returned to the fray after lunch, the heat of the battle meant that my camera saw no more action.  So, I will try to finish the report as concisely as possible.

On the far flank (Austrian right, French Left) Stuart and Steve continued their own engagement.  Eventually, Quasdanovich was able to induce a morale collapse on d'Hilliers division.  However, the event took an immense effort.  Stuart's last division under, Duga, was also left exhausted.  But not before inflicting enough damage to the Austrians to leave Quasdanovich ineffective as an offensive force.

On the Austrian left, sterling defensive action by Grenadiers and desperate charges left the French assault ragged and ultimately exhausted.  Though the defenders were barely any better themselves.  In the centre, the French attacks were repeatedly repulsed as the luck and valour ebbed and flowed.  In the end, the French centre was in some disarray.

So it was that the French saw two divisions exhausted and another two suffering from morale collapse.  Meanwhile the Austrian army ended with two exhausted divisions and one in collapse.

I called it a minor victory for the Austrians.  Though, on reflection, the reality of the situation was that both armies had fought themselves to exhaustion.

Afterthoughts

That was a busy and action filled game.  However, both sides were struggling with their dice rolling for most of the battle.  This possibly meant that the game was less decisive in its outcome than it might have been.  To give an example, Quasdanovich had four units onto one French.  He had 16 dice to roll and needed sixes.  He rolled and not one six!  This absence of sixes was repeated across the table for much of the game.

The pre-game "stuff" worked well and gave an initial momentum and urgency.  Plus, it was fun to see the results of faulty reconnaissance.  For example, the Austrians failed to see that the French had cavalry and based part of their deployment on that "fact" which explained their exposed left flank.

After the game, one of the Austrian commanders made the observation that they should have kept the cavalry in reserve and ready to move to wherever needed.  I think that he felt the desperation of trying to keep the flank with only the one line of troops.

Whether it was fun or challenging to play I will leave to Ray and Lee to comment in their blog reports.  I was exhausted like many of the units, but satisfied that the game was close and ebbed and flowed, and that I had not made any significant errors.