Prussian Guards' Assault of St Privat, 18 August 1870

With a couple of minor amendments from our situation testing (see Event Testing of FPW Rules), Jonathan, of Palouse Wargaming Journal, and I reconvened for a test game.

For the action, I chose the section of the Battle of Gravelotte-St Privat (18 August 1870) that turned the battle decisively for the Prussians.

This should be a very different test of my rules as the Prussians are of a better grade to the French.

French defenders await the Prussian advance up the slope.

Briefing

After being driven back towards Metz after the Battle of Mars-La-Tour two days earlier, The French commander, Bazaine, dug in on a line from just south and east of Gravelotte to St Privat in the north.

The battle commenced at c.11:45am with the Germans frontally attacking the left and centre of the French line.  These were well dug in and very well defended.  The Germans suffered heavy losses and the attacks stalled.

As the day wore on the Prussians extended their line northwards with the Saxon 12^th Corps and Prussian Guard Corps.  The Saxons took Ste Marie aux Chenes but were forced to withdraw from before St Privat after heavy losses.  It was looking good for the French defenders.  However, their right flank hung in the air at the village of Roncourt.  As evening began to draw in, the Germans had found the end of the French line and the Prussian Guard advanced up the long slope towards St Privat.  By 7pm Roncourt was overrun and the French flank turned.  By nightfall St Privat was on fire and captured.

With the escape to Verdun now closed, Bazaine was forced to retreat into Metz.

The Guard Corps lost 2440 killed and 5511 wounded.

Scenario
This scenario is set at the commencement of the Guards’ advance up the slope.

French infantry and artillery are all Grade 1. They may start formed or in open order, standing or prone.

Prussian infantry and artillery are all Grade 2.  They must start formed.

As was often the case in the early frontier battles, the German artillery was not immediately deployed as it ought to have been.  So, the Prussians start with only their infantry.  When the artillery arrives, their shooting results are counted before the French can shoot their artillery.

Victory Conditions
The Prussians (me) must capture both Roncourt and St Privat for a decisive victory.  Capturing just one will be considered a minor victory.

The French (Jonathan) must hold both.  Nothing else will do!

Alternatively, the first side to lose 50% breaks.

The Armies and Deployment

The deployment map that I sent to Jonathan.

The French are deployed on the upper slope. The Prussian Guard start from Ste Marie without artillery in support.  They will arrive on turn 2 on a successful die roll, or automatically on turn 3.  Each unit represents approximately one regiment.  This is halving of the number of battalions in this part of the overall battle.

The Battle
It might be helpful to know the sequence of play:

1.         Check command
2.         Pivot and shoot artillery
3.          Player A declares charges
4.          Player A moves/rallies
5.          Player B small arms fire
6.         Melee
7.          Repeat 3-6, reversing players
8.          Voluntary Fallbacks

The Prussians being the attackers move first as Player A.

The French artillery opened up at long range, damaging a unit and compelling it to retire.  The rest of the Prussian line advanced.  Meanwhile the French front line withdrew slightly. 

As the Guards continued their advance, both sides opened up with rifle fire.  Another Prussian unit took considerable punishment and was withdrawn from the line before it disintegrated.

At last, the Prussian Guard artillery caught up with the front line.  The impact was immediate and devastating.  A French battery was forced to limber up and retire, while another saw a significant reduction in its combat efectiveness.

The Prussian guns were laying down a punishing fire.  Another battery was destroyed and the defenders of Roncourt on the French right (Prussian left) were left barely able to muster a defence.
In a bid to stall an assault on St Privat, a regiment charged the Prussian right.

With the advantages and disadvantages to the combattants being about even, the intervention of good fortune was critical.

Alas, lady luck was not smiling on the Emperor's men.  They were thrown back and forced to retire behind St Privat. 

Having suffered from artillery bombardment and heavy rifle fire, half of St Privat was ablaze and her defenders dead.  A Guard unit was quick to occupy.  Meanwhile, the other half of the town was being assaulted.  However, the plucky defenders poured sufficient lead into the advancing Germans to force them to go prone.  The charge was stalled.

At the other end of the line, the weight of fire was too much and Roncourt was captured.

With Roncourt and half of St Privat in Prussian hands, the quantitive and qualitative difference was deemed too great for the French who chose to withdraw from the field.

As night fell, the Germans controlled the field as Marshal Bazaine ordered his army into Metz.

After thoughts
Whilst the result of the battle mirrored the events, the nature of the outcome was less in keeping with the battle and rather less plausible... in my opinion.  The Prussians took relatively little damage from the defenders in this game.  Whilst I anticipated a Prussian win, I would have expected the attackers to suffer rather more than they did.  Other than that the game went well, with the mechanics of my rules faring reasonably well - more detail on that in a moment.

A scenario based issue was that the Prussians had too many guns.  Prussian guns are better, but the number of them made it rather too lop-sided a game.  My experience is that, regardless of the rules, the superiority of the German artillery makes the scenario design of a FPW battle a delicate balancing act.  As I said, this is a scenario design issue, not a rule design issue.

Jonathan made for a great opponent playing the French.  Our post-game discussion was really useful with the following arising from our analysis of the game for me to now ponder:

• There is some stacking allowed in a hex.  Either two artillery or one artillery and one infantry unit.  Each can be targeted separately.  One change is that all units stacked in a hex will now be affected as per the result on the ladder.
• Should prone units be able to fire with the same effect as standing units?
• Should there be a difference between formed units shooting and open order units shooting?
• Which has led me to consider whether to abstract the unit and formations further.  I'm wondering whether all infantry units should be in either a "combat ready formation" or march column.  This leaves the player without worrying about formations.  The assumption is that the commander of the regiment or battalion will just do that job as the player is higher up the command structure.  The only obviously open order troops would be the chasseurs and jagers.
• I need to refine the ladder of results for rallying off disruption points (DP) and doing voluntary fallbacks.  The latter is an option to quickly withdraw damaged or endangered units from the front line, and is extra to the normal movement.
• I currently, and deliberately, don't have leader casualties in the rules.  So, that is now something to mull over.

So, a number of things to reflect on. 

My thanks to Jonathan for his time, reflections and openness in discussion. We will refight this game with amended rules at some future date.  Between now and then, I and other Rejects will be helping Lee and Ray put on their Retreat from Moscow game at the Broadside Show at Gillingham on the 13th June.

Event Testing of FPW Rules

After some amendments from my last solo play test of my Franco-Prussian War rules for hexes and remote play (see here), I had a chat with Jonathan Freitag (Palouse Wargaming Journal) and made an arrangement to do some testing.  This was not a game but an examination of likely events during a game, rolling the dice and discussing through the outcomes.

The test table

I set out the following as the events to test in different situations (e.g. in open, in cover, in different formations - skirmish and formed):

• A formation coming under long range artillery fire
• A formation coming under long range small arms fire
• A formation coming under close range artillery fire
• A formation coming under close range small arms fire
• A formation attempting to charge, and receiving defending fire.
• Melee

Prussian cavalry and infantry waiting to be placed in the line of fire.

I also laid out some specific questions to address during and after the test:

• Should the opposed "chance" rolls give a +1 to -1 spread of a +2 to -2 spread - i.e. what degree should be the impact of luck?
• Whether the advantages and disadvantages are appropriate.
• Whether the results at the steps on the results ladder need amending - smoothing out or rewriting.
• Does a unit really need a plus one for charging.

The French load their chassepot.

The arrows for clarity and indication were used a lot once we got to testing out melee.  You can just see the rules within easy reach.  These would see a few notes scrawled on them during our time together, and more in my notebook afterwards.

Still in melee.  We had a good discussion about what should be classed as a unit supporting a charge.

Afterthoughts

That was an enjoyable and productive time spent in Jonathan's company.  He asked pertinent questions about my design philosophy and decisions.  These led to good discussions and an opportunity to reflect, both during and after the session.

The Melee Results Ladder from the rules... with a couple of notes hastily scribbled at the bottom.

After an exchange of thinking about the degree to which fortune should impact events, plus the practical rolling of dice to test, I was confirmed in my view that with the ladder system I've adopted the +1 to -1 spread gave sufficient uncertainty.  The alternative would swing things far too wildly.

The advantage and disadvantages (the factors that step the attacker up and down) for the results ladders was found to be fine with the only major amendment being the removal of "unit charging" as an advantage.  This may raise eyebrows in some quarters.

The results on the ladders went pretty much unchanged, with only a couple of small tweaks considered desirable.

All in all, things are progressing nicely and what we found was that the results were plausible and in keeping with what one might expect from a wargame of the Franco-Prussian War.

My thanks to Jonathan and his excellent advice and continued questioning and clarification after the event.

The next outing with the rules will be to stress test them in a game.

Bavarians at it Again! - 2nd FPW Test Game

After my first playtest of my FPW rules for hexes (see here), I made a few changes. The main ones being:

1. Changing the range of opposed chance dice results to +1 to -1 based on the attacker and defender winning the roll.
2. The comparison of opposing unit grades will also give a +1 to -1 spread.
3. I've added a little more flesh to the results ladders.

Basically, the first two are to keep a consistency of climbing or descending the results ladder in single steps.

Things I'll be looking for are:

• Plausible result.
• The above changes make it smoother.
• What changes I need to make on the ladders in light of the above tweaks.

I decided on replaying the same scenario as a direct comparison.  However, this is less of a game report than my thoughts on what happened.

French infantry await the assault.  The marker is to show that they are prone.

This is the position after the Bavarians (bottom) have left the woods.

They're keen but perhaps not as keen as their Prussian allies.

I took a number of this type of picture throughout the game.  Here you can see the opposed "chance" rolls.  In this case the Bavarians, coming under heavy, fire won.  Thus inducing a step down on the ladder for the French.  All in all, no effect!

As I said, I took a number of these types of photos.  I then calculated and recorded the effect based on:

1. The rules as I played them last time.
2. The amended rules but with only the attacker grade being included, and
3. The amended rules with the attacker and defender grades compared, with the winner getting the step up or down... or nothing if a draw.  This is the one I will be applying throughout the game.

This took some time but led to interesting results that I'll comment on later.

As you will see I did this a number of times... and a few more that I won't bore you with.

Both sides exchanging fire.

The Bavarians are drifting to the right, just as in the last game.

Two charges against batteries are attempted...

... but heavy and massed volleys from the French infantry on the heights force the attackers to go prone before they can contact.

Plenty of lead being directed at the Bavarians, with surprisingly limited effect!

Three charges are attempted.  This time two are stopped but the bottom one on the French left flank goes in.

It goes in because previous shooting from the Bavarians forced the French unit prone.  Because it was now being charged it had to stand up.  This meant that it could not now fire and possibly stall the assault.

You can see that the luck was on the side of the Bavarians.  They also had two units supporting the assault - giving two advantages or steps up the ladder.  The French had one unit that could support but it couldn't as it was in an enemy zone of control.

With the defenders swept aside, the lead attacking unit was able to occupy the position, make a face change and initiate another melee.  Which of course it did!

At this point, where the Bavarians were turning the French left flank, I called it a job done.

So, I declare this one a Bavarian victory.

Afterthoughts

This was less of a fun game than an exercise in comparing the results of the varying shooting and melee mechanisms.

I set out three things that I'd be looking for in the game:

• A plausible result.
• The changes making play smoother.
• What changes I need to make on the ladders in light of the above tweaks.

I actually found the result was not plausible considering the fire power that the Bavarians had to face.  This was in both the end result and during the general advance in the open.  Nor was it a case of the French suffering continual bad luck; they didn't.  From the table of results that I kept, the amended version I was applying to shooting gave results that always favoured the target.  However, the other versions tended towards something more plausible and would certainly have caused more issues for the Bavarians crossing the open.

With everything being converted to one step movements up or down, the use of the ladders was quicker.

So, what changes am I considering?

For shooting, I would remove the comparison of the firing and target unit's grades - they tended to do nothing but negate each other.  I would keep it for melee.  I would also add two levels of cover instead of having one - to allow for towns, trenches etc. on top of soft cover.

In melee, I would consider changing the supporting unit to just one step for support instead of one step for each supporting unit.

I am also considering changing the movement/shooting so that every unit has two actions per turn.

The turn sequence makes the Germans move first, French then shoot and then melee, the players are then reversed.  Moving to actions would mean that infantry could either move twice, shoot twice or move and shoot once.  This would give the French something to think about when they commit to shooting - fire twice and they won't be able to move.  For the Germans, move twice and they won't be able to shoot.  If shooting with two actions there would be a one step advantage.

Alternatively, it might be better to completely start from scratch again.  Whichever way I go, I will take a little break for some subconscious reflection.

Apologies for my navel gazing.

Bavarian Attack on the French Left at Froeschwiller - FPW Hex Game, 1st Test

My preferred set of rules for the Franco-Prussian Wars is They Died for Glory.  However, the mechanisms do not translate well to playing remote games via Zoom.  So, I bent some thought towards producing a serviceable set of rules for use on hexes.  See my last post, Thinking about FPW Hex Rules, for my musings on this subject.

I'll make some comments on the mechanisms as part of the game narrative. For those not interested in the mechanisms just read the comments with the photos.

Scenario
This game is based on the Bavarian attack on the French left flank at Froeschwiller, 6 August 1870.  Despite the French being in a perfectly defendable position on the heights around Froeschwiller, the Germans surprised the French first thing in the morning as they fetch water from the river.  The first attacks were developed by the Bavarian 2nd Corps, 4th Division on the French left.  

In the battle. the action started at 10.30am when the Bavarians advanced out into the open.  They were repelled by the well positioned defenders and after two hours were ordered to break off the attack.

So, this game should prove a very tough job for the Germans.

The scenario was lifted from the rulebook, They Died for Glory.  The attacking Bavarians consisted of 12 infantry units; the French were defending with 11 line infantry, two guns and a mitrailleuse - one unit less for each than in the published scenario.

The Deployment

The French line occupying the wooded heights.

The Bavarians about to advance from the opposite woods.

The French in a battle line whilst the Bavarians have deployed into open order and open order attack columns.

The Battle

If the rules work in a half way decent and historical fashion, the Bavarians should find it very hard to close with the French who enjoy cover, height and small arms range advantages.

As the Bavarians step out of the woods, French gunners open up at long range.  Forcing a battalion to take a disruption point (I'm still trying to think of a better name) and go prone.

Once an infantry unit takes a third disruption point (DP) it is destroyed.  The second DP can be rallied off but never the first.  So, once some disruption has occurred it sticks.  A DP is considered a disadvantage for the owning unit when shooting and assaulting.

The Bavarians advancing towards the French enter artillery and mitrailleuse range.

Bavarians make their approach in open order.

Inevitably the Germans enter the range of the French chassepot rifles.

Two French units fired.  Luck does play a part.  Both the attacker (shooter) and defender (target) roll 1d3.  The attacker's result moves up the results ladder, the defender's moves down.  In short, there is a potential net advantage to the attacker of between +2 and -2.  In the above situation the French had a minus 1 on their luck.  This disadvantage, along with the other disadvantages of long range and a target in open order, meant that the Bavarian unit suffered no harm.

The Bavarian advance is becoming disjointed as troops are forced to go prone; slowing their progress.

However, the French were now in range of the German rifles.  Concentrating their fire on the mitrailleuse forced the crew to abandon their guns.

Some sharpshooting by a battalion of jagers produced the same result on one of the artillery batteries.

With the Bavarian advance slowing on their left, they had yet to move into effective range of the chassepot.   Seeking to concentrate their attack, the Germans drifted their line towards the French left.

The French line opening up from the cover of the wooded heights.

Now that the Bavarian line had drifted to the left, two French units on the right flank reformed into attack column in preparation to harass the exposed German flank.

Continuing the advance towards the French left, all sides exchanged fire.  With the air thick with lead, the Bavarians in the open were taking the more significant damage.

A French battery hits with devastating effect.
Now you see it...

... now you don't!

Belatedly, artillery arrives to support the Bavarian attack.

Moving to engage, several charges begin to develop.

However, the defending infantry let loose with withering volleys.  The Bavarian troops, reeling from the rifle fire are forced to recoil and many go prone.  One unit disperses under the lead storm.

On the French right, the commander launches a counter attack against the Bavarian left.

Units in melee fight.  However, certain units may also provide support to those fighting.  Units supporting an attack act as advantages which climb the result up the results ladder.  Units supporting the defenders act as disadvantages which bring result down the ladder.  In the above, the attacker on the flank had two supporting units.  The defender had one supporting unit.  So, a net climb of plus 1.  The flank attack added another advantage.

With the attackers' advantages mounting, the Bavarian unit disintegrated.  The supporting unit was spooked sufficiently to retire out of harms way.

The risk of giving support in a melee is that the supporters may suffer a consequence.

Whilst the French are seeking to turn the Bavarian left flank, the Germans were massing on the French left.

Undeterred by the first faltering assault, the Bavarians launched themselves up the slopes again.

From top to bottom:  French volley fire failed to stop the charge into contact; however, the dual attack suffered from a volume of fire that forced them prone and did much to significantly disrupt them; on the French flank, the charges went in without defending fire.

The bottom attackers suffered no defending fire as the French had been forced prone by previous Bavarian shooting.  Because they were prone they had to stand up when charged.  This meant that they could not shoot.

The supported flank attack went in...

The fighting was savage but the Bavarian advantages were too much and the French unit routed.

The other melee was closer.  However, luck and courage deserted the French...

... taking two disruption points the French were forced to retreat, allowing more Bavarians onto the hill.

However, the French quickly responded by a swift charge.

The attack against the German unit's rear led to the troops dispersing in panic.

The French now sought to move fresh units from the right to the left to try and stall any further Bavarian advances.

The Bavarians with a foothold on the heights may now be in a position to turn the French left at Froeschwiller.  However, the hidden truth was that most of the attackers were now carrying disruption points while many of the French line units were still fresh.

I was running out of playing time.  So, I called it a draw.  The Bavarians had done better than their historical counterparts.  However, it had come at a cost.

Afterthoughts

That was an enjoyable solo game. 

The Bavarians did a little better than history but they did require luck being on their side at crucial moments.

I was generally happy with the way the rules worked.  Not perfect but something to build on.  Nonetheless, the result of the game was plausible and therefore pleasing in itself.

The idea of variable results based climbing up and down a results table depending on the number of advantages and disadvantages seemed to work well and is now open to further reflection.  What I expected was the Bavarians to have a hard time closing against the chassepot armed French in a defendable position, and they did.  A couple of things that immediately arose was that I may revise the luck to an opposed dice roll so if the attacker wins they gain one advantage (step up), if the target wins then one disadvantage (step down) and a draw is no movement on the ladder.  Likewise, with unit grades I may move to a comparison - similar equals no movement on the ladder; attacker with better grade is one step up; defender with better grade is one step down.  I'll need to play around with this and may need to tweak the ladders.

Regardless of the rules, it was nice getting the FPW collection out again.