MOLLWITZ - Frederick's Nerve Cracks

The last post took the action up to the end of Turn 5 as shown below.

 

With the Austrian cavalry having shot its bolt, the Prussian army was now freed up to bring its advantage in infantry and artillery to bear.

Turn 6: and on the Austrian right, their cavalry is rallying back for another attempt on the Prussian left flank before them - a daunting task.

In an attempt to revitalise his cavalry wing, Neipperg, who had relocated to Mollwitz to better manage its defence ...

... dispatched one of his ADCs to rally the remnants of the Batthyányi dragoon regiment (DR) but the numbers rallied back to the colours proved too few to restore the regiment to an effective unit[1].

The reduction in his staff would, from now on, restrict Neipperg to no more than four orders per turn.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian Andrássy infantry regiment (IR) which had advanced to support the cavalry, and in return had been badly handled by the Prussian guns, was now charged by the II Max Josef IR.

The sorely tried Hungarians were unable to withstand this blow and, defeated in the mêlée, forced to rally back for two turns.

Beyond this, the Prussian infantry, a veritable wall of steel, continued its relentless advance towards the waiting Austrian line.

But not without cost, as the Austrian gunners frantically worked their pieces to bring down as many as possible before the inevitable clash.

Unfortunately for Maria Theresa's men, anything the Austrian artillery could do was being more than matched by their opposite numbers.

With the Erbprinz regiment closing in on Gruningen ...

... they now came within musketry of the garrison ensconced within the buildings.

Finally, at the end of the turn, the Prussian battery overrun by the Batthyányi dragoons, or what was left of it, finished rallying ready to rejoin the fight.

The overall situation at this point is shown below. 

Losses after Turn 6:  85 Austrian vs 95 Prussian.

Turn 7: and the newly rallied Prinz Karl DR wasted no time charging the Prussian infantry again.  This was not foolhardy recklessness as the II Max Josef IR were still rallying after defeating the Andrássy IR.

The supporting fire from I Max Josef IR struck the Prinz Karl dragoons on the way in, but supporting fire does not affect mêlée outcome and the dragoons won, albeit with minimal casualties on both sides. 

With Neipperg gripping the defence of Mollwitz, the II Arberg IR was ordered forward to attack the Prussian infantry rather than passively awaiting their attack.  This advance brought them with canister range of the opposing artillery battery, but for once luck favoured the Austrians as battery's dice let them down badly.

They were not so lucky when it came to the muskets of the I Diesbach IR.

Neipperg had clearly realising II Arberg IR would be outmatched had already ordered the I Arberg IR up in support. 

At the same time, the assault on Gruningen had stalled, and become a stationary firefight, as both Erbprinz regiments halted to unleash crushing volleys against the garrison who took heavy losses despite being in cover. 

By the end of the turn the infantry of both sides were starting to get to grips with each other. 

Losses after Turn 7:  104 Austrian vs 129 Prussian.

NB: with the Birkenfeld cuirassiers leaving the table, not to return, the higher casualty rate of the Prussians sees their deficit on the balance sheet to be growing again.

Turn 8: sees the all the Austrian cavalry now rallied (except the Prinz Karl DR) but having second thoughts about dashing themselves to pieces against the formidable array facing them.

The Austrian infantry around Mollwitz continue leading to lead a charmed life when it comes to Prussian canister fire, has the Prussian ammunition been sabotaged?

But if the Austrian cavalry have lost faith in cold steel, their infantry have not, and the II Arberg IR charge the I Diesbach IR. 

Honours were even in the mêlée, but the losses suffered from the Diesbach's defensive fire tipped the result in their favour and resulted in II Arberg going under-strength[2].

Will the II Deutschmeister regiment moving up in support of II Arberg face the same fate?

At the far end of the line the Erbprinz regiments remain locked in a firefight with the garrison of Gruningen, but the garrison is heavily outnumbered and losing badly.

All this leaves the battle-map little changed.

Losses after Turn 8:  136 Austrian vs 158 Prussian.

Despite II Arberg going under-strength the Austrians have maintained a healthy lead over the Prussians.

Turn 9: sees the concerns over possible sabotage of the Prussian artillery approach panic levels as one by one the Prussian artillery batteries underperform.  First, the guns of Field Battery nr.3 each needing 2+ to hit ...

... and then when the successful gun rolls for casualties!

The systematic nature of these failures is brought home when Field Battery nr.2 fires needing 3+ to hit.

By comparison the Austrian artillery seems to be working fine ... 

... and wreaking havoc on the Prussian infantry.

However, Prussian musketry remains effective as the Erbprinz infantry shreds the garrison of Gruningen (building shell removed to show interior and garrison) ...

... while also applying flanking fire to the advancing Austrian infantry.

With the pressure building on Gruningen and fight for Mollwitz in the balance ...

... the battle is clearly reaching a crisis point.  And the big question is will the Austrian cavalry use their superior mobility to intervene and tip fight the balance around Mollwitz in favour of the Austrians?

The battle-map showing this situation as the turn ends is shown below.

Losses after Turn 9:  143 Austrian vs 170 Prussian.

With losses still mounting and the Austrians still pulling further ahead ...

************Breaking News************

With the balance sheet increasingly negative and his artillery inexplicably ineffective Frederick II decides the day is lost and quits the field[3]!

The official explanation for his departure is that is that he has gone to seek reinforcements and a fresh supply of ammunition for the army.

Can this be the end?

Notes:

[1.]  ADCs may be sent to take command of units that are, or in danger of becoming, under-strength or un-officered.  On arrival they take command, and become part of, the unit and roll a D6 for how many figures rally back to the unit (halved if artillery and doubled if infantry).  Unfortunately for Neipperg, this ADC efforts only recovered 2 figures, not enough for the unit to recover from being under-strength.  

[2.]  Under-strength units are counted as lost so although remnants of the II Arberg IR is still on the table all the figures are added to the Austrian loss total.

[3.]  IIRC the real reason is that Matthew (playing Frederick II by email form New Zealand) had to go away for work for a couple of days and was unable to continue the game.

The Armada Has Landed!

Someone must've invented time travel and messed up the history books[1] as, with the English fleet prevented from sailing by a contrary wind, the Armada has put ashore a force under Don Alonso to try and take Portsmouth from the rear.  John, Lord Bawdesley has rounded up a scratch force and occupied a blocking position to save the fleet.  

The armies faced off against each other, the Spanish convinced their greater military experience and expertise would triumph, and the English confident that pluck and patriotism would be enough to see off the Dons.

The armies were broadly similar:

The English Army:

4x Battles with pike, bill, musket, arquebus and bow

2x squadrons of demi-lance with lance

2x troops of border staves (light horse)

2x medium guns (dug-in behind earthworks)

The Spanish Army:

1x large, veteran Tercio with pike, sword & buckler, musket and arquebus

3x Tercios with pike, musket and arquebus

2x squadrons of cuirassier (mercenary)

2x troops of petronels (arquebus) 

2x medium guns

  

The veteran Tercio should give the Spanish the edge, and they were clearly going to use it, aiming it at the English centre.

The English Battles facing them, while the equal of the non-veteran Tercios, were clearly up against it.

Both sides had deployed most of their horse at the eastern end of their lines: the English with both demi-lance squadrons and a troop of border horse; and the Spanish (shown below) with two troops of petronels and one of mercenary cuirassiers.

With deployment complete we rolled average dice to determine our generals' ratings.  The English ended up with two level-3 generals and one level-2 ...

John, Lord Bawdesley the English C-in-C (level-3)

 .. the Spanish did slightly worse with only one level-3 and two level-1 generals. 

Don Alonso the Spanish C-in-C (level-3) aghast at the quality of his subordinates!

Both C-in-C's took command of the main body in the centre, leaving their subordinates to command the wings.  And so, let the game begin.

Turn 1: and the English won the D6 roll-off for initiative, but chose to let the Spanish take the first activation[2].  The Spanish started quite conventionally, with their artillery bombarding the opposition, a move followed by the English.

After this, ineffective, preliminary bombardment the Spanish Tercios advanced at the run, first with their centre ...

... and then on their right towards Windmill Hill.

The English infantry contented themselves with advancing their foot to the forward slopes of the occupied hills.  Then they launched both demi-lance units on their right flank in a charge at the Spanish horse who, unfortunately had not, as eth English anticipated, advanced and the demi-lances' charge came up short.

To rub in their misfortune the Spanish petronel units reacted by firing at them but without effect.

Turn 2: the English won the initiative, and again ceded the first turn to the Spanish.  The Spanish led off by activating a petronel unit to fire again at the demi-lances before they could charge again.  But again, the firing dice did not live up to expectation.

The demi-lances were unamused and promptly charged the offending petronels, soundly beating them 2-0 (hits or 'wear' inflicted - red markers) in the mêlée but didn't break them.  The petronels forced to fall-back ('disengage') were unable to complete their recoil owing to the cuirassiers behind, taking another point of wear in consequence.  They also became weary (yellow marker) as they had the maximum level of wear ('stamina' level) they could take before having to test for routing ('break check').

The cavalry battle then petered out with nothing more of consequence occurring in this turn.  

But elsewhere, the Spanish centre continued their rush to engage the English infantry as quickly as possible, the English only responding with some ineffective long-range archery.

The Spanish had left one Tercio behind on their left flank, by the wood at the top-left of the above image.  This was intended as reserve cum flank guard until the intent of the English cavalry and rightmost Battle were clearer.  They are also safe from artillery fire behind a small hill.

Turn 3: and the English, having won the initiative, chose to take the first activation.  Their focus was on the cavalry fight on their right but this was a dice disaster with units failing activate (owing to wear taken) and suffering more wear from the Petronels' firing.

As ever the Spanish main effort was to get their Tercios into combat, the first to charge being the large, veteran Tercio.  To their discomfort the English held them to a draw!  The Spanish then invoked the 'Bad War' rule that allows another round of combat in the event of draw between pike-armed units, they also gain an advantage in a second round from their sword and buckler armed troops.  The second round saw the English shamefully defeated and forced to retreat.

The next Spanish Tercio didn't need two chances, defeating their opponents in the first round.  The English centre seemed to be falling apart with two battles in full retreat from the victorious Tercios.

On Windmill Hill, on the eastern flank, there was finally some good news for the English as their battle charged down the hill to defeat the Tercio on that flank, but not decisively.

An overview at the end of Turn 3 is shown below.

Turn 4: and the English with the initiative took the first activation, ordering their victorious Battle to try and finish off the defeated Tercio.

But once again the dice desert the English and the Tercio wins outright, driving off the English in a shameful retreat, although they managed to survive the 'Break Test'[3] from their excess wear (above their 'stamina' level, 4).

The cavalry fight remained indecisive, but the English moved their border stave troop towards their beleaguered centre, where the last two unengaged foot units were now closing on each other.

In the centre the victorious Tercios advanced at the run to get to grips with the defeated English Battles before they could reform and recover.

Turn 5: and the Spanish finally manage to win the initiative.  They put it to work in the cavalry combat, but the petronel shooting proves indecisive.  The English response sees a demi-lance squadron charge the petronels who evade leaving the demi-lances to collide with the cuirassiers in the Spanish second line.  Both units are broken in this combat as they both fail 'break tests'[4] - the cuirassiers, unlike the demi-lances, have for some reason not been posed as routing in the photo below.

This saw the eastern flank considerably thinned out, prompting the English to move the border horse back to support the remaining demi-lance squadron (see top-left of photo below).

Beyond the cavalry fight the latest clash between Tercio and Battle had again gone decisively in favour of the invaders - the English can be seen retreating in the top-left of the image below.

Elsewhere in the centre the veteran Tercio stumbled and was defeated and forced to disengage by the rallied English Battle.

On the western flank the Tercio followed up the retreating English Battle. 

Also seen in the above are the Spanish cuirassiers and border horse who skirmished ineffectively with each other throughout the battle, hence have been largely ignored in this report.

Turn 6: and the Spanish had the initiative which they put into immediate effect by rallying most of the wear from the veteran Tercio.  The English had assumed the opposing English Battle was about to be charged by this Tercio so had given it 'Assault' orders that would allow it to counter-charge.  This unfortunately meant the 'weary' English Battle was now committed to charge in against a nearly fresh veteran Tercio.  The result was disaster as the Battle broke and fled the field.

The Spanish then charged right flank Tercio up Windmill Hill and broke the Battle there as well.

Although the other two Battles survived this turn, one even defeating the opposing Tercio, and the demi-lances finally managed to destroy a petronel troop ...  ...

... it was too little, too late and the balance sheet of losses at the end of the turn showed the Spanish had scored a Decisive victory.

History had been turned on its head!

Notes:

[1.]  Actually, this was just a throw down game using John's Spanish and English renaissance armies to allow him to try out the Liber Militum Tercios rules which he had not played before.

[2.]  Activation of units alternates between the two side until all units with orders have been activated.  All units are assigned a face-down order card at the beginning of the turn, these are one of the following: 'Run', 'Assault', 'Shoot', 'Ready' or 'Resist'.

[3.]  If a unite receives more 'wear' (hits) than its 'stamina' level it must test to see if routs (removed from the table as lost).

[4.]  Actually, the cuirassiers are a 'mercenary' unit and thus never take break tests as they automatically leave the field if their wear ever exceeds their 'stamina' level.