MOLLWITZ - The Way Ahead

[Pre-Cabinette Archives c.2022]

In the last MOLLWITZ post I described the inspiration, and setting up the table, for a planned refight of the game as featured in Charles Grant's book 'The War Game'.  Then calamity of calamities my opponent pulled out on the eve of the game with eye troubles - I'm please to say he has now fully recovered.

So, what next?  I asked a few friends if they could fill in but it was too short notice for them to rearrange their time.  Not wanting to pack everything away unplayed, I contacted some fellow bloggers to see if they would be interested in playing by email, and they said yes!  HURRAH!

David of 'Miniature Minions' took on the mantle of General Neipperg in command of the Austrian army, and Matthew of 'The Hinton Spieler' agreed to command the 'Prussians' as Frederick II, albeit David adopted his own soubriquet.  A quick check with the wife and I had permission to monopolise the dining room table for the next week or so to run the game, running a game with one player in the US and another in NZ, time-zones were always going to be a problem.

To help the players, I drew up a spreadsheet for order and created a PowerPoint Battle-map that I hoped would give a better overview of the action than the photos I planned to take - Austrians at the top and Prussian at the bottom.

The colours of the unit symbols are linked to their uniforms to help identification, and the unit names were listed in the plan in the last post, but copied in here for convenience.

The rules for this game were 'Charge' by Brigadier Peter Young, albeit modified slightly be me.  The biggest change is the way orders are given to units.  In 'Charge', every unit has an order written for it every turn; I changed this to orders remaining in force until changed and limited the number of orders that could be written in any turn to the number of ADCs[1] accompanying the general.  Orders sent to units with 30" would arrive immediately, if further away a messenger figure would be dispatched (moving 30" per turn) and the orders would take effect in the turn he arrived.  

As I was going to interpret the orders written during the game, I request each player to write an order of the day outlining their scheme of manoeuvre, which they did.  First von Neipperg (aka von Hohendavid) ...

... and then King Frederick II.

With both players clearly entering into the spirit of the thing, and orders submitted by email for the first turn (all units start the game with orders) ...

Orders Received for Turn 01

... all was looking good and it was time to 'open the ball', and immediately the Austrian cavalry surged forward with murderous intent seeking to exploit their advantage in the arme blanche.

The Prussians on their side of the table had foreseen this and had already ordered their cavalry to shelter behind the infantry and let the irresistible(?) waves of Austrian cavalry break themselves upon the immovable(?) rock of Prussian foot.

This left a light cavalry action between both sides' hussars as the only cavalry clash in the offing, with Austrians having a two-to-one advantage.

At the other end of the line, both sides infantry advanced, the Austrians to occupy Mollwitz and Gruningen ...

... and the Prussians to drive them out.

In the centre the Prussian infantry and guns had formed a formidable line.

So, with the armies in motion and about to engage ...

... and the positions updated on the map ...

... I'll end this post here on a cliffhanger awaiting orders for Turn 2.

Next Update

This will come soon, but I am still undecided on how much detail I should include; comments on readers' preference for either a blow-by-blow account or brisk outline of the flow of battle would be very welcome.

Notes:

[1.]  ADCs can also be used to rally units, taking command and calling some men back to the colours (i.e. recovering some losses).  Especially useful if a unit has lost all its officers and become unable to obey any orders.  ADCs, once expended like this may not be recalled and thus the number of orders a general can issue is permanently reduced.