Scenario - Mockern, 16 Oct 1813

[Trailape]

Hi Guys
Full AAR now posted here:
http://trailape.blogspot.com.au/2012/07 ... n-aar.html
Cheers

[shadowdragon]

Hi Guys
Full AAR now posted here:
http://trailape.blogspot.com.au/2012/07 ... n-aar.html
Cheers

Wow! That looks impressive - great table and miniatures. Also, it looks and the AAR reads like a real Napoleonic Corps (or battlefield sector) battle.

I will look at re-playing when I get back home (I'm away from family related reasons for awhile). It may be that the scenario is slanted towards the French - all that damnable artillery. It might be that this is historical, but from a playing experience ways to help the Prussians-Russians would be to:

1) Add some artillery (a small 6pdr field battery) to the Russian Corps. There was some available in the Wing's artillery reserve.
2) Down-grade some of the French infantry. I've stuck to the Napoleon's Battles ratings, but one could down-grade a couple more units to "conscript".

Of course, it could be that better coordination between the Prussian and Russian corps, and merely screening Mockern might have done the trick....but that would be very Napoleonic problem wouldn't it?

[Trailape]

Hi Guys
Full AAR now posted here:
http://trailape.blogspot.com.au/2012/07 ... n-aar.html
Cheers

Wow! That looks impressive - great table and miniatures. Also, it looks and the AAR reads like a real Napoleonic Corps (or battlefield sector) battle.

I will look at re-playing when I get back home (I'm away from family related reasons for awhile). It may be that the scenario is slanted towards the French - all that damnable artillery. It might be that this is historical, but from a playing experience ways to help the Prussians-Russians would be to:

1) Add some artillery (a small 6pdr field battery) to the Russian Corps. There was some available in the Wing's artillery reserve.
2) Down-grade some of the French infantry. I've stuck to the Napoleon's Battles ratings, but one could down-grade a couple more units to "conscript".

Of course, it could be that better coordination between the Prussian and Russian corps, and merely screening Mockern might have done the trick....but that would be very Napoleonic problem wouldn't it?

I think the current ratings are on the money.
The lack of co-ordination on the day of the refight I think was the real 'undoing' for the allies,..

[deadtorius]

Were you the only player with experience with the rules?
Like all rule sets its a learning from trial and error (more so on the error part I am sure) to get a handle on how to properly play the game. Took me 5 games to finally figure out how to beat the Frenchies, then I had a nice roll of successes.

Perhaps if you tried again the allies might make a better show of it, after all hindsight is 20/20

[Crabbie1]

There was two of us who had played before, myself and trailape. I got to focused on the flank and didnt really help out to much with the Prussians. But saying that I am still not quite sure about the unit sizes I have based my Prussians on one of the corps at Mockern. But over all a good game. But I have learnt not to lend army's as that's twice my poor soliders have been shot up by other people using them

[shadowdragon]

There was two of us who had played before, myself and trailape. I got to focused on the flank and didnt really help out to much with the Prussians. But saying that I am still not quite sure about the unit sizes I have based my Prussians on one of the corps at Mockern. But over all a good game. But I have learnt not to lend army's as that's twice my poor soliders have been shot up by other people using them

With respect to unit sizes, there were challenges "fitting" Yorck's corps to a FoG order of battle. In particular, I wanted to ensure that each infantry or mixed "division" (i.e. brigades) had at least 2 infantry units in accordance with FoG rules. When you consider the infantry strengths of the "divisions":

Advance Guard: 4169
1st Brigade: 2970
2nd Brigade: 3134
7th Brigade: 3662
8th Brigade: 3083

At 55 troops per figure the best one can do is 2 small units per "division". The next part is to figure out unit type, which is difficult due to battalions being taken from various regiments in the brigades and attached to the advance guard. The princple I used was to first figure the number of FoG bases for each type for the whole corps, combine these bases into units and then assign to the "divisions" giving the best fit to the actual troops in the "divisions". I did this to avoid "biasing" the results which can sometimes happen when "rounding off" within a division.

Of course, if one uses a different approach with a lower troop-to-figure ratio it's possible to get a better fidelity to the actual ORBAT, but that, of course, means an even bigger battle. There is no one right approach.

I hope that helps understand how I came up with the unit sizes. Happy to answer any questions about specific units if you have them but it might take a couple of weeks since I'm currently not at home and don't have access to the spreadsheet I used for my calculations.

[Crabbie1]

Yea I understand the Prussians are painful to fit into the standard org due their organization. I am have worked it out a bit diffrent to you. I am sorry if I sounded rude that was not my intent just have diffrent ways. As said was happy with the game and the Prussians are good troops just need diffrent handling.

Thanks for the response

Stanley

[shadowdragon]

Yea I understand the Prussians are painful to fit into the standard org due their organization. I am have worked it out a bit diffrent to you. I am sorry if I sounded rude that was not my intent just have diffrent ways. As said was happy with the game and the Prussians are good troops just need diffrent handling.

Thanks for the response

Stanley

Not rude at all. I just took it as an opportunity to explain in a little more detail my rationale. I would be curious, if you've worked out Yorck's corps, to see what you've come up with. Always interesting to see different ways.

[Crabbie1]

Ok no worries I will complete the complete corp and send it to you I have done two Div with a Div of the Cav Rev and Heavy arty. I have worked it out by unit not by total number of troops in a Bde. I have combined some units together. Will send when I have finished.

[bahdahbum]

Revised map for a 9' X 5' table.

Intended for 15 or 28 mm ?

Nice work

[shadowdragon]

Revised map for a 9' X 5' table.

Intended for 15 or 28 mm ?

Nice work

15/18 mmm

Thanks.

[bahdahbum]

By the way ( it is perhaps somewhere in the text ) how did you consider the river ?

[shadowdragon]

By the way ( it is perhaps somewhere in the text ) how did you consider the river ?

For this scenario treat the river (the wide strip) as if a "6" had been rolled (i.e., cannot be crossed except at a bridge or ford). For the stream (the skinny blue strip) roll as normal for a stream less than 1 MU wide (i.e., subtract 2 from the roll so that 1-3 = no effect, 4-5 = need to pass a CMT to cross and 6 = need to have a commander and pass a CMT to cross). Of course, you can always just choose which category you'd prefer.

I'd be curious what Trailape did in their game.

[shadowdragon]

I'm developing some more Leipzig scenarios and in doing so I noticed I made a mistake with the 4th Heavy Cavalry division. One brigades was detached to the IV Corps not the VI Corps! So I've subtracted one small dragoon unit from the above French order of battle. I've also re-configured the cavalry divisions so that there are still two divisions. Instead of a combined 5th/6th light cavalry and 4 heavy cavalry divisions, they are now the 5th light cavalry and combined 6th light/4th heavy cavalry divisions.

[bahdahbum]

Hy,

The scen as it is designed seems escellent and I will play it with friends at a demo on the 19th and 20th january during a French convention near Lille .

But I was wondering : where is the russian 10th corps .... I lokked trough my books and the only mention of the russian forces was : Langeron's command . So I looked at Napoleon's Battle ORBAT . The Xth corps does not appear as a separate reinforcement/ Langeron is stated as arriving with his wing command . I looked at the big Leipzig game and it seemed that the Xth division arrived with the IXth . So I started on internet and it seems to me that the scen is missing one russian division ...

From the sites it seems that the Xth division arrived with the IXth and Korff's cavalry corps . Otherwise it seems never to arrive latter .From one map only did I find the Xth corps deployed between the IXth russian corps and the prussians . But I might be wrong but found no other iformation . The scenario is still very balanced and good The russians were a bit slow to act so perhaps they did not really use both corps . I will still play the scen as it is now .

http://www.rafaelpardoalmudi.com/NBmockern_1.html

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.airm ... igbattle12

[shadowdragon]

Hy,

The scen as it is designed seems escellent and I will play it with friends at a demo on the 19th and 20th january during a French convention near Lille .

But I was wondering : where is the russian 10th corps .... I lokked trough my books and the only mention of the russian forces was : Langeron's command . So I looked at Napoleon's Battle ORBAT . The Xth corps does not appear as a separate reinforcement/ Langeron is stated as arriving with his wing command . I looked at the big Leipzig game and it seemed that the Xth division arrived with the IXth . So I started on internet and it seems to me that the scen is missing one russian division ...

From the sites it seems that the Xth division arrived with the IXth and Korff's cavalry corps . Otherwise it seems never to arrive latter .From one map only did I find the Xth corps deployed between the IXth russian corps and the prussians . But I might be wrong but found no other iformation . The scenario is still very balanced and good The russians were a bit slow to act so perhaps they did not really use both corps . I will still play the scen as it is now .

http://www.rafaelpardoalmudi.com/NBmockern_1.html

http://www.napolun.com/mirror/web2.airm ... igbattle12

I've sort of cheated on the strengths of the Russian infantry divisions. The strengths of the four divisions of IX and X Corps are about 3,000 each (6 bases) which does not allow one to form a legal FoG division. So both corps together would only have 24 bases. I've used 8 bases for 2 divisions or 16 bases in total, which is less than the 24 bases of both corps but more than the 12 bases of IX Corps.

Early in the battle Langeron thought he was facing Napoleon. It's hard to replicate that if a "Langeron" player has 24 bases knows he's initially facing only Dombrowski's 4 bases. "Langeron's" infantry is still equal to the French player's on that wing once Delmas arrives with another 12 bases - 16 bases vs 16 bases. Seems balanced when there's a chance Delmas might arrive late. However, if the Russian player is weak (inexperienced) I would certainly consider adding an extra small Russian infantry BG to one or both divisions. If both "divisions" have 12 bases (8 line and 4 light infantry each) then each FoG division would be the combined divisions of either the IX or X Corps.

[bahdahbum]

Now I understand better . But there is still a lot of russian artillery missing but I can make without it !

The problem being is that in the records there is not that much about what the russians did there .... the german sources are plenty about ...Yock's part ...the French about their part ....

[shadowdragon]

Now I understand better . But there is still a lot of russian artillery missing but I can make without it !

The problem being is that in the records there is not that much about what the russians did there .... the german sources are plenty about ...Yock's part ...the French about their part ....

According to Nafziger, the Advance Guard and IX Corps together have only 24 guns while the X Corps has 79 guns. Advance Guard, IX and X corps would have 103 guns in total for just 12,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry. Rather a lot and hard to fit into legal FoG divisions. I really doubt that the Russians actually deployed that much artillery at Mockern. If they did, I can't see how Dombrowski could have held out for very long.

Anyway, the key thing is to keep the focus of the scenario on the Prussian-French battle. The Russian vs. Poles and French should be a flank side show. Within reason, I've kept to the order of battles in the Napoleon's Battle scenario on the assumption that it was more or less balanced. You can always justify the troops not being committed of other enemy troops in the vicinity....and, in actuality, there were.

[shadowdragon]

Now I understand better . But there is still a lot of russian artillery missing but I can make without it !

The problem being is that in the records there is not that much about what the russians did there .... the german sources are plenty about ...Yock's part ...the French about their part ....

You got me thinking about the "Napoleon's Battles" scenario from their Red Book module. So I went back and checked and it would seem that there's an error in the "indentation" of their Allied order of battle. The indentation is such that it looks like X Corps isn't part of Langeron's command. Checking the complete battle arrival times doesn't have X corps anywhere. It would appear that this is a mistake and sure enough checking on line I found this:

http://reality.sgiweb.org/suchyta/napol ... errata.htm

Checking down the page to the Red Module errata shows that X Corps is part of the "WC" command (i.e., when the code "WC" is used in a scenario it means Langeron, I Res Cavalry, IX and X corps). I will modify the scenario so that Langeron's Wing is an infantry "corps" with 2 infantry "divisions" each representing the combined divisions of one of the two infantry corps and a cavalry "division" for I Cavalry Corps.

1 Infantry Division (X Corps) - Kapzevich (competent)
1 small average drilled musketeer
1 small average conscript musketeer
1 small average veteran jager
1 large average drilled medium artillery
1 heavy artillery attachment (for the artillery)
1 medium artillery attachment (for the infantry)

1 Division (IX Corps) - Olsufiev (competent)
1 small average drilled musketeer
1 small average conscript musketeer
1 small average drilled jager
1 small average drilled heavy artillery (instead of average veteran)
1 cavalry attachment

1 cavalry division - Korff (competent)
1 large average drilled dragoon
1 small average drilled jager zu Pferde
2 small cossack
1 small average drilled horse artillery

There's a total of 9 artillery bases. According to Nafziger's order of battle there should probably be 12 or 13 bases but if one assumes that the 3 of the X Corps heavy position batteries (36 guns or about 4 bases) were kept in reserve or didn't make it to the battle on the 16th then the 9 bases are about right.

"IX Corps" is an off-table "reserve" division and must be rolled for activation.

The Allied points are 1820 with the above modification (compared to 1818 which I had before). The Russians get more artillery and infantry but I've reduced the Russian "command". The cavalry have one fewer bases (19 vs 20...according to Nafziger's strength there should be 19.4 bases at 165 troopers per base) and have been reconfigured into a large dragoon unit and a cavalry attachment instead of 2 small dragoon units.

[bahdahbum]

the Advance Guard and IX Corps together have only 24 guns while the X Corps has 79 guns

I would guess , most of the artillery was a kind of "wing" reserve and that Langeron who also had autorithy on Sacken and St Priest kept part in reserve in casean ennemy appeared on the flank .