Half-Year Wrap Up and a New Book

Well it is that time again, time to look back on the year and review what has been achieved.

It has been a busy six months for me. Using the Analog Painting Challenge method of allocating points for each piece completed (5 for a foot figure, 10 for a mounted figure or piece of equipment and then adding my own factor of 10 for every hour spent scratch building) my points count for the six months stands at 10,700, my fifth biggest year since I started keeping records in 2014 - and the year is only half finished.

The lion's share of the work has been in scratch building where a total of 78 pieces have been completed - some small, some large, some very large. Three other projects have been undertaken - Austrian and Duchy of Warsaw Napoleonics, and the French Franco-Prussian War cavalry and generals. Two projects are waiting to be started - the Bavarian Franco-Prussian artillery (on order) and cavalry, and the French Revolutionary War plastic infantry that are waiting release form the Perrys.  

The weight that the scratch building component has on the statistics can be clearly seen below.

The game count is a little down on last year, largely because we haven't been able to make our weekday games work too well this year and I haven't been able to make any time for solo gaming either. The frequency of games is something to be corrected in the next six months.

What is next? Obviously the Bavarian FPW sinceartilkery  the order has already been placed, along with a few Duchy of Warsaw bits and six FPW lancers that are also enroute. The Revolutionary French will probably be released by year's end so they may make it into this annual count. I do have some plans for some more scratch building. While plans for these haven't quite settled yet, they are leaning strongly toward some structures suitable for the Franco-Prussian War which would be useful in a Franco-Prussian War campaign that I have an idea for. I also have a significant scenics painting project for a friend.

Will I beat my all time record of 13,060 points? Maybe, but I not making it a target, I would much rather beat my number of games played record.

Received today was the newly published 1866: At the End was the Battle of Königgrätz, Battle Tactics of the Austro-Prussian War, published by Zeughaus Verlag (available in both German and English editions).

Well researched and presented, it is a fabulous 220+ page book in a glossy A4 format, with many black & white and colour images. It is a scholarly work that covers in good detail the Army structures, the campaign, battles, battlefields, uniforms and detailed descriptions of the tactics and the way they contributed to the successes and failures of the war. The following are screenshots from the publisher.

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It is rare to find a study on this conflict that actually considers that the Austrian defeat was not solely attributable to the Prussian use of breach loading weapons, so for anyone with an interest in this era, this book is a must have. 

Out of the Ruins...

Today saw the completion of the fourth and last rural winter ruin. It is a fairly straightforward rectangular structure capable of fitting a T34 tank inside.

Then, despite it being 24°C and 95% relative humidity here today, it snowed...

Also, over the weekend the Austrian and Italian Navies from 1866 took to sea again. It was another bad day for the Italian Navy.

It Was a Bad Day for the Italian Navy...

On Sunday we played an ironclad game.

Seven Austrian ironclads and two wooden ships, took on six Italian ironclads and two wooden ships.

The Italian fleet before the shooting started

The Austrian fleet manoeuvred around a area of shallow water. On the port wing, two ironclads (Salamander and Erzerzog Ferdinand Max) and a wooden ship (Swartzenburg) steamed around the shoals. In the lead of the starboard wing were three ironclads (Prinz Eugen, Habsburg and Kaiser Max). To the rear were two ironclads (Drache, Juan de Austria) and a wooden ship (Kaiser).

The Italians steamed out in two groups on the starboard side were the ironclads Re di Portigallo, Principe di Carignano, Castelfidardo  and the wooden ship Gaeta. The port wing consisted of the ironclads Affaodatore, Ancona, Re d'Italia and the wooden ship Garibaldi.

The Italian Starboard wing was in action first, but found itself facing five Austrian ironclads and a wooden vessel. The Italians opened fire first at long ranges, but caused little or no damage.

The Austrian ships engaged and caused some damage, but when Habsburg rammed Re di Portigallo...

...she sent her straight to the bottom.

Castelfidardo then rammed Kaiser Max and while she did inflict considerable damage she failed to sink the Kaiser Max and suffered badly herself and lost her ram in the process.

Meanwhile the third Austrian command swung around another shoal to engage the other Italian wing. Drache swung to port but was rammed by Affondatore and sank.

Juan de Austria then headed for Ancona, ramming her midships and sending another Italian ship to the bottom. However, Juan de Austria was then caught in a crossfire from three Austrian ships and was sent to the depths herself.

The Italians sent Garibaldi to boost their collapsed starboard wing, but her wooden hull fared badly against the ironclads. Despite a desperate fight, she was soon lost. 

Only two Italian ships remained at this point - Affondore and Re d'Italia, both in reasonable condition, although the former was only slowly getting up to speed after her ramming of Drache.

The wooden ship  Kaiser took on Re d'Italia. She did some damage, but suffered more. However Kaiser was a big ship and could take the damage. She took a risk and steamed directly in front of the Italian ironclad and caught her in a bow rake, causing serious damage with a heavy broadside. Then Re d'Italia rammed Kaiser, but (just) failed to do enough to sink her.

In the process Re d'Italia broke off her ram. Kaiser fired again and just failed to sink the Italian. Meantime Affondore fired the killing shot on Kaiser, before the other Austrian ships despatched her.

Re d'Italia, the only surviving Italian vessel, limped away while the Austrian crews broke out the Schnapps!

It was a very bad day for the Italian Navy!

SMS Habsburg and SMS Prinz Eugen lead the victorious fleet back to Venice for victory celebrations (and repairs) 

Thanks to John (or Johann since he was playing an Austrian) for the additional photographs.

Ironclads in Action

Continuing my recent efforts to turn some rarely used collections out of the comfort of their storage boxes, I decided to get the 1866 Italian and Austrian Navies out onto the table for the first time in eleven years (although some of these models did masquerade as French warships in my alternate history of the French in Mexico).

I really had forgotten what great models these are, but one of the things that has kept them in their boxes has been the rules we have used. Since the 1990s we have used the Jackson Gamers "Ironclad Gunboat" rules (LINK) for our American Civil War ironclad games. They have really worked well for us, but Civil War ironclads had relatively small batteries (up to ten guns) whereas the ocean-going ships of 1866 had substantially bigger batteries of mixed types - SMS Kaiser carried 108 guns. Working out the damage potential of a broadside from a mix of rifled and smoothbore guns at varying ranges became a tedious task of counting how many guns could penetrate the armour and then calculating their effect, while separating out the guns that could not penetrate and calculating their effect separately.

So I decided to simplify the firing mechanics. Instead of calculating on an gun by gun basis I settled on three battery sizes - large, standard or small - and balanced out the blend of gun types and ranges by weighting those batteries with a higher proportion of rifled guns. The net result was to create a gunnery factor for each ship. That factor is compared to the armour rating of the target and then a dice result against an effect chart determines the damage done. I still like the original idea of a Critical or Lucky hit result that could see greater loss, damage to steering or even a magazine explosion, so I have retained them along with the movement, ramming and boarding rules.

So today we ran a game to test the changes. I set up a simple game with three ironclads and two wooden ships on each side. The Austrians had better armoured ships than the Italians, but the Italian ships were better armed. 

The Affondatore had rammed and sunk the KaiserMax, while Habsburg passed to Afondadore's stern.

Re d'Italia tries to force its way between Kaiser Max and Habsburg

The Austrian ironclad Prinz Eugen steams between Garibaldi snd Gaeta 

Habsburg and Prinz Eugen steaming forward

The Italian squadron

Affandatore

The game was a lot of fun and proved the effectiveness of the modifications.

Austro-Prussian War Game

Today we played a large Austro-Prussian War game.

The scenario was that an Austrian infantry corps, supported by a heavy cavalry division is in advance of the retreating Austrian army  when it encounters a Prussian force trying to intercept the retreat. The initial Prussian force is only a reinforced infantry division supported by a cavalry division, but another brigade will arrive during the game. 

The orders of battle are:

Austrian

First Infantry Corps

  1st Brigade (6 line infantry battalions, a jäger battalion, a field battery and a squadron of hussars)

  2nd Brigade (6 line infantry battalions, a jäger battalion, a field battery and a squadron of hussars)

  3rd Brigade (6 line infantry battalions, a jäger battalion, a field battery and a squadron of hussars)

  4th Brigade (6 line infantry battalions, a jäger battalion, a field battery and a squadron of hussars)

  5th Brigade (6 line infantry battalions, a jäger battalion, a field battery and a squadron of hussars)

  Corps Artillery (6 field batteries)

Heavy Cavalry Division

  1st Brigade (2 cuirassier regiments and a horse battery)

  2nd Brigade (2 dragoon regiments and a horse battery)

Prussian

Infantry Division

  1st Brigade (6 line infantry battalions)

  2nd Brigade (6 line infantry battalions)

  Divisional Artillery (3 Krupp batteries)

Infantry Division

  1st Brigade (6 line infantry battalions)

  2nd Brigade (3 line infantry battalions, 2 landwehr battalions, 1 jäger battalion)

  Divisional Artillery (3 Krupp batteries)

Reserve Artillery (2 12lb smoothbore and 4 Krupp batteries)

Cavalry Division

  1st Brigade (2 Dragoon regiments)

  2nd Brigade (1 uhlan and 1 cuirassier regiment, 1 horse battery)

In summary the Austrians can count 35 battalions to the Prussians 24. Each side has four cavalry regiments and 13 batteries.

As the game commences a heavy mist blankets the battlefield. The fog will lift and when it lifts is determined by rolling 1xd6 at the beginning of each turn. When the cumulative score of these die rolls equals 18 the fog lifts. Visibility is limited to 400mm on the table until the score reaches 12  when  the distance extends to 600mm.

Until forces come in sight of each other they appear on the table as a paper counter, each of which represents three battalions, a cavalry brigade or reserve artillery. The Austrians have six dummy counters, the Prussians two. When opposing counters come within visibility range of each other they must be declared as real or dummy. If both are real the units are placed on the table. If a real counter discovers a dummy, the real counter is left in play while the dummy is removed.

All counters must be deployed on the table at the beginning of the game and will move at a standard rate of 200mm regardless of the troop type until they are ruled visible, when they revert to normal movement rates.

The Prussian reinforcements of six battalions and three batteries will arrive on the central road by rolling a score of 4+ on turn six, a 3+ on turn seven or will arrive automatically on turn eight.

How the Game Ran

Both sides deployed their counters simultaneously. The Austrians deployed three infantry brigades on their left and two on the right with the cavalry and reserve artillery in the centre. The Prussians put two brigades on their right, the artillery in the centre and an infantry brigade and the cavalry division on the left.

The Austrians advanced boldly in the mist, but the mist was clearing quickly. By turn three the "mist score" exceeded 12 and large parts of the armies became visible. The Prussian artillery roared into action, but inflicted few casualties. 

Next turn the mist cleared completely. The Prussian infNtry on the right moved forward and engaged the Austrian regimental masses in a fire fight. On the opposite flank fhe Prussian dragoons charged into the Austrian infantry. One Austrian battalion as destroyed, but the other was only pushed back, while the dragoons were a spent force.

On the opposite flank the Prussuian attempt to disrupt the Austrian advance failed and three regimental masses charged forward. Despite horrendeous casualties the Austrians hit the Prussians, smashing one battalion and pushing another two back. 

 

But the Austrians had taken such dreadful losses that their whole front line was stalled in front of a Prussian gun mass. The Prussians scrambled to reconstruct their right flank, repelling a half hearted attack by a squadron of Austrian hussars.

Meanwhile on the other flank the Austrians took control of the wood from the Prussian jagers and pushed on towards the Prussian line on the ridge.

 

The Prussians managed to hold off the Austrian regimental masses, destroyng one completely. To try to gain some time the Austrian cuirassiers came forward.

The cuirassiers were easily repelled, but as they fell back the Austrian jagers burst out of the wood into the flank of a Prussian battalion. Suddenly the Prussian infantry on the left was in an awkward position, while a fresh Austrian regimental mass forced a gap by routing another Prussian battalion.

The two wings of the Prussian force were being forced apart. The end was inevitable on the left and it was not long coming - brigade morale collapsed and the Prussian infantry brigade disolved.

Fortunately the Prussian reinforcements arrived and in the face of them, and the massed Prussian guns, the Austrians halted.

On the extreme left the Prussian cavalry continied to tie down half an Austrian brigade, charging twice and forcing the Austrians back, but the could not break them.

On the Prussian right the Austrians finally managed to get their second line into position and their artillery forced the Prussian guns to abandon the ridge.

But numbers began to tell. Soon another Prussian brigade's morale failed and they were compelled to fall back with the remainder of the command. A short fire fight on the Prussian right brought the game to an end - the Prussians inflicted heavy casualties, but they had taken such a beating in earlier combats that their morale soon failed and they dispersed.

Only the reinforcements and the  artillery remain in the line. Having inflicted very heavy losses on the Austrians (of the 35 Austrian battalions 20 were shaken or seriously distrupted), the Prussians decided to quit the field.

We got a clear result in just under four hours - an unusually short time for us.