Didz
Posts: 728
Joined: 10/2/2001
From: UK
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Had a classic situation in my last battle. The French had conducted their usual invasion of Austria at the start of the 1805 campaign but this time I actually managed to engineer a battle with favourable numbers and even some Russian Allies. Though for some reason the Russian Corps spent the entire battle marching back and forth along the edge of the map and never joined the battle at all.
Anyway, I drew my Austrian Army up with its left resting on a fortress and its right on a river, and town, with heights in the centre occupied by my artillery. The French Army seemed to be cavalry and artillery heavy with far too little infantry.
They attempted to take the heights with massed cavalry charges supported by artillery and basically got creamed. My Austrian Heavy Cavalry drove the remnants off the slope and captured most of their now unprotected artillery. They then attempted an infantry assault on the left of my line near the fortress, matching French columns against Austrian Infantry in line which were also delpoyed behind a stream and supported by artillery (some recently captured) lobbing shells from the heights to their left and infantry firing volleys into their right from the fortress.
The result was predictable and soon the French infantry were running to join their cavalry. Nearly, 4,000 casualties from a single successful cavalry charge, captured Eagles, Marshal Ney was killed trying to rally his men.
The bulk of the French were now huddled in the top right corner of the map trying to fight each other to get off the battlefield. The unlucky few had run headlong into the Austrian 1st Army which had only just arrived and happened to be advancing across the same bridges that the French were trying to escape over.
A huge jam of struggling Frenchmen were trapped on my side of the river and my artillery were killing hundreds of them, the Infantry and Artillery of the 1st Army were mowing down those units nearest the bridge in droves and my cavalry were charging those at the back of the queue killing and capturng 1,000's. It looked as if the bulk of the French army was going to cease to exist after this battle. Whole regiments began throwing in the towel, in fact my biggest problem was getting the POW's out of the log jam round the bridge so that I could charge the rest.
In desperation the French sent in the Imperial Guard (1 infantry Regiment) all on its own with no support whatsoever. It advanced not towards my battleline but attempted to circumvent the left of my line and pass behind the fortress guarding it. I moved an infantry battalion out of the fortress to intercept and a line on line musketry battle commenced.
Realising that my infantry were getting the worst of the casualties I then moved two heavy cavalry regiments forward, one against each flank of the Imperial Guard forcing them to form square and a heavy artillery battery forward to add its fire power from the rear.
The Guard began getting very agitated at this point flicking back and forth between Line formation and Square but not really sure which to settle upon. Nevertheless, the artillery and infantry continued firing into them killing hundred whilst the cavalry hovered menacingly waiting for the inevitable signs of disorder before delivering the 'coupe de gras'. I was already beginning to plan where to hang the Imperial Eagle when 'programmer intervention' announced that my army was 'wavering' wherupon the entire of my army including the newly arrived units of the 1st Army began randomly routing from the field.
At that point I pulled the power lead out of my PC in disgust and went to bed.
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Didz
Fortis balore et armis
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