Opa "Guilford Courthouse" style...

Normally the Prague Wargamers take a break over the summer holidays. Many families in the Czech Republic have country cottages to which they go to during the weekends to  escape the heat in Prague (summers are short but very hot in Bohemia). So from start of June to September wargaming stops. One exception is my friend Petr, who always organizes a game and BBQ. In this instance last week we gamed a stripped down version of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse (or rather a game inspired by it)

 The British, with a smaller but higher quality force were faced by the Americans with a few lines of militia behind fences, in front of a second line of Continentals. To win the day, the British would have to punch through the militia and strike at the Continental main force behind.

 Militia (we can say North Carolina) in the first line awaiting the British attack.

 The British line infantry advancing to attack.

 British skirmish line in front duelling with American skirmishers and militia.

The rules we used were the first edition of British Grenadier. We do have the second edition, but forgot it on the day. We believe the game played more-or-less the same anyway, Disruption Points being one of the key game mechanics.

The game played out in a remarkably similar fashion to the actual battle. The British pushed aside the Militia in the centre, but were badly shaken on the right flank as disruption points mounted up, and then were charged by Continental dragoons.

American guns about to be overrun by British grenadiers.

The British open up the American Centre (a militia unit has just routed and disintegrated).

 

The American centre is forced wider open. At this point the American army was effectively split in two. What followed was the slow and grinding reduction of the American second line
  

British Cavalry flows through the gap and catches first two American infantry units in the flank, followed by a regiment of American dragoons. The American right flank is routed from the field for the cost of one British battalion (which charged forward unwisely only to be also caught in the flank by American cavalry).

 The British right flank in trouble. Already pushed back and close to routing.

At this stage we called the battle, and decided it was a marginal British victory. The American Centre and right flanks were gone.  They were fighting on gallantly on the left flank, and had forced the British brigade there to retreat (and captured the British guns). However, the British brigade which had stormed and wiped out the American centre were now turning on the American right flank, and had mostly fresh elite troops (including Grenadiers), so it was just a case of when the last American flank would collapse.

 The pile of American lead casualties.

The British casualties.

The game played well, and was a tactical victory for the British, though considering the number of British casualties suffered, this would have been a strategic victory for the Americans. As in the actual war, it was the attrition on British units (as successfully advocated by the American General Morgan), and not battles won, that decided the war in America's favour.

New sculpts and releases over at Orinoco Miniatures

Just to let you know that you can find news of many new releases in the pipeline over at my  Orinoco Miniatures Blog.

This includes new Spanish and Gran Colombian Infantry, along with a new range of flags (see image above).

I hope you like them :-)

Battle of Kolin, 1757

 Picture I took of the 250th Anniversary commemoration/reenactment back in 2007

Today, after returning from holiday in Italy, Mrs. Goose, the wee one and I took a spin out into the Bohemian countryside. After a few days of heatwave, and the previous heat in Italy, we were blessed with one day of mild weather. We spent most of the day out in a lovely town called Kutna Hora, which is about 70km east of Prague, two images of which I include below:

This really is a cracking little town, a virtually unspoilt mixture of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture, the jewel of which has to be Saint Barbora's Cathedral. Anyway, by way of return, we took a detour via Kolin so that I could take a few quick pictures of the battlefield. Now I will try to spend a full day out in Kolin in the near future, and do a proper walk and photo shoot of the battle site, so these are just some quick preliminary highlights.

The battle took place on a ridge running West to East along the edge of a plateau overlooking the Elbe valley/flood plains to the North. The two main points are the Prerovsky and Krechor hills, which fixed the axis of the Austrian Battle line, which are about 700 metres behind the village of Krechor (where the main battle monument and an old Swedish fortified camp from the 30 Years' war are located). The logic of the battle was straightforward, Frederick and his Prussian Army had Prague under siege after defeating the Austrian Army of Von Browne outside the city. The second Imperial Army under Marshall Daun were marching to it's relief, and ostensibly to manoeuvre the Prussians into an ambush (for Daun had pre-picked this ground for his battle the previous year).

The pictures above shows the view from the Monument, looking down over grain fields to the old Kaiser Strasse (which you can see in the middle distance above), up from which the main Prussian attack came. This is more or less how the field would have looked on the day of the battle. The fields and the old Swedish camp were full of Croatian Grenzers, giving the Prussians a hard time as they sought to close with the main Austrian line on the ridge behind.

The advantage of the Austrian position was that as the Prussians marched up the hill, all they could see was the line of the hill where the Croatian Grenzers were positioned. This of course was a false ridge. The main ridge lay further back, with nearly 700 meters of dead ground in between, where Daun placed the bulk of his line. One can speculate that he fooled the Prussians (32,000 strong) into attacking what they though was a weak force, being fully committed before realising they were walking straight into the main Austrian army (with nearly 60,000 troops)

 

You can still see the height of the ditch of the old Swedish fortified encampment above. This ditch runs for nearly half a kilometre west from the village of Krechor, and gave the Croatian Grenzers great cover. The main battle monument is at the Western end of the ditch.

Looking from the top of the old Swedish camp North-East, Krechor Village is to the right of the photograph.

 Above you can see the view from the main ridge North (taken from the road between Krechor and Chocenice), the dead ground in front is apparent. To the left of the second picture you can just see the top of the monument. None of the ground was visible to the Prussians until they passed the old Swedish Camp.

Above you can see the view towards the main ridge (Krechor Hill) and Austrian line (looking South). The Prussian attack would have gone in over the immediate foreground, after they had pushed back the Croatian light infantry.

In the three pictures above you can see the view towards the Austrian right flank on the hidden ridge. This is where the original Oak wood stood which anchored the Austrian flank behind the village of Krechor. Here is where the Austrians flank (under General Wied) was driven back in the late afternoon (4pm) by Prussian combined infantry and cavalry attacks (including those by Seydlitz), and pushed almost to the reverse slope of the ridge. After almost 3 hours of charge and counter charge, the Prussians in turn were driven back eventually by the Austrian Cavalry and especially Saxon Cavalry Regiments bent on revenge (the Prussians had occupied Saxony the previous autumn). This began the general retreat of the Prussian army.

 

The images above are looking West along the Austrian lines from there right flank. The Oak Wood would have stood roughly in the area of the first picture, where you can already see the beginning of the reverse slope.
 

The painting by Knotel above of the Leibgarde probably best captures the scene late in the day with thousands of cavalry milling around, and Prussians being attacked on all sides.

 For a better understanding of the battle I borrowed this map image from the Internet.

Above you can see the main monument to the battle, on top of the ditch of the old Swedish Camp.

Above the start of Krechor village, and the Church, through which the Prussian General Hulsen's battalions attacked.

For more information I can recommend Osprey Campaign book of the battle which you can buy here:  Kolin 1757: Osprey Campaign 91
This really gives the best account of the battle I've seen, apart from that by Christopher Duffy of course.

In the next post I'll have some pictures of the River Piave battlefields from the Italian front in World War 1.

Bloomsday

A bit off the path of my usual topics, but one couldn't let the day pass without raising a glass to Joyce's glorious and mythical summers day of 16th June 1904 as portrayed in Ulysses. Actually a rather fanciful re-invention by none other than Brian O'Nolan ( aka Miles na Gopaleen of "Third Policeman" fame) and Patrick Kavanagh ("On Raglan Road" etc.) who attempted to retrace the major scenes of the book in one day (essentially a glorified pub crawl). They ran out of steam half way as the stout got the better of them.

It still goes on in Dublin, and is a fabulous piece of nonsense with some good literature thrown in. Now it's a long way to walk from Prague to Ringsend, so a pint of the black stuff locally will have to suffice...

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”

New pictures of Spanish flank company "Greens" over on Orinoco Miniatures site

I just thought I would let you know that there are new pictures of the Greens for the new nit in the Orinoco Miniature range.

You can see the rest of the images here:
http://orinoco-miniatures.blogspot.cz/2013/06/new-pictures-of-spanish-flank-company.html

I hope you like them.

Prague floods

Apart from lovely architecture, fine beer, complicated languages, history and the attendant abundance of battlefields, the one thing Central Europe can really boast of is extreme weather. Winters are long and very cold, brief Springs and Autumns are pleasant while Summers (usually) are short and very warm. But over the last 15 years, the weather seems to be more like South-East Asia. So today we have a big flood emergency in Prague after more than 4 days of non-stop rain in Bohemia.

I took these photos at lunchtime today, about 300 metres from my apartment. Thankfully I had the foresight to live on a hill given the history of floods in Prague. So the metro and most of the bridges are closed, which makes commuting a non-starter. Hopefully a bit of normality by the morning.