Eckmuhl Campaign

The following begins my pictorial narrative of my 'one table campaign' based on the actions that kicked off the War of the Fifth Coalition in Bavaria and Austria, 1809. I gave notice of this project a couple of weeks back in my 'Shambattle on Steroids' posting. 

Here I'll start with the prep work - the map and the forces involved.  I'll add a few 'teaser' pics. Maybe.

Looking northwest from Landshut on the River Isar. 
To read the formation identification you might have to enlarge the picture.

The first thing to do was to create a map to fit my table.  What follows looked very promising...

The map as originally envisaged 

But when it came to the setting up, I found it impractical with my available terrain equipment.  So I was forced to compromise and simplify the thing right down.  Even then it left certain design features to be desired. Nevertheless the thing did provide for a very interesting campaign, full of incident. That the initiative kept changing hands throughout the action added to the excitement and suspense.

The map as I finally settled upon. It might have been better to 
have reoriented the map so that the Isar and the main
stretch of the Danube were nearer parallel to the table edges.

Brief Background:

Taking advantage of Napoleon's entanglements in Spain, Austria resolved upon war in April 1809, even without the hoped for help from Prussia. Since the debacle of 1805, the Austrian Empire had embarked upon a wholesale military reform, so it was a refurbished army that Archduke Charles led into Bavaria as the opening move of the campaign. Having good reason to anticipate hostilities, Napoleon issued instructions for his army's responses: to withdraw to a central position. Miscommunications of one sort or another, together with Austria's earlier than expected advance, caught the Grand Armee on the hop, with much of Marshal Davout's III Corps hovering around Regensburg (Ratisbon) in danger of being cut off from the main army.

Such - in very broad brush terms - was the situation as Napoleon finally arrived, late in the afternoon of 18 April, at Ingolstadt on the north side of the Danube, some 70-75km upstream from Regensburg.

The Armies:

I derived the following Order of Battle from that used in the Snappy Nappy 'Campaign in a day' posted in the 'Blunder on the Danube' blog - very entertaining read. Of course, the formations on a single table are very much scaled right back. However, I permitted rather more troops of all arms than I had for the Waterloo campaign back in April.  This went towards offsetting some of the drastic attritional effects of that project, which were further offset by recovering  some of the losses at the end of each 'day'.

As the Austrians were the aggressors at the outset of this campaign, we'll begin with their army.  Note that the the only distinctions within each arm are (a) between grenadiers versus all other infantry, and (b) cuirassiers versus all other cavalry.  The elite troops are to be found only in the Reserve Corps, and receive a bonus in combat.

Developments along the Abens stream.

Austria-Hungarian Army:

Commanding in Chief, Archduke Charles

I Army Corps: Graf Bellegarde (north bank of Danube, near Regensburg)

    4 line infantry, 1 jager, 1 freiwilliger, 2 uhlans, 2 gunners, 1 gun
III Army Corps: FML Hohenzollern-Hechingen (Rohr)
    2 German line infantry, 2 Hungarian line, 1 grenz, 2 hussars, 2 gunners, 1 gun
IV Army Corps: Rosenburg (Lanquaid)
    3 line infantry, 1 grenz, 1 jager, 2 hussars, 1 chevauleger, 2 gunners, 1 gun
V Army Corps: Archduke Ludwig (north of Pfaffenhausen)
    3 line infantry, 1 grenz, 1 jager, 2 hussars, 2 gunners, 1 gun
VI Army Corps: FML Hiller (Moosburg)
    6 line infantry (Hungarians), 1 grenz, 2 hussars, 1 chevauleger, 2 gunners, 1 gun
I Reserve Corps: Liechtenstein (Pfaffenhausen) 
    3 grenadiers, 3 cuirassiers, 2 gunners, 1 gun
II Reserve Corps: FML Kienmayer (Landshut)
    2 grenadiers, 2 cuirassiers, 2 gunners, 1 gun

Totals: 33 foot, 17 horse, 14 gunners, 8 commanders, 7 flags - with the flags, 79 figures

French IV and II Corps converge on Freising.

French and Allies: 

Commanding in Chief, Emperor Napoleon (Ingolstadt)

II Army Corps: Genl Oudinot (Au)

    6 infantry, 3 light horse, 2 gunners, 1 gun
III Army Corps (part): Marshal Davout (hex south of Regensburg)
    5 infantry, 3 light horse, 2 gunners, 1 gun
III Army Corps (part): Genl Morand (Feking)

    4 infantry, 3 cuirassiers, 2 gunners, 1 gun
IV Army Corps: Marshal Massena(Pfaffenhosen)
    8 infantry, 2 light horse, 2 heavy horse, 2 gunners, 1 gun
VII Army Corps: Marshal Lefebvre (Neustadt)
    5 infantry, 1 light horse, 1 dragoon, 2 gunner, 1 gun
Provisional Army Corps: Marshal Lannes (Vohburg)
    4 infantry, 1 light horse, 2 cuirassiers, 2 gunners, 1 gun
Wurttemberg Corps: Genl Vandamme (Ingolstadt)
    3 infantry, 2 light horse, 2 gunners, 1 gun

Totals: 35 foot, 20 horse, 14 gunners, 8 commanders, 7 flags - with the flags, 84 figures.

Note that the flags serve to identify the armies to which the formations belong, which I thought might not be sufficiently clear without them. The French flags don't show up nearly as well as the Austrian, but the presence of flags always gives the armies a bity of a lift anyhow.

First assault upon Regensburg,
defended by a small garrison of infantry.

Combat system:

I thought it well to repeat my combat system here. It is laid out in more detail in my 'Hundred Minutes' posting, though I have since changed the effect of 'sixes'.

To initiate a combat a formation 'enters' a hex occupied by an enemy formation. This entry, though nominal, counts as a move or part of a move. As such, moving to a grid area adjacent to the enemy is not sufficient to bring on a combat. If a formation exhausts its move upon reaching an adjacent enemy hex, it must wait until its next turn to attack, or for the enemy to do so it its turn.

All combats are contested; both sides roll.  The number of dice rolled is the sum of 
Figures - horse, foot, gunners and commanders, but not flags;
The arms represented - +1 for each arm: horse, foot, guns
Command - +1 for Napoleon and/or Davout present with the troops (yes, that means Davout gets counted twice). I seriously considered adding Archduke Charles to this, but it seems that a series of epileptic attacks impaired his command performance at this time.
Special - The Austrian reserve Corps being corps d'elite, they get one extra die in their combat rolls. Possibly the French III Corps ought to get the same, but the presence of Davout is enough, I think.

Fierce action around Teugen and Arnhofen.  
Should Regensburg fall, Davout's situation would become 
very perilous. He's the bald-headed cove at the left of 
the picture.

Example:
III Austrian Corps attacks part of III French Corps, under Genl Morand,  at Feking.  

The Austrians have commander, 5 infantry, 2 horse plus 2 gunners  = 10 figures.
All three arms are represented.  Added to the figures, that gives the Austrians 10+3 = 13 dice.
Morand has 5 infantry, 3 light horse, 2 gunners plus command = 11 figures
Three arms are represented gives the French 11+3 = 14 dice.

When all the dice are rolled, matching pip pairs are removed from the respective armies.  For example, the Austrians roll:
6,6,6,6,5,5,4,4,3,3,2,1,1.
and the French
6,4,4,4,3,3,3,2,2,2,1,1,1,1.
Removing matches 
6,6,6,5,5.
4,3,2,2,1,1. 
Now the hits are allocated as follows:
1 = artillery
2 = cavalry
3 = cavalry
4 = infantry
5 = infantry 
6 = infantry and possibly commander 
From the above, the French have lost all 5 of their infantry, and General Morand has three dice rolls to determine the effect of enemy fire.  A 'six' will mean KIA, or its equivalent (e.g. wounded sufficiently badly to take him out of the campaign).  Morand rolls, 2,5,6 so he is removed along with the 5 infantry figures. He can be replaced after 1 move.

The Austrians in their turn lose an infantry figure (4), both their cavalry (2,2,3 - a bit of overkill there), and both gunners.  As both sides lose 5 elements (excluding the command figure, who doesn't count for the overall win-lose result), the action is (so far) inconclusive. Were the battle to continue into the French turn - a counter-attack, say - then the Austrians, having neither horse nor gunners, will receive 5 dice for their infantry and commander, plus just 1 die for the sole infantry arm - 6 dice only. The equally battered French receive 5 dice for the 3 horse and 2 artillery, plus 2 for the two arms - 7 dice.

Austrian VI Corps win the race to Freising - the advantage 
of winning an initiative roll to get 2 moves in a row.

Movement:

If in a road march, column of route is represented by figures marching along the road in pairs. The column of most army corps will extend to 2 hexes, even 3 for a large corps. Corps commanders and flags are exempt from this restriction, though it might not be such a bad idea to include them! In this formation a Corps may march 2 hexes the turn. Cavalry on their own may move 3 along roads, 2 cross country.

This may imply that attacking 'off the march' will limit the troops available to those in the leading hex. Otherwise, the corps might wait until the tail of the column catches up before launching an attack. On the other hand, that might induce the enemy to attack the head of the column before the formation can be concentrated. This became quite a consideration early in the campaign.

Of course, the corps can always stay concentrated, and move just one hex the turn. When the enemy is close, that's not a bad option.
 
To be continued...