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Saturday, October 28, 2006

The dispensible can be indespensable

STEVE PETRICK WRITES: Once more hearkening back to incidents in miniatures (during the wars of Napoleon) I have this little tidbit.

At one point, the allied army I was part of was disposed in five corps. Mine was the second from the left. Part of my sector was a small hill to my front. The Army Commander directed that I outpost the hill, to delay the French advance in my sector.

I asked how long he wanted me to hold the hill, to which he responded that it did not matter, the position was untenable, it was just to force a short deployment by the French to buy a little time. My forces were virtually entirely made up Russians. I was, once more, not allocated any guns, but was given two squadrons of the Czarina Guard Armored Cuirrassiers. I was also allocated some engineering effort, and one regiment of Grenadiers. After that, I was on my own.

With no specific time element on when the hill should be surrendered, I placed all of my engineering effort to fortifying it, and then garrisoned the hill with the Grenadiers.

The Hill was, in the opinion of my Army commander, dispensable. Utterly non-important to the battle.

Then disaster struck.

The Corps to my left collapsed, nearly completely routing from the field. A few brave regiments and battalions continued to fight, but there was nothing they could do in the sea of French forces swarming around them.

Suddenly, the dispensable hill became absolutely indispensable.

The only thing I could do to keep the French host from swarming down my now exposed left flank, and thus the flank of the entire army, was to "refuse" my left. The only way to do that was to have something to anchor the right of the refused flank on.

The anchor was that hill.

Nearly my whole corps wheeled to the left, forming a line at an angle from my original position to the hill.

From this point, my one corps now faced two French Corps. The French opened a heavy barrage on the hill, but within its heavy fortifications the stalwart regiment of Grenadiers grimly hung on, turning back several efforts by French infantry to storm the position.

Overcome with victory, the French Corps commander to my left kept trying to break my line "on the bounce", rather than organizing a solid attack. This enabled my badly stretched line to concentrate on one attack at a time, turning them back.

All I had left in reserve was the Czarina, and one small demi-brigade.

A new disaster then befell the Allied line.

The left flank of the corps to my right gave way, creating a gap between us. There had been a gap ever since I had wheeled my line to the left, but now it was impossibly broad.

Into this gap came two regiments of French Armored Cuirassiers. Given the choice of hitting the left of the corps to my right, and trying to hit the rear of my corps, they turned towards me. My little demi-brigade had hastily formed a line anchored on the hill when the gap opened, now it faced the Cuirassiers unsupported.

The sub-units of the Brigade were so small, that even if they formed square they would be crushed by the Cuirassiers, who would then break through to begin chewing up my extended line. There was no point in forming square. Victory was certain for the French.

The rules under which we played allowed Regular Russian units to only do one order per turn. If they formed square, they would not even be able to fire. So it was obvious I would leave them in line.

There was, however, an obscure order called "fall back three inches and fire", while it was two actions, it counted as one order. While the line troops executed this command, the light troops of each of the battalions were given two orders (allowed) to detach as skirmishers to the flanks of the expected French Charge.

Between the fire of the skirmishers, the volley fire of the battalions, and, finally the extra three inches the brigade had backed up, the Cuirassiers failed to make contact (the charge distance of the stands behind those shot down had to include the length of the stands removed, and with the added three inches, they wound up a quarter of an inch short of making melee contact).

The French now had two choices for the next turn. They could continue the charge and take another volley in their faces, which would kill enough of them that they would no longer count as a "column", or they could do something else. They opted for the latter: change formation (turning their backs) and ride away (I would not be able to fire if they did that).

But I anticipated that.

I ordered my valiant light infantry units to form as regular troops, and then charge the flanks of the French Cavalry.

It was not war, and it was not glorious. The French Cavalry easily sabered them down. The problem was that this turned their "ride away" into a "breakthrough", i.e., the charge by the light troops had delayed them long enough that the demi-brigade could fire a volley. But this volley would be into the BACKS (Full Enfilade) of the horsemen. So many saddles were emptied that the remnants of both regiments failed their morale and routed from the field.

Another crisis was passed.

The dispensable hill (which had kept the French Cavalry from avoiding the demi-brigade) continued to be indispensable.

At this juncture, the overall French Commander looked at the situation, and decided that, if the hill was taken, my position must surely collapse, and if my position gave way, the entire allied army could be swept from the field.

To accomplish this task, he released a battalion of the Old Guard. They came on. There was almost nothing left of my brave grenadiers on the hill, and the Old Guard almost effortlessly swept their remnants away. As they neared the crest of the hill, cries of "Vive la France" and "Vive la Emperor" rent the air, only to be drowned out by the thunder of hoof-beats coming over the rise and heading headlong into the Old Guard. My last reserve, the Czarina met the Old Guard head on. But the counter-charge had been carefully timed, hitting the Old Guard just as they had moved "beyond charge increment" (a charge has a bonus in melee if it goes a short distance, and loses this bonus if it goes further), while the Czarina maintained its Charge Bonus.

Old Guardsmen started to fall. They had numbers and were the best infantry there was, but the Czarina had charge increment, were cavalry, were armored, and were themselves Guardsmen. It was probable that the numbers of the Old Guard would prevail, but the unit would be chopped to pieces and no longer an effective unit. So the French Commander decided on a bold move. He issued the command to "Fall back out of Melee". If the Czarina pursued, it would lose charge increment also, if it did not, it would be exposed to French guns on the hill. The only problem with falling back out of melee is that the troops are required to make a Morale Check, but this was the Old Guard, so there was not much chance of that having a negative impact.

But even the Old Guard Routes on Snake-eyes.

Worse, the "Guard Recoil" was on the top of a hill, in full view of almost 60% of the French Army. Seeing the Old Guard route initiated a chain reaction of morale checks, shattering the cohesiveness of that force.

Without that dispensable little hill, the battle would have been lost. That dispensable little hill was indispensable to the Allied victory.