Sunday 29 April 2018

The Battle of Liegnitz 1760 fought solo. Turn 2

Turn 2 

Initiative A9 / P2: The Austrian grenadiers of the reserve (almost immediately turning an Infantry Move in the Open card)  assault the Prussian line of guns and infantry. The assault is launched into a hail of deadly (opportunity fire) musketry and canister (which causes 5 UI loss and forces one unit into retreat) but the second line is in close support and the formation presses the attack. 

Meanwhile the columns of the first and second line continue to come up and begin to form into line. They even manage to deploy more artillery. This has been a nice flow of cards and initiative for the Austrians. 


Initiative A10 / P2: The grenadiers of the Austrian reserve now pour in their own fire which is effective but fails to break the Prussians at the summit of the slope (they lose 5 UI overal and the Brummers and PCGrIV are both shaken) but retaliatory (opportunity) fire routs another unit of Austrian grenadiers. Muffling rides to rally one of the grenadier units before it has retreated entirely out of the fray. The Austrian fusillade is renewed and the Prussians suffer further casualties (2 UI loss overall).

Prussian efficiency in musketry now begins to tell (they have more Musket Reload cards than the Austrians and draw two cards back to back (reloading all of the units that fired opportunity fire and standing ready to go again on the next) - they don't have the initiative to use the second card but its mere appearance is daunting for the Austrians.


Initiative P18 / A 4: The Prussians open up a devastating round of musketry and one of the Austrian grenadier units is shattered beyond recall. The Prussian guns add to the general carnage. 

On the Prussian left the cavalry under Krokow advances to cover the retreat of PCR2. 

On the right Zeuner advances his line towards Panten whilst the reserve moves troops up to fill the gap. 

The Prussian officers also do their stuff rallying (lost UI) the infantry which have been heavily engaged.


Initiative A8 / P5: The Austrians bring up the last of their artillery. Muller rallies another unit of grenadiers which, to keep the Prussians busy, wheels to face the oncoming infantry of Zeuner's command.
Initiative A11 / P0: The Austrians find few cards to aid with their assault by the grenadiers and use this free of reply initiative phase to hurry the columns of the first and second line into the action. 

The Grenadiers have done their stuff. They have prevented the Prussians interfering with the build up of Austrian troops north of Panten.

This is the last intiative phase of turn 2 - the next domino draw was double four and double one and this ended the turn. 

Here are three more shots of the action at the end of turn 2.

A general shot of the battle so far. The Austrian grenadiers of the reserve are keeping the Prussians occupied at the summit of the plateau. Zeuner's infantry (foreground) have descended the slopes and are about to launch an attack on Panten. Just north of Panten half the infantry of the 'first line' have deployed in readiness to launch an attack of their own whilst the rear units of the column race to occupy Panten before Zeuner's Prussians arrive. At the top of the picture the Austrians have massed cavalry to cover the deployment of the infantry of the 'second line' currently crossing the northern bridge.  

Infantry of the 'first line'. Four units with artillery support prepare to attack. The remainder of the command can be seen, in column, racing into Panten. In the distance, infantry of the 'second line' and cavalry are still arriving in the battle area.

Austrian cavalry of the van massing to cover the deployment of the 'second line'.

The Austrian view from behind their right- that windmill, the key to victory, looks a long way off  and well defended.

The view from behind the Austrian's extreme left. Elite squadrons of the reserve and a battery of guns are all that stand between Zeuner and Panten.

I have somehow managed to field quite a high percentage of the actual units that fought at Liegnitz. The unit of the Garde (3rd battalion of IR15) on the extreme left of the picture (with striped silver and white flag) were present on the day in 1760, as were IR1 at the other end of Zeuner's line (but with the other wing). The Kolowrat dragoons (painted as the elite squadron unit in blue, with a very nice red and white eagle crest on its flag) and the Erzerherzog Dragoons (elite squadrons in green) were also there. 
Back to the game. An AAR of Turn 3 will follow shortly.

2 comments:

BigLee said...

Fantastic stuff, I've really enjoyed this and the photos are really inspiring.

Der Alte Fritz said...

Great looking pictures and Battle report.