| Austerlitz - 2nd December, 1805
The following scenario has been developed by Bill Haggart. Background: This is a revision to the scenario found in the Volley & Bayonet rules for the Battle of Austerlitz. The revised OOB is based almost entirely on Scott Bowden's book Napoleon and Austerlitz, reflecting new research that shows the Russian army considerably smaller than has been previously believed. The French and Allied armies were almost exactly the same strength! Several rules have been added to simulate the very different command systems of the two armies. Order of Battle: French LE GRANDE ARMÉE (58,155 men, 11,558 Cavalry,& 157 guns) Army Commanders:
Army Troops:
I Corps d' Armée, Marshal Bernadotte (CC), (11,346 men & 22 guns) 1er Division, Général Rivaud de la Raffinière (DC), Ex=6
2e Division, Général Drouet (DC), Ex=5
III Corps d' Armée, Marshal Davout (CC) (3,200men, 830 Cavalry, & 12 guns) Corps Troops:
2e Division, Général Friant (DC), Ex= 4
4e Dragoon Division, Général Bourcier (DC), Ex=2
IV Corps d' Armée, Marshal Soult (CC) (22,736 men, 2,656 Cavalry & 38 guns) Corps Troops:
1er Division, Général Saint Hilaire (DC), Ex= 7
2e Division, Général Vandamme (DC), Ex= 9
3e Division, Général Legrand (DC), Ex= 8
3e Dragoon Division, Général Beaumont (DC), Ex=3
V Corps d'Armée, Marshal Lannes (CC), (12,818 men, 1,113 Cavalry & 23 guns) Corps Troops:
3e Division, Général Suchet (DC), Ex= 7
1er Division, Général Caffarelli du Falga (DC), Ex=6 (attached from III Corps)
Grenadiers de la Réserve, Général Oudinot (DC) Ex=6 (8,201 men & 8 guns)
Imperial Guard, Marshal Bessières (DC), Ex= 7 (3,885 men, 1,129 Cavalry & 24 guns)
Corps des Réserves de Cavalerie, Marshal Murat (DC), Ex= 8 (5,810 Cavalry & 12 guns)
Corps Light Cavalry General Kellerman DC
French Army Notes: Shock = Shock. Thirteen French infantry units enjoy Shock status. BG = Receive battalion guns if Using the optional Direct support Rules. In this case the divisional artillery stands for those divisions are not used. See Special Rules. The army has 33 stands of infantry (w/out detached skirmish stands), 11 stands of Cavalry, and 14 of Artillery. There are 20 command stands. The OOB is based solely on Scott Bowden's research, which presents a significantly different organization than presented in the Volley & Bayonet rule book. It is different in a number of ways from the Designer’s revised OOB found in the V&B list archives. It is offered here as an interesting alternative. There is every indication that it (Bowden's work) is by far the best-researched OOB of the battle to date. The Grand Parc Artillerie stand was an adhoc unit of 18 3# & 4# battalion guns captured from the Austrians. Napoleon stationed them on the Santon Hill during the battle, but they could be stationed anywhere. There is no indication whether they had horse teams available, but they did not move during the battle. With 413 men in the unit, they should be able to move as infantry if desired (that is, 12"). As indicated by the OOB, the French had a number of 8 gun batteries and half batteries scattered among their divisions. Most were 8 pounders. I have tried to divide them up and fudge in favor of historical use and impact during the battle, but players should feel free to organize them anyway they wish, Napoleon did. See Special Rules for optional Direct Support Rule. Many French regiments have been given a morale rating of "6" and shock ratings. As the rating represents combat competency, there are several reasons for this: 1. In many French regiments two-thirds of the troops were veterans of 10+ years experience, survivors of many Revolutionary Wars engagements. 2. They had been training together for up to two years in the Boulogne Camps, in the same brigade, division, and Corps formations. The army was the most experienced, best trained army in the world at that time. 3. Various times during the Ulm Campaign and the Battle of Austerlitz, the French army units defeated enemy formations which vastly outnumbered them. They enjoyed a better than average 'combat competency'. 4. Several regiments had a decacde-long history and fierce reputations, such as the 4e, 108e, 57e ("la Terribles") and 48e Ligne, as well as such light units as the 10e and 18e Legere. So did a number cavalry regiments. The one sp cavalry units may be used as small formed cavalry units instead of skirmish cavalry. The Guard Cavalry was made up of approximately 750 Grenadiers Cheval, 340 Chasseurs Cheval and 40 Mamalukes for a total of 1,130. I have chosen to represent the Chasseurs and Mamalukes as a separate medium formed-cavalry stand because of their use in the battle and their remarkable performance. The French Cavalry Corps has all the divisions within the Corps as one unit ‘brigades’ with Murat able to act as the DC for the entire Corps, with Kellerman the adhoc DC for the light cavalry units. This is much more in keeping with the size of the Corps, Murat’s command practices, and the tactical performance of the five thousand cavalrymen than having a DC for each cavalry stand. The Imperial Army Staff command stand represents the aide-de-camps system, Napoleon’s "secret weapon". It can act as divisional command for any and all French units within a 6" radius of or attached to it. All unit setups are detailed in the Volley & Bayonet Rules Book or the Special Rules.
Combined Russian & Austrian Army, (49,850 men, 14,139 Cavalry & 318 guns) Army Commanders:
Advance Guard, Column I FML Kienmayer (DC), Ex=5 (4,935 men & 12 guns) Austrian
Column I, Lt. General Dokhturov (DC), Ex=6 ( 7,752 men & 64 guns) Russian
Column II, Lt. General Langeron (DC), Ex= 11 (10,283 & 30 guns) Russian
Column III, Lt. General Prebyshevsky (DC), Ex=5 (5,448 & 30 guns) Russian
Column IV FZM Kolowrat (AC), & DC for Austrian Division, (12,099 men & 76 guns) Column IV Russian Division, Lt. General Miloradovich (DC), Ex= 3
Column IV Austrian Division, FZM Kolowrat (DC), Ex=8
Advanced Guard of the Army, Major General Bagration (AC), & DC (11, 750 men & 42 guns) Russian Advanced Guard Infantry, Bagration (DC), Ex=7
Advanced Guard Cavalry, Maj. General Wittgenstein (DC), Ex=5
Column V, Prince von Liechtenstein (DC), Ex= 5 (4,622 cavalry & 24 guns) Russian
Russian Imperial Guard, Grand Duke Constantine (CC), (8,500 & 40 guns) Russian Imp. Gd. Infantry Division, Lt. General Maliutin (DC), Ex=6
Imp. Gd Cavalry Division, Lt. General Kologrivov (DC), Ex= 4
Allied Army Notes: Shock: Four Russian units enjoy Shock status. The Allied army has 28 infantry stands, 11 artillery stands, and 16 cavalry stands. There are 16 command stands. According to Bowden, the Russian Army suffered significant attrition before the Battle of Austerlitz. The actual strength of the Allied Army was closer to 72,000 than the 85,000 generally reported. Duffy in his book on Austerlitz expressed similar conclusions concerning the true strength of the Allied Army at Austerlitz. Because of this, the OOB given here is significantly different than the one in the original VnB rules book. Those Russian regiments which suffered the most during the early campaign and the inexperienced Austrian battalions are given an ‘NE’ rating to represent this, even though officially some may have had a grenadier battalion, they often contained less than 200 men. Only the Russian Guard units and the Kiev Grenadiers are given shock status based on their actual battlefield performance. At Austerlitz, 172 of the Allied Army's 318 guns were 6#s divided among the Russian and Austrian battalions. Almost all infantry battalions had at least two battalion guns. The Grenz infantry was considered line infantry in 1805. It was neither well-trained or employed as light infantry during the battle. They were also considered to be of dubious quality by most Austrian officers after the mutiny of 1800. For instance, they were not given battalion guns. I have given them a morale rating of "5" however, based on their performance during the battle. The Russian Jaegers were not well-trained skirmish tactics, but were denigrated by the ancien regime military men in any case. Nafziger calls the Russian skirmish practices ‘primitive’. To simulate this, an idea of Jonathan Gingerich’s is used: the Russian Jaegers do not receive a saving throw if in skirmish formation. Bagration, who seems to have appreciated skirmish tactics more than most Russian officers, can have his 5th Jaegers can deploy two skirmishers which the other large Jaeger units did not. They actually did deploy two battalions The Russian and Austrian 6 pound artillery did not have the range of the French 8 pounders. The Allied horse and field artillery are rated as light artillery, while the 8 pounders are rated as mediums. We ignore the V&B scenario rule that limits the number of Russian artillery units that can limber or unlimber in a division in a turn. The large numbers of cannon dedicated to battalion guns could account for Frank Chadwick.’s questions about the relatively poor performance of the Russian artillery. Frank’s revised OOB has the Allied heavy artillery rated as "PT", probably in an effort to simulate the very slow movement of the very heavy Russian 12# cannon and 16# Licornes. The alternative rule here is that all Russian heavy artillery can only move 8" a turn, but have the one free facing each turn at the beginning of movement. The Allied Columns were either the equivalent of the French Corps or a French division. That is, they were either about 11 to 12,000 men or 5,000. Most Columns had subordinate officers, formal and informal, who acted as division commanders. Even so, the adhoc nature of the column system finds Column commanders acting as DCs also. In these cases, they are divisional commanders for all purposes, but can rally all units within their column. Because of the Austrian and Russian command systems and doctrine, they consistently attacked and defended on narrower fronts than the same number of French troops. To simulate this, they have more SPs per stand for the infantry. Their use of multiple lines of columns for movement and combat can justify the Infantry being placed on Mass stands. The Austrian's continued use of three line cavalry formations and the Russian’s large cavalry regiments can also justify their cavalry being placed on massed stands. The one strength point cavalry units may be employed as formed cavalry in all cases, but this must be decided before the game start. The Cossacks are always on skirmish stands except the Guard Cossacks, which can be formed cavalry. (The Guard Cossacks were employed as formed cavalry at Austerlitz.) While all French commands have 60% exhaustion rates, the Allied army has exhaustion rates that vary from 40% to 50%, depending on the command. This is to reflect a variety of conditions, from the size of the command to the individual DCs and the actual quality of the troops in the command. If desired the order of appearance and set up for the Allies can be as found in the Volley & Bayonet rules book except for Bagration's 'Adv Gd Austrian Horse Artillery'. It comes on the board edge on the road to Olmutz (A-1) on the 1400 turn. There is also an alternative approach to the setup and OOBs in the Special rules. Special Rules: 1. Both the Napoleon command stand and Tsar Alexander are Monarchs for the scenario. All other scenario rules, map, and terrain conditions found in the Volley & Bayonet Rules Book not specifically changed in this variant are to be used. 2. Because of the excellent tactical abilities and initiative of the French infantry, they can go 'stationary' by spending 1/2 their movement. This means that French infantry can move 1/2, and be stationary at the end of their movement phase for combat. However, for the turn that they carry out this maneuver, they subtract one die from all stationary combat rolls during that turn only. During later turns that unit remains stationary, the unit uses all dice given stationary formations in combat. No unit can go from a stationary formation, move, and then to stationary formation in one turn. 3. One of the communication problems that the Allies suffered from was their inability to coordinate their column commands. The various column commands had been literally created the night before the battle, some without cavalry/ staff to run messages. Therefore no units from separate columns may melee attack enemy units together unless one of the units in the joint attack is attached to their respective DC or CC. Units in different DCs within a column command can attack together. 4. All cavalry and infantry units may not attack together, regardless of command. The only exception to this is if there is a leader attached to one of the units. This may be either a DC or CC stand, as long as one of the units in the joint attack is subordinate to the attached officer. From Ulm, where Mack was wounded in an effort to get his cavalry to support his infantry’s attack on Dupont’s Division, to the fields of Austerlitz, Allied cavalry simply did not coordinate their movement and attacks with infantry, unless personally directed by a general officer. The basic reasons were the lack of any joint training or communication between the all Allied cavalry and infantry arms and that Austrians persisted in attaching one or two individual squadrons of cavalry to infantry formations. These penny-packets of horsemen never had adequate numbers to either resist French cavalry regiments or protect the infantry’s flanks. 5. Optional Rule: Direct Artillery Support. The Russians, and to some extent the French, divided up line artillery companies among their infantry battalions and regiments. Players can choose to simulate this using the following rules suggested by Jim Nevling: Battery artillery may be dispersed to act as direct supports for infantry formations. For each strength point of artillery so dispersed one infantry unit is considered to have battalion guns for all purposes including calculation of exhaustion levels each infantry stand gains a SP in strength from the SPs of Artillery dedicated to direct support, all the extra infantry SPs counting for exhaustion levels. For the French, the battalion artillery for all divisions in the IV and V Corps is considered dispersed among the Ligne regiments and Brigades of the Division. (They are marked with a BG in the OOB above) The artillery stand is not used, but the Ligne units are considered to have direct support, representing the groups of two and three 8 pounders attached to the various regiments in those two Corps. If desired the I Corps may also use direct support in stead of divisional artillery. The use of divisional artillery as Direct Support is up to the players, though it was the historical use of the artillery during the battle. The created French "battalion guns" have a medium gun range of 10". For the Allies, all Russian units that are designated as having battalion guns may instead be considered to have Direct Support artillery. They were 6# guns or licornes so the range for them is 8" or the range for light guns. Duplicating Austerlitz: Command, Setup, and the Victory Conditions In the VnB Austerlitz scenario, Frank Chadwick clearly outlines the problems with recreating Austerlitz (page 55): "Some would argue that the correct approach is to force the allies to walk through the elaborate attack on the French left, exposing their flank to a French counterblow. The problem with that approach is that it isn't much fun for the Allies, and effectively denies the Allied player the ability to improve on the generalship displayed by that force. That's an important consideration, as one of purposes of game such as this is to allow both sides to attempt to improve on their historic counterparts." "On the other hand, if no allowance is made for Napoleon's successful pre-battle deception, the battle makes no sense, and would not in fact have occurred, and that obviously doesn't make for much of a game either" My solution is to simply have the battle. That is more than enough "forcing" of the situation. Napoleon deceived the Allies into thinking he was hesitant and weak, his army demoralized. The Allies advanced against and attacked the French---they were the ones committed to an offensive battle with an inferior army. Napoleon waited until their attack developed to counter it. That dynamic should be recreated too. To force the Allies to use the historical set up and OOB, denies them of any real Army Command control and deprives them of some of the most interesting command decisions in the game: The methods of command used by the Allies at Austerlitz were a relic of the 1700's: The Allied Army was literally organized just before the battle around their battle objectives. To force the OOB and setup on the Allies is to handicap the players with not just the original army, but the original plan as well. All the players are left to do is rescue themselves after all the bad decisions have been made for them. Here is a much more interesting alternative: The Setup and OOB rules:
Optional Victory Rules: If desired this rule could be used to help balance the game:
These rules should:
We have only played this twice so far, but thought it played well and generated a great deal of excitement. The second game included all the rules and unit characteristics given above. Each game was a close French Victory: 11 to 9 and 15 to 13. Both saw several points made in the last two turns of the Scenario. We would be interested in what others find. The Allies should go for terrain objectives first, because bringing enough French divisions to exhaustion for victory is a far tougher goal. |