Still No Duke of Montebello!

As mentioned in the previous post, I met Richard on the Montebello field of battle for a rematch on Monday.  In this rematch, we swapped sides with Richard commanding the Austrians and I the French.  To rekindle the lay of the ground, the battlefield with Austrian deployment zones is illustrated in the photo below.

Battlefield with Austrian deployment zones

Vogelsang's command stacked up around Montebello

To read Richard's account of this battle, please visit Return to Montebello.  Great account.  Well worth the time to investigate Richard's reactions.

After Richard submitted his deployments for both O'Reilly and Vogelsang's command, I set to work to devise a plan of attack.  Plan A was to take a chance in attacking straight away into the Austrian gun and Grenz set up astride on the highway to the south of Rivalta.  It might be a bold choice but if successful, the result would cut the highway and possibly force O'Reilly's position to shift to the south to contain a possible breakthrough.  Then, Lannes cavalry might be able to sweep around the northern flank.  The odds favored the French in a quick supported attack down the highway as the remainder of Watrin's French Division entered the table.

O'Reilly's deployment and French Plan A.

Before the game began and as I was reviewing positioning with Richard, Richard noted the gun and grenzer were actually supposed to be situated one hex to the west astride the road.  Well!  With these Austrians placed back one hex, the lead elements of the French column could not reach their intended target on Turn 1! Besides that, the Austrian jaegers in Rivalta would stop any further movement, regardless, due to EZOC.  The game has not even started, and Plan A is already scuttled!  On to Plan B! 

With initiative in hand, French commander, Watrin,
 sees his division begin to arrive along the highway toward Rivalta.   

As volleys are exchanged at Rivalta,
 O'Reilly pulls some units back before French attacks can go in against them.
  One benefit of having the foresight to place much of his division on Reserve!

Weakened by the exchange of musketry,
the jaegers in Rivalta are put under pressure
 by Watrin's supported attack upon the village. 

In the heavy fighting in Rivalta, the jaegers are dispersed.
Before Watrin can take Rivalta, grenzers slip into
 the village to deny the French this important roadblock.
Another case of Richard using Reserve to interrupt the enemy!

With Rivalta still in Austrian hands,
Watrin redoubles his effort to take the village.
  Leading the attack, two battalions of French storm the BUA.
To the north and cavalry to their front, French advance
 but are forced into square before delivering their volleys.

This time, grenzers are ejected and the victors take the village. 
 A lot of precious time is lost dealing with this obstacle.
In the meantime, Watrin moves to lead an attack along the highway.

Before Watrin's attack goes in, grenzers fall back away
from danger leaving the guns unsupported. 
  Unsurprisingly, the guns are overrun.
Following up on their success, the grenzers are caught are beaten.
In the rye fields, a supported French attack is too much for the light infantry.
  They, too, are scattered.
In only minutes, O'Reilly's command is broken.

With O'Reilly now broken, defense falls upon Vogelsang
 who is beginning to arrive onto the scene.
Unlimbering guns astride the highway, Vogelsang prepares a defense.

Lannes arrives to take command of the action.
He orders most of the 12th Hussars to move off to the north
 in an attempt to turn the enemy Left.
Lannes, himself, leads the 28th Line forward along the highway.

Lannes takes command!

Seeing the destruction of O'Reilly to his front,
Vogelsang encourages his men to form up and take a stand.
O'Reilly uses his cavalry to protect the flanks.

Having cleared Rivalta, the French advance upon the next line of defense.
  That line of defense is Vogelsang.
With artillery in support, the French face another daunting challenge.

Lannes leads the 28th Line into the Austrian supported guns.

In heavy fighting, the enemy is destroyed and the guns overrun.
Success!
Advancing to take the ground,
Lannes crashes into a second supported battery. 
The enemy meets a similar fate.  Both Austrian units are destroyed!
Vogelsang's command wavers under the weight of its losses.
Can the French break Vogelsang and force the enemy to quit the field?

Before we can answer that question, O'Reilly leads his hussar
 in front of Cascina il Giardina down into the valley.
  Their target?
 An infantry battlaion that has already seen a pounding
 from artillery and barely clings to the field.
O'Reilly, at the head of the hussars, leads the attack
but miraculously the French hold on to repulse the enemy!
They must have formed a square before impact.  Huzzah!  

A minor miracle!
Wavering French need 9+ on each of the morale checks to survive.
Whew!

Having destroyed two batteries and two battalions,
Lannes finds himself over-extended and nowhere to hide. 
 Ott takes command of the Austrians and attacks!
  First pouring volleys into the dense target from the flank,
 Ott leads his men forward!
Lannes goes down and the 28th is destroyed! 
Oh, the humanity!

Both armies see reinforcements arrive onto the field.
For the Austrians, Schellenberg's Division arrives and reaches Casteggio.
For the French, Victor and Chamberlhac arrive with their division.
Lannes' hussars swing out to the right.

After some cat and mouse tactics, hussars collide in the valley.
While one of the Austrian hussar units is destroyed, the cost is high.
French hussars are destroyed as well.
To add insult to injury, this loss pushes Lannes' command
(well his ex-command!) over the breaking point.
Ouch!

Schellenberg reaches Casteggio.

Sensing that Vogelsang is under stress having lost four units, 
Watrin keeps the pressure on by attacking toward Casteggio.
The Austrians in the rye are scattered.
  The Austrians to its right are driven back. 

French High-Water mark?

Schellenberg erupts out of Casteggio to take the fight to Watrin.
Watrin's Division suffers huge losses.
Watrin, himself, goes down in the fighting.
These losses push Watrin's Division nearly to the breaking point.
Only one little nudge is needed to push him over this threshold.

The Austrians hope that nudge comes from a second attempt
 to break the French still in square to the south of the highway. 

In the hussars go!

With each unit only able to muster a single die in the attack, 
the hussars score a hit, but the infantry do not.
The French cannot pass their morale test either.
The square breaks and the infantry are crushed under 
the horses' hooves.

With the destruction of the square, Watrin's Division breaks.  Seeing two of the three formations broken, the French attack at Montebello is called off.

Victory to the Austrians!

The result was a close one, though.  Vogelsang was only a few hits from reaching his breaking point.  Had Vogelsang broken first then victory would have been the French's.  Close, yet again, but I manage to be outplayed by Richard, yet again!

Great job, Richard, and well played!

Watrin should have followed Vogelsang's lead and withdrawn when his division was in jeopardy.  Then, we could have seen Schellenberg and Chamberlhac fight it out to decide the battle.  That option would have required a second gaming session, for sure.  Instead, I thought that Vogelsang could be caught and destroyed.  Schellenberg, however, put a stop to that plan!  

As for the Butcher's Bill, the Austrian Army certainly suffered more but most of its losses came from O'Reilly's Advance Guard which was essentially annihilated.  Game duration was a little under four hours.

Butcher's Bill

With Lannes falling, yet again, there still is no Duke of Montebello!

No Duke of Montebello

Richard joined me in a one-on-one remote game to refight the 1800 Battle of Montebello.  While Richard is familiar with the Fields of Honor rules of engagement from earlier WAS/WPS battles, it has been a long time since we last played.  Shuffling through the archives shows that the rules were last in action back in October fighting over the fields at Quistello.  A few amendments needed to go into the latest iteration of the rules in order to account for the use of infantry squares.  The rules remained much the same with those exceptions.  After reading the Battle Briefing, Richard opted to take command of the attacking French Army under General Lannes.  The Austrian Army deployment was shared before the battle began.

Montebello battlefield

Montebello is quiet with Casteggio in background

Montebello was a pivotal vanguard clash in Napoleon's 1800 Italian campaign during the War of the Second Coalition, setting the stage for Marengo five days later.  On the evening of 8 June, Ott reached Voghera, ordering O'Reilly to hold Casteggio on the Alessandria-Piacenza highway.  Lannes planned to march west through Santa Giuletta toward Stradella expecting a weak foe.  Early 9 June, French patrols spotted Austrians east of Casteggio.  Watrin's 6th Light Infantry attacked immediately, igniting the battle despite initially being outnumbered 2:1.  Both sides misjudged enemy strength, leading to five hours of brutal fighting before Victor's reinforcements tipped the scales.  Montebello secured the defile, temporarily, forcing Melas to consolidate at Alessandria and fight at Marengo on the 14th.

Initial dispositions

The stage is set.   Let the battle begin!

Lannes holds the initiative automatically on Turn 1 and the lead elements of Watrin's Division arrive along the road heading west.  O'Reilly deploys his division in and around Rivalta with his jaegers taking up position in the village, itself.

O'Reilly at the ready!

Jaegers holding Rivalta

Watrin advances upon Rivalta.

Advancing upon a broad front, Watrin descends upon Rivalta and O'Reilly's position.  Marching through the tall rye (brown hexes), Watrin leads a supported attack against the jaegers in Rivalta.  To his right, French infantry sends volleys into the Austrian light infantry to the north of Rivalta.  Either unaware or unconcerned with the proximity of Austrian hussars, the Frenchmen do not form square.  Watrin's supported attack fails to dislodge the defenders and the French fall back through the rye fields.  Rivalta holds for now.  Seeing enemy infantry in line to their front, the Austrian hussars charge in.  The Austrian charge is repulsed as the Frenchmen form square at the very last minute.  Damn!  The hussars fall back upon supports.  Reinforcements are on the way to O'Reilly as Vogelsang crosses the River Coppa and pushes on toward Rivalta.   

Watrin goes in against Rivalta...

and is repulsed.

French push on south of Rivalta.

Vogelsang crosses the River Coppa.

After his initial setback at Rivalta, Watrin redoubles his efforts to take the village.  He forms up his eight battalions for a massive attack all along the Rivalta axis.  Watrin's attacks are ferocious.  To the south of the village, the French too easily scatter the grenz and overrun a battery.  O'Reilly's position is crumbling fast.  At Rivalta, the jaegers, once again, repulse the attack.  In the rye to the north, the Austrian light infantry unit is destroyed.  One battalion of the victorious French advances but is immediately attacked by enemy hussars.  This time, the French cannot form square before the cavalry hit.  The Frenchmen are cut down where they stand.  Still, the number of O'Reilly's losses is enough to break his division.    

Attack against Rivalta gets serious...

and O'Reilly looks isolated.

Seeing that Lannes has now reached the field with hussars and 28th Line, and that the road to Montebello has been cut by the enemy, O'Reilly decides that abandoning Rivalta is his only option.  What remains of his formation retires to the west. 

O'Reilly falls back from Rivalta.

With Watrin bringing his force through Rivalta, what remains of O'Reilly's comand continues falling back toward Casteggio.  Watrin does not let up the pressure.  His infantry continue pressing on into Voglesang's command, trying to turn the northern flank.  Those French attacks are initially repulsed.  By now, Lannes manages to bring his hussars around the hills to the south as his 28th Line moves west down the highway in support of Watrin.  Vogelsang garrisons Cascina il Giardina as his division begins shaking out into a defensive posture.  Ott, who is now moving with Vogelsang, receives reports that lead elements of Schellenberg's division has reached Montebello.

Watrin clears out Rivalta.

Vogelsang brings his troops up...

as Schellenberg reaches Montebello.

Seeing that Schellenberg has arrived and that his own reinforcements under Victor are only now reaching the battlefield, Lannes goes for broke.

Mounting repeated assaults against Cascina il Giardina on the heights, the 28th Line throws the defenders out of the stronghold after very heavy fighting.  Lannes, now at the head of two squadrons of hussars charges down from the heights and into a battalion of Austrians that never sensed the danger they were in.  Unable to form square in time, the conclusion was never in doubt.  Lannes slices through the enemy and continues his pursuit.  In the confusion of mopping up Austrian infantry and sabering a retiring Austrian battery, Lannes falls on the field, dead.  Actually, Lannes manages to die twice!  The first time, Richard rolled the die for Lannes and the result was KIA.  I stopped the action and suggested that the defender (me!) ought to roll the leader casualty die.  I rolled the die and Lannes was KIA again!  It was destiny, I suppose.       

Lannes swings into action!

Seemingly out of nowhere two squadrons of Austrian dragoons appear.  The Austrian horsemen crash into the remnants of Lannes' hussars and scatter them to the four winds.  Perhaps this danger has been neutralized?  No!  Swinging behind the cavalry melee to its front, the third body of French hussars smashes into a supported line of enemy infantry.  

Austrian dragoons charge in!

Surprised by this sudden turn of events, the Austrian infantry cannot form up into square before the hussars close.  In the initial clash, both suffer casualties but neither can gain an upper hand in the fighting.  As an aside, if the French lose the next round of combat, Lannes' formation will break.  If the Austrians are defeated, Vogelsang's formation will break.  If Vogelsang breaks, then the Austrian Army will be compelled to quit the field.  High stakes!   

With only a single combat point remaining for the hussars, the second round of combat unfolds.  Each causes a morale check upon the other.  The hussars pass their check.  The Austrians fail!  Losing the melee, the Austrians are hacked apart.  Vogelsang breaks!  Ott's army retires!   

The breaking of Vogelsang.

Wow!  That was an exciting battle that ended in high drama.  With only one point remaining on his hussars in the last melee, Richard not only needed to score a hit with a single die roll on the Austrians but needed to pass his morale check while seeing the enemy fail his.  That is what came to pass.  There was much rejoicing in the French camp.  Actually, there was rejoicing in the Austrian camp as well.  This was a helluva tense game and most enjoyable.  Did I mention that if Watrin had lost one more unit, he would have broken too?

As for the Butcher's Bill, losses tipped heavily in favor of the French as seen below.  With Lannes dead on the field, there will be no Duke of Montebello unless awarded posthumously.

Butcher's Bill

Congratulations, Richard, on a well-played game.  You managed to crack the Austrian army before their overwhelming numbers could be brought into play.  I failed to overturn the historical result and see an Austrian victory at Montebello.  The Austrians will be falling back to Alessandria.  I think the Austrians are capable of mustering a better defense.

Thank you for a great session!  Perhaps I deserve a rematch???

Oh, please visit Richard's account of the battle at Battle of Montebello AAR.  Game duration was a little under three hours.