Valour & Fortitude: Borodino!

 

The Battle of Borodino, at the time the largest battle of the modern era, has long held a fascination for me. In conjunction with the Illawarra Horse and Musketeers, my club the Wollongong Wargamers played a mega game of the Battle of Borodino on Sunday 17th November at the Bulli Woonona RSL. 

We used the excellent Valour & Fortitude rules, retaining the original 28mm distances but playing with 15/18mm figures.

To encourage a decisive outcome, the original force ratios of 1.2:1 in favour of the French were exaggerated slightly to 1.5:1. The French had 72 infantry battalions, the Russians 48. The French had 30 cavalry regiments, the Russians 21, including Cossacks. However, as historically, the Russians had slightly more guns: 16 batteries to the French 13. To speed things up, skirmishing and open order formations were limited to 12 Russian Jaeger Detachments and 16 French Infantry Detachments. Formations were somewhat templated: Each infantry Brigade consisted of 4 line battalions and one skirmish detachment. 

Corps consisted of either 2 or 4 such brigades, plus artillery, and light cavalry brigades of 2 regiments. 

Cavalry Corps consisted of 2-3 Heavy Cavalry regiments and 1-2 Light Cavalry regiments.

I know from experience it is hard to refight Borodino on this scale without the action degenerating into a formless scrum. 

With several key wargamers unable to attend, the concept was to focus on just the centre two thirds of the battlefield: the vicinity of the Raevsky Redoubt and Fleches, below Semenovskaya. The eponymous Borodino to the north and the Utitsa mound and woods to the south would not appear on the table. This would allow a more spacious set up for the area we were representing. It was deemed that outlying corps have made their way to this central area from the flanks, and would arrive as reserves in the second or subsequent moves, as directed by C in Cs, as soon as there was table space. 

They could arrive anywhere on the friendly table edge, and were deemed to have automatically activated. However, to retain some control over the balance of play, I as umpire had release authority over certain key reserve formations: French Imperial Guard, Russian Arty Reserve, Platov’s Cossack horde.

This would be a classic grinding attack/defence game with the French having a numerical superiority but having to act fast and furiously from the outset if they were to seize any objectives within 6 turns. In the event, they were plagued by failed brigade activation tests...

There were 4 objectives: the Raevsky Redoubt, Semenovskaya, the Fleches, and one to be placed by the French C in C anywhere along a line 18 inches in from the Russian Table edge. Victory would be determined by subtracting defeat points from objectives at the end of Turn 6, the side with the least defeat points winning.

Terrain considerations were also simplified. 

The only hill reflected was the mound incorporated within the Ravesky Redoubt model, which for this scenario, was a single Defendable Terrain Feature but manned by three units: two heavy artillery batteries which uniquely each have a with a 135 Degree arc of fire and a unique elite Jaegar. It provided Heavy Cover. The village of Semenovskaya represents two Defendable Terrain Features. The wooden buildings provided Light Cover. The Fleches were each a single Defendable Terrain Feature which could each be occupied by a Battalion of infantry if required. They provided Heavy Cover, and, for this scenario, allowed the defenders to assume the benefits of line formation. Whilst historically the streams that cover the area were fairly steeply banked, we classified them merely as Barriers costing 4 inches of movement to cover. The network of tracks and roads was not reflected.

The French C in C placed his fourth objective well to the south, the French right, between the Fleche objective and the Semonovskaya village one. The French C in C’s plan was to concentrate and push hard to the right, with 3 of his 4 corps focusing on that objective and the one in the Fleches. The Raevsky Redoubt would be given a severe ignoring! The remaining corps on the left was simply to tie down the Russians facing them to prevent them reinforcing to the south.

It didn’t take the Russian long to divine the French plan and they made plans to bring their reinforcements their table edge nearest the threatened southern flank. Meanwhile, all along the line the on table Russian formations assumed a very aggressive and active defense from the outset!

This movement was delayed when the French played the ‘Confusion’ fate card which delayed reinforcement moves for a turn. 

The Russian left was now heavily outnumbered, but the fleches withstood several assaults, even with French infantry being supported by cavalry attacking the flanks of the earthworks.

By this stage the centre corps had joined the action, assault after assault steadily grinding their way towards Semonovskaya.  The Russian team was making much use of General Bagration’s card to make them much tougher in melee, and their Stoic attribute was keeping them on the table even whilst shaken. 

The French team were making good use of their Vive L’Empereur, Attaque A Outrance and Les Grognards fate cards, and their Elan attribute, to fight like demons! Brigade after brigade wavered, with each army steadily racking up defeat points.

After turn 3 it was time for lunch, and I got a chance to assess the way the battle was going. All the intense action was down the southern end of the table. 

With hindsight I realized I should have weighted the Raevsky Redoubt, such an iconic part of the battle, with double objective points to weight the battle across the whole table. In an attempt to retrieve a more widespread battle, I made an offer to the French skipper: The French Imperial Guard to come on, but with orders to take the Redoubt! 

He agreed, and the 4 brigades of Imperial Guard marched onto the table; 4 battalions of Old Guard, 4 battalions of Young Guard, and the Guard Heavy and Light cavalry brigades. They looked magnificent! 

But they would have their work cut out to take the redoubt, 3 feet away, within 3 turns. Double moves are only allowable up to 18 inches proximity of the enemy, and the cunning Russians had strategically positioned a screen of Jaeger detachments in the way! The Emperor’s daughters narrowly failed to blast this screen away, so now the only way they would get onto the objective in time was if the ‘Surprise Attack’ fate card showed up in time – this allows a double move followed by an assault…

Meanwhile in the centre and south of the battlefield the action continued unrelenting with bitter assaults and counter charges up and down the line. 

Defeat points were now being incurred not so much from wavering brigades as by shattered brigades, when the last remaining unit broke!  

In turn 4, their centre eviscerated, the Russian reserve Heavy Cavalry corps were committed to a series of attacks against the relentless French infantry and their supporting cavalry. 

These fights went both ways, but the Russians won enough of them to hold their centre together for the time being and draw ahead in the infliction of defeat points. 

But further south, eventually, the third, or was it the fourth, assault on the Fleches saw them seized by the French – one objective had changed hands! 

In a nod to history, the principal charging unit was heavy cavalry – although not the Saxon Zastrow Kuirassiere, who had long ago been turned into mincemeat.

As expected, the Imperial guard failed to reach the Raevsky redoubt in time to mount an assault, although they did keep two Russian corps from moving south to reinforce the hard-pressed Russian centre.

With barely a fresh unit on table, it was time to tally up objectives and defeat points to determine the winner. The hard fighting Russians had forced 9 defeats on the French, whilst the French had handed back 7 on the Russians, and taken one objective. Therefore, the Russians retaining 3 objectives, it was a Russian victory by 4 points! Graciously, however, the Russian C in C said that his centre was looking pretty shaky...

 A close run thing! A credit to the enthusiasm and sportsmanship of the players.

From a scenario design aspect, there was room for improvement: I should have given more thought to balancing objectives to include the whole table and all players. I would also give the French C in C some extra automatic activations in the first couple of moves to get things moving early on. With some inexperienced players, ideally I should have left C in Cs free of play, or perhaps just given them key reserve formations. 

On the positive side, the Order of Battle bath tubbing, a condensed sector of battlefield well spaced out, and the reserve procedure had worked to avoid a formless scrum - it was very pleasing to hear players refer to such and such Corps here and so and so's Corps over there!