Review of Wismar Campaign

 

Battles fought during the Wismar campaign phase

The campaign covered the period 11 to 18 July 1813, and took eight weeks to complete.   It was a fairly uneventful campaign, which provided seven battles to wargame.   Most campaigns have six battles, but this one had a two day battle.

Most campaigns raise some issues, which often result in amendments to either the campaign rules or the wargame rules.    This one had three such issues.

The campaign is designed to provide interesting battles to wargame, there are no strategic objectives and consequently the main focus is on the battles, and their effect on future battles in the campaign.  

Wargame casualties play an important part in subsequent battles.   As in most wargame rules there tends to be a high percentage of casualties.   I have tried to control this by the morale rules.   All tabletop casualties are 10% of a brigade.   They result in an immediate morale test and usually cause the brigade to retreat.   If both sides make their morale a second round of combat is fought, resulting in a further 10% casualties.  It is unusual for a brigade to make their morale with 20% casualties or more.  At the end of the battle the casualties are recorded on the campaign data.   To reorganise a corps has to be out of contact with the enemy, in supply and stationary.   During reorganisation casualties can be concentrated in one brigade, but 10% always remains with the brigade which suffered them.   This can result in corps starting a wargame with a high proportion of brigades having 10% casualties.   This reduces their combat ability, and also their morale.   It makes for a game in which one rout can quickly spread to all adjacent brigades.   In this campaign I allowed all infantry casualties to be concentrated in one brigade per corps.   Cavalry and artillery were concentrated in one brigade per army.   This has worked really well, and I will continue to game test it in the next campaign.

Supplies have also caused some problems.   It takes a lot of administrative work to keep track of supply columns and the amount held at each depot.   This has become more of a problem since I increased the size of battles from one corps per side to three corps.   I have reluctantly decided to remove supplies from the campaign, except in Spain – where they played an important role.   In Germany each corps starts the campaign with four days supplies.   To resupply they must be within one day’s march of a depot, out of contact with the enemy and stationary for the whole day.   This restriction still applies, but it is assumed that the nearest town has sufficient stores to resupply the corps.

The final problem was completing each wargame within 12 moves, to correspond with the 12 hours per day in the campaign.   It works quite well, providing that the defender stands to fight.   In general there are four moves for the attacker to deploy within long range artillery of the defender.    Then four moves of artillery fire, and often cavalry melee.   Finally four moves for the attacker to reach the defender and engage in close combat.    If the defender retreats after four or six moves there is insufficient time for the attacker to pursue and have the close combat to decide the winner.   The game objective is always a town or city.   A good garrison is difficult to overcome, especially if there is not enough time for close range artillery fire.   As a result games often end with the defending army being beaten, but still holding the town or city and thus winning the game.   To overcome this problem I have made each of the three centre squares of the table a game objective.   The winner is the side which holds at least two at the end of move 12.

Future campaigns will prove whether I have the balance right or not.