Swedish strike-out: Campaign of Nations battle

A battle after action report (AAR) for the Campaign of Nations.

Fieldmarshal Graf Stedingk & staff

Fieldmarshal Graf Stedingk chose not to permit a small French cavalry brigade to continue to linger around the flanks of his army and harass his supply and communications lines.  He sent out all of the Swedish cavalry division to at least chase them off, if not crush them utterly ...

 The map was laid out using pickup game rules for SHAKO and gamed out thus.

Stedingk chose to deploy the heavy cavalry back with a flank force of Hussars to strike after turn 3

Facing the Swedes were battle-hardened Polish Lancers and Chasseur a Cheval of the 30th Light Cavalry Brigade.

Chasseurs and Lancers

The Lifeguard Dragoons were sent forward to engage the French first, coming to blows with the Lancers.

Lifeguard Dragoons triumph early over the Lancers

While the French Chasseurs maneuvered and made ready to charge whatever chose to cross over the hillock.

Chassuers make ready to charge

Lancers fall back and attempt to rally

Turn two started with the Swedes making artillery ready and moving on their foot guns, that had been lagging behind the faster horse.

Start of turn 2

The French Chasseurs saw an opportunity, they struck out at the advancing horse guns, that had no covering horsemen.  Along the way the Division Commander was carried away in the confusion with the gunners taking flight!

The French Chasseurs were not in any good position though as the Swedish Cuirassier hammered into them to cover the guns escape, sending the light horsemen fleeing over the little hillcok to rally next to the still shaken Lancers.

Start of turn 3

All the French horse now had rallied and the Swedes had started to set up their guns to prevent any further French sallies over the hill.  Now also the flank force of Hussars was arriving to engage the somewhat wounded French horse.

recovering French Cavalry

Steady and holding Swedish Cuirassier

The start of turn four saw the arriving Swedish Hussars taking the field with gusto, in a wild rush to reach the seeming wounded French light horsemen ... though these must have been rookie Swedes, and the French were certainly veterans for what came next ...

start of turn 4

The Swedes could not roll higher than a "1" in the ensuing melee combats with the French Chasseurs and Lancers, this meant that the French won the flank battle and were going to be poised to escape and possibly shatter a Swedish force of Hussars along the way!

French light cavalry ready to charge again

In the rally section only one of the two Swedish Hussars manged to get re-organized in time to meet the on-rushing French.

start of turn 5

The Swedish Heavy Cavalry had received new orders and was again moving forward, yet now the action was decided

The French Chasseurs defeated half of the Swedish Hussar force, while the Lancers simply rode over the other half, that had failed to rally, and continued on to catch and destroy half of a horse battery attached to the Hussars.  This is what happens when rookies meet veterans (at least as decided by the low die rolls for the Swedes!)!

French veterans ride over Swedish recruits

situation at end of turn 5

That game was the one 'for the record' as it were in the Campaign of Nations.

We had time yet in the day so we quickly re-set the table and forces and 'switched sides' to see if any different result could be had.

Here is the AAR:

Maximizing the delivery of force, ALL Swedes arrive at the start

Artillery was also deployed under high command only, not the subordinates

no time was wasted in attacking the French with Dragoons right away

Artillery managed to get in shots on turn 2

both of the French light cavalry formations were shredded in direct combat during turn 2

Very fast, battle ended with the French utterly wiped out, good thing for the French that the 'campaign' game was the first one!