The Battle of GugenStadt 1740 - (3rd Belgravian Wars)

Further extracts from the History of Wittenberg by Brother James of Alt-Wittendorf ...

1) Early in the morning

The Duke of Escherstadt rowsed his troops early in the morning and placed them ready for action in the town defences recently completed by the corp of engineers. There was much mumbling in the ranks, not again, we got up early yesterday ...they complained.


The Wittenberg forces:
Commander - Duke of EscherStadt
Cavalry: Dragoon Regiment - Schwarze Dragoner, Uhlan Pulk - Zaprotsky
Infantry:The Wittenland Fusiliers, Grenadier Battalion - Von Purchenk, 2 Companies of Jagers
Artillery:2 Heavy Field Guns, 1 Medium Field Gun

2) The Monrovians Arrive

The Monrovians had broken camp at dawn and mmarched into sight of Gugenstadt, emerging out of the morning mist they saw their target. Their commander was bemused, its looks as if there are more troops there than I was told. Just then he heard the sound of artillery and one of the leading infantry columns took some minor casualties. This could be a tricky one thought the General and ordered his troops to deploy for the attack.

Commander - General von Stricknein
Cavalry: Regiment of Horse - von Streiber
Infantry:von Pilbner Fusiliers, 2 Battalions of Line Infantry, Grenadier Battalion - Von Stomnach, Guard Grenadier Battalion
Artillery:2 Medium Field Guns


3) The Battle commences ...

The Monrovians deploy, using their cavalry to screen the movement of the artillery.

The Wittenberg cavalry and jagers manouvre into position

The Monrovian cavalry having taken casualties from sustained artillery fire are attacked by the Wittenberg Uhlans

The Uhlans smash through the cavalry and career into the infantry columns

After a short melee the disorganised Uhlans retire. The Monrovians start to disengage.

4) Afterwards

General von Stricknein, having lost his cavalry in the melee and the Grenadier Battalion Von Stomnach routed by sustained artillery fire, decides to retire and cross the river back into Monrovia. The town of Gugenstadt is well defended and he dosen't want to risk any Wittenberg re-inforcements getting between him and the way back home.

The Duke of Escherstadt satisfied with how things went sends some Dragoons out to shadow the Monrovian withdrawal.

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Afterthoughts:

I think I made this scenario a bit too tough for the attackers by providing 2 heavy guns to the Wittenberg defenders. So the attackers got well pounded on the way to the defences, they needed some heavy artillery too. I thought that there may have been a better way to attack the town so I tried it out solo; I deployed in line rather than column for the attack.

The above looks great, textbook denied flank and attack with grenadiers leading. When they got to the defences it all went horribly wrong -- artillery fire and sharp volleys from the defending infantry forces forced the two lead battlations to rout on morale checks due to high casualties. This is about what you might expect of an attack on defences, you really need heavy artillery for the attackers and some cover for approaching troops.