Linz-Urfar 17 May 1809

During the Spring of 1809, the Austrians rose against Napoleon in a somewhat over-optimistic attempt to throw off French dominance and reverse the defeat of 1805. The initial Austrian invasion of Bavaria took the French off-guard, but Napoleon reacted quickly, concentrating his army and defeating the Austrians under Archduke Charles at Eckmuhl on 21-22 April.

As Charles withdrew towards Vienna Napoleon and his Saxon and Württemberg allies chased after them along the Danube. Not quite a month after the defeat at Eckmuhl, Charles dispatched Kolowrat's Austrian III Corps to attack Napoleon's extended lines of communication at the town of Linz, where the Wurttemberg troops and Saxons under Vandamme and Bernadotte respectively had established a bridgehead across the Danube.

JTS scenario background. I am playing the historical variant of the scenario.

Not blogging, but still busy

I've fallen woefully behind in my blogging duties here, but haven't been completely absent from the wargaming interwebs:

Final positions at Vimeiro

Vorwärts meine kinder!

I've been bitten by a Napoleonic bug. Recent posts by JC and Chris prompted me to take a more serious look at this era than I have for several years.

16e Division of the V Corps defending the village of Ludwigsdorf during the action at Lowenberg. My defense has smashed a Prussian cavalry brigade and is preparing for the attack of a Prussian infantry brigade.

Hunting Bears - The Battle for Buchholz

This is a continuation of a series of posts using Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm to illustrate the use of the Military Decision Making Process in planning and conducting a battle in a wargame. At no time should anyone be under the illusion that I claim to have sufficient grasp of this that I could lead actual troops in so much as a barbecue. This is how I use these tools for gaming. The first post in this series is here. The second post is here.

In my first two post I examined terrain analysis via OCOKA and an abbreviated process for identifying enemy Courses of Action (COAs). This led to the development of a plan for the deployment of the forces I would have on hand at the beginning of the battle. As we saw in my second post, taking the time to do this planning upfront allow the elements of an US infantry battalion to render a Soviet Tank Regiment combat ineffective in about 30 minutes of fighting.

Remnants of a Soviet Tank Regiment at Holm-Seppensen

Smoke Stains the Sky

Chris and I have been playing a fair bit of John Tiller's Campaign Series PBEM the last week or so, and it has been a lot of fun!

The battlefield for the scenario Tanker's Holiday. My tank battalion moves up from the south toward the objectives and Gotha.

A Return to Poland

Inspired by Chris, I decided to pick back up my Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Poland game I've let lay for, oh, about a year and a half...

The situation on 5 September when I resumed the campaign. In the north, 3rd Army has made significant inroads toward Warsaw. This is a feint, however; 3rd Army doesn't have the necessary troops to carry through the attack. I want them there to pin down Polish forces and keep them away from my real main effort in the north: Guderian's Panzers of XIX Corps

EFCO Platoons: Crossing the Dnieper 1943

Chris from The Sharp End Gaming has been hard at work again on Command Ops scenarios. Lately, he's really been pushing the engine to the limit by developing platoon and company level scenarios, something CO wasn't designed to do. Since these fit in with my current fixation on small unit actions (and because Chris' scenarios always rock) I gave his latest, Crossing the Dnieper 1943 a try.

Scenario description. I believe that Chris and I are determined to simulate every East Front river crossing engagement that ever happened between the two of us.

Across the Tartar Ditch - German AAR

Tim at RangerX3X beat me to the punch with his great AAR of Chris' soon to be released latest Command Ops scenario, Across the Tartar Ditch. In this scenario the German LIV Corps is tasked with making the breakthrough into Crimea. Opposing them are the Soviet 51st Army. The Soviets in particular hold a substantial (and ancient) fortification known as the Tartar Ditch that the Germans will need to penetrate to accomplish the breakthrough.

Scenario Briefing

New Command Ops Scenarios

Chris from Sharp End Gaming has released the second in his trilogy of Stalingrad scenarios, Race for the Volga. Like Operation Hubertus I was fortunate to help play test this scenario and I can tell you, it's a great one. A definite change of pace from the attrition-heavy fighting of Hubertus, Race really is a race from both side to build up sufficient combat power in the right places to take/hold the high value objectives before the enemy does.

Meanwhile, Tim Williams has released a set of four scenarios called the Tactical Battles Series. These scenarios have a common map and set of objectives and are illustrative of different types of operations, e.g. Airborne, Armor, Line and Combined Ops. I haven't had a chance to play these yet but the idea looks great. I'll be downloading them tonight.

Just in case anyone was wondering, I got smoked again in the "Platoon Recon" mission in SBPro PE 3.0 again tonight. Twice!