'Hold At All Costs': A Post-Mortem
'One may be beaten by my army without dishonor.' - Napoleon
In the military, after every exercise comes the post-mortem (or 'after action report'). This is meant to be a merciless discussion of the mistakes made in the course of the exercise. That is how lessons are learned and officers improve. Naturally, it is the winner who gets to give the lessons, regardless of nominal rank. Herewith my post-mortem comments on our recent struggle.
The initial French deployment you are handed to start with, is bad. You have to correct it rapidly while the Allies are still arriving. For the first hour, the French can redeploy easily because they have far more men on the field, making full-scale attack somewhat suicidal for the Allies. The biggest issue to address when redeploying is that the strongest French division, Jerome's 6th, is defending the strongest natural terrain, the Bossu wood. He has nearly half the French infantry in his division - 45% actually. He needs to shift his responsibilities, because as initially deployed he has too many men doing too little.
The Bossu wood is a very strong position, and the Allies do not have time to dislodge a strong force from the center of it and still press through to the fields south of the crossroads, and back again to take the crossroads itself. Remember, the Allies only have even or better odds for the last two hours. They can attack through the northern half-mile or so of the woods, certainly, and that portion is indeed an important position. But the southern portions of the woods, where Jerome starts personally, are completely irrelevant to the crossroads fight. And the best troops in the French corps start there.
An example of a solution to this is to immediately pull out Soye's 2nd Brigade, marching to the area around 24,27 - south of Quatre Bras and on the east side of the Bossu wood. He then goes into general reserve, giving the French a strong force of ~3500 infantry, or 20% of the troops available, able to deploy to any threatened area. Then, the 2nd regiment of Jerome's light troops, with 4 battalions, should march up through the clear terrain west of the Bossu wood, to defend the northernmost half-mile (7-8 hexes) of the woods position. A key piece of terrain here is 16,24, a bit of high ground in a hedge-lined sunken road that overlooks the flank of any force trying to get into the northern Bossu wood. That is where Jerome's battery should try to move to, as soon as it safely can. Then, the 1st light regiment of Jerome should defend that crestline (along that road), west of the Bossu wood. This gives you low, dead ground to shelter disordered men, and in the open so reordering is possible. It is a great trap to fight for the woods only inside them, at their forward, west edge. Because then you disorder and can't reorder.
You handled this part well, defending out of the woods, but the mass of Jerome's division was too far south and you did not pull Soye back until way too late. The result was that Perponcher's tired and low-quality division managed to occupy 45% of your infantry for nearly the entire battle. That also meant the match-up in the center and east part of the field gets to equality for the Allies much faster, giving them far more time to attack. Moreover, Perponcher was able to do this while sending most of the Nassauers, his best troops, to attack the northern Bossu wood, tangling with Foy's division and hurting him fairly seriously. You don't need 2:1 in the southwest to defend; instead you can get by with more like 1:2. Then delay with the light infantry, make the Allied player fight tree to tree if he goes southward. You will quickly tire out most of Perponcher's men, and they and Jerome's lights will play little part in the main battle - expect perhaps at the north woods area, where the Naussauers and Jerome's 2nd light regiment will be evenly matched.
Next, you have to beef up even this reserve (Soye's whole brigade). Add the lancers to it, and the horse battery. That gives you a force of all arms ready to intervene in any direction, including the ability to launch a strong cavalry charge or two strong infantry charges, the ability to block a half-mile of ground after a rout, and fire support if that is called for.
You can't afford to send the Chasseurs on flanking movements in strength. In full Quatre Bras the French have 2 1/2 horses for every Allied one, but in this fight the numbers are even and you are defending. That means you want to save the cavalry to counter-charge Allied cavalry, or to smash a disorganized, large infantry force pushing too far into your position. For counter-attacks as full brigades, in other words. If you want to do recon on the east side of the map, just send two squadrons (250-300 horse). That still leaves the Chasseurs with a near-stacking limit ~900 men, thus able to act as a true cavalry brigade. If you don't send these two squadrons out on recon, though, then you will have them for another, usually more valuable service. That being cavalry overruns and the threat thereof, against the Allied skirmishers and the rifles in particular. You can assign one squadron to this work each to Foy and to Bachelu. Then the main body of the Chasseurs is your "non-reserve" cavalry brigade, used to support those units and usually that means to support Bachelu, because the ground near him is better for cavalry.
Still in the shifts and reorganizations, Bachelu should shift a bit eastward. 40,15 and 38,16 are the sorts of hexes I am thinking of. Those are a bit of high ground in a wood, and a high, hedge-lined sunken road position. Both are natural forts, and they overlook the whole area northeast of the crossroads. There is a hedge-lined field in front of them suitable for an infantry regiment to cover them; rough covers the northeast flank. Putting one brigade east of the north-south road there is best, with a regiment up in the field in lines, and another behind in column able to counterattack. Move the battery over there too, right at the first turn. Then put the other brigade west of that sunken road (34,17 e.g.) , and support it with cavalry to its left rear.
Then Foy gets to defend the crossroads area itself. Jerome should have the woods left of him. This gives him a front of only 6-8 hexes to worry about, and then Soye's reserve and the lancers are behind him too. One of his regiments starts out tired. Put it in the chateau to rest and as his own local reserve. Then he has his lights for the buildings and villages and to screen out front, and the other two line regiments to face north and northwest respectively. You have to watch the cross-fire, as you saw. Keep the formed infantry down in the rye in front of the hill where they are harder to see, or in the village hexes. Guard the guns by having a line of ZOCs out in front of them, not by stacking with them. Not just a skirmish line - ZOCs. A trick there BTW is to use the half-battalions (after deploying many companies, I mean) of the lights in column formation 1 hex behind their skirmishers, to put ZOCs in the same hexes and prevent cavalry charges through the skirmishers. Then they form square on a charge threat, and the skirmishers run to them next chance they get. You can also send disordered companies to stack with them to re-order. You want the lights, their ZOC line, the occasional single-squadron cavalry threat, etc - to try to keep the Allies back out of rifle range of the guns on the hill - as long as possible anyway.
You will lose guns to the cross-fire, no question. Converging fire is better than diverging. But that is the reason to get the flank division batteries to locations like 16,24 for Jerome, and 38,16 for Bachelu. You can put the horse guns, when not on a reinforcement mission, in 29,22 to cover the field northeast of the crossroads and get some cross-fire going with Bachelu's battery farther east. Similarly, Jerome's battery and the ones on the center hill will get cross-fire on men trying to attack from the west.
Next, there were some tactical points along the way. You saw how much the British infantry cut up your cavalry when you tried to break Picton with frontal charges. You have to look at the ground where this happened, in 3D view preferably. It is terrible ground to commit the cavalry, while a little farther south it would have been fine. See, that area from 33,19 to 31,15 and nearby, is a kind of bowl or 'stadium'. Both sides look down from rye into the low ground along the road, with hedges and sunken roads channeling everything to the openings. It is absolutely perfect rifle country, some of the best on the map. Muskets down on the low ground cover everything up to the opposite crest, and rifles cover everything, period, from the rear crest, sheltered by them. Meanwhile, a second line of infantry just hides in the rye one hex back from the crest-line, and nobody can shoot at them. That means fresh, ordered men can be fed down into the stadium again and again, like they are coming from the 'locker room' fully rested. The roads to the northeast make it easy for cavalry to arrive to support, or to get away again after a charge - especially so when you haven't occupied the field at 37,15.
Now, that is fine ground to initiate a fight with infantry, but not to decide it. It is a sort of 'outpost' line, where you can stand while you have fire dominance and before the attacker brings enough to outmatch your shooting. But for a main line, or even more so for a place to commit cavalry, you want it to be much harder for the attackers to see you and to send in more untouched guys. If you look at 34,20 and the area right around it, you will see what I mean. There you are on the reverse slope. The rye hides you even when you step forward a hex. The other guy has to come along uphill through rye to get at you. When you charge, only guys right next to you can see you in the rye. When you have to get away, it is downhill, not uphill, so you can move 2 hexes and cleanly break contact, sending in infantry to stop the other guy from following to shoot you again. In addition, with a battery in hex 29,22, looking down over the attackers, you can see their dispositions and they can't see yours. They have to face the battery, southwest, or give flank shots, but if they do then infantry or charges from the southeast get flank attacks on them.
See, you should have waited for me to push forward another 200-400 yards before cutting loose on me with the cavalry. You charged too soon, too far forward, into the 'stadium'. Bachelu's battery got some fine shots, but you should have taken those and then limbered it up and run it back to the hill at 29,22 (assuming you didn't send it farther east at the beginning). Batteries aren't meant to stand forever at point-blank to infantry. If you have numbers to make sure he can't take the guns, it can push the other guy back, but if he's the one with the numbers you lose the guns. Better to take your shots and then quit while you are ahead, and displace to another annoying spot for more good shots, even if farther.
The tactical problem on the center hill was deploying the 'supports' for the guns right on the hill itself, thus is full view and subject to cross fire. Because they weren't out front, I got the rifles close enough to help annoy them. But fundamentally, you just were on the forward slope facing converging artillery fire. Well, men cannot stand that for long, and they didn't. When some disordered and routed, it let me rush the guns. Similarly, your skirmishers who were out tussling with mine weren't supported by their battalion parents and their ZOCs, so once I was willing to be shot at to charge, I just ran right through them with the Dutch-Belgian cavalry. You have to try to keep a line of hard ZOCs ahead of your gun positions. And especially try to ensure that there is a hard ZOC along roads that lead into your position, or the other guy can charge very rapidly. Just a skirmisher there is not enough.
Finally, some tactical points on using the French in column and using their skirmishers. Columns are fine, and they maneuver well so they often make sense; they are especially better compared to disordered lines. But to use them right, they should never be alone in a hex unless just going from point A to point B (out of action), or temporarily, right before they charge into someone in melee (and re-stack that way). Columns are for stacking. With their skirmisher, with 2-3 skirmishers, with another column, with another column and 2 skirmishers (a very useful formation or stack), etc. They don't have enough firepower alone. The 'line' infantry can fight well in column with 2 battalions and 1-2 skirmishers stacked. The 'lights' (and guards, when you have them) can use 1 battalion and 2-3 skirmishers. You really want 3-4 shooters from a column hex. They fire in 'lots o' littlest' fashion, but they can fight fine that way. This matters, because any formed-infantry hex should be able to defend itself by disordering attacking units that move to point-blank with it. (Any hit in offensive fire will disorder the guys hit, regardless of morale). And the added depth and maneuverability of stacked columns can help with melee.
Now, to do this right you need to be careful with the skirmishers and keep them alive, so their parents have them for column fire stacks. Don't go charging after people with 4 skirmish companies and nothing else, into melee. It invites surround kills and cavalry overruns. Skirmishers are too valuable for that; you need them all day to help the columns fire. If you want to melee someone with 200 men, send a battalion, like a column stacked with some skirmishers. And support flanks of melee attackers - you did that most of the game but neglected it a few times early on. Always remember, when you melee it means you go to a hex where the other guy's men are - and *he* is the one who decided where to put his men ;-) If you let your enemy decide where *you* go, you can get hurt very quickly. So melees should be planned ahead, looking at the likely reply, and supported.
I hope these comments help you improve your game. It was a fun fight and you have been a sport, with excellent turn-around times and such.
Jason Cawley
[Written by Jason Cawley. Courtesy of the
The Napoleonic Wargame Pages.]
