Saturday 3 August 2024

Dettingen - Planning

In the previous post I mentioned that I had recently read Orr's work on Dettingen. Also I said that I had two possible scenarios in mind. These are:

  1. What I call the 'traditional' battle - i.e. with part of the Pragmatic Army lined up facing Grammont's corps across the streams which run into the Main at Dettingen.
  2. What I might term the 'grand tactical' situation at approximately 08:00 on 27th June.

The layout for scenario 1. would be straightforward with allied lines extending from near the Main to the hills on their right, and the French forces under Grammont opposite them, with French guns across the Main in a flanking position. Apart from the French guns on the flank, this would present a fairly traditional 'line em up' type wargame.

The grand tactical scenario would be based on the layout below:

Map from Dettingen 1743 by Michael Orr. Back rectangle denotes the shape of an 8ft by 4ft table with Twilight of the Soldier Kings standard scale. I need to adjust this to make better use of the space and show Aschaffenburg bridge.

The Pragmatic Army would have to decide how to deal with the French force blocking their path ahead of them, whilst taking care of the threat from the rear.  French formations to the south (right of above picture) would potentially cross the Main using the bridge at Aschaffenburg. There would be a race with the allies trying to beat the French to their front before they were enveloped.  Twilight of the Soldier Kings is good for this sort of grand tactical level of game, with rules for deploying armies from march column to line and vice versa.

I took this approach when I played Rossbach a few times nearly two years ago (see series of posts starting here https://horseandmusketgaming.blogspot.com/2022/08/rossbach-background.html ). 

Orders of battle have already been worked out. The two main sources I used were Orr and the US Army Combined Arms Center (Here Pragmatic Army and here French Army ). There seems to be all sorts of versions of the different army strengths around. Some just cover the forces that actually engaged on 27th June 1743, some seem to refer to the whole armies in the vicinity of Dettingen-Aschaffenburg and some possibly the forces in the whole SW German theatre. Here's a summary of some key ones:

Source

Army

Squadrons

Cav Numbers

Battalions

Inf Numbers

Guns

Total Numbers

Chandler, the Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough

Pragmatic

31


42


98

35000

French

44


49


56

26000








Orr, Dettingen 1743

Pragmatic







British

3 troop HG, RR HG, 2 H, 6 drag inc SG


3 Guard, 2 Fus, 10 line




Austrian

2 drag


9 reg




Hanoverian

8 reg cav, 5 reg drag


9




British

10 reg


12




Austrian

2 reg


9 reg

(Variable numbers of battalions)



Hanoverian



4




French







Total

9 co of Maison, 3 cav reg, 1 drag reg, 1 hus reg


23 regiments




Grammont

3 brigades


5 brigades



23000

USACAC








Pragmatic

68

10200

40

24000


34200

French

79

11850

65

39000


50850



Troop numbers estimated on basis of 150/squadron and 600/battalion



Drilling down into the USCAC orders of battle the two armies muster as follows:

Pragmatic Army




Austrian

British

Hanoverian

Cav

Inf


Formation

Brigade


SQ

BN

SQ

BN

SQ

BN

Bde

Bde


Right Wing

Wendt

Dragoons





12


1



?

Line




3




1


Scots Fus




1



?







4


1


Brunswick

Dragoons (Scots Greys)



3





1

Large, elite

Guards




3


2

Line






1

Centre (Hessen/Neipperg)

?



5






1


?



5






1


?





6




1

Large

Salm

RW Fus




1




1


Line


3


1



Left (Cumberland)

Campbell

Guards



6







Dragoons



9




1



Hawley

Dragoons



12




1



Monroy

Line






5


1


Pontpletin

Horse





4





Diemer

Dragoons

10






1



Hammerstein

Horse





6


1



Launay

Horse





6



'Loose change’








1




TOTALS


10

13

30

15

28

12

6

8















Cavalry


68

10200





11.3

5.0



Infantry


40

24000












34200




















French Army

Formation

Brigade

SQ

BN

Cav Bde

Inf Bde


Advanced Guard

Dauphin


6


1

Large

Berwick


5


1

Irish

La Marine


5


1


Garde


6


1

Large, elite

Noailles


5


1


Hussar

6


1


Tiny







1st Line

Grenadiere

1


1


Large Elite

Noailles

8



Mosquetaires

4



Brancas

5





Piemont


5


1


Rohan


5


1


Roi


5


1


Navarre


5


1


Royal

6


2



Royal Pologne

7




La Reine

6










2nd Line

Mestre de Camp

7


1



Egmont

7




Orleans


4


1


Brancas


4


1


Touraine


5


1


Auvergne


5


1


Carabiniers

9


1



Dragoons

13


1





79

65

7

13










Cavalry

11850


11.3

5



Infantry

39000




Brigades in italics = Grammont command



50850





Total numbers of troops is really irrelevant for the Twilight rules and is just used for comparison to the totals given by other sources. And in any case, they are estimates calculated on the basis of 600 men per battalion and 150 per squadron. The key factor is the number of brigades, which are the basic manoeuvre unit in the game. To avoid too many different sized brigades I've merged some of the smaller commands from the historical orders of battle. For both armies the mean size of a cavalry brigade is 11.3 squadrons, and 5 battalions for an infantry brigade.

As is often the case with the way armies in this period deployed, the formal orders of battle were not exactly followed in the historical engagement. Orders of battle were often worked out well in advance of any actual battle, and represent a theoretical approach. In practice, the lie of the land and the tactical situation required adaptation. Thus we see Grammont's command being made up of troops from the Advance Guard, 1st line and 2nd line.

One final piece to work out is the number of guns. Only Chandler quotes specific numbers, and I have reservations about those numbers judging by the size of the forces and the numbers of batteries deployed by the French.

But all in all, I'm ready to set-up the table on Saturday.


7 comments:

  1. Dettingen is a battle I have considered bringing to the table more than once. I appreciate your research. I still need British.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I haven’t checked yet. I reckon have enough British and enough Hanoverian cavalry, but not sure about the Hanoverian foot. But I can use some Swiss as proxies.
      Chris

      Delete
    2. I have enough Hanoverian foot but have yet to start painting a British contingent.

      Delete
  2. All good research there Chris and look forward to seeing the game set up and the action unfold:).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Steve. Will probably have a report up Sunday night.
      Chris

      Delete
  3. You certainly have done a lot of research and preparation for your game.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I often do for these big games Peter. Though research is a bit of a grand term for it. 😀
      Chris

      Delete